CHAPTER ELEVEN
I almost laughed, if any sound that came out of me these days could be considered such a thing. Shoving gifts at me, like three weeks and a piano were enough to fill the silence and make me forget about their broken bodies.
It was late afternoon by the time we meandered through the shorter peaks at the mouth of the valley, the rest of the range jutting east and west as far as I could see.
Glacier, my aptly named stallion in both color and disposition, teetered along a path that had been shrouded by the monochromatic sheen of white visible from below.
There’d been a few times I thought he wasn’t just going to throw me on my ass, as Alexei suggested, but fully punt me off the cliff.
I mashed my eyes shut against the dizzying drop and mastered the fear I wouldn’t let them see.
We rode into a narrow pass, the third such one in the past hour alone.
Ice towered above us in two sheer, glimmering walls barely wide enough for the horses.
The tip of my boot jabbed into the ice—again— and I growled my frustration.
I reached down and wrenched it free before my foot got a regrettable adjustment.
Glacier ambled on without a single shit spared for my plight.
I was one more almost-broken-ankle away from saying fuck it and melting the pass into a respectable width when we finally reached the end of it.
A wide-open plain stared back at me, smashed between two much taller peaks.
Everywhere I looked was desolate, with hard ice and fluffy snow the only features in a blinding shock of white.
Empty. Isolated.
My hands opened at my sides, my head whipping around for Griffon’s smoke or a blade tracking for my heart.
But then I saw them.
A flock of birds, blending seamlessly with the pristine winterscape, perched on drifts and snow-covered boulders.
They watched us with cocked heads and bright, curious eyes of light blues and purples.
Short beaks and slender faces were topped with elegant crests, each of their feathers a brilliant white that was interspersed with tufts of down I itched to run my fingers through.
Plumed tails of long, flowy feathers trailed behind them, the wind whipping them into a captivating dance.
I swung my leg over the saddle and hopped to the ground, my feet sinking into a foot of loosely packed snow. My wide eyes darted between the gargoyles and birds. “What are they?” I breathed.
“Phoenixes,” Griffon answered. He dropped beside me, his corded body absorbing the impact with a graceful bend to his knees.
He knelt in the snow and held his palm out flat.
One of the birds, perched on an irregularity in the rockface, flung out its wings and glided to a graceful stop in front of him.
It lay its beak in his waiting hand, a sound akin to a purring kitten rumbling up its throat.
“They are the closest thing our world has to immortals.”
I knelt in the snow. “I thought gargoyles were the closest thing we had to immortals.” My gaze was plastered on the phoenix. It turned light-purple eyes on me, the color reminiscent of the lilac that bloomed in droves after the spring melt.
He glanced at me before returning his attention to the phoenix. “They live for hundreds of years, but when it is their time to die, the flock sets them on fire—”
“What!” I blurted, whipping wide, horrified eyes to him.
He chuckled “And they burn to ash in the flames.”
“What part of that is immortal?” I held out my hand to the bird still perched in front of Griffon. It regarded it cooly but didn’t venture closer.
“Because phoenix fire doesn’t just burn the shit out of everything like yours.
” He tossed me a cocked brow. “It cleanses. Burns away disease and weakness. A new phoenix is forged in the ashes, but gargoyles who have known both say the fledgling remembers them. It really is a rebirth of the same soul.”
“Can they die?” I looked at the bird in front of me with deeper awe. Something akin to fear tiptoed down my spine. How old was it? Five thousand years? Ten? More? What forgotten histories lay buried in the catacombs of its ancient mind?
“Only if the flock isn’t able to trigger their rebirth.”
“Gods, I can’t imagine such a thing.” I glanced at my hands. “Most days, thirty years feels like long enough.” I mashed my lips shut, wishing I could suck the words back out of the air.
My gaze flitted toward Griffon. He watched me with an odd expression. “You could live for a thousand. Likely more.”
I shook my head. “I’m not a gargoyle.” I searched the barren landscape for a change of subject—any change. “I’ve never even heard of a phoenix, and they’re basically in Vircann’s backyard.”
He snorted. “Humans exploit beautiful things. I doubt they’ve gone near one in millennia, and your shit history forgot them.”
I pivoted my body toward him. “I have never met people so fucking proud of their ability to put pen to paper.”
