“The Phoenix will be hard pressed to make another move for quite some time; we dealt her a serious blow and she will not be able to put together another force together again so quickly. This is our opportunity to strike! To attack her while she’s vulnerable! Don’t you understand? Her own army has turned against her!” Merlin continued, as if dismissing Tristan’s words, and it was only angering him further.
“Tristan—” Erik began, finally letting go of his family and coming to stand at his side.
He was cut off as a trembling began across the earth and they all fought to regain their balance. He rocked with the motion, unable to resist, as he came to realize the source of the vibration was coming from between his legs. Looking down upon Willow, his breath caught, as a white light swarmed around her body; enveloping her. Before all their eyes, her corpse lifted sharply into the air, and hovered five feet above the ground. The earth ceased it’s shaking as Willow’s limbs twitched, her head rolled, and body spasmed within the magic.
Shirl flew into view before the suspended girl, her face intent, her mouth working soundlessly as words of a spell ushered forth.
A dark figure rose from the cobblestones and Tristan’s blood pumped furiously in response. Cloaked in black, the jackyl looked upon them, then at the writhing girl hanging before him. “My master recognizes the sacrifice made and has ordered Charon to refuse her admittance, in accordance to with the terms of the deal struck. Our business is finished,” the specter told them firmly, then quickly departed as if he had never been.
The white light shone even brighter, but Tristan didn’t care. He looked upon the face of his beloved and his breath caught when she opened her eyes.
Epilogue
She hovered over the Pools of Ognar, taking in the events happening in the east, and felt unbridled anger seething through her pores. The fact that her army was practically getting decimated, while not totally unexpected, was still a shock to her. She had practically emptied the Deadlands and thrown the majority of her forces into her campaign, and now the stragglers were slowly making their way home; as if she’d let them live long enough to make the effort worth it.
“You should have let me lead them instead of that pathetic idiot,” Sir Liadric remarked, standing over her shoulder and watching as his army perished. She had supplanted him with Clint and found her loyalty misplaced. She had thought that the man would be able to stir up her enemies; she didn’t foresee him forsaking command in order to exact his revenge.
She had misjudged; that would not happen again.
“They may have been defeated, but they served their purpose,” she commented, eyes intently watching the traitorous orcs wiping out her forces. The treachery behind their act would not go unpunished. She would round up their women and children and sell them into slavery. The trolls loved nothing more than to let others mine the ores she needed, instead of doing it themselves, and would welcome a gift of labor as a reward for keeping faith with her.
“What possible purpose could this serve?” the specter asked, adjusting his translucent armor, and focusing on the scenes below. He had been one of the guardians Merlin had put into place to protect the Book of the Dead, and had served her since defeating him in battle thousands of years before.
She smirked at the pool below, watching as Pestilence almost fulfilled her purpose, and laughing at the young boy’s anguish over his fallen bride. “A diversion.”
While the battle had waged in those eastern forest, her powers had been in a state of flux. She had not fully been herself when she had emerged into this realm and time had been needed to reach her full power again. Now, as she stretched out her arms and waved her fingers over the pool, she felt the entirety of her power restored. She may have suffered a devastating loss of man power but it was not something she couldn’t easily replace.
“They thought me dead; I wasn’t. Merlin exiled me to another realm. He was unable to kill me because of the link I share with the book, and he didn’t have what he needed to destroy it. So, the best he could do was strip me of my body and cast me into shadow. After a few hundred years, I slowly recovered and began regaining my strength. It took me a long time to figure out how to counter his magic and make my way back, but I was not idle while I did so. Now that my power is restored, I am going to open a rift into that world, bring forth my armies, and I will set them loose upon this land. What I lost today is just a drop against the waves of forces I will summon forth. There will be no slavery, there will be no mercy, I will wipe them completely from this Earth, and install a new civilization in its place. One that knows its place and will bend knee when I command,” she finished, waving her hand and causing the images to fade to black.
The shade of the former knight winced at her words. “Other armies? What other armies?”
“From a mirror dimension, not unlike this one, but with less—morality issues,” she laughed. “I was able to rule, to subjugate, and mold what I wanted, in preparation for my return. They only await my summons.”
Pausing, Liadric had to consider his words carefully. He knew her temper well and had been on the receiving end of her wrath several times before. “If you had all that you wanted there, why come back here?”
She glared at him, sensing something beneath his words other than curiosity, and he appeared ready to witness her rage once more. But she surprised him with a calmer answer. “This is my home. It may not be much, but it is the world that I know, that I grew up in, that I created. That other—is a mere shadow of what I knew and it never felt right being there. Besides, I have scores to settle.”
When it came right down to it, that was what really mattered; her thirst for vengeance. The longer she stewed over there, the more she brooded about it, the more she wanted to come back and finish off those that had dared to defy her. That they continued existing was enough to push her beyond her limits and force her return. And now that she was here, she would see it through no matter what the cost.
Stop, a voice cried out in the confines of her mind.
It was an old voice, one that she had long since thought banished, and it sent a shiver up her spine to hear it once more.
It doesn’t have to be like this, the former Rachel whispered.
She got up from the pool and gathered her robes about her, glaring at the murky waters of the pool. Yes, it does, she answered back. She walked from the room with a purpose, her loyal lapdog followed close behind. She was suddenly glad that he wasn’t aware of the conflict within and pursed her lips in an attempt to keep it that way.
You’re not evil—the book is. Destroy it. Free us from it before it’s too late, the voice insisted, pleading with her.
Bringing forth her hatred, she let it fill her to the core. Every fiber of her being filled with her need for vengeance, her eyes flaring red with the amount of power coursing through her. She entered her throne room and stood before the dais on the platform where her throne of skulls sat. Then she sent a silent summons. The Book of the Dead slowly lowered from where it hovered and settled on the dais before her.
Destroy it, please, the voice begged once more.
She howled in fury, gripping the book and holding it close to her chest. She would protect it, not destroy it. No, she would keep it safe and pursue the destruction of those that dared to oppose her. She would see Excalibur cast into the deepest ocean, it’s protector dead, and the word forever irretrievable.
That’s the book talking. It’s not you. I am you. Listen to your own voice and do what’s right.
You forget that you are the one that sought it in the first place, she immediately answered, feeling foolish arguing with herself, but unable to resist. No one. Not a book. Not that meddling magician. Nothing. Commands. Me. I am the one in charge here.
You are naïve, her former self returned.
No, I’m the Phoenix, and it’s time I entered this war and show those imbeciles why I am their Queen. She summoned her magic and exulted in the power filling her body. Go back to oblivion, y
ou have no place here. I will open that rift—I have the power to do so now, and none of those meddling idiots can stop me. When my armies arrive, I will send them south, and one by one the fortresses of this world will fall.
They’ve gained little in their victory today. Let them celebrate, for tomorrow dawns a new age, and it will forever eclipse the one these feeble creatures tried to create. They dared to defy me and now they will suffer the consequences. The elf, the human, the orc, and the mage—all will fall and bend knee or die, she sneered as she opened the book to the pages she needed. She would need to gather some ingredients, but when she was done, the rift would open and the fate of this world forever sealed.
It’s not too late for us, the voice said in a fainter tone, echoing across the caverns of her mind.
Oh Honey, we are well passed that. You are nothing but an echo of a past life. Rachel Emerick is gone forever. I am the Phoenix, risen from the ashes, and this world is about to experience my unending fury.
This world—will burn.
To Be Continued…
In Book 4 of the New Age Saga:
Prophecy
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Phoenix Rising (the New Age Saga Book 3) Page 29
