Chapter 9
Phoenix
I had never seen Thorne like this before.
He sat rigid in the narrow surveillance room, eyes locked on the flickering panel of enchanted glass.
On the other side, the girl curled on the cot, her shoulders trembling as she sobbed into a threadbare pillow.
Thorne watched her with a stillness that unnerved me—an intensity that felt out of place for someone usually so composed, so controlled.
There was something in his eyes I couldn’t name. Something raw.
She looked small beneath the scratchy blanket. Fragile.
But she wasn’t a child. Not really.
Once she’d been cleaned up, the grime washed from her skin and the shadows from her face, it became clear—she wasn’t the street urchin we’d assumed.
The clothes we gave her hung loose over her frame, revealing the gentle curves of someone far older than we’d first believed.
She was still too thin, her body all sharp lines and hollows, but there was a quiet resilience in the way she carried herself.
Like the world had broken her a hundred times, and still she had the nerve to keep breathing.
To have lived undetected in Varrowmere for this long… it was impossible.
Unprecedented.
And yet, there she was—grieving into her pillow, unaware that the man watching her had been hunting the magicborn for years, and never once missed a soul.
Until now.
“The king will want to meet her, you know,” I said quietly, standing behind Thorne’s shoulder.
“I am aware,” he replied, his voice low, even. “All in due time.”
He didn’t look at me. His eyes stayed fixed on the girl, still trembling in the narrow cot, her sobs now silent but relentless.
“What exactly are you waiting for?” I asked, though the words were a formality. I already knew the answer.
The king’s tastes were no secret. He collected rarities like trophies—creatures of wonder, power, or beauty, so long as they were his alone to own. And here, in this half-starved, wild-eyed girl, we had uncovered something rarer than anything he’d laid hands on before.
I followed Thorne’s gaze to the image in the enchanted glass. And for a breath, I understood.
There was something about her.
A pull.
A stillness wrapped in sorrow, like watching the tide go out after a storm, revealing not ruin but something... sacred.
I hadn’t meant to heal her friend.
My magic, though potent, came at a price. I reserved it for emergencies—true emergencies—because every use left me hollowed out, an echo of myself for days after. But in that moment, in the back of that filthy carriage, I couldn’t help it. She had looked at me with eyes full of breaking, and I—
Gods help me, I wanted to ease her pain.
Even just a little.
Thorne broke the silence, his voice nearly lost beneath the soft hum of the surveillance spells. “How is she alive?”
It wasn’t a question meant for me. Not really. But I answered anyway.
“Maybe the better question is—what do we do with her now that we have her? Train her like the others?”
He didn’t speak right away. Just kept watching the girl behind the glass like she might vanish if he blinked.
Because we both knew the truth.
She wasn’t like the others.
Not even close.
Finally, he murmured, “We’ll have to see what the king says.”
I exhaled, tension threading through my spine. “What about Vasquez? You know he’ll want her. He’ll try to fold her into his ranks the moment he catches wind of this.”
“Vasquez can go fuck himself,” Thorne snapped, sharper than I expected. “We found her. She’s ours.”
I blinked at the vehemence in his tone, then took a measured step back, drawing in a slow breath.
“Alright, then. That’s what we do. We go straight to the king. No middlemen, no whispers. We present her ourselves. Slade and Leo can come too—they’ll back us.”
Thorne didn’t answer right away, but I saw his jaw tighten, the flicker of strategy already sparking behind his eyes.
“We both know the king has a soft spot for you,” I added carefully.
“As long as Vasquez isn’t already whispering in his ear,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “If he’s seen her... if he even suspects…”
His voice trailed off, but the threat lingered in the air like smoke.
We were already on borrowed time.
**
Thorne, Leo, Slade, and I stood before the king in his private chambers, the air thick with incense and something fouler beneath it—sweet wine and dirty sex. We had been ushered in without ceremony, and I immediately wished we hadn’t.