His expression was a condescending “no shit.” “That’s because you’ve only known people who can’t.”
Another phoenix separated itself from the landscape and hopped toward me. I held my breath as it approached, my palms laying on my knees. “Why did you come over to me, if you don’t like humans?” I mused.
It cocked its head, and for a second, I could swear it understood me.
“Because you aren’t one.” Of course he would have an opinion.
“I wasn’t asking you,” I snapped.
The bird squawked and backed away, a distinctly indigent glint in its eyes.
A chuckle bubbled up my throat. “I’m sorry,” I told it. “But if you knew him, you’d bite his head off, too. Probably literally, if you were a little bigger.”
Laney’s musical laugh washed over me as she plopped into the snow. Griffon rolled his eyes and left to join Alexei. One by one, the phoenixes made their way over to him as they unpacked the saddle bags.
Laney gripped my wrist and stuck my hand back out, then laid hers on top. “She’s our friend,” she said.
The phoenix crept over to us, then set its beak on her palm. She slipped her hand out, but the phoenix didn’t move. I sucked in a tight breath as its beak came to rest against my skin.
It purred, then lifted its head and flew back to its perch on a boulder.
I turned to Laney, my eyes wide despite a blinding glare off the snow. “Why bring me here?”
“It wasn’t my idea.” She nodded toward Griffon, now surrounded by the birds. “It was his. He got Archon Davina’s permission this morning.”
My brows knitted together as my gaze slid back to him.
His smoke weaved around the birds, and they trilled and squawked as they chased the swirling tendrils.
A real smile—not that infuriating smirk he wore like armor but a wide, brilliant one—lit his face.
My breath caught in my throat. There was no denying he was beautiful, his immaculate features even more spectacular with the subtle dimples that tempered his sharp cheekbones and softness that crinkled his eyes.
He glanced toward me and I tore my gaze back to the birds who watched me with curiosity.
Laney patted my shoulder. “They’re smart. Really smart. Don’t raise your voice or insult them. The males have a bigger crest and wider beak, so they’re easy to tell apart. Be patient, and they’ll come to you.” She left me sitting alone and trudged through the snow to the horses.
I sat in silence and waited, but it didn’t take long for their curiosity to draw them to me.
I held my breath as the first, a female judging by her delicate, narrow beak and dainty plume, tentatively rubbed her cheek against my quivering hand like a cat.
I remained a statue as more joined her, a dozen different purrs rumbling around me.
The downy tufts peeking out between their sleeker feathers was like a cloud trailing between my fingers.
A shadow fell over me and I jumped when Griffon settled beside me again. I mashed my jaw shut before I said something that scared the phoenixes away.
“I thought they might be able to sense your power. They love fire—rolling in it, eating it—anything you can imagine,” he said. “I’m not surprised they took to you quickly.”
I snorted. “Such a well-versed liar.”
His lips tipped up. “I swear it on all your gods.”
“Doesn’t mean anything if you swear it on my gods.
” It was folly, to show him that I had access to my power.
But the barest sparks of wonder and curiosity and joy flickered to life in my chest, their warmth so long-dormant I’d forgotten them.
The blood and death, Lakuro and justice and revenge and the never-ending barrage of could haves and if you’d onlys faded in the light of those tiny little sparks.
Seizing them suddenly became the most important thing in the world.
I flipped my palms up, my breaths shallow gasps, and allowed a trickle of power to seep through. A small flame flared in each of my palms. The nearest phoenixes darted for me and gobbled up both of the tiny little bonfires. One of them burped, a tendril of smoke snaking out of its beak.
I stared at the wondrous, feathery little creature for a second, my eyes so wide they watered from the glare.
He stared back, as though saying, “what?” I laughed—flung my head back and laughed.
The perpetual band of tightness that strangled my chest loosened and my lungs expanded with a pure, intoxicating breath that made my head swim.
I wiped my eyes and swung my gaze to Griffon. His was focused on my hands, a carefully blank expression scrawled across his face.
I sighed and dropped them back into my lap. “Don’t worry. I still need something from your kind. Killing you now isn’t how I get it.”
His fists were white-knuckled on his knees as he lifted those enchanting eyes to mine. “The truth of Solstice.” It wasn’t a question.