The First Dawn (Daughter of the Phoenix Book Three)

by Victoria J. Price

  “I think your own ego has already done that for you.”

  Feet dragged against rock and dirt. Erebus’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Such fire… just like my love. It’s uncanny.”

  What is it about this girl that is so damn special? Alexander, Erebus. What does she have that has these males falling to their knees for her? Lorn felt the rage bubbling over in her chest and tried to stifle the sparks flying from her fingertips. She had to conserve her energy.

  “Don’t touch me,” Fia hissed.

  Erebus laughed. “I can feel your power brushing against mine. Perhaps we should have you try to heal Lorn. Put her life in your hands.”

  “Because you’re too weak to heal me yourself,” Lorn teased from the confines of her cell. “Because you’re too much of a coward to face me in your angel form.” Lorn felt the smile spread across her face, but Erebus didn’t bite back.

  “I can’t. I haven’t been able to… to summon any magic,” Fia said. Another lie. Lorn had seen that whisper of blue from Fia’s cell on her first day, but not since. And if Erebus could feel it, there was no telling what was lying beneath the surface of that girl.

  “Perhaps the sight of someone suffering might give you a little encouragement.”

  There were more shuffling sounds, and a heartbeat later, the door to Lorn’s cell clicked open and Fia stumbled in. A dark cloak swarmed around her and settled itself on the ceiling.

  Lorn moved herself to her bed to give Fia space in the doorway. “What, too afraid to face me in your physical form?” She stared up at Erebus’s shadows. “Worried I might give you a matching wound?”

  A cough rattled through her, and she leaned back on the bed for support. Fia didn’t rush to her side, and Lorn doubted whether she’d attempt the healing at all. Why would she?

  “You might want to lie down for this,” Fia said, thrusting her chin in Lorn’s direction. “I’ve no idea what I’m doing, and it looks like he’s being a baby about it.” She waved a hand at Erebus’s shadow form above them and Lorn smirked in response. Fia didn’t smile, but Lorn didn’t miss the angry glare she shot at the shadows.

  “I can’t risk another injury.” Erebus’s voice was different, an echo of how it had been when he’d whispered to Lorn, showed her images of Fia and Alexander entwined in embrace after embrace. “Place your hands over her wounds. Like I did for you.”

  Lorn raised an eyebrow at Fia, but the girl merely shook her head as if she were biting back her words, and Lorn didn’t have it in her to press further. As loathe as she was to admit it, she needed Fia. She needed the healing to work.

  “Focus on your breathing,” the swirl of darkness above them said. “In and out. Like I showed you.”

  When, exactly, had he shown her? Lorn’s stomach tightened at the thought of Erebus being tender with the girl leaning over her. She examined Fia’s face, the concentration laced across her brow and the way she bit down on her lip. Flecks of gold shimmered in her eyes—they were all the shades of the forest in Iraluxia. Moss and pine and the arbus trees that towered above the rest. There was no denying she was beautiful. Lorn had taken far plainer men and women to her bed. But there must have been another quality that had Alexander and Erebus running after her, some quality Lorn had yet to see any evidence of.

  Fia dragged a hand through that auburn hair of hers, long pieces working their way free as she pulled. She was shaking—at first Lorn thought it was fear but—no, it was anger. “I feel nothing. It isn’t working.” Fia began pacing, her hands locked into fists at her sides, flexing her fingers in and out. The girl was dripping with rage. Lorn had felt it enough times to know.

  “Be patient,” Erebus cooed from above.

  They both ignored him. Lorn didn’t have time for patience, anyway. Her situation was urgent. “I’ve been told sharing your thoughts can be helpful at a time like this.” One of her tutors had tried that lie on her once, and Lorn had demanded he be replaced with a new tutor the next day.

  Fia stopped her pacing and cleared her throat. Her eyes were wild. “Maybe I’m trying to reconcile with the fact that you’re a murderer and I’m trying to heal you,” she said, so quietly Lorn had barely heard her.

  Something in Fia seemed to snap as she spoke. One moment the girl was beside her, chest heaving as she breathed her words, the next she was spiralling around and slamming a fist into the rock, her composure in tatters.