One of his whores was already sprawled across his lap, draped in translucent silks, moving with the practiced rhythm of someone taught to pretend she wanted it. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
My stomach twisted.
She looked barely conscious, eyes glazed from the drugs they shoved up their noses to keep them compliant, lips parted in a dazed smile that didn’t reach her eyes. And still, she worked, even as the king lounged on his gilded throne, eyes half-lidded in pleasure.
He noticed us then.
“My boys!” King Ashton bellowed, grinning like a man too used to getting his way. “Come in, come in!”
With a careless shove, he pushed the girl aside. She tumbled from his lap, landing hard on the marble floor with a sharp cry.
I took an instinctive step forward, hand halfway outstretched.
But Leo grabbed a fistful of my shirt from behind and yanked me back, his voice low and steady against my ear. “Don’t. You’ll only make it worse.”
The girl didn’t look back as she scrambled to her knees, gathering what was left of her dignity and her silks as she crawled from the room.
“Such fragile things,” Ashton chuckled, as if she were nothing more than a pet that had disappointed him. “Now. What treasure have you brought me, hmm?”
His smile widened with anticipation, eyes glittering with the kind of hunger that made my skin crawl. The kind of hunger that didn’t care what something was—only that it was his to devour.
Thorne stepped forward, slow and deliberate. His spine was straight, his expression schooled into icy calm, but I saw the flicker of hesitation in the set of his jaw. A half-second pause too long. A breath he didn’t take.
“We’ve found something,” he said at last, voice low and cool. “Something rare.”
The atmosphere shifted like a dagger sliding free of its sheath.
The king leaned forward, eyes narrowing, all pretence of drunken amusement slipping away. Beneath the silks and laughter and wine, he was a predator, and he smelled blood.
“Well then,” Ashton purred, the syllables curling around his tongue like smoke. “You’d best show me.”
Thorne didn’t move.
“She’s safe… for now,” he said, carefully.
That flicker again—something close to protectiveness, quickly smothered.
The king’s gaze sharpened, and then his mouth curved in a grin that made my blood run cold. “She?” he echoed, like the very idea was delicious.
Thorne gave a small nod. “We have found a shadowmancer, sire.”
There was a beat of stunned silence.
Then Ashton sat back in his throne, blinking slowly as the weight of it settled. “You found a shadowmancer… in my city?”
His voice wasn’t loud, but something in it cracked like thunder.
“Not a whisper of her,” he continued, more to himself now. “No scent. No sightings. Nothing in the reports. And yet… you bring me this now?”
Thorne stood his ground, though I saw his fingers twitch at his side.
“She’s wild,” he said. “And lucky. Possibly both. But she’s alive. And potentially very powerful.”
Ashton’s grin returned, sharp as broken glass.
“Then why,” he said softly, “haven’t you brought her to me already?”
The silence that followed was brittle—thin ice over deep water.
Thorne’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The hesitation was its own betrayal.
I stepped forward before the pause could stretch into danger. I kept my tone calm, but firm. “With respect, sire. Whatever power she has, she’s not trained. Not yet. If you want to use her, you’ll need her alive—and willing.”
The king’s gaze slid to me. “And do you think I’ve ever needed willingness to make something mine?”
“She’s not a pet,” Leo said quietly, stepping into the light with hands clasped behind his back. “She’s a weapon, if we handle her right. But we can’t rush it.”
Ashton tilted his head, assessing Leo like he might a painting he wasn’t sure he liked. “And you all agree with this little delay, do you? You bring me a shadowmancer—a living relic—and instead of delivering her to my feet, you ask for patience?”
“No,” Thorne said finally, voice like flint. “We ask for time. Just enough to ensure she doesn’t blow herself—and half the court—into ash the moment she wakes up afraid.”
That seemed to give Ashton pause.
He licked his lips, thinking. “And if I say no? If I say bring her now?”
