Torn From Stone (The Phoenix Series Book 1)

by Sarah Rockwood

  When I had been Bound, The Guard told me that only an extreme act of power could break the Binding, that such an act would be felt by them and considered a breaking of the law of The Void. They would Banish me. I knew what Banishment meant. It meant I would be forced from The Void, that I could never return. And worse still, they would take my wings.

  The Archer suddenly convulsed and cried out in pain. I placed a hand on his forehead and tried to sooth him as the spasm rocked his body. It passed as quickly as it came and he lay there on the cold ground panting. I watch the beads of sweat form on his brow, and I knew that as horrible as the punishment would be, I couldn’t leave The Archer here like this. I couldn’t leave anyone like this. Resolved, I prepared to break the ancient laws.

  I knelt beside his body and forced my wings to open. They stretched the length of his body and quivered as I held them in place. I closed my eyes and focused on my heart. My power pulsed there, trapped behind the Binding. In my mind’s eye, it looked like a cage, cold iron bars that surrounded my core. I examined every bar, every seam, trying to find a weakness. I found one. The joint between two of the bars appeared weak, so I pushed against it with my will. After a few tense moments, it bent apart, making a small space. I gathered my heart against the space and sent my energy at the gap. I felt my heart pulse and grow as I focused all my power towards it. Soon the bars had bent even further, and I was able, with a raw cry from my throat, to throw them off. The metaphysical cage disintegrated, and I watched the shards of iron float off into the ether. Now that my heart was free, I pulsed with power. My limbs felt lighter and my wings weightless, their fine bones flexing and stretching. A blue glow formed in the centre of my chest. I straddled his body.

  I lowered my face to the wound and drew in a deep breath. The blue glow of power filled my lungs as the taste of burning meat slid down my throat. I exhaled in a long cool line and watched blue mist flow over the burned coating of skin. It loosened and freed itself from his body, forming tiny black scrolls that skittered across his chest and disappeared on the grey ground.

  With the dead skin gone I could clearly see the wound. The edges were so very raw and pink, the middle a wet ruin like the gaping maw of an injured animal. Bones broke the surface, their shattered edges leaving splinters to swim in the mess of ligament and tissue. I knew that to heal this much damage I had to start from the inside. I took a deep breath and lowered my hands into the pool of flesh. I could feel it squishing and separating under the pressure of my hands as I pressed them deeper into the centre of his body.

  My hands found the deep muscles of his spine and the power within me changed to a brilliant green. I poured it down through my body and out my pelvis. It hit his body like a wave and Travelled the short distance to where my hands were buried in his belly. The power met my hands, and the circuit was complete. I fed the power round and round through his flesh and mine. I lost all sense of place and Time. I thought of nothing but Healing the flesh beneath my hands, under my body.

  The wound began to heal and as it did it rippled and churned, trying to force my hands to the surface. The Archer cried out beneath me. He began to writhe in pain, I could feel him try to control it but still his back arched, and his legs shook beneath me.

  When the flesh began squeezing in on my hands, I slid them out and placed them, glistening with his blood, upon the still raw surface. The circuit of power turned from green to a red the colour of his blood, and the air between us grew hot. I could see his skin healing under my hands. I watched the burnt patches be taken over by the deep platinum of his skin.

  The Archer began to thrash under me. I held him tight to the ground, tightening my legs and pressing my pelvis into him as I drove the Healing forces of my body through him as the last chunks of carbon left his body. He screamed, rearing from the ground with a ragged manly sound. When the cry was finished he fell back, eyes closed, mouth open. I took my hands from his chest. He was Healed. The power receded, making me shiver.

  With a gasp he sat up, putting his body parallel to mine. He swayed for a moment, rolling smoothly from side to side. Eyes still closed, he explored his torso with his hands. I watched his strong fingers move over the newly formed muscle. Testing his power, he pushed his right hand through the flesh to his ribs. I heard the rib crack, but he did not pull it free. The bones quickly re-knit as his sigh filled the space between us. He brought his fingers back to the surface. They were dry. He let them linger there a moment longer, breathing deeply into his palms. Then he opened his eyes.

