Chapter 3
Phoenix
After breakfast, I followed Elira outside—keeping just enough distance as she made her way to the training yard behind the castle and started to run.
I eased down onto the grass, careful not to flinch at the ache still lingering in my back. For a while, I just watched her. The sun here was brighter than anywhere I’d been—too bright, almost—but it warmed my skin, loosened the stiffness in my bones.
“You don’t have to watch me,” she said eventually, slowing to a walk. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Who says I’m watching?” I said. “Maybe I’m just here for the sun.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Then it slipped away, like it had never been there.
She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist and turned to run again.
“Elira,” I said, before she could.
She paused, not looking at me.
“I know you don’t need help,” I said softly. “Doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone.”
Her jaw tightened as she looked up at the sky. “I’m used to being alone.”
“I know.”
She kept running—pushing herself hard, like she needed to chase something out of her body. I stayed where I was. Waiting. Watching.
Eventually, she slowed, then dropped down in the grass beside me. Arms crossed, posture stiff, like she still hadn’t decided if she was staying.
I didn’t say anything. Just kept my eyes on the sky. The silence settled—thick, familiar, not entirely comfortable.
“Good run?” I asked after a while.
She grunted. “Fine.”
“Good.”
She lay back then, staring up at the blue stretch above us. Cloudless. Endless.
“Is this the part where you try to make me talk about my feelings?” she muttered.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t come out here to talk at all.” I stretched my legs out. “The sun’s out. I might as well make use of it.”
She ran again—slower this time. One lap. Then another. Then more.
I didn’t speak. Let the silence do the work.
When she stopped, she perched on the edge of the training post, arms looped around her knees. She stared at the sky like it might give her something solid.
After a long time, she murmured, “I hate dresses.”
I glanced over. “I know.”
She didn’t look at me, but her arms tightened.
“The last time I wore one…”
She trailed off.
I waited.
She didn’t finish.
So I didn’t push.
Instead, I leaned back into the grass again, let the heat settle on my face. “Then don’t wear one.”
Silence.
Then: “It’s not that simple.”
“I know.”
Another pause. Not empty—just full of everything she wouldn’t say.
“Phoenix…” she began.
My pulse lifted. “Yeah?”
But she didn’t go on.
She picked a blade of grass instead, twisting it between her fingers like it might give her an answer she didn’t know how to ask.
I watched her hands—not her face. She’d never let me see what she was really feeling. Not yet.
“I should go back,” she said finally. Her voice was flat. Careful. Like she was already gone.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
But she stood anyway.
That distance was back in her body again—shoulders tight, gaze pulled inward.
She didn’t look at me when she added, “Thanks for… whatever that was.”
Then she walked away.
And I stayed in the sun, trying not to wish she’d said more.
**
The doors were already open when I arrived. High arches. Cold stone.
I walked in to see a long table ringed with old money and older politics.
They were seated—lords, advisors, a few generals in crested uniforms. None of them looked up at first, not until I stepped through the threshold.
Then they all turned.
Their gazes found me like knives finding a sheath—sharp, deliberate. Measuring my worth like a prized hog. Questioning. Judging.
I didn’t flinch. I just walked in with my usual calm and took a place near the wall—not at the table. Not until I knew if they’d treat me as an equal… or an enemy.
Syrena stood at the head. Regal in posture, but her eyes flicked—just briefly.
Warning. Maybe apology.
“I’d like to begin,” she said, her voice clear and controlled. “But first, an introduction.”
Every eye in the room snapped to me.
“This is Phoenix,” she continued, “formerly of the King’s Shades. A battle-mage of the highest class, and one of the few responsible for Elira’s survival. He will be present for our council moving forward.”
Silence followed the announcement, then the whispers began.
“Charming,” Lord Renlor muttered, loud enough to carry. “We’ve invited fire into the powder room.”
Another councillor—grey-bearded, cold-eyed—narrowed his gaze. “A defector from Ashton’s army, seated in Virell’s inner circle?”
“How do we know he’s truly turned?” asked a hawk-faced woman. “Loyalty that deep doesn’t just vanish.”
I didn’t answer. Let them stew in their discomfort.
I met her stare instead—cool, steady. I’d faced worse in rooms far darker than this.
If she wanted a performance, she didn’t understand what I was.
Syrena didn’t blink. “Because he bears the scars of it, Adelaide. He burned off his brand during the battle at Varrowmere.”
That landed. A flicker of unease rippled through the room.
“Phoenix has given more for this kingdom protecting my daughter than most of you have in years,” Syrena said. “And he did it without titles or promises. That’s loyalty Ashton never earned.”
Adelaide’s mouth thinned, but she said nothing.
Renlor spoke next. “What intel can you offer us?”
“Depends on what you want to know,” I said.
Renlor leaned back, steepling his fingers. “Movements. Weaknesses. What the king values. What he fears.”
“He fears losing control,” I said. “Which is already happening.”
Several of them exchanged glances.
“He’s paranoid. Obsessive. The second someone slips his grip, he sees betrayal in every shadow. That’s why your armies haven’t seen a full push—he’s too busy putting out fires inside his own walls. Vael’s escalations in Varrowmere haven’t helped.”
“Vael is fighting with Ashton still?” Therrin asked.
“They’ve been fighting for years. He was using a local slumlord to get around. With her gone, I’m not sure of the current situation.”
“Is she dead?” Adelaide asked. “This slumlord?”
I shook my head. “She bolted when we extracted Elira from her fighting pits.”
Syrena gaped. “Fighting pits?”
“There’s a lot you probably don’t know,” I said quietly.
Silence settled over the room—and not comfortably.
“And what of Vasquez?” asked Lord Therrin, clearing his throat. “There are rumours he commands more of the elite than the king himself.”
I gave a slow nod. “Vasquez is loyal—but not stupid. He runs the Sentinels and now most likely the Shades with an iron fist. He calculates. He breaks people the way others break horses—carefully, thoroughly. He moves with purpose.”
Adelaide cut in, voice clipped. “Is that what happened to your commander—Thorne?”
A sharp twist of pain lanced through me.
“Commander Thorne was a good man,” I said, flat and fast. “He died defending your princess and my brothers. And I won’t hear a bad word against him.”
The room stilled.
Adelaide blinked. Didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to—I saw what I needed in her face: doubt. Disdain.
Like she couldn’t reconcile the myth of the Shades with the broken truth of who we’d become.
Let her choke on it.
“I can speak for Phoenix,” Jasper said from his seat beside Syrena. His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it. “Thorne’s sacrifice at Varrowmere helped us escape. It deserves to be honoured—not questioned.”
I glanced at him—the tall, quiet brute who rarely wasted words—and gave a short nod.
Therrin leaned forward, his lip curling. “And does that excuse the wars the Shades waged under Ashton’s name? The blood they spilled on Virell soil?”
“We’ve all seen how power can be twisted,” Jasper replied, steady. “That doesn’t mean it corrupts everyone.”
Syrena cleared her throat. “Enough,” she said, clipped and final. “This isn’t the time for judgments.”
“What of Vael?” Adelaide asked.
“Vael still commands the eastern territories,” Jasper replied.
“Our spies report he’s begun construction on a new temple at the base of Mount Brackenmoor in Duskfell—meant to honour the gods.
He’s using the slaves he took from Varrowmere to build it.
And there are whispers he’s entered talks with King Ivan of Iron Reach. ”
Syrena’s eyes darkened at this admission.
“So we’re planning to fight this war on two fronts now?” Therrin snapped. “That’s suicide. We’ve survived this long by staying hidden—and now you want to announce our return to the world?”
“Vael has made his intentions clear,” Syrena said sharply. “He’s coming for Elira. Whether we invite war or not—it’s already begun. And I will not lose my daughter a second time.”
The words hit harder than she probably intended. For a breath, no one spoke.
I watched her—not the queen, but the mother beneath. The one who had carried Elira in her arms and then lost her to monsters. There was a tremor in her voice she couldn’t quite hide.
And gods help me, I understood it.
Then Therrin, quieter this time, said, “Speaking of the princess… when will we meet her, Your Majesty? I think I speak for all of us when I say—we’re curious what she can do.”
Syrena hesitated. Just slightly. “Elira is adjusting as well as can be expected,” she said. “I would caution all of you not to push her.”
“She shouldn’t have to explain herself to you,” I added, my voice low but steady.
“And if you try to force her… my brothers and I might have something to say about that.”
Not a threat. Not quite. But close enough that they heard it.
The tension that followed wasn’t loud—but it was sharp. I saw it in Renlor’s twitching fingers, in Adelaide’s raised chin.
They thought they were sitting in a council chamber. They didn’t realize they were sitting on a fault line.
“She’s a shadowmancer, isn’t she?” Therrin asked, his voice low. Reverent. Or afraid. “Daughter of Alistair. Born of the bloodline. It’s her right to—”
“Her right,” Syrena cut in, “is to breathe. To rest. To recover. Whatever else she chooses is hers. Not yours.”
That landed like a blade.
For a moment, no one spoke.
“Elira will be introduced at the ball,” Syrena added, smoothing the silence into command. “That is all I will promise.”
“And if she refuses?” Adelaide asked, voice like steel drawn slow.
“She won’t,” Syrena said.
But there was something in her tone—just the faintest crack beneath the certainty.
I felt it too.
Elira might walk into that ballroom.
But if they looked at her like a weapon?
She might burn it down.
And I’d help her light the match.