Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
PHOENIX
The sound of rushing water wakes me.
My head is heavy as I blink my eyes open to see a few patches of blue sky visible through the foliage above me.
I push myself up on my elbows. I’m alone in the furs. The fire next to the furs has died long ago. Jax is not in the camp.
Immediately, I’m alert. I toss the furs off me and rise. When I see Luna and Midnight right where we left them for the night, some of the pressure in my chest eases.
I look around the camp. Jax’s stuff is still here.
“Jax?” I call.
The thick forest and looming waterfall soaks in the word. I approach the water. It’s just as dark as it was last night, and the surface doesn’t ripple as it should. I lean forward. How’s that possible?
That’s when the forest goes silent.
A shiver goes down my back.
As I slowly draw my blades, I reach for Jax through our bond. The connection is there, but it’s…blurry. The moment I try and open the door, it fizzles out into something I can’t grasp.
Immediately, my heart thunders. I can’t sense Jax’s heartbeat.
Oh gods. How’s this possible?
He’s not dead. I don’t know how I know it, but I know he’s alive.
“Jax!” I call again, louder.
Nothing but the looming silence and the rushing water behind me.
Desperate, I do something I usually avoid. I reach for Lorca.
What’s going on here? Do you know? I ask the trickster god.
Silence.
I scoff to myself. The one time I need an answer, Lorca is silent! They loom at the very back of my mind, but refuse to engage.
Well, I guess I’m on my own here. Like always.
From the corner of my eye, there’s movement. My head whips to the side right as a dark figure disappears behind a tree.
Before I know it, my feet are moving and I’m following after them.
Low branches whip at my face, old roots clinging to my feet with each step as I rush after the dark figure.
It’s oddly familiar. Yet, I can’t understand why.
It’s not Jax—the person is too petite. A woman’s shape.
The rushing water dulls in the background. I only realize how far I’ve run once it’s gone. Panting, I pause and look around. Gods damn it. I’m in the middle of the thicket.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
The figure pauses ahead of me, too. I frown, watching its every move. I grip my blades hard enough my knuckles turn white.
I left my damn bow at the campsite.
The forest is silent still. Time stretches. Finally, the figure turns around to face me. We’re far enough apart that it’s hard for me to make out their face.
But I could recognize her anywhere.
My heart tumbles out of my chest.
“Fane?” My voice is unsteady.
For a moment, she does nothing.
This can’t be.
She’s…dead.
But then a familiar voice calls, “Phoenix? Is that you?”
My world tilts. With wobbling knees, I force my feet to move forward. Fane starts towards me, too.
It’s her.
It’s truly her.
My eyes, my face, my hair.
It’s like looking in the mirror.
A sob escapes me. I slam a hand over my mouth.
No. This can’t be real.
“Phoenix,” she says and then laughs.
Before I know it, her arms are around me. For a heartbeat, I’m frozen. But once the familiar scent of rosemary and citrus fills my senses, I break out of it and embrace my sister.
“No way,” I cry into her shoulder. “Fane…How—you—the fire—”
Through sobbing, I can’t speak. Fane hugs me tighter and soothes me. “It’s okay, Nix. Breathe. Since when are you such a wet blanket?”
I choke out a laugh at her words. When I can finally breathe and speak, I pull away to look at her again.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” I say, voice hoarse.
I run a hand through her hair, silky smooth. Her tanned skin. I used to be just as tanned back when I spent my days under the Wetran sun. Her shoulders are sturdy.
She’s real.
I see her.
I can touch her.
I can smell her.
But…how’s that possible?
The moment that thought passes my mind, something in her hazel eyes flickers. It hits me like a bucket of cold water.
I let go of her hands, and step back.
“What are you?” I choke the words out. “You’re not Fane.”
The forest presses onto me. The pressure in my chest builds.
Fane—or whoever wears her skin—smiles at me. It’s a twisted kind of smile that contorts my beautiful sister’s face into something wicked.
I act on instinct.
With a blink of an eye, I slam one of my blades into this monster’s stomach. Fane’s eyes go wide, her jaw slack.
She looks at me as if she didn’t expect me to strike.
“Phoenix.” She breathes out the words.
A small line of blood trickles out the side of her mouth.
“Fane—”
I press my hands over the wound, trying to stop the blood.
This isn’t real.
This can’t be real.
Why does it feel so real?
“No, no, no! Fane, stay with me—.”
Fane grabs my shoulder, trying to keep herself from falling. I bear her weight, my hands trembling. “No wonder you didn’t save us.”