  “Shit,” Fia muttered, gasping and clutching her hand.

  “Well, that went well.” Lorn watched the way Fia paced, the way she clenched her hand at her side and chewed at her lip. Fia’s rage was eating away at her, and Lorn knew only too well what that was like. Don’t find a reason to sympathise with her.

  Erebus somehow managed to make a disgusted, tongue clicking sound, even though he had no tongue and no mouth as he hovered above them. “You’ve harmed yourself. Why?”

  “Why?” Fia thrust her head back to look at him, and Lorn wondered if it would snap right off her body with the force of it. “Because she’s a bloody murderer. And because you’re messing with me, again, and I can’t stand it!” Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths, and Lorn wished that Fia would cry, that she would wither and crumble before them.

  Lorn had no desire to comfort Fia. Her own wounds were indeed severe, and if someone didn’t do something about them soon… she wouldn’t let herself consider the outcome.

  “Stand over her. I’ll heal you both,” Erebus finally said.

  Fia didn’t argue. She stood over Lorn, hands resting above a wound. Her right hand was covered in blood, but to her credit, she didn’t flinch. The darkness descended from the ceiling, sinking like a black cloud to Fia and wrapping around her shoulders like a fur collar. This time, Fia shuddered.

  “Be still,” Erebus breathed, and Lorn could have sworn the girl was holding her breath.

  Darkness snaked down Fia’s arms, around her wrists and over her hands. Blue light bloomed across her injured hand, and the darkness continued past her fingertips and across Lorn’s body. Erebus’s magic flared over the first wound, and Lorn watched, wide eyed, as the darkness dragged Fia’s hands to the next one, until it was fully healed too.

  Fia’s face was like ice. Whether it was the weight of that power wrapped around her, or merely the touch of Erebus’s dark shadow kissing her skin, Lorn couldn’t tell. She didn’t care, either. They’d healed her. He’d used Fia’s body as a conduit, somehow, and Lorn felt the full force of her flames sparking in her fingertips, ready to be released.

  Erebus’s shadows began to recede up Fia’s wrists, snaking their way back up her arms but Lorn grabbed a wrist and pulled the girl close, ready to release an inferno onto that insufferable darkness—but then—as quickly as she’d grabbed hold of Fia, the girl disappeared, the shadows along with her, and the door to Lorn’s cell slammed shut.

  Lorn threw herself back onto the bed and let her flames

  pour from her fingertips, a tormented cry escaping her. He rescued her. It was too pathetic to bear witness to.

  “What the hell was that?” Fia asked from the adjacent cell, breathless.

  The great ancient darkness of Ohinyan had whisked Fia away to the safety of her cell in order to protect her from an inferno. The inferno Lorn had intended for him. She almost couldn’t control her breathing, the pounding in her skull that he had whisked the girl away to save her.

  “Are you injured?” Erebus’s voice was full of concern, and it only enraged Lorn further.

  “Don’t touch me,” Fia said, followed by the undeniable sounds of her shoving him away.

  Silence fell across the cell, and Lorn ceased her jet of flames. Surely the girl would understand that the only way to Erebus had been through her. A little lick of flames wouldn’t have harmed her, anyway. Well, not much.

  “He’s gone,” Fia finally said. Her voice was quiet and small. “How did you injure him, before?”

  “I told you. No ordinary flame can harm him. And I am not ordina
ry.” Lorn had been raised to be anything but. The Makya had taught her that she was to be the fire mother from the moment she could speak. Her whole life had been nothing but practice and preparation. To rule, to lead. To have Ohinyan in her debt.

  A heartbeat of silence, and then Fia said, “Next time you see him in his angel form, you don’t hesitate. You attack.”

  Lorn had every intention of doing just that.

  Chapter Four

  Fia

  F ia staggered back to her bed. He tried to kiss you. She brushed a hand against her mouth. Erebus looked so young—barely older than her. His skin was smooth and youthful, his silver hair swept neatly to one side, his eyes like perfect storm clouds. He was lean and muscular, as all angels were; the only mark that made him stand out from the rest was the white tattoo that ran along his arm and across his heart. Did he truly believe she was in some way connected to his first love, Terah?

