Page 66 of Phoenix Chosen 3

Someone is crying. I hear their voice getting louder with the blossoming light.

“Kalistratos…”

Tyler! It’s Tyler!

I try and fail to reply. I’m fighting to gain control over my body—it’s as though I’m trapped in that realm between sleep and wakefulness, frozen in place like a man struck by a Gorgon’s glare.

But then, out of the light I see him. Heisthe light. His face shines above me, cheeks shimmering with a rain of tears pouring from tightly shut eyes. I canfeelhim again. His arms clutch metightly and the tremors of his sobs shake through my aching body.

“T—”

My voice crumbles in my throat like sand, but I slowly feel some strength returning to my fingers. I use all of it to reach up and touch his face.

Tyler’s eyes flash open. “Kalistratos!” he cries.

“Cheesus,” I croak. It feels like I’ve nearly drowned and my chest is filled with water.

But I’m back. I’m weak and barely clinging to life, but the icy pain in my shoulder is fading.

“How?” he says, stunned.

Tyler hasn’t seemed to take notice of the bright light shimmering around him, and for a moment, I wonder whether this resplendent aura is only visible to me. But then I hear Airos say, “Your powers, Tyler. Take hold of them,now.”

Tyler blinks, scattering teardrops from his eyes that sparkle in the clear white light. He looks down at himself and finally sees what I’ve always known.

TYLER

What had appeared in weak flashes and uncontrollable bursts before is now as overwhelming as the tears pouring out of my eyes like a goddamn storm surge. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t noticed it—everything was held beneath the hopeless despair I felt in those moments. But those emotions had unlocked the door to the cage deep within me.

It's like I’ve turned on a sixth sense, like a billion TVs are on in my head and I’m trying to watch them all. I now see that what I felt wasalmostright—my child is, in a way, my phoenix. I can’t shift—but I still hold a shard of phoenix power. It’s mine, but it’s also Kalistratos’sandour baby’s. I’m both a conduit and a generator, and right now I can feel the power flowing from Eggy into me, melding with my source, and into Kalistratos. Everything is charged and piqued. I just need to get it under control. Harness it.

I focus on the source spewing from within me like a cracked dam. I reach out and grab hold of it.

It’s like touching a live wire. Every muscle in my body reacts, and a powerful heat rises like a roaring furnace as the light emanating from me flashes out like lightning.

Holy shit!

How the hell am I supposed to control this? There’s justso much.

Kalistratos, I think.His wound is all that matters.

My intuition tells me that my power isn’t healing the wound, it’scleansingit. The shadow inside his shoulder is like a poisonthorn sapping his life source, and my light is burning it out. Its roots have gone so fucking deep. Jesus, it’s amazing he was able to hold on. His resilience is amazing.

I’m not going to let it hurt you anymore.

I hold him tightly, and he wraps his arms around me and presses his face against mine. Then, keeping the shadow wound firmly in my sights, I release myself. The dam bursts and the rush of energy from my body is as powerful as an orgasm. We clutch each other as the storm whirls around us, swirling the ash into a white vortex that shoots up into the sky over our heads. Airos shields his face with his sleeve, his robes whipping around like a flag in a hurricane.

And then it settles as my tank runs dry. I slump down, absolutely drained of my energy. I can still feel the flame flickering in my chest. I know where it is now. I know it’ll come back.

“Look at you,” Kalistratos says to me. “And you say you’re not a Phoenikos?”

He smiles and places a gentle kiss on my lips, but then I throw my arms around his neck and just about flatten his face with mine.

“Ah, ouch, ouch,” he groans when my arm pushes against his shoulder.

“Shit, I’m sorry!”

Carefully, I pull back the fabric from the wound. It looks awful, the kind of thing that would make anyone wince, but I’m thrilled.

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