Oh gods, what have I done?
The scent of blood is lodged at the back of my throat. My stomach swirls.
Fane coughs blood, and falls to her knees. I fall with her, my blade still buried inside her.
“Fane, no—please, no,” I cry out. “I tried to look for you.”
“Liar,” she whispers right into my face. We’re face-to-face. Her breath skitters over my cheeks when she speaks. “Everything, everyone you touch turns to ash. You chose not to save us.”
The dark forest looming around us closes in. A sob tears out of me right as Fane’s eyes close and her body in my arms goes cold. I lean over her and sob.
The sound of rushing water comes back. It’s louder than before. No. Wait.
It’s not rushing water—
I lift my head and am blinded by lights. Trying to orient myself, I look around. Hard, dirty ground. A pile of weapons. Bodies on top of them. Tall stone walls with—tribunes on top, full of people?
I look down in my lap. Fane’s body is gone. My blades are still in my hands, but they’re not bloody.
“Surrender, princess,” a familiar voice says. “And we’ll rule together. I promise.”
I glance up to find Daegel standing a few feet away from me. He holds his dual swords, and wears his Ezkai leathers.
He’s alive.
Painfully alive.
The moment our gazes lock, I’m overcome with longing so strong it immobilizes me.
My Daegel.
“It’s not too late,” he says. “Surrender. It doesn’t have to end like this.”
His words slice through me like a blade.
The cheers from the crowd around us overwhelm my senses.
This is not real.
An illusion.
Daegel’s dead. I killed him.
And yet…part of me longs for this. A second chance.
I look down at the blades I’m holding.
I could drop them.
I could surrender.
I could choose him.
Gods, how much I want to choose him.
My grip on the daggers loosens, and my shoulders sag. A victorious smirk blooms on his face. That’s what snaps me out of it.
The longing and grief, the guilt, is replaced by something else.
I remember all that he did. The lying, the scheming, the manipulating.
I made the choice for a reason back then.
I’m going to make it again.
In a blink of an eye, I’m back on my feet. I charge at him. He braces for impact, swinging his swords. But I’m faster.
I duck under his blade, twist past his guard, and bury mine in his side. He grunts from pain and flashes his teeth at me. “There you are. You’ll always choose power over anything else.”
His words are full of venom, and they cut through me.
I don’t give him a chance to recover. I press my second blade to his throat and slice it open.
This time, I don’t watch the life leave his dark eyes, nor do I watch him bleed out on the dusty ground.
Hands bloody, heart empty, I turn my back to him and prowl towards the forest surrounding the clearing.
As I get closer to it, the second heartbeat in me grows stronger.
I drop the blades just as I duck between the bushes. The crowd cheers dully until they’re nothing but an echo in my mind. At first, the forest is silent. Nothing but the sound of my heavy breaths. My eyes burn with unshed tears.
I look up to find the dark thicket around me.
My hands are clean. My blades are still strapped to me.
A shadow catches my attention. I whirl around.
A few feet away, between the trees, stands a human-sized black snake.
It wears a face that’s young and old at the same time. Human, but the eyes…they’re snake.
“You.” I breathe out the words.
Me, Lorca purrs inside my mind, amused.
You’re responsible for this? Anger rises inside me. What the fuck?
A slim black forked tongue peeks through the rose lips of the trickster god materialized. My skin crawls with unease.
Testing the waters, Lorca says.
I thought we had a deal, I say.
Indeed. The trickster god doesn’t argue. It only further frustrates me. It doesn’t prevent me from pushing the boundaries.
It chuckles inside my mind.
I hadn’t thought Lorca would try and interfere with my journey. It’s my mistake. I assumed the presence in my mind was as far as it would go until I fulfilled my side of the bargain.
I grew too comfortable with the enemy inside my own head.
Lorca cackles again. Its tail brushes over my mind. The only enemy in your head is you, Phoenix Wildarrow.
I ignore their words. Where’s Jax? What did you do to him?
The snake cocks its head to the side. I’m not the only god roaming these forests.
I blink, and the snake in front of me is gone. Lorca has vanished from my mind, too. An owl hoots somewhere. Another hoot. A bird chirps somewhere close behind me.
Gods damn it!
Kazh has said Lorca’s not the worst of the damn spirits of the gods.
I need to find Jax. I can’t…I can’t lose him.
I close my eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. His heartbeat is strong in my chest. I open the door and reach for our bond. It’s not as fuzzy as before. Slippery, though.
Jax used it before to track me down.
I will do the same.