  He’s a murderous villain. So what if you remind him of his only love? Fia shook her head. It was true. No matter how he behaved with her, or what he said to her, what he’d told her in the past, there was no denying the truth. He’d been imprisoned for thousands of years and had used that time to manipulate so many of the people and creatures of Ohinyan, and had no doubt been the cause of countless atrocities. Would Lorn have turned out differently, had it not been for Erebus’s interference?

  She ran her thumb over her lower lip. There was something in his expression—the hungry stare, something else. Something familiar. She blinked away the thought of the storm clouds in his eyes. More of his tricks, no doubt.

  The little orbs Erebus had pinned around her cell remained, casting a soft blue glow across the rock. “Are you fully healed?” Fia called out to Lorn. She inspected the cell as she waited for a reply. She’d almost preferred the darkness. Seeing that it was as bleak and barren as she’d suspected was almost worse than simply imagining it. It was as if the rock had been carved by hand, scrapes and gouges covering the walls from whatever primitive tool had been used against it. A simple wooden door—solid, not even a keyhole.

  “I am.”

  A bread roll lay discarded on Fia’s bed from her struggle with the woman, whoever she was. Evina, that’s what Erebus called her. Fia grabbed it and tore a piece off. She’d have eaten it even if it had been on the floor. Now wasn’t the time to be fussy. “Then we need to work on a plan,” she said through a mouthful.

  A laugh. “We?”

  Fia picked at a crumb that landed on her trousers. “Yeah, we. If we work together, we better our chances of getting out of here. I almost had Evina. If he hadn’t turned up, I’d have been onto something.”

  Lorn huffed out an irate breath. Fia looked up at the sliver of space in the rock between their two cells and noted that Lorn, too had been left with some light. So he does have a heart, after all. He could have quite easily left them both in darkness. She inspected her hand where Erebus had healed it, no sign of the damage she’d caused smashing her fist into the rock. Shame he couldn’t do something for the bubbling rage she felt too.

  Again that feeling of familiarity hit her, almost like déjà vu. Fia didn’t want to dwell on it. Not here, when he could come back at any moment.

  “If she can simply appear in here like that, can she take us with her? And why’s she doing it for him? He’s not exactly man of the year.” She tore off another piece of her bread and cast her gaze across the cell for the water cup. There—in the corner. She walked over to it. Empty. I’ll survive until tomorrow. “You didn’t get any food, did you?” Fia pulled herself up to the gap between the cells. “Here, take this.” Half of her bread remained, and she squeezed it flat before poking it through the gap for Lorn to take. Nothing. “I’m not going to stand up here all day, you know.”

  Lorn tugged the bread away. “Perhaps. I have never seen such a power.”

  No thank you from the Makya, not that Fia had expected one. She slumped back down onto her bed. “Erebus can do it. Maybe he taught her.” She looked at her hands. “He tried to teach me how to use my…”

  “Your magic?” Lorn asked, her mouth full of bread.

  “Yeah. My magic.” Fia reached for the copper device, her thoughts drifting to Alexander. She could send him another message. She wanted to know about his magic too. How he’d injured Lorn. If he’d learnt somehow, maybe I can too. But just sending a message would do no good. She had to come up with something.

  Lorn scoffed. “And what exactly do you propose? This is a prison realm. For all we know, it’s the place he was trapped for thousands of years. He was only released because a bunch of odious Earth witches killed twelve of your precious angels and sacrificed one of their own, along with an ancient tree. It took a great deal of energy to release him. Where are we going to find that kind of power?”

  “You’re going to teach me. And we’re going to work together.” Fia shoved the device back into her pocket and leapt to her feet. “And we’re going to trap that magical dinner lady and get out of these shitty cells. I won’t be a guinea pig. Not for Erebus. Not for anyone.”

  “What is a guinea pig?”

  “An experiment.” Fia stood with her legs shoulder width apart, an attack-ready stance as if she were preparing to spar with her instructor, Jo. Her friend. Her only friend, back on Earth, and for a moment Fia felt a twang of guilt for leaving her behind without a proper explanation. She pushed the thought deep down. Jo will be fine. “Right, I’m ready. Tell me what to do.”

