Scattered Ashes

by Annie Anderson

  I’d always thought Phoenixes were indestructible. My parents dying so unexpectedly convinced me we were not. The right blade in the wrong hands can steal our lives us just as easily as a human. We were supposed to be good. We were meant to keep the balance – to ferry souls on to be reborn.

  Never to fight. Never to steal life.

  I don’t know where Julian lost his way. Only ten years my senior, he knew our parents better than I ever got to, but I remember them well enough. They never would have allowed something like this. I was fifteen years old when our parents were killed – the circumstances of which were still a mystery to us. We never got the full story from Iva or the head families. We never got to put them to rest. One day they were here, and the next we were orphans. Julian became my only family in an instant, and then he started to change.

  It wasn’t the change of a man losing family. It was the change of a man losing his mind. Brick by brick, stone by stone, everything that once was my fun, good-natured brother was lost once he became a Soldier, but tonight was different. It wasn’t until I became a Soldier myself did I realize how wrong everything we’d been told actually was, how wrong Julian was.

  Tonight he armed himself – not to protect but to murder an innocent woman all because our Primary told him to. Taking everything we stood for and throwing it away like garbage.

  I tried talking to him. I tried getting him to see reason until I realized what I had to do as soon as the word kill passed his lips.

  I just hoped I had the courage to do it.

  * * *

  “Jules?” I asked as we walked from our modest house into the neighboring forest, staying on the path that led to a steep cliff.

  “What is it, Rhys? I don’t have much time,” he said as he adjusted his blades and picked up his pace.

  “I want to go with you. Keep an eye out for you. This isn’t what we usually do. I’m worried,” I explained, hoping he didn’t see through me. I was his little brother, always tagging along when I wasn’t wanted so my behavior could be attributed to that instead of what I was really doing – being a Judas.

  His steps stuttered, and he looked back at me, relief washing over his face as he smiled.

  “Sure, little brother. I’d love to have you with me,” he said, and it was worse than a knife to the gut. Because the relief I heard in his voice wasn’t that I was coming with him or that I accepted his mission. It was because I was falling in line. He was worried he would have to end me because of my behavior.

  Because I wouldn’t conform.

  I forced a small smile to my lips as I waited for the ache in my chest to ease enough for me to breathe and for his back to turn before I let it fall.

  “Jules, did they ever tell you why? I mean, I understand following orders, but this is so far out of our norm…” I trailed off as he turned back to me, leveling me with a single glance, the look so venomous I was surprised I didn’t keel over right there.

  “I don’t need to know why, Rhys. It is not my place to know. It isn’t yours either,” his voice a sharp whisper as if he were afraid someone would overhear him in this isolated section of forest.

  “I understand, brother,” I murmured and plodded along behind him, my stomach churning.

  The brother I knew was truly gone.

  My eyes stung with the tears of a boy who had just lost the last of his family. I kept them at bay, but the loss still dug deep into my chest. Julian – the same brother who tended to me when I broke my arm falling from a tree, the one who played with me when our parents were busy with the counsel, the one who would pick family over his friends at the drop of a hat – was lost to me. He felt different. He felt evil. I knew it in my soul, this wasn’t the first life he would take, and if I didn’t stop him, it wouldn’t be the last.

  We made it to the edge of the cliff and phased in an instant – Julian much faster than I – spread our wings and soared from the precipice, the wind roaring in our ears and kissing our cheeks. I wanted to feel free, but I did not. I felt worse than numb.

  I was dead inside.

  Because my brother had to be stopped. He had to. He didn’t care that he was blithely running off to kill someone. It didn’t matter if it was a woman – well, it did to me, but in the grand scheme it didn’t – and he didn’t even have the decency to ask why. He honestly didn’t care.

  Our destination was remote, a modest log cabin no more than fifty miles north. We landed in the thick of the forest a few miles from the house and waited for the full cover of night, letting our Fireskin die, our wings tuck back into our backs, and phasing back to our normal forms.

