The Phoenix Prince

by Kristen Gupton

  “No, Keir!” Jerris yelped, scrambling over to his side. He put his hands on Keiran’s shoulder, rolling him onto his back.

  The prince gave no response, his body relaxing completely. His face was smeared with blood, devoid of any active expression. Keiran’s eyes were partially open, staring up at the sky as the first of the rain started to fall down into them.

  Jerris sat back and brought his hands, stained with the prince’s blood, up to his own chest. “Oh God, no, please no… Keir, wake up!”

  The other members of the hunting party finally arrived, having spotted Keiran’s horse back out on the road. They stopped short when they found Jerris sitting there, the prince dead on the ground.

  The guard looked up at the other men, tears in his eyes. “It was… it was a trap. He’s gone.”

  The others slowly dismounted their own horses and gathered around. They all nodded dumbly as Jerris gave the best description of the events that he could under the circumstances. Any one of them could see the arrow’s location had been as close to perfect as they got. There was an unspoken consensus that nothing could have been done to save the prince’s life. Nothing.

  Wanting to get Keiran out of the rain and mud, Jerris struggled to his feet and then bent and scooped up his body from the ground. He walked to the nearest building and entered, placing Keiran down on the old wooden floor.

  The other guards studied the scene and searched the assassin’s body, but found no evidence to point to where he’d come from or who had hired him. They entered the building he’d fallen from and found the floor within stained with blood, punctuated with strange hoof prints. Someone or something else had been there but was long gone. They set about searching the area, but found absolutely no signs of anyone, just a horse they presumed had belonged to the killer.

  * * *

  Jerris sat in the empty building next to Keiran’s body, not hiding his tears now that they were alone. He grew angry with himself for his failure as a guard. He eyed the arrow still protruding from Keiran’s chest, debating with himself over pulling it out or leaving it as evidence of what had happened. The sight of it bothered him badly, and he wrapped a hand around the bolt, trying to wrench it free. The way it refused to budge and made Keiran’s body shift when he pulled made him regret the attempt. A massive wave of sickness passed over him and he was forced to turn away, suffering through several minutes of dry heaves. He opted not to try again, seeing fresh blood trickling down from the corners of Keiran’s mouth when he turned back.

  “Please, Keir, come back. Wake up.” Jerris plead, kneeling over the body. He put his hands against the prince’s cheeks, staring down into his face. There was a large part of him wallowing in denial that the arrow had been placed well enough to end someone afflicted with vampirism. “You’re supposed to come back, please! You had the blood, wake up!”

  Keiran wasn’t responsive in the least. He was dead, and none of Jerris’ cries or demands would change it.

  Jerris whimpered and move to sit next to his friend’s body, the reality that Keiran wasn’t going to spring back to life hitting him squarely in the gut. He dropped his head into his hands, giving into his anguish. He didn’t give a damn that he’d be executed for failure of duty. Jerris felt he deserved it. “I failed you, I’ve ruined everything. Forgive me...”

  * * *

  After the assassin had fallen out of the window, the demon shifted back into her vaporous form. She seeped into the wall of the building and slid down to ground level. She didn’t need physical eyes to see what was happening—she felt everything clear enough.

  She sensed all of Keiran’s pain and terror as his life slipped away. Jerris’ emotional state was just as tangible for the creature, and she stayed close, gorging herself on all the negative energy. Since the demon fed on misery and death, she found herself completely sated by the time the guard picked up the prince’s lifeless body and walked away.

  * * *

  Peirte had been back in his room at the time, the demon linked with the madman for the duration of the chase and killing. The councillor saw Keiran’s assassination and felt his death just as much as the demon had. The sheer ecstasy of getting to share that with her left Peirte in a nearly catatonic state, his body collapsing to the floor in the center of the design drawn there. He’d never felt such a wonderful thing. Though he’d been directly responsible for deaths in the past, being able to tap into the demon’s emotions over it was an experience beyond his wildest dreams. It was enough to make him long to be a demon himself. The notion of being able to feel such absolute pleasure in killing or simply being around death was painfully tempting. If he’d had the ability to become like the demon in that moment he would have, without hesitation.

  Peirte was a human, though, and there was nothing he could do to change that. He remained on the floor, basking in the afterglow of the demon’s feast. His mind went pleasantly blank, and the aftershocks of endorphins coursing through his veins made him feel weightless.

  When the demon was satisfied, she drifted away from the scene and began the journey back to the castle. She swept through the trees and back to Peirte’s window in less than an hour. She poured over the window sill and pooled on the floor. She opted to change back into the woman’s form, congealing and materializing on the outer edge of the containment circle.

  She stared down at Peirte, as he was still lying on the floor in an undignified heap. If he’d fallen outside of the circle, the demon would have killed him and been freed. He’d been lucky enough to go down in the confines of the seal, however. Her hooves scraped the stone floor under her cloak as she paced slowly around the design.

  The councillor’s eyes were vacant, but he did finally focus and see the demon in her humanoid form circling. He slowly sat up, putting a hand to the side of his head. Peirte hadn’t expected his link to the entity to be nearly that strong or overwhelming. He realized he might not be as prepared or well versed for this sort of magic as he’d thought.