  They were molten silver. I could feel the breeze of his breath caressing my mouth. We were so close; if we breathed together, our bodies would touch.

  “Thank you.”

  I didn’t have time to respond. Fatigue took me with an intensity I had never known. Breaking the Binding and Healing his flesh had taken so much from me. My wings went limp, and I wilted. I would have fallen backwards had he not wrapped his arms around me. He drew me to him and rose to his feet as if I weighed nothing. Scooping up my legs, he carried me to the tree and sat with his back against it, cradling me in his arms. My wings lay still behind me, their colours reflecting against the sheen of his skin. His voice moved softly through the air.

  “I will not tell The Guard.” The Guard. In the thralls of Healing I had forgotten all about them. I felt panic begin to seep into my bones and I tried to get up, to escape. “Peace, Phoenix. I will not let them harm you.” I could only manage a whisper.

  “Truly?”

  “You have my word. After what you did for me today…” He brushed my cheek, raising my eyes to meet his. “…I have never felt that kind of union.”

  He kissed me, gently, like he wasn’t used to the action but wanted it all the same. His lips were soft, nothing like the cold metal they so resembled.

  He pulled back from me, and I searched his eyes. They looked like mine. Not blue and bright, their silver glow could not be denied, but alone, and searching. Just like mine. He returned my gaze, and suddenly there was no Void, no Guard, no punishments, just the female of the species in the arms of a man who could know her pain as deeply as she knew his and a union as old and primal as Time itself.

  A look of understanding filled his face, and our mouths met eagerly. This time his kiss had more weight, and I drew him in with my mouth. Our passions flared, and our arms found each other. His power broke over me like a wave, warming my lips, restoring me, sending sparks through my heart and flesh. Trust broke over my skin, and I melted into him, hope filling me as we moved through each other’s hearts. All this time I thought I needed a mirror of myself, that without it I would always be alone, but here he was. So different, so perfect.

  And in that kiss, I knew that neither of us would ever be alone again.

  He broke the kiss and spoke against my lips. “I will always protect you.” I rubbed his cheek with my hand. He nuzzled against it as his voice grew pained. “But I must replace the Binding, or they will know what has happened here.”

  I nodded my understanding and moved to my knees. He joined me and, under the lonely branches of the tree, replaced the Binding. As he slid his ribs back into place, my limbs grew heavy, and my wings wilted.

  “We will find a way out of this.” He spoke as he helped me to my feet. “I promise you.”

  I brought his hands to my lips and laid a kiss in the centre of each palm. He smiled.

  Then everything went black.

  33

  The vision had broken. I was back in the circle.

  “Fuck.”

  I wiped roughly at the tears that had covered my cheeks. The Archer. Archer. My Archer. He had been helping me all along. More than helping.

  “Fuck!”

  I turned to Archer’s body. He lay on his back, one hand still clasped around the handle of the bat. I tried to get up and run to him, but my body had been through too much, I was too weak to stand.

  “Fine. I’ll do it the hard way.”

  I crawled to him.

  There
were splinters of wood all over the ground. I tried to brush them from my path as I went, but they still dug into my knees and hands as I moved towards him. When I finally got to his side, I could see the extent of the wound I’d given him. His chest rose and fell with the shallow rhythm of his breath, and the broken half of the bat was deep in his belly. The edges of the bat were rough and sharp and had torn the surface of his flesh as it entered. Wood and bone mingled in grotesque chunks, blood poured down his sides to create a small pool around him. Starring down at him I felt incredibly guilty. And angry.

  “Why didn’t you say something?!” I bellowed. “I didn’t know! I didn’t remember anything!” I began to cry again and shouted through the tears. “Why did you pull the bat deeper!” I pounded my fist on the ground near his head. “Asshole! Why!” He stirred.