  I wanted to hug him, I wanted to talk about the good times, but I didn’t. I didn’t think I could take him being the big brother I missed. If I did, I wouldn’t follow through.

  When the moon finally made her appearance, Julian stood and marched at a quick clip in the direction of the cabin. He didn’t make it to the trees before a large man formed seemingly from smoke right in front of him.

  The man was tall – even taller than me and I was over six feet – and had midnight hair pulled back from his face in a leather thong. His face was worse than deadly, and he made me feel small, which at that point was not the best feeling in the world.

  He looked past my shocked brother and asked, “You Rhys?”

  “Yes. This is Julian, my brother. He plans to kill your Queen,” I murmured, but I had no doubt the both of them heard me.

  Julian turned back to me, his face reading betrayal, anger, confusion.

  “We are not made to kill innocents, brother. I can’t let you murder someone, Julian,” I murmured, my voice laced with the apology I could never give, and I couldn’t give it because I wasn’t sorry for doing this, I was only sorry I was losing the very last person I could call family.

  “You can choose. Leave with your brother or die here with me. Either way, you aren’t getting past me, child. I’ll let you go, but if you take another step toward that house, I’ll kill you before you can take another breath,” the man I knew only as West growled.

  Julian didn’t hesitate, moving like a lightning strike toward the large man, but West was faster. Julian’s neck was snapped in an instant, his inert body falling to the dirt. West looked up from my brother’s still form, waiting for me to make a decision.

  “That way won’t kill us, you know,” I said, “He’ll come back.”

  I tried to keep the sorrow from my voice, feeling like a child next to the big man, but I was unsuccessful.

  “Oh, I know. I just didn’t plan on killing your brother in front of you,” he replied, the compassion in his voice more than I could take.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, unable to bring my voice any louder. I felt almost dead inside.

  “You’re doing the right thing, and as soon as you name it, you may call on any favor from the King,” West said, giving me a slight bow of his head before grabbing my brother’s hand and disappearing in a swath of black smoke.

  I have a feeling I’ll be needing that favor very soon.

  * * *

  I had no plans to go back to my Legion, no plans to ever see Aurelia’s face again, to never, ever be bound to her. But life does not always go the way you plan it, and my life has been one wrong turn after another. I was leaving everything and everyone I knew, headed toward a secluded cabin in the Canadian Rockies I’d set up before my Selection.

  After my parent’s death, I didn’t trust my Legion. I didn’t trust Iva, and I didn’t trust my species. I wanted to, sure, but I couldn’t – not when my inquiries were met with a bunch of I-don’t-knows and quit-asking-questions. It doesn’t inspire much confidence in a man. So I did the only thing I knew to do and made a plan – trusting that if I waited and played the long game, I would be fine.

  I was an idiot.

  When daylight crested I was still in the Oregon territory, my travel hindered by poor night vision and the cold, autumn air. I was tired, and I figured that was the only reason they caught me. W
ell, that and because I was a complete moron. Let’s not forget that little fact.

  Honestly, how much of a fool could I be? Did I really think that a woman – an Oracle of the highest order – who would demand the death of an innocent wouldn’t be keeping an eye on the man who was too stupid to stop asking questions. My parents were dead. I didn’t know why, but I was pretty sure who did it. Julian was probably gone too at this point. The guilt was a knife to the gut.

  But I would have preferred the knife of guilt to the red hot Morganite knife that currently protruded from my belly.

  “Once again, Mr. Stevens, do you accept the bond or not?” Iva asked me for the hundredth time. Dressed in a long white dress, she looked like a macabre angel with dark red splotches of my blood splashed all over her. Her white hair matched her dress, at odds with her youthful face. I didn’t know how old she was, I just knew she’d had plenty of time in her life to learn the art of torture. She was a master at it.

  Each time I said no, I received another slash, another cut, another burn. You would think Phoenixes couldn’t burn, but you would be wrong. When you heat a Morganite knife over an open flame and press it into our skin, we burn just like everyone else.