“We don’t know enough about her yet. She could kill us all or hurt herself.” Thorne said simply. “And then there goes your prize.”
The room grew still.
Ashton stared at Thorne for a long, long time—his smile gone now, replaced with something colder. Calculating.
Finally, he leaned back and laughed. A short bark of sound, humourless and sharp. “Fine. A few days. But not a moment more.” He wagged a finger. “If you’re lying to me, Thorne…”
“I’m not.”
“Good,” the king said, suddenly jovial again. “Because if she’s as rare as you say, I’ll want to… see her magic for myself.”
He gestured lazily to the door. “Now go. All of you. Before I change my mind.”
We turned to leave, tension still coiled tight in our spines.
As we stepped into the hall, Leo muttered under his breath, “That’s the first time I’ve seen you flinch, Thorne.”
Thorne didn’t look at him.
I followed Thorne down the corridor, the steady footfalls of my brothers echoing behind me.
We moved in practiced formation, instinctual after years of working together.
Our destination was the top floor of the Shade Tower—our shared quarters, a place that functioned as home, war room, and sanctuary depending on the day.
The apartment was vast, five bedrooms branching off from a wide, open living space with polished concrete floors and deep leather furnishings.
Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around the outer walls, offering a sweeping view of the castle’s silhouette against the night sky.
The lights of the city below blinked like a warning.
We collapsed into the worn leather dining chairs around the long, dark table—the same one we’d planned dozens of raids and half as many cleanups around. Everything felt heavier tonight.
Thorne pulled the tablet from his jacket, setting it down in the centre of the table with care. The screen flickered to life, displaying a live feed of the girl—Elira—curled up beneath the blanket in her cell. She looked impossibly small. Fragile.
I broke the silence. “What do we do when she wakes?”
Leo leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table, eyes fixed on the screen with open admiration. “You know... she’s kind of hot. That hair? Those eyes? Total gorgeous ghost vibes. I mean, if she wasn’t literally a walking magical anomaly—”
Thorne snatched the tablet from under his hands with a sharp growl, glaring at him.
“Keep it in your goddamn pants for one minute,” he snapped.
Leo held his hands up, grinning. “Just saying.”
Slade said nothing. He was watching Thorne, not the screen. And I noticed it too—the tightness in Thorne’s jaw, the storm behind his eyes. He wasn’t just worried. He was invested.
That was dangerous.
And we all knew it.
“She needs training,” Slade grunted, the gravel of his voice slicing through the quiet. “And food. Girl’s skin and bones.”
I nodded slightly, but my mind was still on the blast. “What about the explosion earlier? Do we know what triggered it?”
Thorne leaned forward, elbows on the table, expression tight. “The sentinels are investigating. One of the last trailers in the procession was rigged—blew sky high. It was deliberate.”
“Tom said he saw a mark,” Leo added, gaze locked on the smoke still curling up into the night sky through the window. “Red cross on a black crown. Left it right there in the wreckage, plain as day.”
“The resistance.” I exhaled, jaw clenched. “Goddamn Vael and his merry bunch of assholes.”
At the name, Thorne stiffened, eyes flicking up. “Casualties?”
Slade didn’t flinch. “Thirty-three dead. A hundred and fifty-three injured. Mostly civilians.”
Silence pressed heavy around the table.
“Do you think she was working with them?” I asked. “Or maybe she did, once?”
Leo shook his head, his usual smirk absent. “You saw where she was living. That wasn’t a safe house—it was a ruin. I wouldn’t let a dog sleep there.”
“We don’t know anything about her,” Thorne said, voice low. “No records. No trail. She’s like a ghost who just… appeared. And don’t forget how strong her signature was. It practically bled through the wards. Part of me thinks she wanted to be caught.”
I let the words hang a moment before looking straight at him. “Then there’s a simple way to find out.”
Thorne met my eyes, brows narrowing. “How?”
“We ask.”