𝕱𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖆𝖘𝖍𝖊𝖘, 𝖜𝖊 𝖗𝖎𝖘𝖊.
The legendary Phoenix is reincarnated from his ashes every thousand years... or so the story goes. When Emrys wakes days after his death with bare memories, the vengeful deity responsible for his revival is...
"I'VE NEVER SEEN YOU so upset by a mission. Usually you enjoy the torment."
Amaya's grating voice was the last thing Emrys wanted to hear. For the past few hours, he had taken residence on his bed, staring at the lantern burning brightly overhead. His boiling stare sent the flame into a frenzy, licking past the metal bars of its confinement. It taunted him with the idea of caving into his hardly-restrained anger and setting the entire room ablaze.
Not only had his former "ally" brought back their dead friend... she did it with the help of a Demon. And they were working early alongside Eva: the woman he'd been set to capture, who slipped through his grasp before his wrath could meet her skin. His Dark brother—Nox, if his Hellish memories served him correctly—had whisked her into his shadowy portal in hardly a blink's time.
Maybe it was Emrys' own fault for toying with his prey. However, when matched against a Demon, playing was far more satisfying than sloppy slaughter.
But he couldn't play any longer.
Eva was everything Amaya said she would be. Hidden beneath a sweet, almost innocent exterior, she had seemed perfectly human at first glance. But the moment their eyes met, hers had gone black. The sinister grin he'd faced daily from Thana's torture surfaced upon her lips before she collapsed, allowing her true self to take over as the raised higher than most of her cohorts could reach.
The perfect way to taunt the man whose wings she'd severed.
"What?" Amaya interrupted once more. "Goblin got your tongue?"
Emrys flinched. The overhead light flared from its confinement. Flames licked the polished ceiling, and he took a deep breath to coax them back into their lantern.
He sat up with a huff. Tucking one knee to his chest, he let the other leg dangle freely off the edge of his high-rise bed, swinging back and forth nervously. He brushed the disheveled, ash-crusted hair from his face with a hand so gray that it appeared as if the Reaper's Touch had cursed him yet again. But this time, it was coated in ash and debris from the smoldering crater that had once housed Mystia's hideaway.
It had taken hours to find them. First, he had scoured for the dead-end lead that Amaya's "eyes" had found on the other side of town. By the time he'd arrived, all that remained of the supposed Demonic presence were mediocre splatters of blood and ichor—likely only one victim.
It was child's play. Nothing worth a time-consuming investigation.
"Your eyes need glasses," he muttered.
Amaya heard him—she always did—but didn't show it. She was the picture of nonchalance amongst a room of shattered glass, ripped up books, and scorched surfaces. A woman so insistent on precision and order in her castle acted as if the disaster were no more than spilled milk. If Emrys didn't know better, he'd have sworn the smile stretching her lips was... proud.
Her flared silver sleeves grazed the floor as she reached for a shard of his obliterated mirror. She took her sweet time preening in its smudged surface, adjusting hairs that were never askew beforehand.
"And you," she said finally, "have expressed quite the temper." With a flick of her wrist, the glass shard vanished in a shower of Radiant sparks. "I hear that more than the north end of Havenwood went up in smoke last night. Someone set the suburbs ablaze. Care to elaborate?"
Emrys bit his tongue. No matter how tempting it was to spill every delicious detail of his escapade, he was unsure what Amaya would do with the information once it was placed in her hands. Would she kill him for discovering too much? Wipe his memory to steer him into further compliance?
He couldn't risk it. Not after tonight.
"There was another Demon." He kept his words calm. Concise. Anything that would hopefully prevent her from digging deeper into his discoveries. "Nox. He's guarding Evanescence."
Amaya's brows lifted, but she didn't look surprised.
Emrys held his breath, wondering just how much she truly knew about his escapade—and if she did, why she wasn't elaborating on her knowledge. But if she wasn't threatening him for his disobedience...
"You found her." It wasn't a question. In fact, her lips curled further into an eerily satisfied grin with each word.
Emrys huffed, kicking at a torn journal spine by his foot. "He used a Dark portal to get away with her. Apparently, he didn't want her attacking."
"Even a Demon knows his limits... but without combining with Thana, Eva is no match for a Phoenix." Amaya folded her arms. "Where do you believe he's taken her?"
His eyes narrowed. "Since when do you need my input?"
"Answer the question before I change my mind."
That wasn't comforting. How was he supposed to know she wouldn't take the information for herself and restrain him once again—or worse, banish him to the confines of purgatory until she took care of the problem herself? When would his usefulness to her end? He knew that, when it did, his life would surely end as well.
And, for once, he wasn't interested in dying. Not until he sought proper revenge.
Emrys' death would be Thana's reward: further proof that her control over him lasted beyond life. He refused to let her gain the upper hand. He needed to end her himself.
"They haven't crossed over to Astraela. It would be too obvious." Emrys rolled the book spine under his foot in thought. "They'll likely stay on Earth as long as they can. With the city barricaded by your forces, they'll soon run out of places to hide."
"And you did a decent job of smoking them from their hideout tonight."
The Runestone buried inside his neck tingled, and the hair on his neck stood on end. She'd seen far more than he told her.
"You've had a tight leash," said Amaya, "but I think it's time to let my little Hellhound run wild."
She pushed away from the door. With a snap of her fingers, the room was washed in Radiant light. It was blinding, forcing Emrys to burrow his eyes in the crook of his arm until it dimmed to reveal perfectly normal bed chambers. Everything that he'd destroyed in a rageful fit had been returned to its place, and the blankets beneath him lay wrinkle-free. And when he looked down, even his body was more pristine than any hot soak could manage after being so deeply covered in the remains of his exploit.
He never heard Amaya approach until she was beside him, placing an elegant hand upon his tense shoulder. For once, her smile was sincere—or at least the most sincere he had ever seen from her.
"Prepare yourself. You'll be setting off on your own soon."
__________
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