  “Well?” she asked as she tossed the bloody blade back and forth between her delicate but deadly hands. “I don’t have all day, dearie. It is time to make a decision. Torture? Or the bond. It isn’t the worst thing, you know. Come on, Rhys. Tick tock, dear.”

  “No,” I rasped. I wouldn’t win Aurelia that way. If I said yes to Iva, if I said yes to bonding Aurelia to me… I would be begging her to hate me. Soldier or no, it wouldn’t matter if my life would be tied to hers. If I took away her choices, she would hate me forever.

  “Now, now, Rhys. That was the wrong answer, she murmured as she ripped that blade from my gut and ran it from my collarbone past my navel, pressing just enough for the blood to well.

  And I screamed for maybe the hundredth or thousandth time.

  “Do. You. Accept?”

  I couldn’t draw a breath large enough to answer her, so I just shook my head. And it went on again. And again. And again. Until I couldn’t take another cut or stab or slice or burn.

  When I finally said yes it felt worse than when I handed my brother over to the Wraiths.

  RHYS

  The slow burn of the aged and well-iced scotch ignites its way down my throat, setting my stomach on fire. It’s 11:00 am on a Wednesday, and I’m sitting in the game room bar with a three hundred dollar bottle of scotch, slowly but surely becoming an alcoholic.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been this angry. Angry enough to fuck up and get myself hit. Angry enough to be a dumbshit and get her nose bloodied as well as mine. At least my drinking won’t affect her, but the consolation is slight.

  Why did I have to ask questions? She was warming to me. She was hugging me. She slept practically wrapped around me last night, and I had to go and lose what little ground I had by pushing. I knew who she was dreaming about. And I knew how bad it must have been for her, wounded and in agony, lighting Lucien’s funeral pyre. He was my friend once, so many years ago.

  Before I became a Soldier.

  Before he fell in love with Aurelia. Before he used her to get back at me for a destiny I could never have changed.

  Before Iva made me choose between my old friend and the life of the woman I loved. I’ll never regret choosing her, even if killing him put a black mark on my soul.

  It wasn’t the first black mark to reside there.

  Lucien was a good man. Flawed, surely, but he was honorable. And I knew he loved her. But Iva has her ways. That miserable bitch has enough tricks up her sleeve to turn any self-respecting person into her little puppet.

  I tried not to hurt him, but whatever Iva did to him - whatever spell she used - turned my once mild-mannered friend into a crazed, knife-wielding psychopath. I don’t think Lucien had even touched a blade since we were children, even then, practicing with wooden swords pretending to be Soldiers. He preferred books, or at least he pretended to, making the Scholar position he so loathed into his hobby.

  I slowly spin the tumbler in the growing condensation pooling on the bar top, watching the amber liquid swirl in the glass, melting the ice. Suddenly, the wall opens to the staircase beyond, and a freshly showered Aurelia and Carver come through the hidden door. Facing her right now would be too much for me to bear, so I spin on my stool, nabbing the bottle as I leave the room.

  I wish I knew how long we were going to stay holed up here. Don’t get me wrong, the house is amazing, the food is amazing, the people… blah, blah, blah. It’s all fucking jim-dandy, but what are we doing here?

  John is stonewalling me, refusing to reveal his sources inside the Legion. Aurelia hates me. I’m ready to dismember Kyle and Aidan for trying to touch her. And if Carver talks to her one more time I’m going to murder him. I don’t give a shit if he’s gay.

  John’s waiting for something. What that is, I’m not sure. While the added firepower would be beneficial in keeping Aurelia safe, I’m seriously contemplating kidnapping my charge and getting the fuck out of here.

  I take the stairs two at a time, climbing each flight all the way up to the loft. Luckily it’s empty, and I can be pissed off in peace. I have half a mind to steal Aurelia’s keys and take her car on a joyride, but she’d figure out a way to torture me without breaking my skin for that infraction. She’s good at that.