  “I…” The sound was small and dry, but he was speaking. “I failed you.”

  “What!” The guilt in me vanished. He swallowed and spoke again.

  “I failed you.”

  “Oh, I heard you. It’s just pretty fucking stupid. You ‘failed me’ so you let me kill you! Great! Welcome back Phoenix, here’s a nice big glass of guilt for you!” He raised his eyebrows at me and gave me the look that I’d become so familiar with here in The Void. “Yes. I’ve changed.” He gave a slight nod. “Just lie still,” I ordered gruffly. I surveyed his body. The wound looked as bad as the one I had Healed in my memory. If I did it once maybe I could do it again. “Now let’s see if I can remember how to do this.”

  I positioned myself beside him, near the wound, and sat back on my heels. I closed my eyes and stretched my wings out as far as they would go. It felt so good that I had to take a peak. “Cool!” I whispered.

  And it did look cool. In the initial panic after the vision, I hadn’t internalised that I now had two wings, but here they were, stretched out in all their glory. They felt weightless and strong at my back. Just seeing them there made power pulse deep in my body. I closed my eyes again and focused on the power. It was deep red in colour and formed a tight orb in the centre of my pelvis. I breathed into the orb and felt it expand, I continued to send it my energy, and it rose up through my body and filled my chest. The orb began to spin, sending sparks of electric power through my limbs. I felt it crackle and spark within my body, my wings hummed with it.

  I opened my eyes and moved to straddle him. This time my wings felt vital, and they moved with me, making the motion nearly effortless. From this vantage point, the details of the wound were painfully clear. The bright blue of the bat looked odd against his silvery skin. He still had one hand on the handle, so I gently unwrapped his fingers from the wood and lay his hand at his side, outside the reach of the blood that had pooled there. I then placed my own hands around the shaft, moving them slightly to get a better grip. I could feel the grain of the wood against my skin. I took a deep breath and willed the red power within me down into my hands. It had the energy of fire and yet felt peaceful in my veins. The wood began to smoke under my hands. I whispered to The Archer.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  As he drew in, I pulled. The wood did not move as smoothly as I had hoped and my wings spread to steady me as I threw all my strength into the pull. He cried out as I yanked: once with the initial movement, then a second time as I jerked the bulk of the wood free. I tossed the wood aside, barely registering the drops of blood that followed it in an arc. Archer panted beneath me, but I ignored his sounds. With the bat gone, a deep hole was left in its wake, it filled quickly with blood.

  My hands still held their fire, and without hesitation, I plunged them into the wound. The blood felt cool against them. My power reacted without coaxing, and suddenly I was filled with a blazing green light. It covered my sight, tinting everything with its glow, making Archer shine. It crackled in my bones, sent flickers of lightning between the tips of my wings, and flooded into Archer with incredible force. It sought out every molecule of him, caressed every bone. It found the chunks of wood and sent them flying from his body, up through his skin, forcing me to turn my head from the bigger shards. Once the wood was gone, the repairs began. I could feel his veins and arteries become smooth and unmarred. I felt his ribs, his precious tools of power, reform their sensual curve around his organs. I felt it as the blood that had left his body was drawn back to him like a delicious drink through a straw. I felt it all, only dimly aware that it was me that was doing it. It was me. My power. Phoenix. I was Healing him.

  His flesh began to press in around my hands, a familiar grip, so I slid them from his body and placed them on his belly. They glistened and for a moment memory and reality blurred. As the surface of his skin became whole, my green-hued power began to fold in on itself. It left my vision, pulled away from my limbs, and finally rested, as a tiny orb, just inside my heart. I looked down at The Archer. He was Healed.

  34

  “You Healed him.” Noiryn’s voice gently broke the silence. Benyst’s a harsh contrast,“Why did you go and do that?”

