The Phoenix

by J R Stone

  Sarah walked to the window; she needed some fresh air. The situation seemed to get more and more complicated, and her feelings and fears made it almost impossible to analyze the events in an objective manner. She had to decide what the best approach would be when meeting Tzeel’s wizards. Unfortunately, she had very little time to think.

  Tzeel walked into her room without knocking. “Are you ready?”

  She looked at him, feeling sad and lost. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to join us, Sarah,” replied Tzeel with no hesitation.

  Sarah held back the tears. She could not accept that she had been so naive. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  She moved closer to him. She would take back control. She caressed the scars that covered his face, and gave him a faint smile.

  Tzeel closed his eyes for a second; her touch was heavenly. He had never experienced anything like the feelings she awoke in him.

  “Did you like last night?” she asked sensuously.

  Tzeel opened his eyes to admire her. “Yes,” he said, caressing her silky hair. She had no imperfections.

  “Did you like to be inside me this morning?” Her hands moved down to his chest. She could feel his heartbeat with her hand.

  Aroused, he ran his hands up and down her back. “Yes.”

  “Good, because it won’t happen again,” she said acidly. She stepped back so that he could no longer touch her. “Shall we go?”

  Tzeel was enraged. For the first time in his life, he wanted to force a woman to submit to him. He gave a step forward, but the fear in her eyes brought him back to his senses. If he hurt her, he would never forgive himself. He gave her a cold look and left the room.

  Relieved that he had not tried anything, Sarah followed him to a room at the end of the east wing. Without looking at her, Tzeel opened a door that led to a cold, dark, oval room. As Seth had told her, there were eight wizards.

  The moment Sarah set foot in the room, she decided what the best course of action would be. She easily identified Liora; she was the only one with a homicidal look in her eyes.

  “Liora, I owe you an apology,” said Sarah maliciously. “I spent the night with him, but don’t worry, I already had my fun. You can keep him,” she said sarcastically. “Uno, did you really think that the weak spell you cast would cloak the purpose of this room? You should never underestimate people.” She looked at Tzeel, who was completely lost. “I suppose you don’t know anything about that, do you?” she asked condescendingly.

  “Know what?” he asked angrily.

  “This is an expono room. Do you know what that is?” she asked cruelly. “I suppose you don’t. It’s a room that exposes your skills. I can see how powerful each one of you is. I can see that you’re a sorcerer, Tzeel.

  Tzeel felt as if his heart would stop. He felt completely exposed and betrayed by Uno.

  Aware she was speaking the truth, she proceeded. So, Uno, how long have you been monitoring Tzeel’s power? I imagine knowing whether he gets more or less powerful may benefit you.”

  No one said a word. Uno was not bothered by Sarah’s behavior. It was only her amazing power he was interested in.

  Sarah smiled. She had already said her piece. She turned to Tzeel. “There. I’ve met them. Can I go now?”

  Tzeel felt humiliated. He felt an urge to kill everyone in that room, including Sarah. “Leave!” he growled to her.

  As soon as she closed the door behind her, Sarah started running. She would need help.

  Tzeel walked over to Uno, his eyes filled with hate. “An expono room?” he shouted.

  “Your father asked me to cast this spell a long time ago. He suspected you were a sorcerer. He wanted to know for sure,” said Uno calmly.

  “And you never told me that because…”

  “I served your father when he was alive, not you,” said Uno severely.

  “He died three years ago, Uno. You had three years to tell me!”

  “If I had told you, you would have become paranoid about your skills. I was protecting you from yourself.” He knew about Tzeel’s needs and was using his father’s absence in his favor.

  Realizing that, even if upset, Tzeel seemed open to listening, Uno continued, “Listen, she is more powerful than I could have ever imagined. She is much more powerful than she can imagine. We’ll need more wizards to cast the spell.” They could not take risks. If they were not strong enough, they would be destroyed by the spell.