  The demon knew that Peirte wasn’t a capable master for an entity of her strength. Her features twisted into a frown and she stopped moving, standing before the councillor. Having fed, the demon was now at the peak of her strength, making her much less stable. Her claws clicked together at her sides, tail sliding out from beneath the cloak. “It is done, as you asked.”

  Peirte looked up at the demon, giving a nod. He found it hard to focus his thoughts after the prolonged connection with the demon. The sight of Keiran falling from the saddle with the arrow in his chest refused to stop playing in his mind.

  Since the demon had dropped her physical form after the assassin went out the window, Peirte hadn’t actually seen what had transpired afterward, but the sensations of Keiran’s death painted a vivid picture. It would be far too easy to sink back into his thoughts about it and cease to function outwardly. He forced himself to stand up and pay attention to the demon. He had something to do before he let himself obsess over the experience any further. “Yes, you have, and you have done well.”

  The demon’s red eyes glowed faintly, and she brought her clawed hands up to her cheeks, dragging the dagger-like points down her face. Her skin shredded into ribbons but instantly healed again after bleeding out a few black streams of ichor. She swayed and hissed, fighting all that forced her to refrain from killing the councillor.

  He stared at the demon, suddenly feeling very afraid. The creature’s hatred and simple evil were leeching out, changing the atmosphere within the room. He realized all at once that he needed to contain her before she broke free of whatever ties still kept her in check. He hurried to drop down to his knees and picked up the bottle that had held the demon previously.

  She groaned loudly and swayed more, reaching up and ripping out the hair she had grown as part of the illusion she’d taken on. Red clumps of it were shed and dropped as she tore out repeated handfuls. Her mouth opened beyond the limits of a human jaw, tongue lolling forward and down her chest. Behind her, the whip-like tail sliced t
hrough the air in audible sweeps.

  “Do not put me back in that damned bottle!”

  He found himself unable to take his eyes from her, fear making his pulse race. In that moment, Peirte wondered for the first time in his life if he’d gotten in over his head. He groped around on the floor for the cork that had gone in the bottle as the string that held it had come loose. Panic set in as he failed to find where it had gone. Forcing his gaze away from the monster, he scoured the floor.

  A heat started to radiate from the demon. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever known, and within a few seconds, the exposed skin on his face and hands started to burn painfully from whatever energy the beast was spilling out. Though she couldn’t move across the containment seal on the floor to kill him by hand, the demon was at least willing to try harming him that way. She radiated more heat, letting the energy just gained from feeding at the site of the assassination flow outward.

  Peirte found the cork in one of the mortar lines between floor stones. He held up the bottle with one hand out before him and started to recite the containment spell to recapture the demon. His eyes closed, the searing heat making it impossible to keep them open.

  She gave an ear-shattering, shrill scream and fell to her knees, still fighting to obtain freedom. She was an ancient demon and strong, but the spell was just powerful enough to make her return to her vaporous, nonphysical form. The cloud roiled and compacted as it was pulled back into the vessel.

  When it was completely contained, the bottle tripled in weight, and the heat vanished from the air. His eyes opened, and he deftly slammed the cork back into the top. Visibly relieved, he set the bottle on the floor before him. The councillor watched as the bottle glowed in alternating flashes of red and white, until it finally subsided.

  He lay back on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, realizing just how close he’d gotten to being killed. Though he was too foolishly proud to admit he wasn’t strong enough to go toying with demon familiars like this one, he decided that it might be best to use human intermediaries for his dirty work in the foreseeable future.

  A smile curled his lips despite it, though. It had felt so good…

  Thoughts of the demon were pushed from his mind, as his eyes closed. A blush spread over his skin, and a smile returned to his lips as he recalled the sensations the demon had felt while Keiran had died. Nothing had ever been quite as wonderful, and now nothing stood in his way to take the crown and country.

  Chapter 7

  Jerris refused to move away from Keiran’s body. He also forbade the other members of the hunting party from joining him in the building he’d moved into. They spoke to him from the doorway of the one-roomed space, trying to come to some consensus over what to do.

  The butcher insisted that they head back to the castle immediately to announce the prince’s death to Peirte. After all, with Keiran dead, he would be the next leader and things had to be resolved.

  The other two guards were of a completely different mindset. They didn’t want to go back at all. Though they were just secondary guards to the prince, they knew that there was a very good chance they would be severely punished or even executed for not preventing the assassination. It was better, they figured, to simply ride to another country and start new lives. Neither of them had any real attachments back in Tordan Lea, and they felt that not risking their lives was the best bet.

  Jerris growled from inside the dark building, staring at the three of them crowding the doorway. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood to debate any of it. He finally snapped and walked over, bracing his hands against the doorframe and scanning the lot of them.

  “Do what you want. Frankly, I don’t care. I’m going back, and I’m going to accept my just punishment for not protecting him,” he said.

  The butcher agreed that was a responsible course of action, but the two other guards were quick to argue.