  Lorn cleared her throat. “I’m no teacher. I was born in flames, as all Makya are. Fire is simply who I am. I think it, and I become it.”

  Fia rolled her eyes. She hadn’t expected anything less than excessive amounts of ego from Lorn, and she bit down on the sarcastic retaliations threatening to roll off her tongue. “So how would you explain to a mere mortal such as myself, the way in which you summon that fire?”

  “The idea of teaching you disgusts me,” Lorn said with a sigh. “What’s in it for me?”

  Fia gritted her teeth. “You’ll get to find out which one of us is the fire mother.”

  A quiet laugh. “Very well.” The blue light from Lorn’s cell flickered as if she were pacing. “All of you is energy. Any power you possess is merely an extension of that. It’s part of the way you breathe, the way you move. Assuming that was blue flame you produced on your first day here, imagine that blue is the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs. Feel it.”

  Fia wasn’t surprised Lorn had seen the flicker of blue on the first day. In the darkness, it would have been like a beacon. The moment the Makya woman finished speaking a flash of orange leaked through the gap in their cells, and Fia heard the roar of flames that were no doubt streaming from Lorn’s fingertips.

  Feel it. Easy for you to say. Fia held her hands open, palms facing as Erebus had shown her and focused on her breath. She imagined that streak of blue inside her, filling her limbs and her lungs. Nothing. Lorn’s flames had stopped and the prison was so quiet Fia could hear her heartbeat pounding in her head. Her head hadn’t stopped throbbing since Erebus had wrapped himself around her in his shadow form. The sheer audacity of him touching her even when he was a puff of darkness screamed of the same kind of possessive behaviour that her ex, Henry had so often demonstrated.

  Erebus was probably used to taking what he wanted, no doubt. Fia clenched her hands into fists and examined the spot where he’d healed her, again.

  She was no puppet. She would not be controlled, no matter who or what he was. Henry had played with her like a marionette after Sophie had died, and Fia wasn’t about to let it happen again. Whatever sick game Erebus intended to play she would have no part of it.

  Fia’s breath quickened as her anger rose through her chest, flushing her neck and her cheeks. Her head throbbed and her vision spotted. He’d used her. Lured her right into his stupid game. Her palms heated as she squeezed her fists so tight her nails bit into her palms. Her fists began to glow, and as she thought of what a lying, mani
pulating, sneaky—she had no time to finish the thought because with the rush of rage a blue flame sparked to life around both her fists.

  She stared in astonishment and felt a grin break across her face. “Lorn, I did it!” she called out in elation. But the moment that elation overrode the anger, the flames fizzled out to nothing. “Shit.”

  Lorn’s laughter carried through the gap in their cells. “Out already? You’ll need a little more fuel for the fire than that. You wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think you were the fire mother, you know.”

  Fia slumped down on her bed. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Why are we both here then? You injured him, not me.” Her headache was like a vice around her skull and she rubbed at her temples to try and ease the tension. It didn’t work.

  Lorn puffed out an exasperated sound. “Your flame is blue, there’s nothing ordinary about that.”

  “But he doesn’t know that. He’s never seen it.” And if Lorn was the one to injure him, what did it matter? Fia looked at her hands. Erebus had told her once that she’d be able to command all the elements, once she’d mastered fire. Maybe that was why her flame was blue. But how could he possibly know that? From what he’d said, Terah had taught him, not the other way around.

  Lorn didn’t reply, but shadows danced along the wall of Fia’s cell, and she knew the Makya woman was idly playing with her own flames. She dug for the copper ball in her pocket and pulled it out to inspect the damage for the first time. It reflected the soft blue glow from the orblights Erebus had left behind, and Fia could finally see the extent of the damage. Where two pieces of metal should have been neatly fused together, there was a split in the copper, right beside one of the buttons. Pinprick holes covered one side of it, to emit and receive audio, Fia presumed.

  She thought of leaving another message for Alexander, to tell him about the blue flame. Lorn had killed his father with her flames. So many had died at the hands of the Makya; they’d made strides in the right direction to repair the damage caused over the years but that didn’t simply erase the past. She cast aside the thought that her blue flame would repulse him… that it would remind him of his father’s death.