  “Find more wizards then,” snarled Tzeel. He did not want to hear any excuses. He had not got so far only to give up.

  “Meanwhile, we can’t have her as an enemy. She needs to fall in love with you,” said Uno.

  “From what we have seen, that has already happened,” said Liora angrily.

  “Our plans are bigger than your foolish jealousy, Liora,” he reprimanded. “You can’t fall for her, Tzeel, but she has to believe you love her, do you hear me?”

  “Consider it done,” said Tzeel coldly. He was sure Sarah was in love with him. All he needed to do was to guarantee she felt loved in return.

  “We’ll be back in a week or two,” informed Uno. He believed he would be able to find willing wizards in nearby towns. He would use his contacts.

  Tzeel stormed out of the room; he was consumed by anger. Nothing was going as planned. He had to find Sarah.

  Sarah knocked on Seth’s door. “Seth! Seth!”

  Seth jumped out of bed. He opened the door and she quickly got in. It was the first time she was in his room.

  “What happened?” he asked worriedly.

  “They don’t want me to join them,” she said nervously.

  “Excuse me?”

  “They want something else from me.”

  “What else can they possibly want from you?”

  “I don’t know, but you need to find out. Please, Seth! I’m begging you!” She doubted she would find out anything from Tzeel. She feared he might not even know it himself.

  Seth got closer to her. He wanted to tell her that he would not let anyone harm her, but that was a promise he might not be able to keep. He had no idea what Tzeel was planning. He was left out of all the meetings with the wizards and Tzeel refused to talk to him about her. He changed the subject so as not to lie to her. “How’s your wound?” he asked, touching her left shoulder.

  “Seth…” she insisted.

  “I’ll talk to him.” That was the only thing he could promise.

  Seeing that Sarah was neither in his room nor in hers, Tzeel went straight to Seth’s. He didn’t want Sarah talking to Seth. He knew Seth would become a nuisance to him if he found out that Uno had spent the last years keeping track of Tzeel’s power.

  Tzeel knocked on his brother’s door. “Seth!” he shouted.

  Seth saw despair in her eyes. “Not now!” he yelled sharply.

  “Is she there?” Tzeel considered busting the door open, but he did not. After the death of his parents, there was only one door in the palace that he would not open without authorization: Seth’s.

  Seth closed his eyes; he hated having to lie. “No. Try the garden.”

  Tzeel did not imagine his brother would lie to him, so he headed straight to the garden.

  Sarah was apprehensive. She was afraid of never seeing her mother again, and of not being allowed to leave Totkan alive.

  “I have to go,” she whispered. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble.” Putting Seth in trouble would not help. She needed Tzeel and him to get along so that Seth could influence his brother in her favor.

  She opened Seth’s door and looked down the corridor. There was no one in the corridor. She ran over to her room. Tzeel would undoubtedly go back there looking for her.

  Tzeel looked all over the garden, but Sarah was not there. He thought about checking the town, but when he was passing by her room, the soldier told him that she was in there.

  He went in without knocking, as usual. Sarah was standing up, facing the door. She seemed to be wa
iting for him.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “Walking around,” she lied. She stared at him. She could not place all her hopes on Seth. She had to find a way to bring Tzeel over to her side. “How can you trust someone like Uno? He’s playing you, Tzeel.”

  “Help me.”

  Sarah felt enormous relief to hear Tzeel’s plea. Even better than getting her freedom back would be getting Tzeel’s love as well. “Send them away.”

  “They left.”

  Sarah hesitated. She did not expect it would be so easy to send Uno away. “Are they coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed.

  He noticed she seemed hostile, so he moved closer to her to caress her hair, but she stepped back.

  “I care about you, Sarah. What do I have to do for you to believe me?”

  “Bring my mother here, unharmed. Then, let her go. Make her free to go wherever she wants. Without being followed.”

  “Consider it done,” he said firmly. He tried to get closer to her again. This time she allowed him to. “I’ll show you that my feelings for you are real.”

