Page 69 of Wings of Ash & Flame
From ashes to flames.The words curled inside her mind, wrapping around her thoughts like a warm cup of tea, soothing and familiar.
“Hello,Alaire.I have been waiting a long time to meet you.”
Seventeen
Alaire staggered, the voice thrumming through her bones, filling the hollow spaces inside her. And then?—
From the heart of the inferno, it emerged.
Wings unfurled in a torrent of flame curling upward—a display of burning crimson so deep it was nearly black at its core, bleeding into sizzling oranges and blazing yellows at the tips, with a tail tipped in violet.
Born of ash and flame, the Celestial Familiar of the lost House Ashfyre rose.
Herphoenix.
Lowering with effortless precision into a quadrupedal stance, its talons sank gently into the earth. Its very posture was regal, molten embers scattering around it.
From behind her, Dawson exhaled harshly in disbelief. “It can’t be.”
Eyes like twin suns locked onto her green ones, burning straight through her, carving something deep into her bones. Something that had always been there, waiting. Every scar, every moment of pain, every night she’d gone hungry—it had all been leading to this.
The bond snapped into place with a force unlike anything Alaire had ever experienced, searing through her every nerve, every breath, every heartbeat.
It felt like coming home.
And then she was falling, plunging into the depths of a memory that unfolded like the pages of a book.
Alaire looked up, up, up at towering sandstone cliffs rising from the dry ground in deep shades of red, orange, and ochre. Smoothed domes and jagged peaks cut into the sky. Cacti and juniper trees dotted the desert. In one hand, she clutched a small bouquet of wildflowers; in the other, the familiar softness of her mother’s hand.
She had never traveled into the Ashen Grove. Her father walked beside her, his palm resting casually on the pommel of his sword. When he caught her staring, he gave her a cheeky wink. His hair was cropped short, the tips of his rounded ears reddened by the sun. Overhead, her mother’s phoenix called—a cry so familiar they were never apart for long.
Sweat slid down her back. The fabric of her dress itched, but her mother had insisted today was special and she could change as soon as they returned to the castle. Her mother’s hair was pinned up, as it always was in the heat, ruby earrings sparkling in the sunlight.
Deep in the desert, her parents stopped amongst a grove of sycamore trees. At its center sat a hearth with no one to tend it. Alaire hesitated, wary of what might be inside. Her mother squeezed her hand and gently urged her forward.
“Come, darling, and see.”
In what looked like a small crater lay a single, oval-shaped object, impossibly smooth, with faint veins of amber running through it.
Alaire cocked her head. “It looks like a rock.”
“It’s an egg. Maybe one day, your egg.”
“Mine?” Her mouth formed an O.
“One day, it will hatch, and the phoenix inside will imprint on someone from our bloodline—someone it deems worthy. If it chooses you, you’ll have a Celestial Familiar, like me.”
Her smile stretched so far her cheeks ached. She loved playing with her mother’s phoenix, Aria, and every night she prayed to the gods for one of her own.
The memory blurred into another.
In the castle, a diadem rested on a cushion of crimson velvet. Made of solid gold, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Alaire darted to the door, pressing her ear against it. When she was sure no one was listening, she ran back. Lifting the crown with careful hands, she raised it before the mirror as high as her arms would allow and set it on her head.
For just a moment, it stayed. Alaire Vallorian, Queen of Aurelia.
The door behind her opened. She jumped; the crown slipped, tilting until it sat askew on her forehead.
