Chapter 49
Syneca
When mortals ask if I fear death, I tell them this truth: I fear it precisely as much as they do. I will die only once. The difference is I know someone beautiful will be born from my ending.
Even the Oracle wore a cloak as we stepped into the city.
Just the two of us. When I’d looked back at Riot before leaving the inn, his expression had been solemn. A look that felt too heavy for what should have been a simple rescue mission.
He wasn’t allowed to come. The Oracle’s request.
The fear that realization sparked, on top of everything else crushing my chest, pushed me one step closer to the edge I’d been teetering on since Gran’s face had appeared in that throne room.
Furies had locked the demon princes in the Underworld, and the Master was clearly on a mission to see their end.
Aureth wouldn’t be safe here. And she knew it.
It’s why she’d been hiding in the hotel.
Why she’d said nothing at the Erelith wall when the sentinel had searched for answers.
Why Riot had called her a witch. The demon prince would know what she was the moment he sensed her presence.
But she knew. She always knew more than she said.
She’d known I was the Phoenix, not Vitoria. Known the oath was meant to be broken. But had she known about Tiberius? That he’d only wanted to get Calder to this city? Had she seen this coming and walked into it anyway?
And why had she left Riot behind? What did she know that made separating from her Guardian the safer choice? The questions spiraled as I followed her through twisted streets, but I didn’t ask them. Couldn’t form words past the grief lodged in my throat.
Calder. And Lucy.
And Gran.
My mind kept circling back to her. To the last time I’d seen her alive, actually alive, not standing bloodied in a demon’s throne room waiting to die.
Seven years ago. Sunshine fell through the windows of Eda Mire’s cottage, the kind of golden afternoon light that made you believe the world was good. I’d been studying at the table, Gran heating a cauldron in the back room for a new tincture she wanted to try.
Silas had stood first. Alert. Hackles rising.
Before we knew what was happening, hunters were filling the clearing.
Gran grabbed me, shoved me toward the back door with strength I didn’t know she possessed. “You must live.”
Silas had dragged me into the forest. I’d fought him quietly. Tried to go back. Tried to save her. Until the screaming.
I’d never stepped foot in that cottage again. Not until the scrivener’s portal had deposited us there, and even then I couldn’t step foot in that back room. Eda Mire had gone in after the hunters left. Come out pale as death, shaking so badly she could barely stand.
“There was so much blood,” she’d whispered. “Too much blood.”
I’d never questioned the missing body. Never thought for a second Gran could have survived that much violence. Never searched for her because I’d been so certain she was dead.
And she’d been alive. Suffering. Alone. For seven years.
The building Aureth stopped at was nowhere near the castle. Small compared to most here. Unremarkable. The kind of structure you’d walk past without noticing in a city full of glistening architecture and floating flames.
For the first time since we left the hotel, I questioned whether I should trust her. I’d trusted Vitoria and seen where that had gotten me.
But what choice did I have? Gran was running out of time, and I was running out of everything else. If I could save her, then maybe I could save Calder too, and we could go. We could get Pip and Wickett, get the fuck out of this nightmare city and never come back.
I followed Aureth inside.
The room was tiny. Dark. One tiny window letting in hardly any light.
Chained to the floor, slumped and broken, was my grandmother.
I rushed forward, falling to my knees beside her. Her skin was cold. Too cold. Blood matted her white hair, bruises covered every visible inch of skin.
But she was breathing. Barely.
“I need water,” I said, scanning the chains for weak points as I looked back at the Oracle. “I need—”
There was no water. Just dry stone and the scent of old blood.
“Perhaps fire,” Aureth said, kneeling beside me to pull on the chains. “Quickly now.”
But I couldn’t control fire. I’d spent too much time repressing it. With no other options, I reached for it anyway. Felt the heat building in my palms.
Footsteps sounded behind us. The Oracle gasped.
I stood and spun, finding Wickett standing in the doorway.
Relief crashed through me so suddenly I nearly sobbed. “Wickett. Thank the Furies. I need help. The chains are—”
Gran lost it. Using every ounce of strength she likely had, the frail woman yanked herself as far away from the hunter as she could. Scrambling and scraping her hands against the floor.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Gran, it’s okay. He’s with me. He can be trusted.”
She shook her head, her eyes fixed on Wickett with unmistakable terror.
The Oracle rose, stepping between Wickett and me. “You cannot destroy fate, Wickett Veyne, only delay it.”
I turned back to him, desperation clawing through every cell. “She’s just afraid. Everything is fine. But I need to free her. Please. Help me break these chains.”
He just stared at me.
“She’s my grandmother,” I said, the confession tearing out of me. “That’s why I needed to find her. That’s why I couldn’t let them kill her.” My voice broke. “I’m the Phoenix. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but—”
“This isn’t going to end how you think it will,” he said, drawing his blades.
“I never believed for a second that you weren’t close friends with Vitoria.
And if you were going to lie, then I was going to lie too.
And do it better. I worked so hard to gain your trust.” His voice was flat.
Empty. “Played the conflicted hunter. The man torn between duty and feelings. Made you believe I could be something other than what I was made to be. And you fell for every word. Every touch. Every promise.”
The ground tilted beneath me. My entire world collapsed in one horrible moment.
“You were so easy to manipulate. So desperate to believe someone could choose you over their purpose. You led me straight to Vitoria. You took me into your bed, and you trusted me. All I had to do was pretend to care. Shame you kept the most important secret so close.”