  Sarah touched his face; she deeply wanted to believe him, but he would have to prove he was telling the truth. “Please, leave.”

  “As you wish.”

  He left, triumphant. It was just a matter of time until she was back in his arms. All he had to do was get her mother there. It would be the easiest thing.

  Seth was pacing the floor. He was thinking about how he would approach his brother when someone knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  “I need to talk to Victor. Get him here,” ordered Tzeel.

  Seth swallowed hard. With so many soldiers in his army, Tzeel had to call Victor, the one who was not in Totkan. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  Tzeel arched his eyebrows. He did not like where the conversation was going. There was no reason for his men not to be in town. “Why?”

  Seth knew the answer to that question would upset Tzeel, but he could not lie. “I asked him to check on Sarah’s mother.” He kept his eyes fixed on his brother’s.

  “Why would you do that, brother?”

  “She asked me to. I could not see a reason not to grant her wish. What’s going on?”

  “I told her I would bring her mother here,” Tzeel replied between his teeth. The sooner he kept his word, the sooner he would have Sarah for himself.

  The fact that Tzeel seemed worried about letting Sarah down bothered Seth. By the questions Sarah had asked about Tzeel’s love life, Seth imagined she felt attracted to Tzeel. However, in no moment did he think his brother felt the same. “Do you have feelings for her?”

  “Do you?” asked Tzeel defiantly.

  “No,” Seth lied.

  “I do,” retorted Tzeel.

  He knew that revelation would remove Seth from his path once and for all. He left Seth’s room without giving him time to say anything.

  Sarah could not find peace. She had pondered for hours and realized that, if it were true that Uno and the others were gone, she had no reason to push Tzeel away. She repeated to herself a hundred times that whatever plans he had when he took her to Totkan, he had changed his mind. On top of that, she believed he would bring her mother to her. Surrendering to her feelings for him, she walked over to his room. This time, she did not knock.

  He was on the balcony. Just like Sarah, he was fighting a raging battle inside his heart. The clash between his desire for power and his feelings for her was driving him crazy.

  She walked over to him and gently stroked his face. “When I told you to make me yours, I meant physically. Not completely.”

  Knowing that she loved him made Tzeel forget about his plans. She was everything he wanted. He caressed her hair and passionately kissed her lips.

  “I’m yours,” he whispered.

  Hearing those words from him was more than Sarah had expected. She kissed his neck while her hands ran up his chest. She took his hand and they moved towards the bed.

  VII

  Sarah opened her eyes and gazed admiringly at Tzeel. He was still asleep. Waking up next to him knowing that Uno and the others were gone was sheer bliss. Unfortunately, her exhilaration would not last.

  The knocks on the door woke Tzeel up. “Not now!” he shouted. He hated being jolted awake.

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but Darius is back,” said a soldier.

  Sarah jumped out of bed. “Darius!” she murmured. All she had was a vague recollection of the moment Tzeel had sent Darius back to her village. The oppressive heat and the pain she was feeling back then had blocked the details of that memory. However, hearing Darius’s name brought back each of Tzeel’s words: he had ordered Darius to kill a child.

  She ran to the door and opened it. “Where’s he?”

  “In the main hall,” answered the soldier politely.

  Tzeel ran over to her and held her arm. “Please, don’t go! Stay here!” he begged. He knew that, if Darius had executed his order, Sarah would never forgive him.

  Sarah ignored his plea and ran to the main hall. Tzeel ran after her.

  Before Sarah set foot in the hall, she could see that Darius was holding something. The closer she got, the weaker and shakier her legs became. Suddenly, she fell on her knees. Her forehead touched the ground, and she screamed feeling unimaginable pain. Darius was holding the severed head of Yair, a three-month-old baby.

  Tzeel felt an acute pain in his stomach. Blood came out of his mouth, and he collapsed on the ground.

