Aria's POV
"He's lying."
Ravenor's voice is flat and cold as he stares at the priesthood guard collapsed on our floor. The young man—he said his name was Thomas—is barely breathing, his robes soaked with blood.
"He's dying!" I drop to my knees beside Thomas, pressing my hands against the worst wound in his side. Blood seeps through my fingers, hot and sticky. "We have to help him!"
"Why?" Ravenor doesn't move from where he stands by the window. "So he can run back to Seraphine and tell her exactly where we're hiding?"
"He came here for help! Look at him—someone tried to kill him!"
"Or he hurt himself to make his story believable." Ravenor's golden eyes narrow. "The priesthood isn't above using blood magic and sacrifice. Especially if it means finding me."
Through our bond, I feel his certainty. He's not being cruel—he genuinely believes this is a trap.
But I feel something else too. Underneath his suspicion is fear. Not of Thomas or Seraphine. Fear of hoping. Fear of believing someone from the priesthood could actually want to help.
"Please," Thomas gasps, his eyes finding mine. "I'm telling the truth. Seraphine is creating something in the temple's lower chambers. Something made from corrupted phoenix fire and human souls. I saw..." He coughs, blood speckling his lips. "I saw her feed it three prisoners yesterday. It ate them. Just... consumed them and grew stronger."
My stomach twists. "That's impossible."
"Nothing is impossible for someone desperate enough," Ravenor says quietly. He finally moves closer, crouching down to study Thomas with those burning eyes. "You're one of her personal guards. Why betray her now?"
"Because she's planning to feed it my sister next." Thomas's voice breaks. "My little sister is only twelve. She has phoenix blood in her veins—our grandmother was a Phoenix Keeper who escaped the purges. Seraphine found out two weeks ago. She took my sister from our home, and I couldn't stop her. I tried to—"
He doesn't finish. His eyes roll back and he passes out.
"He's telling the truth," I whisper.
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do." I look up at Ravenor. "Because I know what it's like to watch someone hurt people you love and not be able to stop them. To feel powerless while everything falls apart."
Something flickers across Ravenor's face. Pain, maybe. Or recognition.
He reaches out and touches Thomas's forehead. Golden light flows from his fingertips into the young man's body. The wounds start closing, skin knitting back together.
"You're healing him?" I breathe.
"I'm keeping him alive long enough to tell us what he knows." Ravenor's voice is hard, but his hands are gentle. "If he's lying, I'll know. The phoenix fire can taste deception."
Thomas's eyes flutter open. He stares up at Ravenor with something between terror and awe.
"Thank you," he whispers.
"Don't thank me yet." Ravenor sits back. "Tell us everything. What exactly is Seraphine creating?"
Over the next three days, Thomas tells us the truth about Eldrath's "divine" magic.
And it's so much worse than I imagined.
We sit in the abandoned tower while Thomas explains how the priesthood doesn't channel phoenix power—they steal it. Three hundred years ago, they discovered rituals to trap phoenixes and drain their essence, creating artificial magic that made them seem chosen by heaven.
"But phoenixes can't be killed easily," Thomas says, his voice shaking. "So Seraphine found a better way. She learned how to chain them. Keep them alive but barely. Drain them slowly over decades."
"And when one died?" Ravenor asks, his voice dangerously quiet.
"She'd capture another." Thomas won't meet his eyes. "By the time I was old enough to understand what was happening, there were thirty phoenixes chained beneath the Sacred Sanctum. Thirty beautiful creatures trapped in the dark, screaming silently while we walked above them and pretended we were holy."
I feel sick. "And nobody stopped it?"
"Those who tried disappeared." Thomas's hands shake. "My father was a junior priest. When I was eight, he discovered what they were doing. He tried to free one of the phoenixes. They found him three days later. His body was burned so badly we could only identify him by his wedding ring."
Ravenor stands abruptly and walks to the window. His wings are rigid, shadows dancing between the feathers.
Through our bond, I feel his rage building like a storm about to break.
"When Ravenor tried to stop them," Thomas continues, looking at me now, "Seraphine used the most forbidden magic in existence. She bound him with celestial chains—magic that uses a phoenix's own power against them. She turned him into her ultimate power source. For three hundred years, she's been draining him, using his essence to fuel the entire priesthood's magic."
