Ravenor's POV
The girl stares at me like I just ripped her world apart.
Good. Welcome to the club.
"You're lying," she whispers. "You're trying to manipulate me—"
"Why would I lie?" I turn away from her, looking down at the burning sanctum below. My wings ache. Everything aches. Three hundred years of torture doesn't heal in minutes, and this half-broken body barely contains the power trying to explode out of me. "You think I want you to be Meridian's daughter? You think I want to be bound to a weak human girl who can barely stand?"
"Then break the bond!" She's crying now, tears streaming down her face. "You said I'd burn out. So let me! Let me die and be free!"
Something in my chest twists painfully. The bond, probably. Or maybe something worse.
I face her again. She's small, fragile, absolutely pathetic in that borrowed dress. Her amber eyes—Meridian's eyes—are red from crying. She's everything I despise about humans: weak, emotional, breakable.
And she's my daughter.
The daughter I thought was dead.
The daughter I stopped searching for after the first century because hoping hurt too much.
"It doesn't work that way," I say coldly. "The bond formed when the phoenix fire chose you. If you die now, the backlash will kill me too. And I didn't survive three hundred years of hell just to die because some girl can't handle reality."
She flinches like I hit her.
Through the bond, I feel her emotions—devastation, confusion, fear, and underneath it all, a desperate need to be wanted. To belong. To matter.
Pathetic.
"So what now?" she asks, her voice small. "What happens to me?"
"Now?" I laugh, and it's a bitter sound. "Now we run. Because in about ten minutes, every soldier, bounty hunter, and magic user in Eldrath will be hunting us. Seraphine just put a price on your head. Five thousand gold is enough to make anyone a killer."
"But I didn't do anything wrong!"
"You freed me. You destroyed their sacred temple. You exposed their lies about controlling phoenix magic." I take a step toward her, and she backs away. "Wrong or right doesn't matter. You're dangerous to them now. So they'll eliminate you."
"I want to go back," she says suddenly. "I'll tell them it was an accident. I'll apologize—"
"They'll kill you the moment you step foot in the capital."
"No, Celeste wouldn't—"
"Celeste was paid to keep you weak and hidden!" My voice rises, and she shrinks back. "She doesn't love you. She never did. You were a paycheck. A prison. And now that you've escaped, she'll help them put you down."
The girl—Aria, her name is Aria—crumbles. She sinks to the ground, hugging her knees, sobbing like her heart is breaking.
It probably is.
I know that feeling.
"Get up," I order. "Crying won't save you."
"I don't want to be saved," she chokes out. "I don't want any of this. I want to go back to before. Before the Selection. Before I knew about magic and phoenixes and—and you." She looks up at me with tear-streaked face. "I wish I'd never touched those flames."
The words shouldn't hurt. They're practical. Reasonable, even.
But they stab into something I thought was dead.
"Then you wish I was still in prison," I say quietly. "Still being tortured. Still screaming in the dark with no hope of escape."
She goes very still.
"That's what your wish means," I continue. "Three more centuries of agony for me. Maybe forever. All so you could keep living your simple little life, serving people who hated you."
"I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did." I turn away again before she sees how much it bothers me. "But don't worry, little bride. I don't blame you. I've met very few humans worth saving. Meridian was one. You..." I trail off. "You're not."
The silence that follows is heavy.
Then, so quietly I almost miss it: "Tell me about her. About my mother."
"No."
"Please. Celeste never told me anything. I don't even know what she looked like—"
"She looked like you," I snap. "Same eyes. Same hair. Same stubborn foolishness that got her killed." My hands clench into fists. "And talking about her won't bring her back. So drop it."
Movement below catches my attention. Soldiers are pouring out of the ruined sanctum, spreading into the city. Searching.
We need to move.
But the girl still isn't standing. She's just sitting there, broken and useless.
Meridian would be so disappointed.
I wanted a warrior. Someone fierce and powerful, worthy of Phoenix Keeper blood. Instead, I got this—a scared child who wants to go back to being a servant.
"Fine," I say. "Stay here. Die. I'll break the bond myself before the backlash kills me. At least then I won't have to watch you cry anymore."
