Chapter Two #2
She gave a start when her fingers clasped around a foreign pendant dangling from her throat and resting between her breasts. Eyebrows furrowed, she brought it closer to her face to study it.
The pendant was a deep blue in color, similar to a sapphire. Beautiful golden designs trapped the gem within its elegant embrace. But what drew her attention wasn’t the eye-sized gem or the intricate metalwork but the life pulsing within the gem, beating like a living soul against her palm.
She’d never seen anything like this.
What was it?
She lifted her head to once again stare after the blue phoenix, but he had already disappeared. Without a doubt, she knew this was from him. But what was it? And what did it mean?
The pounding of footsteps jolted her out of her musings.
She spun on her heel and darted back into the Perch, ducking behind the wooden statue of a red phoenix just as several men rushed past carrying the signature spear of the red phoenix clan.
The group split up, several continuing down the hallway while three of them entered the landing.
“Did he go out here? Has anyone seen him?”
Zahra’s heart pounded a fearful rhythm against her ribcage, her pulse thrumming through her ears loud enough to miss the words of someone’s reply. If the Guard deployed the flight soldiers, Weiyu would surely be discovered.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of her hiding place and approached the guards. Each turned at her approach and quickly greeted her with a bow of their heads.
“If you're looking for the phoenix king, I heard pursuit down the hallway inside. Try your search there.”
The guards hesitated as if unused to seeing her skulking anywhere but the shadows. A lowly, non-shifter princess such as herself was usually ignored. But she hoped their desperation might overcome her low status.
They nodded in unison before jogging into the Perch once more.
The misdirection bought Weiyu a little bit more time. It was all she had left to give.
Hours passed, and Zahra’s father became increasingly more agitated the longer Weiyu went unfound. He shouted. He beat his servants. He drank.
And far quicker than she expected, he summoned her and her five sisters into the throne room, lining each of them up according to age. Zahra stood at the second position, next to her eldest sister who was next in line as the leader.
Father paced back and forth in front of them before gesturing to the apothecary standing several arm lengths behind him.
“I have discovered that someone other than the apothecary entered the holding wing, discarded the poison meant to kill the blue phoenix king, and helped him escape.” More pacing as he eyed each one of them.
Enough time had passed that it was unlikely for the flight guards to catch up to Weiyu, but Zahra planned to remain silent, nonetheless.
When no one spoke up, their father continued, “The only ones with authority to enter the holding wing have already been heavily questioned. Except for my six daughters. The apothecary admitted to handing off the poison to one of you. So, who was it?”
Her sisters shuffled their feet, each avoiding their father’s gaze.
He gestured the apothecary forward. “Which of my daughters handled the poison after you?”
The apothecary approached and squinted his eyes at the row of sisters. “My eyes are going bad. I thought I knew, but now I’m not certain which one it was.”
Father fisted his hands, anger blazing against the aging lines on his face. “Then I’ll punish them one by one until someone admits to their crime. Starting with you.”
He grabbed onto her youngest sister by the necklaces hanging from her neck. Her sister cried out, terror in her eyes. It was all Zahra needed to break down her walls of silent fortitude.
“I did it.” Zahra stepped forward, meeting her father’s cold glare with one of her own. “I freed the phoenix king. I am the one to blame.”
Finger by finger, her father released her youngest sister before pushing her by the shoulders. Her sister stumbled backward and fell onto her side, her hands braced against the floor.
“Why?” He stalked toward her as if he harbored the spirit of a tiger rather than a phoenix. “What possessed you to commit such a heavy betrayal against your father? Against your family? Against your people?”
She lifted her chin, refusing to cower beneath his intimidating stature.
“It is you who has betrayed our people. Rather than living peacefully with the blue phoenixes as our neighbors, you choose pride and violence, sacrificing innocent lives in your quest for the king’s seat, in your quest for immorality through the Aquatic Core—”
Her father lifted his hand and slapped her across the cheek, snapping her head back with the force of the strike.
Heat coursed through her face, pulsing with a burn with every beat of her anxious heart.
There was more at stake than herself if she fell out of line.
Her father might punish her sisters for her disobedience.
Although she was not close with any of them, she would not like to see them harmed.
“You have caused enough trouble for me under my own roof!” her father thundered. She flinched and lowered her gaze to the ground.
“I’m sorry, Papa.” Contradicting her earlier bravado, she attempted to appear meek and obedient despite the way her blood coursed hot with fury beneath her skin. “It won’t happen again. I swear it.”
“No, it won’t.” The dark, dangerous hint in the man’s voice caused her to lift her head to find anger still blazing strongly through his eyes. “You cannot shift. You are an embarrassment to this family. The only worth you bring me is an alliance through marriage.”
The previously simmering fury burning through her veins rapidly cooled until ice seemingly crystalized through her blood, freezing her from the inside out. “Marriage?” she whispered, shocked that he hadn’t sentenced her to death. It wouldn’t be his first time attempting to kill her.
“Are you hard of hearing, girl? You’re old enough. You’ll be eighteen next month. I want you out of the Perch, shackled with the next dignitary who steps on our landing.”
Zahra tried to still her trembling heart, but no matter how many calming breaths she took into her lungs, nothing managed to erase the panic clawing at her from the inside with the sharp talons of a phoenix.
Although she wanted more than anything to escape the Perch, she knew the type of dignitaries her father referenced.
They were cruel, prideful, and filled with greed.
A life with any of them would prove more miserable than her current situation at the Perch.
“Perhaps you might reconsider—”
“One month. You will be married in one month from today. Now get out of my sight.”
Father slumped onto the throne with a disgruntled, murderous expression. He waved his hand in dismissal and leveled a glare at them. A warning.
Zahra’s eldest sister ushered them out of the room, all while she floated on disbelieving feet in a daze.
Weiyu had escaped. But at what cost to herself?