  “Stop, Sarah! You’re going to kill him!” yelled Darius, but an invisible force threw him against a wall.

  Soldiers came up behind her. They tried to hold her arms, but she fought back. Tzeel wanted to intervene, but he kept spitting blood.

  Dionisius walked over to Sarah and punched her in the face, throwing her on the ground. “You’re killing him!” he growled.

  Tzeel’s pain stopped. He ran toward Dionisius and surprised the soldier with a punch on the face. Tzeel punched him until he fell on the ground. Unable to control himself, Tzeel only stopped when Dionisius was no longer breathing. Everyone was in shock.

  He stared at the disfigured corpse on the floor, his eyes burning with rage. “Spread the word, I’ll kill anyone who hurts her!” he shouted. “Now, leave!”

  Tzeel kneeled in front of Sarah. Her lips were bleeding. He touched them, trying to remove some of the blood.

  Sarah was horrified. The last ten minutes had just been the worst of her life.

  “Let’s take care of that,” he said gently.

  Without a word, Sarah got up and walked with him to his room.

  “You’re a monster,” she murmured.

  Tzeel did not say a word. There was no defense for killing a baby. He picked up a piece of cloth to clean her lips, but she abruptly opened the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked worriedly.

  “I want to see Seth. He’s a much better man than you,” she said cruelly.

  Sarah thought she would not be able to make it to Seth’s bedroom. Her legs were trembling, and her heart was darkened by sorrow. Her will to live was slipping through her fingers.

  After what felt like an eternity, she got to Seth’s room. When he opened the door, she threw herself into his arms and started crying.

  Even though he did not understand what was happening, he hugged her. After giving her several minutes to calm down, he slowly pushed her a bit to look at her lips. They were cut and swollen.

  “Did Tzeel do this?” he asked incredulously.

  “No, a soldier did. I lost control when Darius came back from my village with the head of a baby,” she sobbed. “The head of a baby!” she repeated trying to convince herself that what had happened was real. “A part of me wanted Tzeel dead,” she admitted. “A soldier had to punch me to make me stop. Then, Tzeel killed him. Right in front of all of us! He punched him to death.”

  The words came out of Sarah’s m
outh so quickly that Seth could barely understand what she had said. “Who did he kill?”

  “A soldier.”

  “One of ours?” he asked doubtfully.

  Still in shock, she just nodded.

  Seth gently stroked her face, his eyes fixed on hers. He appreciated the fact that Sarah had run to him in her moment of affliction.

  She felt protected, loved, so she kissed his soft, warm lips. His fingers ran through her hair. He craved her, but he could not allow himself to feel that way. He kindly pushed her away as he stepped back.

  “I can’t betray my brother’s trust.”

  Sarah looked down. She felt shame. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What do you feel for him?” he asked, afraid of the answer. He knew his brother’s feelings for her. However, if she did not feel the same, Seth would allow himself to hope.

  “I love him,” she murmured without hesitation.

  Seth composed himself. He would not show weakness. “From now on, I think we should not stay alone just the two of us anymore. It’s inappropriate.”

  She admired him even more for his loyalty to his brother, but it hurt her to know that her kiss had pushed him away. “No more walks in the garden?” she asked sadly.

  “At least not just the two of us,” he said calmly, trying to hide his pain. “We can take Enoch with us,” he gave her a faint smile.

  Sarah could not look at him. She hated herself for everything. Without another word, she left Seth’s room and went to Tzeel’s. He was still where she had left him.

  “Please call Enoch,” she said coldly.

  “Are you okay?” He wanted to move closer to her, but he knew she would not allow that.

  “My wounds hurt,” she lied.

  Unable to stand the repulse in her eyes, he looked down. He went to the door and asked one of the soldiers to call Enoch.

  Enoch was in town when he got the order to come to the palace at once. He walked as fast as his legs allowed. In less than ten minutes, he was entering Tzeel’s room.

  “Leave,” Sarah said to Tzeel.