This couldn’t be real. This wasn’t him. He... “Wickett—”
He moved.
Fast. Too fast. Speed that I couldn’t match even with runes.
His blade came for my throat. I wasn’t quick enough. I knew I’d be dead in the next second. But Aureth stepped into the path. Stepped into the blade that was meant for me.
For a single moment, nothing mattered. In that one breath, the world screamed, bucked, rocked. He’d stabbed her. And though Aureth had taken that blade to stop him, it didn’t work. Wickett’s hand shot out, grabbed her throat, and threw her into the wall.
The sound of her spine cracking was worse than any scream. Worse than any gasp. Worse than a thousand blades. She slid down the stone and fell face first.
Wings, brown, soft, beautiful, feathered wings erupted from her back, giving away her final secret. Aureth was a Fury. Not born. Created.
She hadn’t let Riot come because she’d known what she was walking into. A sister Fury walking into their own death. For me. To buy me this single second.
Wickett came at me again.
And I was fucking done.
Done with the world, with the lies, with the manipulation and everything else that had stacked this moment against me. Fire erupted from my palms. Not controlled. Not careful. Just pure desperate survival instinct and rage that I’d suppressed my entire life.
The room ignited.
I felt Silas’s panic down our bond, felt him trying to reach me, felt the distance between us like a physical wound because he’d been searching for Calder. Wickett moved through the flames with a yell. He was relentless. I stepped away, but his blade found me anyway, sliding between my ribs.
Pain. White-hot and absolute. I collapsed, hand pressed to the wound, feeling blood pour between my fingers as he pulled the weapon free. Then stepped over me, walking toward Gran’s limp form with deliberate purpose.
“Two Phoenixes in one day.” He looked back at me, and his smile was the cruelest thing I’d ever seen. “What luck.”
His hands closed around Gran’s neck.
Snap.
The sound echoed in the burning room, louder than the fire, louder than my scream, louder than everything.
Rage.
Fury.
Every emotion I’d ever suppressed, every bit of fire I’d refused to acknowledge, every ounce of power I’d spent my life hiding...
It all came to life as Wickett vanished, leaving me to die.
The room became an inferno. Flames consumed everything, eating through stone and wood and air. I didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Could only crawl toward Gran’s body, toward Aureth’s broken form, toward the two women who’d died trying to save me.
My vision blurred. The wound in my stomach was too much. Too deep. I was losing too much blood, and the fire was burning through oxygen faster than I could breathe.
Silas. I held onto him down the bond. Held on to his panic and outrage and absolute determination to reach me.
Silas. Silas. Silas.
The world went dark around the edges.
A roar shook the building. Silas burst through the wall—not the door, the actual fucking wall, flames parting around him like he was made of the same fire as me.
And then he shifted.
Into the man I’d glimpsed again and again. The beautiful, dark-featured stranger who lingered at the edges of my vision. Who’d stood on the Nexus field and stared at me. Who’d led me through the Dyssaran alley to find answers about Calder. Not a stranger at all.
It’d always been Silas.
He lifted me from the floor like I weighed nothing, cradling me against his chest.
“Stay with me, little flame. Don’t give in.” His voice carried an accent I couldn’t place, ancient and warm despite everything burning around us. “Your burning would consume this world... and you. I won’t let that happen.”
Strong arms carried me from the building, flames parting around us like they recognized Silas as their master. The heat rolling off him wasn’t the kind that killed; it was the kind that held, coaxing every trembling part of me into stillness, as if my soul knew exactly how to respond to him.
I was drowning. Not in water. In grief. In the weight of everything I’d lost in the span of minutes—Gran, Aureth, whatever foolish hope I’d been clinging to that somehow this would all work out.
I fought the sharp pain in my throat as I tried not to cry. Tried to hold back the sobs that wanted to tear through me while my body was already tearing itself apart from the wound in my stomach.
I couldn’t fight it. A single tear broke free, sliding hot down my cheek.
Silas looked down at me, and those piercing blue eyes, now in a human face, held something I couldn’t name.
He was devastating. Bronze skin warm even in the firelight, highlighting sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw that could have been carved from stone by someone who understood exactly what beauty meant.
Black hair fell across his forehead, slightly disheveled, framing features so striking they didn’t seem quite real.
The kind of face that belonged in ancient legends, on gods and heroes, not kneeling in ash and blood holding a dying witch.
Three vertical lines marked his neck, each ending in sharp points. The unmistakable brand of a demon.
He whispered a single word. “Apertura.”
The world ripped. Tore open like fabric, reality splitting down the middle to reveal something else beyond. Darkness. Absolute and endless.
The Underworld.
He was carrying me into the Underworld. Why would he take me there? Of all places. Unless I was already dead.
“I failed.” The words came out broken, barely audible past the blood in my throat. “I was marked for a purpose, and I failed.”
Silas stepped through the tear. I watched it close behind us, sealing me away from everything I’d ever known.
A sob tried to escape but came out as a whimper. “I failed you too, didn’t I?”
Silas, beautiful and fierce, looked down at me, and his eyes stole what little breath I had left. “No.” His voice was gentle. Impossibly gentle for someone carrying me into the hells. “You survived. That’s what the Phoenix does. They rise from ashes. And I won’t let this world take that from you.”
TO BE CONTINUED….