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January 30 - May 26, 2024
Today’s sun offered no warmth, but as a tendril of its light fell on her face when she stepped out farther, Faythe closed her eyes at the comforting feeling.
Seeing Jakon and Marlowe sparked the slowly dying embers within Faythe, and she felt the fire rise, pulsing through her veins once more.
In that moment, she struck a private oath: that she would not lose herself or allow herself to be tamed, silenced, or controlled within the evil grasp of the king’s desires. For her friends, she had to keep fighting.
“But can your Nightwalkers bring your enemies to their knees before you without touching them? Can they bend their will right before your eyes? Can they reveal secrets and lies straight from the mouth of the deceiver?”
“There’s something about you, Faythe. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it gives me hope for us all.”
Tauria was wonderfully gifted in elemental magick, a Windbreaker with the ability to command the air around her, but she had also inherited some of her mother’s talent as a Florakinetic and could easily manipulate nature.
It’s said she had a daughter who would have been a little older than me. She was conceived out of wedlock with an unknown father, barely past her first century when she died, but no one knows how.”
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.
“It’s not the act but the intention that separates the good from the evil.”
“We all need someone.”
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.”
Those who matter will always remember you for who you are, not what you’ve done.”
“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.”
flying banners with the sigil of Rhyenelle: the Phoenix firebird.
Faythe’s breath caught in her throat as her eyes connected with irises of mesmerizing sapphire blue. He was beautiful. Dangerously, alluringly beautiful.
Dalrune’s vibrant amber. As far as anyone knew, the royal court of High Farrow’s eastern neighbors were all slaughtered during the Great Battles over a century ago.
In her royal blue colors, Faythe felt strangely out of place despite having been a citizen of High Farrow her whole life.
This feels like a double meaning - foreshadowing?
“A rose is just a rose no matter which angle you look at it,” she remarked, bored. His head tilted in curiosity. “Even nature has its secrets. Everything is not always as it seems.”
“And if I don’t want the company of any other ladies?” Faythe damned the Spirits to burn for the heat that flushed her cheeks and only hoped it wouldn’t be noticeable in the dull lighting. “Then the male guards are also at your disposal.” The general flashed a rogue grin.
“Are you quite done being violent?”
His eyes narrowed a fraction, but she couldn’t read the expression that crossed his face at the knowledge.
He obviously knows her father
“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.
Hope is a sedation of fear; fairness is delusion against wrongdoing.
The woman struck a chord of familiarity within him. He had been unable to get the bright gold eyes out of his mind since he first set his own upon them. Their likeness he assumed he would never see again.
“But I think I found her daughter.”
he couldn’t blame the king’s heart for it when he watched how passionately they cared for each other and how equal they were in power. Her mortality was simply a cruel twist of nature in an otherwise perfect match.
“It was yours, Your Majesty. I believe you have a daughter, alive and in High Farrow.”
STOP IT RN
Except all he could think of were…wings. Wings, and a vibrant flicker of amethyst that pierced through the dark veil of gray and black.
The creature hissed as it beheld Lumarias, and Faythe’s eyes narrowed at the reaction. She didn’t expect a simple sword to be of much use against the creature, but its reaction told her it somewhat feared the steel in her palm.
The first thing she noticed was its ears. One was half-torn off, but the other was pointed, just like the fae. Its face was horribly disfigured and rotting with old wounds. Despite the neglect, Faythe could still make out features that would have once been just like Nik or Tauria’s, or even hers. It shook Faythe to her core to think of what could have happened to it to turn it into such a gruesome creature.
She sat by the fire—perfectly ordinary glowing amber embers as she requested. Flames that could burn; a warmth that was real. Yet she was drawn to it for far more than that, transfixed by the dance of fire and ash as if it could take flight at any moment and free itself from the confines of its stone pit.
Bc ur a fucking phoenix girl
The first snowfall of the season had brought the clouds to the ground, and she marveled over the thick, glittering crystal blanket.
“A rose is too pretty for you. You’re more like a blossomless thornbush,” she sneered. His smile grew wider. “Because you think I’m dangerous?” “Because you’re a prick.”
“Who did this to you?” His voice turned surprisingly dark, and she thought she detected anger in it.
“You may have been born in High Farrow, but you will always fly with the Phoenix.”
“I’ve faced worse monsters, Faythe,” he said with an unexpected but soothing warmth. “Let me help with yours.”
“All right, demon slayers united. Let’s go,”
“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.”
“In your quest to stop the King of High Farrow, one of those close to you will forfeit their life.”
Words, when crafted artfully, could cut deeper than any blade and imprint on one’s soul for eternity. To inspire or to torment—that depended on the will of the speaker.
The Kingdom of the Phoenix was where your mother was born.”
Tripartite
“But you’re not inferior to anyone, Faythe. Your strength is within, and your weapon is internal. It’s his biggest mistake to underestimate you.”
I am yours, and you are mine. Until the end claims us.”
A life without love was to live in darkness without a glimmer of light. An existence with nothing to lose.
I will not allow them to bleed for tyranny, nor die for greed.”
“No, it shouldn’t have been. Make this world the one we all dream of. Make it rise.” His breath spluttered, and he rasped, “Make it rise from the ashes, Faythe.”
“You all hide behind high walls, yet you have already let the enemy inside. The seed of destruction has been planted, and you watered it with your revenge and greed. Without this alliance, the war is already lost. Without the strength of unity, we will all fall.”