I spread my wings, preparing to leave. It's a bluff—I can't actually break the bond without months of preparation—but maybe fear will motivate her.
"Wait."
I pause.
Aria is standing now, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. Her eyes are red but determined.
"If I'm really your daughter," she says, voice shaking but clear, "then teach me. Teach me how to survive. How to fight. How to use this—" She touches the mark on her chest. "—so I'm not helpless."
"Why? So you can run back to your precious foster family and prove you're worthy?"
"No." She meets my eyes, and for just a second, I see Meridian in her. The same fire. The same refusal to quit. "So I can make them pay for what they did. To me. To you. To my mother."
Something dangerous shifts in my chest.
"Revenge?" I say slowly. "You want revenge?"
"I want justice." Her jaw sets. "They lied. They used me. They hunted my mother and imprisoned you and enslaved phoenixes and—" Her voice breaks. "And I was so stupid. I believed them. I thought I was the problem. I thought if I just tried harder, worked harder, was better..." She shakes her head. "But it was never about me being good enough. They needed me powerless."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not." Fire dances across her fingertips—uncontrolled, wild, but real. "You said I have Phoenix Keeper blood. That I can break their chains. So teach me how."
I study her for a long moment.
She's still weak. Still damaged. Still everything I don't want in an ally.
But she's also Meridian's daughter. My daughter. The last Phoenix Keeper.
And maybe—just maybe—she has a spine after all.
"If I train you," I say, "I won't be gentle. I won't coddle you. And if you fail, if you can't handle it, I'll leave you behind without hesitation."
"I won't fail."
"Everyone fails eventually."
"Then I'll get up and try again." Her eyes are blazing now. "I've been knocked down my whole life. I'm used to it. What I'm not used to is having power. Having a choice. Having—" She swallows hard. "Having someone who might understand."
The bond between us pulses with her determination.
Against my better judgment, I find myself nodding.
"Fine. We'll start tonight. But first—" I grab her wrist. "We need to leave this mountain. They're tracking your magical signature. In about thirty seconds, this peak will be swarming with—"
An arrow whistles past my ear.
I spin. A dozen soldiers are climbing the mountain path, weapons drawn. More are teleporting in through magical portals—priesthood battle mages.
"—with them," I finish.
Aria's eyes go wide. "What do we do?"
"We fly."
"I can't fly!"
"Then hold on." I grab her around the waist and launch us into the air.
She screams as we plummet off the cliff, then screams again as my wings catch the wind and we soar upward. Arrows chase us. Magic blasts explode around us. One catches my wing, tearing through already-damaged feathers.
I grit my teeth against the pain and push harder.
"Where are we going?" Aria shouts over the wind.
"Somewhere they can't follow." I angle toward the horizon, toward the dark mountains that mark the edge of civilization. "Somewhere I can train you without interruption."
"But that's—"
"The Scorched Wastes. Yes." I glance down at her terrified face. "My prison for three hundred years. And now, ironically, the one place you might survive."
A massive explosion of magic erupts behind us—Seraphine herself, riding a wave of stolen phoenix power, her face twisted with fury.
"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME, RAVENOR!" her voice booms across the sky. "THE GIRL IS MINE! SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN MINE!"
"Want to bet?" I pour more power into my wings, ignoring how it tears at my broken body.
We shoot forward, faster than any human magic can follow.
But through the bond, I feel Aria's terror. Feel her heart racing. Feel her looking back at the only home she's ever known, burning and broken behind us.
"It'll be okay," I hear myself say. Then I curse internally because why am I comforting her?
"How?" she whispers. "How will any of this be okay?"
I don't have an answer.
Because honestly? It won't be.
We're being hunted by the most powerful organization in the kingdom. We're both damaged, both barely functional. We have no allies, no resources, no plan beyond "survive."
And we're bound together—the broken phoenix king and the daughter he never wanted.
This is going to be a disaster.
But as we cross into the Scorched Wastes and I feel the familiar deadness of this cursed place, something else occurs to me.
For three hundred years, I was alone here.
Now I'm not.
I have my daughter. The child I thought I'd lost forever.
And maybe—just maybe—that changes everything.
Behind us, thunder rolls.
Seraphine isn't giving up.
The real hunt has just begun.