  I was silent for a moment, my attention on The Archer. Although he now breathed deeply, he still had not opened his eyes. I caressed his cheek, wiping away some of the splattered blood, as I answered the question.

  “The wings showed me the truth. He’s my… friend.” I climbed off of him and laid a gentle kiss on his forehead. “Please Archer, wake up.” His eyes fluttered but did not open. “Please,” I asked again. Suddenly a great ragged breath rocked his body, and a coughing fit ensued. It rolled him to his side, and I rubbed his back until it subsided. He spat out a small mouthful of blood and then spoke, laughter in his voice.

  “That’s twice now.”

  “Twice what?” Benyst barked. Archer answered, but his eyes were only for me.

  “That she has saved me,” I responded with a small smile and a hint of sarcasm.

  “I just can’t stand to see you bleed.”

  Noiryn laughed first, and soon we all joined her. Even Benyst. The laughter grabbed at the chunks of tension and pain in our little group, flinging them out into The Void. While the others wiped their eyes, I looked at The Archer. There was a levity to him that had not been present in my visions. Gone was the dark and silent instrument of power, he appeared softer now, joy infiltrated his bones. Maybe it was just my energy coursing through him from the Healing, but he looked happier.

  As the laughter died down, I began to take in the circle around us. Remnants of the battle lay strewn on the ground, some the daises had fallen over, and their silky coverings flowed in the breeze. The surrounding trees had bent as if my power had pushed them backwards when it hastened to leave the circle. Other than the bits of battle flotsam, the circle was deserted.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked Benyst and Noiryn.

  “Oh.” The laughter died in Noiryn’s voice. “They left.”

  “She can see that!” Benyst added. “They left while you were melding with the wing. Those cowards Cosima and Ganaraj…” He pointed at the spots in the circle where they had been. “Took off as soon as they woke up, dragging Baba with them.” I stared out at the horizon.

  “Sid and Yeren?”

  “They left too. Yeren didn’t say anything, took a look at you and ran. Sid said…” He cleared his throat. “He said he was sorry. Then he left.”

  I thought that would have made me cry, but nothing came. I had seen Sid sell me out in the vision, but I still couldn’t believe he had meant to. There had to be a reason. He’d come back, eventually, and we would sort things out. As for Yeren? Well, honestly, I didn’t really care, but if I happened across her one day, I’d definitely want a word with her.

  “What would you like to do now, Phoenix?” Noiryn asked gently. My head started to feel heavy, and my eyes lids drooped a little. I caught myself quickly, but I knew Archer had seen it.

  “Sleep.” He said. “You need to sleep.”

  “Normally…” I gave him a lazy yet wicked grin. “I don’t like being told what I need…” I yawned. “But I’m
too tired to argue.”

  Archer helped me to stand, he was completely healed and again lifted me as if I weighed nothing. As he helped me, I heard the soft brush of my wings on the ground. They were huge, as long as I was tall. I motioned one around me and ran my hands down the feathers. They were so soft.

  “How do I go home with these?” I quietly asked the air.

  “Phoenix…” The Archer responded. “No one will bother you at your home.”

  “But my parents, my friends!” Fatigue had opened the gates, and panic rushed in. “They can’t see me like this! I can’t go home like this!”

  Benyst moved in to calm me.

  “My Lady, you have a home here, like mine, and Noiryn’s.”

  ”I do? But… but…” I stammered. “What about my apartment?”

  “Phoenix,” He let loose a gravelly chuckle. “Time does not exist for us, remember? You will be able to go back, to the very moment you left, but first, you need to rest. Go to your home here, and when you feel rested, we’ll show you how to Travel back and forth.”

  “You will?”

  Noiryn beamed at me.

  “Of course.”

  “Okay.” I steadied myself. “Where is my home?” Benyst and Noiryn exchanged a quick glance.

  “Well…” She spoke. “We don’t really know.” Before I could freak out yet again, Archer rescued me.

  “I do.”

  All our heads snapped to him as we chorused: