Phoenix Rising (Maggie Henning & The Realm Book 1)

by Lisa Morgan

  I told him about my father, a story which Davis already knew, but he listened anyway. I told him about Stephanie and our mad-capped plans to snare a movie star husband and travel the world. When he laughed, it was with his whole body. I could feel his chest rise and fall as he inhaled. His body was warm against my back, chasing away the draft in our cell. Something about Davis, even in his frail form, was calming.

  When thoughts of Michel would come to me, Davis seemed to sense my loss and he wrapped his arms a little tighter. His hand stroked my hair, lulling me into a feeling of security. Deprived of food and water, and exhausted emotionally, I’d drifted off to sleep with Davis’s arms cradling me, my head pressed against the strong beat of his heart.

  And I dreamed of her.

  I was standing at the edge of a lake, snowcapped mountains reflecting back on the mirrored surface. A bright blue sky shone above with only a few fluffy clouds marring the view. It didn’t escape my attention that the clouds didn’t seem to move.

  I was bare foot in soft, tall grasses. Tiny white blooms grew freely around me. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching down and picking one, holding it close to my face and taking in the delicate scent.

  “Myosotis,” the female told me softly. The flower slipped from my hand when I turned to look at the woman who’d spoken. Her hair was blonde, the sunlight shining in the naturally highlighted strands that danced ever so slightly in the breeze.

  “You startled me,” I admitted to the familiar beauty looking at me and smiling. The woman walked closer, picking up the fallen flower. She held her hand out, offering it to me.

  “Maggie,” she said as I took the flower in my palm. She seemed to know me, too.

  “Who are you?” She didn’t answer, but smiled at my question. “Are you the voice I heard in the garden? The one who helped me with the flames?”

  She nodded her head. “I wasn’t sure if you’d recognize my voice.”

  “I couldn’t forget it. It’s lovely. It’s like a lullaby I’ve heard before,” I replied eagerly.

  “The time is almost upon you. You will need to have courage now, Maggie,” she informed me gently, the smile never leaving her lips.

  “I don’t want courage. Can’t I just stay here with you?”

  “I wish that were possible,” she murmured, a hint of regret in her words, “but that is not your path, Maggie.”

  “I can’t control it. The fire. I only just found out about it, and now I’m in a cell, locked away until those things come for me,” I admitted in a whisper, hanging my head.

  The female with wheat-colored hair kindly explained, “The fire has always been part of you. It has lain under the surface, dormant and unneeded. Unneeded until now.”

  Looking into her beautiful blue eyes—eyes that matched the sky above—I begged, “Can’t you teach me what to do? Can’t you help me?”

  The woman stepped backward from me, still smiling and not turning away. “When you need it, the flames will answer.”

  The woman began to fade and I ran toward her.

  “Please!” I begged, my arms out to try and catch her as she continued to fade. “Don’t leave me! I’m so scared and lost. Please! Don’t leave!”

  A scraping noise woke me, bringing me back to the dank cell. I felt Davis stir behind me, a growl vibrating in his throat. I glanced to him before following the direction Davis’s eyes were looking.

  Two revenants stood at the cell door, the gate opened and staring at me with their glowing eyes.

  They floated into the room, and I began myself pushing back against Davis, using my feet to try to scurry away from the creatures. He pulled me backward with him as we attempted to evade bony fingers that reached out for me.

  “No!” I screamed, twisting and trying frantically to hold onto Davis, even as he wrapped his arms tighter around me. One of the revenants grabbed a handful of my hair, pulling me away. I cried out in pain as they tore me from the werewolf’s hold, our hands slipping apart.

  He snarled viciously at the creatures dragging me from of the prison. I reached for him, pleading and trying to grab his hands. He rushed forward for mine until the chains that bound him jerked him to a stop. I screamed as my heels scraped across the hard stone floor, watching as the revenant not holding me closed the door and locked it again. They carried me from the cell as Davis howled out my name.

  I continued to struggle against my captives as they effortlessly pulled me along with them. Their hold crushed my waist as I kicked and thrashed with my legs, hoping to get just one hit in that would loosen their grasp and offer me a chance at escape.

  They climbed a worn stone staircase lit by the same orange light cast out from wall mounted torches. Cresting the top, I found myself in the cool night air. I saw the star-filled sky above my head as the pair of revenants continued to yank me with them. I smelled the sap of evergreen trees and the wood smoke of several fires burning brightly.

  The guards paused and I chanced a look around. Eight foot tall torches were burning, forming an aisle to the left and right of me. At least fifty revenants stood on either side of the illuminated path; their hoods drawn over their skulls and their hands, held before them as if cradling a child, lay hidden in the sleeves. I looked down the open pathway before me. Set up at the end was what looked like a black tombstone standing about four feet off the ground.

  A rhythmic drum beat began from somewhere behind me, filling the calm night air with a low rumbling march and setting an ominous tempo. From the doorway I’d just been brought, I heard Davis’s howl. The revenants that escorted me from the cell tightened their grip on my arms and proceeded forward, in time with the beats, making their way to the stone pedestal.

  I tugged with my arms, trying to break free. I tried to call on my fire, but it wouldn’t answer. My heart hammered inside me, harder and harder the closer we got to the stone table. I was having difficulty breathing and began gasping for air. My chest tightened as I panicked.

  The guards came to a stop at the stone. I saw chains bolted into the marble pedestal. They looked to be made of the same black stone my shackles had been. One of the guards lifted my thrashing body onto the tablet effortlessly, the other held my legs as I felt the cold restraints close over my ankles. My arms were stretched taut over my head as I fought with all my muscles to get away. Held down, another set of obsidian cuffs encased my wrists. The two revenant guards, satisfied with my bindings, stepped backward away from the stone.

  I tried to pry myself free, pulling as hard as I could. My shoulders ached with how stretched my arms were. I arched my back off the stone, but could only lift a few inches.

  The drumming came to an abrupt end, making the silence deafening. Able to turn my head, I stared back in the direction the revenant sentinels had brought me.

  Standing where I’d been just minutes ago, was a cloaked figure I’d seen once before, cast in the light from the yellow eyes of a captured beast.

  This was no broadcasted image I was seeing, but very much a corporeal form.

  I knew it was Ossa.

  Thirty Six

  There were no sounds other than my strangled breathing and racing heart. Even the crackling of the burning fires seemed to have come to a halt. The quiet was heavy and weighed on me like a blanket made of concrete.

  Ossa, the supreme leader of the revenants, looked down the path at me. His eyes glowed orange, unlike the yellow of the monsters he commanded, and his hands were hidden in the sleeves of his robe just as solemnly as his minions.

  I watched his form as he began to hover forward. I wriggled in my captivity, desperately trying to free myself. The rattle of the stone chains that bound me to the rock echoed out in the night as Ossa grew closer to where I was bound.

  “Please!” I groaned desperately, opening and closing my fists and trying to will the fire to come to me. I clenched my eyes tightly shut, trying to concentrate on bringing forth flames. “Please!” I cried out, not caring if I sounded weak in front of these creatures.
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  When I opened my eyes, Ossa stood gazing down at me.

  The moonlight reflected brightly on his remaining features, such as they were. A skull only with those orange radiations peering at me. I could feel it; he was pure evil. I saw the skull twist unbelievably into what resembled a smile and ice replaced the blood in my veins.

  Ossa walked to the other side of the altar, keeping his gaze set on me. I followed his movements, turning my head to face him. The revenant raised his hands over his head and called out as he looked at his underlings.

  “Brothers! Sisters! Behold, the final Phoenix!” There was no applause, no little claps as there had been when the king of The Realm had announced me.

  Ossa went on, “Tonight, we shall finally have that which we need to be restored once again!” He ran one of his fleshless fingers over my cheek, and I turned my head away from his touch. A soft chuckle escaped the fiend as he drew his hand back.

  “For too long, we have lived as only half of what we could be. We have craved to be whole again, but better this time; more powerful than any being of this world or the mortal’s. We have struggled, using the magicks handed to us, in order to walk amongst the humans, forced to partake in their frivolous existence. Waiting for the time, the hour that the Phoenix would be ours; the moment we would harness the power of her blood to bring us to our true selves. Surpassing all of those who think to rid the worlds of us and finally, we’d be free to rule these realms as we see fit. Brothers and sisters, that hour is upon us!”

  A deep roar cut into the air at Ossa’s rhetoric. The leader put his hands into his sleeves once more, and I got the impression that he was savoring the moment.

  “Now,” he called out, silence falling over his minions, “we shall rise to our true identities, never to fall again!”

  I watched as Ossa drew a dagger from within his cloak’s sleeve. The blade was curved and thin; the tip an unforgiving razor edge. The revenant leaned over me, his faceless skull mere inches from mine.

  “Try, Maggie,” he taunted evilly, his teeth clattering together. “Call forth your pyrokinetics. Wield your weapon.”

  I tried. I willed it to come forward. She’d told me it would come when I needed it, I thought. Why isn’t it here?

  Ossa chuckled at my ineffectiveness, running the blade of his knife over my cheek. It was so sharp that as it grazed my skin it cut without pain. He raised the blade to my eyes, forcing me to observe the small amount of my blood that coated it.

  “This is only the beginning,” Ossa goaded me quietly.

  “Hey!” a voice summoned the leader from the distance. Ossa stood straight as I twisted my head to find the source of the proclamation.

  Standing at the end of the walkway, two long blades in his hands that I recognized from my brief study in the sword book as being called katanas, was Luc. His eyes had changed to the wicked feline form they took when he was angry, and he smiled nefariously, his fangs bared.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to play with knives?”

  “Luc!” I yelled out desperately.

  “The vampire prince,” Ossa chided, not moving. The twisted smile type feature he had remained. “What a delightful surprise.”

  “I get that a lot. I’m beginning to think it has something to do with my winning smile.” Luc grinned viciously, his fangs growing longer.

  Ossa appeared confident in himself. He put the knife back into his cloak and walked around to the front of the platform I was bound to, leaving me unattended.

  “How is it that you surface whenever I am otherwise predisposed?” Ossa inquired.

  “I don’t know,” Luc replied, false humor in his words as he took a step closer. “I just can’t seem to stay away from you. Maybe I’m just lucky.”

  “You push beyond your destiny, Lucian de’Celine,” Ossa warned the vampire.

  “I may tempt the fates, Ossa, but unlike you, I never poke them with a stick. Release the girl and I will consider ridding the world of your sorry ass.”

  The revenant laughed heartedly at Luc’s threat. “Oh, vampire, what I wouldn’t do to have you join my ranks. Alas, given your make up, that is not possible. It is a waste to witness the fall of one who harbors so much potential.”

  Luc offered, swinging the long thin blades in his hands, “And if you’re disappointed, just think how my father feels.”

  “Enough of this!” Ossa bellowed, tiring of the jabs. He waved his hand, and four of the watching revenants swarmed Luc.

  Performing a fluid dance of death, Luc spun, swinging the katanas wide, and cut down two revenants in one movement. Before the bodies hit the ground, he’d plunged the weapons into the other enemies’ eyes. With a shriek, they turned to dust.

  I knew the two Luc had sliced in half were not fully dead as he stood upright again and took a measured step toward Ossa. I opened my mouth to warn him, but before the words left my mouth, Seatha appeared behind the prince.

  With her sword, she shot forward, stabbing the eyes of one of the fallen monsters, then matching the movement with the other and sending them to join their buddies in the same hell the two Luc killed had gone.

  Luc smirked to me.

  “They’re dead now,” he responded to my unspoken words.

  The revenant leader paced a few steps closer to Luc before halting. “What is this?” he asked angrily. “Never before have creatures of The Realm found our location, aside from that one foolish witch, but we know how that ended, don’t we?”

  The air behind Ossa shimmered, and startled, the skeletal monster turned to face it. Autumn emerged out of thin air.

