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May 4 - August 25, 2024
“There’s something about you, Faythe. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it gives me hope for us all.”
“I’m just a tyrant king’s spymaster,” Faythe said, averting her gaze out of shame. “No. You are so much more, and you cannot let him break you.”
Faythe’s heart warmed at the sight of everyone in the room—her unbreakable circle of friends. Family.
“Every ability was given long ago as a blessing from each of the three Spirits, as a means to grant a select few a higher power: the ability to keep the peace,” she began to explain with an air of wonder. “Over time, these abilities manifested, spread, and strengthened. But they also weakened through crossed bloodlines. It was the work of the Spirit of Souls, Marvellas, to make sure those of equal power found each other and always kept their abilities thriving. “When Marvellas left her sacred duty a thousand years ago, those souls wouldn’t always find each other, which resulted in diluted
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“Those with abilities of the mind, the Nightwalkers like you, are supposedly—” “Marvellas-blessed,”
She was a twisted blend of everything that shouldn’t exist in the world. Her ability, her blood, her ancient heritage—the more she learned about herself, the more detached she felt, a damning feeling of not belonging anywhere anymore.
“With every evil born, a way to destroy it is conceived in turn. It can only be you. But you are not alone, Faythe.”
“You will have the answers you seek soon, Heir of Marvellas.”
“You’re the king these people deserve, Nik. If I were granted one wish in this life, it would be to live long enough to see it happen.”
If time didn’t tear them apart, his heart would, for it had always belonged to another, and the truth that churned his gut with self-resentment…was that he had used Faythe. Used her to feel again when he’d spent decades with a heart so numb.
Faythe would never know that she had saved him. From becoming so ice-cold in his silent misery and torment that he feared he would never feel again.
“It’s not the act but the intention that separates the good from the evil.”
“You don’t have to check in on me, Caius.” It left her lips as a whisper, a hushed plea. Caius shuffled in his chair, saying casually, “We all need someone.” Her brow flinched at that. “Besides, it’s not like I have anything better to do.” He added a smirk, and Faythe did smile then,
“I guess I’m telling you this because I know how it feels…to think you’re a burden and unwanted, even to the people who are close to you. It’s like we always feel as if we have something to prove—to others, to ourselves—perhaps in a longing that our twisted existence will count for something in this world.”
“Your differences only make you weak if you let them, Faythe. It’s when you embrace them that you start to live the life you were meant to lead. Not everyone has that strength.” He stood, looking down at her with a hint of challenge. “I believe that you do, but let me tell you, it’s easy to push away those who are there for you. It takes strength to accept help and even more to ask for it.”
“Listen to me, Faythe. You are far stronger than the king could ever prepare for. He cannot break you. You bow to no one, submit to no one. You are a fighter. You always have been. Remember your golden heart within, because I will. Those who matter will always remember you for who you are, not what you’ve done.”
She looked between her two human friends, alive and happy, and longed for the simpler days when she was a part of their daily lives. Now, it seemed as if their paths had branched off in different directions. Yet Faythe was confident no matter what separated them for days, months, even in death…they would always find their way back to each other.
“You have me,” he whispered against the tender spot below her ear. “Until the last star in the sky winks out, you have all of me.”
“Even nature has its secrets. Everything is not always as it seems.”
“I just turned twenty.” His eyes narrowed a fraction, but she couldn’t read the expression that crossed his face at the knowledge. Then it was gone, replaced by the same impassive calm.
“Irritating,” she mumbled. “Arrogant.” Faythe filtered through the racks of garments with building frustration. “Infuriating.” “Beautiful, mesmerizing, charming,” Elise gushed from behind. Faythe scoffed. “Certainly not charming.”
When his last words sank in, within the arms of solitude, she allowed the tears to form and fall. Her heart ached as she climbed into bed, where she finally gave in to the sadness and frustration that had been crushing her, just for one night. With the new dawn, she would rise and put on her mask of contentment once again.
