Page 19 of Shrine of Fire

I paused. “Do you mean he’ll die anyway?”

Kivai nodded. “Probably. I haven’t seen them since the Shrines went up. We assumed that something about going back and forth between the mortal and spirit world was essential to the phoenix lifecycle.”

“No one else is going to die.” I bandaged his wounds, keeping pressure on the bleeding.

“What was that?” Zara looked at Kivai. “I’ve never felt that…hopeless before.”

Kivai grimaced. “I hope I’m wrong, but…”

Valens was as white as a ghost. “We have tales of such a spirit…wailing about her lost children and paralyzing everyone with her grief.”

“Hella Mora?” Aki scowled, standing at my side, eyes scanning the room and shoulders stiff like he would stab the next thing that moved. “It’s a story we use to scare the new deltas.”

“Not a story,” the phoenix in my arms whispered. His eyes fluttered opened. I stared, lost in the swirl of red, orange, and yellow. “Her prison weakens. I must…”

He tried to sit up but, instead, gasped and grabbed at his stomach.

“Don’t move,” I said. “You’re badly hurt.” I looked at the altar. He hadn’t suffered these wounds from hitting a stone slab. He must have come out of the spirit world already bleeding.

“I should have already reborn.” He looked around the room, his gaze landing on Kivai. “Shaman. Has the guild awakened Hella Mora to put her to rest for good?”

“I’m sorry.” Kivai shook his head. “Hella Mora was a legend when I was a boy, and that was over a thousand years ago.”

“Then we failed.” The phoenix slumped back and passed out.

There was a lot of shouting.

I didn’t much care for shouting. It was usually counterproductive.

First, we argued if the Shrine of Everlasting Fire was safe to stay in. Kivai and Valens both confirmed the spirit was locked away in the spirit world. If she was already released, she would have been rampaging through the countryside.

The prison of a thousand plus year old spirit was weakening, and none of us had the first clue of how to stop the leak, much less how to stop her if she got out.

“They tried many methods to destroy her,” Valens said from across the table. Zara had decided we would all be happier in the kitchen. Within an hour, she had us all in an assembly line making croissants.

I couldn’t be sad about that, not when talking and kneading would at least guarantee us bread at the end.

We put the phoenix on a soft couch in the breakfast nook next to the kitchen island so we could keep an eye on him while we plotted. He hadn’t died yet, and his wounds had stopped bleeding, but he wouldn’t wake up.

“It was a boogeyman you scared new recruits with,” Aki said sullenly. He definitely had the sexy brooding thing down, and I wondered how quickly we could wrap this up so I could drag him and Nova to her bedroom and try out the new bed.

Nova barely looked up from her croissant. The haunted look was back in her eyes, just as bad as it had been when I first met her.

Sometimes I dreamed of that day, like it was a fantasy and not history.

The raven from Valens had said he urgently needed me in Ronahim. I’d thought he was escaping guards, or maybe protecting supplies for the Order of the Silver Lion.

Valens had loudly informed me, and in doing so, warned off the guards who were following them too closely, that this beautiful woman was my omega. Zara hadn’t yet been scenting like an omega, and I’d assumed she was his girlfriend, and that Nova was an omega in his charge.

She had looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and my heart had moved. I’d never felt like that before, like I would bring down the moon if only she wished it. She could have casually asked for the last flask of water from the seven seas, and I would have drained it for her.

I had wanted to do many things at that moment: to fall to my feet and promise her the moon and all the stars in the heavens. To tell her she had but to ask and she would have it. To tell her my heart was hers to do with as she pleased.

I did none of those things. I saw the bondmark on her wrist, the bleak grief in her eyes, added to the fact that Valens was escorting her to the Sanctuary and did the math myself.

She could still have my heart, but her own was shattered. My gift would turn into a burden, something she did not have the capacity to bear.

So, I smiled and played the dutiful alpha. I helped Valens search for missing omegas, and later, helped defend them against the Faceless One.

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