  “Easy for you to say, Jerris! Your father is the head of the guard. Most likely, you’ll get off with a wrist slap,” one of them countered.

  Jerris’ hands tightened painfully against the old wood of the doorframe. He closed his eyes for a second, before locking gazes with the guard who’d spoken last. “Actually, the order of execution will have nothing to do with my father. That will come straight down from Peirte, my father be damned. I will pull for the two of you to be pardoned. You were mostly along to help with the supplies. I was the one out front, on point with Keir. I’m the one to blame. If you want to run away, though, fine. I won’t stop you. I’m done for anyway and honestly? I deserve it.”

  They stood there in silence, looking back at him. Hearing a man volunteering for his own execution wasn’t an everyday occurrence. The others all knew that Jerris and Keiran had been close, but this level of devotion seemed above and beyond. Jerris was just overly emotional in his current state, and at least one of them wondered if he’d come to his senses before it was too late.

  The young guard dropped his hands to his sides and turned his eyes to the butcher. “And I see no point in heading back right now. It’s going to be a cold, miserable night out. Keir is dead, there’s no rush. We might as well just stay put and go back in the morning when we have light. I won’t discuss this again. All of you, just do what you like. I leave in the morning. If any of you are still here then, great. If not, Godspeed.”

  He turned away from the door at that point, not giving a damn what they wanted to do or say afterward. Jerris moved back deeper into the building and knelt in front of the abandoned fireplace. There were still a few pieces of wood lying around, and he set about getting it lit. Despite his depression and mental state, he had no intentions of freezing to death. Keiran needed to be taken home, and he felt it was his responsibility to do so.

  With the fire burning, Jerris was able to ward off some of the darkness and the cold after the sun had set. The wind picked up outside, driving the renewed rain against the side of the building. There were leaks everywhere in the roof, and he had to pull Keiran’s body around a few times to get him somewhere dry.

  Jerris’ tack and bedroll had been brought in from his horse and placed just inside the door by the others. He went over to it and got his two blankets. One he draped over the prince, the other he pulled around his own shoulders as he sat, keeping vigil. Sleep wouldn’t come for him, despite his exhaustion. He’d cried himself out, though, now leaving him with aching sinuses and burning eyes. He’d brought several bottles of ale along in his saddlebags for the trip, but they remained untouched. Part of him desperately wanted to crack into the alcohol to lose himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d brought those ales for the two of them to share, so drinking them alone seemed wrong. Jerris wasn’t about to indulge himself under the circumstances.

  As the hours dragged on, he found himself staring at Keiran’s form. The arrow was just a sharp peak beneath the blanket, but it still bothered Jerris to no end to see it. He realized that with the way it was sticking from the prince’s back that it would be easier just to pull it out completely through. Even though he figured it would make him ill again, he decided to do it.

  He drew the blanket away from the prince and tried to roll him onto his side. Keiran’s body was still pliable, even though he’d been dead for a number of hours. Jerris gave no mind to it, simply placing a hand to Keiran’s blood-soaked back, trying to find the arrow’s tip in the firelight. When he found it, he started to pull, finding that it did slide out with far less effort.

  There was some resistance as he pulled, and once it was finally removed from the prince’s body, he saw why. Part of the arrow’s shaft had splintered upon impact, and one of the jagged edges had bitten into the favor from Thana which Keiran had placed over his heart. When the arrow had been removed, it pulled the small square of fabric all the way through the prince’s body.

  Jerris pulled the blanket back over his friend, before looking at the arrow in his hand. The bolt wasn’t terribly long, and possessed a
four-pronged steel hunting tip. He never would have managed to pull it out the way he’d tried previously. The sight of it would have brought more tears had he been capable. The small cloth given to Keiran by Thana upon their departure from the castle remained snagged and wrapped around the shaft, soaked red and unrecognizable.

  Disgusted with it all, Jerris grit his teeth and tossed the arrow off toward the fireplace, but missed. It came to rest beside the hearth, but it was out of his line of sight for the time being. He slumped forward and put his head in his hands, begging God to make this all one terrible dream. Inside, he was tearing himself apart for having given Keiran grief over the past several days regarding his fears over their friendship. Whereas something would have surely survived with Keiran as king and Jerris as a guard, now there was nothing. Not a damn thing. He’d been so selfish.

  Something moved past the door of the house, making noise as it went by. Jerris lifted his head and looked out but saw nothing in the darkness. There was another sound, like something scraping the corner of the building as it moved.

  Jerris immediately got up and grabbed the hunting knife he’d removed from Keiran’s belt earlier. He didn’t think it was any of the other men in the hunting party. They had all holed up in one of the other buildings for the night, apparently opting to stay. The young guard wondered if it was the assassin’s accomplice. If it was and he could capture him, it would at least be something.

  He crept across the floor to the doorway as quietly as he could manage to have a look outside. There wasn’t much light thanks to the storm overhead. There were tracks in the mud, but they were already filled with swirling water and impossible to make out. Jerris stepped out of the building, getting pelted by the rain and following the muddy trail as best he could. He went around the side of the structure, back toward the alleyway.