Chapter One
They say the first death was always the most painful.
As Weiyu lay on the floor within clothes that fit his once-adult body, which now hung off the shoulders of a child, gasping for air and digging his fingers into the lush carpet beneath him, he couldn’t help but agree.
He stared wide-eyed at the small, tan hands beneath him, unfamiliar and strangely foreign.
Drops of blood dripped from his nose and onto his fingers in response to the phoenix Aquatic Core burning a fierce chill within him.
He’d lost his first life, now reborn into a body that was seven or eight years old.
He reached for the water magick within his Aquatic Core to give himself power to fight back. However, being trapped in a child’s body would hinder him rather than aid him.
Using the magick of rebirth only the phoenix king was capable of, he tapped into that power to age himself.
The Core inside his body strained against the unnatural use of it.
It twisted and heated and chilled in rapid succession, burning out his energy far quicker than it was meant to be used.
Once again, his clothes filled out. His limbs lengthened. His muscles grew larger.
In a quick movement, he rolled to his feet and once again picked up the knives he’d dropped. His body swayed on exhausted feet. His vision became unfocused. Dizziness spun his surroundings when the power or rebirth had significantly weakened him.
So many people surrounded him. He already knew fighting was futile. He must run.
But before he managed to take a single step, the same whip that had already killed him once cracked against his back. He lost his footing, collapsing onto his hands and knees while his weapons flew out of his fingers.
Two hands grabbed him from behind and snapped his neck.
Shock coursed through him as his body collapsed onto the ground.
The Aquatic Core burned through him as he died for a second time.
Blue flames of rebirth consumed him, a chilly burn engulfing him from head to toe until he once again found himself on his hands and knees, panting with the exertion of using so much magick from the Core.
Small child’s hands stared back at him again, his previous efforts to age himself to give him a fairer advantage no match against someone with the intent to kill him.
Desperation fueled his actions as he lifted a hand toward the numerous enemies in the room. Water pooled at his fingertips, obeying him as it lashed out like a whip of his own, striking the man in the face who had killed him.
The man stumbled backward, but another one took his place. A boot struck out at his side. He cried out in pain, his voice no longer deep and throaty but rather light and airy. The momentum of the kick caused him to crash onto the carpet where his blood had previously spilled.
“How many lives do you plan to lose?” Mogwai, the red phoenix clan leader, growled, his whip snapping through the air only once before striking the air next to his head.
He cried out in terror alone and curled into a ball, remembering the numerous lashes that had taken his first life.
His hands clenched into fists. His adult body had only managed to withstand eighty lashes before succumbing to death.
How many would his child’s body be able to tolerate?
When Weiyu remained silent, Mogwai snapped the whip downward. He braced himself for the next lash, but rather than unbelievable pain ripping across his back, the whip instead struck the floor beside him. A warning.
“Give me the Aquatic Core, then I’ll let you leave with this life intact.”
Another drop of blood fell onto the floor beside his arm. If he continued to resist, Mogwai could kill him hundreds of times, and he’d be reborn again and again, such was the “blessing” of the phoenix king. He was at this man’s mercy.
But if Weiyu gave him what he wanted, then his people in the blue phoenix clan might get exterminated or enslaved by the red phoenix clan.
With an exhausted hand, he brushed aside the loose dark blue-black strands of hair from his eyes. Gold jewelry wove into the dark strands, tinkling with every languid movement of his body.
He blinked back tears of fear as he pushed himself to his knees, glancing around the room at the audience that had accumulated to watch the phoenix king fall. So many eyes from the red phoenix enemy clan.
Mogwai lifted the whip, strands of red-black hair glinting in the firelight with his movement. But before he could bring down the whip, someone grabbed onto the man’s wrist to stop him.
“He’s just a child,” the intervening man said.
Laughter erupted from Mogwai’s mouth. “He was nineteen years old only minutes ago.”
“But he isn’t now.” The second man lowered his voice, but Weiyu still heard every word. “Think of how your subjects will react if you kill a child in front of them. Do this in private if you must. Without an audience.”
His own pride reared its head despite his exhaustion and previous injuries. He wanted to insist he was not a child regardless of what he looked like on the outside. But he found his tongue swollen and numb from biting it earlier. Speech refused to make an entrance.
“I’ll give you one more chance,” Mogwai said. He folded his whip and tucked it into his waistband. Soft but menacing footsteps moved toward him. Fear trembled within his heart. But he refused to bow his head. Not to this would-be usurper. “Pluck out your Aquatic Core, or face deaths.”
Deaths, not death.
A shuddering chill climbed his spine and into his mouth where his teeth began chattering. He remained stoic. For his people, he must suffer. Even if he must die a hundred deaths to protect them.
“Shameless!” Weiyu cried out in a child’s voice. “You invited me here on the pretense of peace. Yet, you have killed all of my guards and took two of my lives. You can do what you will to me, but you can never outrun karma. It will find you. It will find your people. It will find your descendants.”
Discomfort rose within the air as more than one person shuffled on uncertain feet. But Mogwai appeared undeterred.
The red phoenix’s lips curled into a snarl. “So be it.” He lowered his head to the man on his right, who clasped his hands subserviently in front of him, his head bowed. “Take him to the holding wing. Poison him until he dies again.”
With a nod, the man grabbed Weiyu’s arm and hauled him to his feet. With his small body and weak legs, he was no match for the man’s superior strength. As they entered a dark hallway, his breaths quickened with fear. His hands trembled. His heart beat erratically within his chest.
The rebirth of his body had taken so much of his energy, and now so little remained. What would happen if they kept killing him over and over? What kind of strain would that put on his body and his Core?
The man accompanying him pushed him forward, and Weiyu stumbled on weakened legs. His vision momentarily turned dark and hazy when he entered a large, cavernous room. Only when his shoes struck metal bars did his eyes adjust to the growing darkness.
Gold bars wove like a basket beneath his feet. The empty spaces between the bars gave him a terrifying view of a bottomless pit stretching into complete darkness below. Above him, the gold bars curved upward, tied into a neat knot at the top of the structure.
It was a birdcage. How fitting.
Weiyu ran his fingers over the tight spaces of the bars, realizing that if he managed to find the strength to shift in his exhausted state, even his phoenix form would not be able to escape.
The birdcage door slammed shut behind him, his captor locking the key and disappearing from the cavern.
The exhaustion in his body won over, and he slumped down, no longer able to hold himself upright.
He sat with his back against the bars and stared at the point where all the gold connected at the top, seemingly for hours.
The cage lightly swung back and forth like a hammock rocking on a gentle breeze.
However, no one returned. And when his body could no longer hold out against the fatigue plaguing him, he succumbed to his exhaustion and all too quickly fell asleep.