“I’m trying to tell you not to be so reliant on your ability. Even you can be tricked into false truths inside a person’s mind.”
She strolled aimlessly through row after row of impossibly tall bookshelves. The scent of old books, like chocolate and musk, filled her nostrils, and she breathed deeply, savoring the safe and comforting smell.
“You can imagine my surprise at sensing you, a human, with more power than anyone in the castle and you don’t even realize.” Their eyes met, and Faythe swallowed hard at the intensity in the general’s look. “I’ve never come across anything like it in my four hundred years. So, I took it all, just to experience it fully. I’ve taken complete abilities before and been able to hold them for days, but yours…it was draining. I don’t think I could have harnessed it for even a day. Not all of it anyway.”
“There are usually two types of people: those who fear power, and those who want power. We’re often judged by what we are rather than who we are.”
“Everything has an end. It is both the most feared and most anticipated part. Variable, uncertain, unpredictable. There are two sides: those who are fighting to live, and those who are fighting to conquer. But who wants it more? Whoever can answer that has already lost the war.”
“All we can do is never surrender. Never bow to fear, never yield to odds, and always be ready. Until the end comes. I can’t soothe your worries with falsehoods. Hope is a sedation of fear; fairness is delusion against wrongdoing. Both make those on the right side feel as if they have the upper hand. Always see the enemy as equal as they have just as much desire to conquer as we do to survive.”
The heart of a warrior knows how much hope to hold to lift the spirit, but it makes room for the fear that will strike it in the fight to survive.”
War wouldn’t come, because it had never left.
But the world calls for a different kind of savior. Someone with resilience and a strong mind. Someone with enough power to challenge, yet with a heart true enough not to be consumed by its darkness.”
“You can’t expect the fate of the world to depend on one girl alone,”
“She’s not alone.”
She couldn’t be sure if her thundering heart and the flush of her body were from her nerves or Reylan’s touch.
both
Sapphire blazed with gold for long enough the two colors were at risk of fusing to forge something…
“If it were me who was entertaining the prospect of ruling by her side, I would not be thinking of her crown and mine as different.”
Nik loved her anger. Loved when she fought him, and when she defied him. When she didn’t hold back any emotion. He would always weather her storm no matter how destructive it could become.
Nik had been there—would always be there—to pick up the pieces when she broke, help her forget the cracks that would never be filled for one who had lost so much, and remind her every damn time that she was a warrior who had defied the odds to be here.
“It is not what the stone can do, but the door it can open that will be Rhyenelle’s undoing.”
As much as Tauria admired Faythe for her bravery, she also thought it was a miracle the human was still alive with her reckless impulses sometimes.
fr tho
“Who did this to you?” His voice turned surprisingly dark, and she thought she detected anger in it.
“I hope to stand on the right side,” she said. “It doesn’t have only one color or house emblem, nor a single race or gender. It can be made up of the most unexpected array of those things, all brought together with a common goal.”
“You may have been born in High Farrow, but you will always fly with the Phoenix.”
“You should walk away now, save yourself from becoming tangled in a web of answerless questions, impossible notions, and dangerous propositions,” she warned. Yet she knew. Even before his mouth curled with faint humor, she knew his answer. “I’ve faced worse monsters, Faythe,” he said with an unexpected but soothing warmth. “Let me help with yours.”
She made it to the entrance and gasped, taking in the sight of a hundred mirrors.
One of her reflections didn’t move with her this time.
horrifying. absolutely terrifying
“I am a Dresair, keeper of knowledge, holder of precious things, and traveler of realms.
“What a fate has been sculpted around you, child. Millennia come and go without such a soul coming into the world—one with the power to challenge evil, the spirit to change hearts, and the heart to move mountains. If you only dare to take the leap and trust you will fly with the Phoenix, of course.”
One born with wings is never destined to remain caged.”
“I heard you scream.”