  “It’s magick, bitch!” she answered him angrily. Thrusting her hand forward, a bright blue light shot from her fingertips, the energy casting Ossa backward to the ground. I heard the impact of his bones as they shattered against the hard earth. Unholy shrieks rent the night from Ossa’s followers, a pitch that could have shattered glass.

  Autumn went on, her hand still glowing, “And that witch was my mother.”

  Another beam left her hand, but Ossa anticipated it and flung himself out of its path, disappearing from sight. I didn’t know how this was possible. I knew I’d heard his back shatter. He shouldn’t have been able to move, let alone be so agile.

  The revenant horde surged forward. Luc and Seatha held their swords and ran to meet the fray. Autumn backed to the altar where I was watching the battle, my legs jerking to the sounds of metal on bone.

  “Are you okay?” Autumn asked, turning to look at me quickly, even as she lifted her hands again, striking one of the animated skeletons that flew at us with her powers.

  “Can you get me out of this thing?” I pleaded desperately. Glowing yellow eyes rushed toward the witch, and she used her magick to send them reeling backward.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” Autumn replied frustrated, “but I think I can manage to find someone to help.”

  I was about to protest selfishly when I felt the air wavering beside me where Ossa had been standing when he ran the knife’s edge over my face. I held my breath as whatever it was prepared to strike me.

  “If you wanted to break up,” Michel jested as he appeared, “I would have preferred a Dear John letter.”

  Thirty Seven

  “Michel!” I cried out, straining my whole body, trying to get free.

  “Look out,” he warned quickly, lifting his sword and bringing it down as hard as he could, smashing apart the obsidian chain that had my arms bound to the altar. The rock crumbled on impact.

  “How did you get here?” I begged, watching Michel repeat the movement, freeing my legs. I swung them around, facing him, as he reached for my waist to help me stand. “How did you find me?”

  “The charm,” he answered, embracing me tightly, working to avoid the fresh gash on my face. “‘Your strength is the power that carries me through.’ Liam placed an enchantment on it to not only lead you to The Trust, but should you be taken, would also lead us to where you are. It’s an old mag
ick. He’s going to be pleased it actually worked.”

  “A little help, lovebirds?” Luc called to his brother as three revenants were descending on him, one of his swords now missing.

  Michel looked to me, and I nodded rapidly. Running to his brother, sword clenched in both hands, the vampire leapt, driving his blade through one of the creatures.

  Autumn raced to me, grabbing my hand after vanquishing another one of the minions.

  “We need to get you the hell out of here,” she ordered over the sounds of metal meeting bones, pulling me along with her and heading toward a clear spot beyond the fighting.

  Looking at Seatha, her wings holding her level with the revenant’s height, I watched the fairy as she lashed out with her sword, parrying away when the creature lunged for her, narrowly avoiding the strike. Luc was on his feet again, a sinister grin on his mouth. He and Michel were savage, cutting and slashing at the beasts.

  “Autumn, wait!” I ordered, pulling her to stop.

  “Not really great timing,” complained the witch, offering me a determined gaze.

  “In the cell,” I explained, looking at the open door the guards brought me through. “There’s a prisoner. He’s bound to the wall. We need to get him!”

  “What?” Autumn asked, distracted by a scream from Seatha as she took out another revenant.

  I stumbled as I rushed through my words. “He’s … he’s a werewolf, the last one.”

  “Maggie,” Autumn warned, her full attention on me now.

  “Just get him free, Autumn!” I barked, cutting off any protests. “Take him to The Trust, please?”

  “We need to get you out of here now before Ossa decides to have a crisis of conscience and return!” she argued back quickly.

  “Please!” I demanded, not moving my feet. I’d believed Davis. I knew they hadn’t betrayed The Realm, and right now, I was willing to bet my life on it.

  “Where?” Autumn exhaled, sliding her eyes over the chaos that was playing out around us.

  “Through the door,” I replied quickly, pointing at the entrance to the cells, “down the stone stairs. I only saw one cell.”