  I choose a seat in a leather armchair close to the south window facing the lake and slump down into it. It’s July, but the water is probably still cold from the late season snows and runoff. What I wouldn’t give to not be mired down with the anxiety of impending war and for once just have a day to breathe easy. Maybe a day on the lake in the middle of summer, to go fishing or grill out or anything but be a hamster on this wheel of training to keep busy and waiting for the sky to fall.

  Just one damn day.

  I hear Aurelia’s footsteps behind me slowly scaling the stairs.

  “Rhys,” she calls softly.

  I turn my eyes from the window in acknowledgment but say nothing. Honestly, I’m afraid something might set her off and for the first time, she almost sounds sweet.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  “For what?”

  “For blowing up our room. For making you bleed during my PTSD freakout. For losing my fucking mind. For being a class-A bitch. Pretty much the entire day.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “That easy? I don’t need to get on my hands and knees and grovel?”

  The mental image of Aurelia crawling naked across a messy bed flashes across my mind. I almost growl out loud at the thought, feeling my jaw tighten, my eyes going half-mast while the rest of me grows taut. I hastily look out the window to hide my body’s response to the seemingly inane comment, praying she doesn’t notice my reaction to a simple sentence.

  “Nope,” I manage to choke out, proud my voice doesn’t break like a damn adolescent.

  “Well. Thanks. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Aurelia?” I call out as she reaches the third step down.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  She nods her head and, God help me, her bottom lip trembles.

  “I-it’s going to take a little while for me to forgive you. I know you have a side to the story. I know you have things to tell me, and I have been unwilling to hear it. I’m sorry I can’t give you better than that, but I’m afraid if I forgive you, I’ll have to take the burden of all the guilt I’ve piled on your shoulders. And I can’t bear the weight. I have to blame you because if I don’t, I have to start blaming me. And I won’t survive the guilt. So I’m going to have to hate you a little while longer, if you don’t mind,” she finishes her speech on a whisper, her voice barely reaching my ears.

  The tears have broken free of her lashes, running in rivulets down her cheeks as she swiftly makes her way back down the stairs.

  Apparen
tly, just one day is too much to ask for.

  9

  No One Saved Him

  AURELIA - 1855

  They came after I sent Lucien on to the Otherside. After Rhys left me alone in that forest. After I called upon my meager knowledge of the funeral rights and sent Lucien to his rest. While I lost the child in my belly and slowly bled more and more lifeblood. I’d wanted to die, but I never wanted this. Soldiers came, and I fought. I fought so hard, but it wasn’t enough. I was beaten and tortured. Iva loved hurting me, loved it when she drew any measure of blood from me. I think it dawned on me very quickly what she was doing.

  She was making Rhys bleed, torturing us both for something I’d done. For wanting to leave, for wanting my own life. I was to blame. I would feel sorry for him if he hadn’t taken everything from me.

  I was bleeding and shackled to a stone table with a hundred tiny cuts, several burns, and five puncture wounds scored into my skin. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, at least, but I felt like hell.

  Nicola had lied. I wouldn’t see my daughter free of the Legion. I wouldn’t see her breathe or live or smile. I hated her more and more each passing second even if she wasn’t the one who made me bleed. Because she was the one who lied.

  I lost consciousness several times, so I didn’t know how long I’d been there. It felt like years, decades, centuries of pain, but it was more than likely just days. Then I heard a commotion outside my cell door and the distinct sound of bones breaking – a neck snapping. The door opened, and the absolute last person I wanted to see stood there.

  He reached for me, and I shuddered away as far as my shackles would allow. I didn’t want his dirty murdering hands on me.

  Rhys’ face went from relief to agony as he made his way across the room and gently removed my bonds. His hands were soft, but I didn’t want them anywhere near me.

  “Don’t touch me,” I rasped.

  “As soon as I get you safe, you never have to see me again.”