"That's why they needed me imprisoned," Ravenor says without turning around. "Dead, I'm useless. But alive and suffering? I'm an endless well of power they can drink from forever."
My chest aches. Three hundred years of being used. Drained. Tortured. All so people like Seraphine could pretend they were blessed by heaven.
"But I escaped," Ravenor turns back to us, and his smile is terrifying. "Because the phoenix fire itself rebelled. It chose Aria—someone with Phoenix Keeper blood—specifically to break my chains."
"That's what I don't understand," Thomas says. "The fire has been under Seraphine's control for centuries. Why would it suddenly choose someone she didn't approve?"
"Because it's dying." Ravenor's eyes meet mine. "You think your selection was a blessing? The fire chose you because it's been corrupted and poisoned for so long, it's barely alive. It probably thought it could consume you quickly—burn through your untrained body in a few weeks—and escape its prison through your death."
The words hit like a slap. "So I'm just... what? A convenient sacrifice?"
"You're a mistake," Ravenor says bluntly. "The fire underestimated you. It didn't expect you to survive the bonding. Didn't expect you to have enough strength to actually free me instead of just dying and taking the bond with you."
Part of me wants to scream at him. To tell him he's wrong, that I'm not a mistake.
But through our bond, I feel the truth he's hiding beneath the cruel words. He doesn't believe I'm a mistake. He's trying to make me angry. Trying to push me away because caring about me terrifies him.
"If I'm such a mistake," I say quietly, "why did you catch me yesterday when I stumbled during training?"
He freezes. "What?"
"You caught me. Stopped me from falling. You also brought me water three times without me asking. And this morning, you moved your wing to block the sun from my face while I was sleeping."
Thomas looks between us, confused.
Ravenor's jaw tightens. "I need you alive. That's all."
"Liar." I stand up, ignoring how my legs still shake from magical exhaustion. "The bond doesn't just let me feel your big emotions. I feel everything. Every time you want to help but stop yourself. Every time you choose to be gentle but pretend you're not. Every time you—"
"Enough!" His power flares, making the air crackle.
But I don't back down. Not anymore.
"You're scared of me," I tell him. "Not because I'm dangerous or because I'm a mistake. You're scared because I'm your daughter, and you already lost my mother. You think if you keep me at a distance, it won't hurt as much when I die."
The silence that follows is deafening.
Thomas slowly stands. "I should... give you two some privacy."
"No." Ravenor's voice is cold again. "Tell us about this weapon Seraphine is creating. The creature that can kill phoenixes."
Thomas swallows hard. "She calls it the Void Phoenix. It's made from corrupted phoenix fire, human souls, and something else. Something ancient that should have stayed buried." He pauses. "She's been feeding it Phoenix Keeper descendants. Their blood makes it stronger. And when it's fully grown—"
The tower door explodes inward.
We all spin around as figures pour through—not priesthood guards in white robes, but creatures made of shadow and flame. Twisted things that were once phoenixes but are now monsters.
Six of them. All with dead, empty eyes.
"No," Ravenor breathes, and for the first time, I hear actual fear in his voice. "Not them. Not here."
"You know these things?" I gasp.
"They're Phoenix Hunters." Thomas backs away, his face pale. "Seraphine's failed experiments. She tried to create controllable phoenix weapons years ago. They went mad. Killed dozens before she locked them away in the deepest prisons."
"She released them," Ravenor's wings spread wide. "She released her monsters to hunt us."
The creatures move forward, their mouths opening to reveal too many teeth. A sound comes out—not quite a scream, not quite a roar. Something worse. Something that makes my bones ache and my head spin.
"Get behind me!" Ravenor shouts.
But I can't move. The sound is paralyzing me, freezing my muscles.
The lead Phoenix Hunter lunges.
Ravenor's black flames explode outward, meeting the creature mid-leap. They collide in a blast of fire and shadow that shakes the entire tower.
"Aria, RUN!" Ravenor screams.
But before I can move, one of the creatures circles around the fight. Its dead eyes lock onto me.
And I realize something that makes my blood turn to ice.
It's not looking at me with hunger or rage.
It's looking at me with recognition.
Like it knows exactly what I am.
Like it's been sent specifically for me.
The creature smiles—a horrible, too-wide smile—and speaks in a voice that sounds like crackling flames:
"The mistress sends her regards, Phoenix Heart. She says your mother screamed beautifully when she died. Let's see if you scream the same way."