The phoenix was dying in her garden, and Seraphina had no idea how to save it.
She knelt in the dewy grass, her nightgown soaking through at the knees as she stared at the magnificent creature sprawled across her mother's prized moonflowers. Its feathers, which should have blazed with crimson and gold fire, were dull and gray, like embers left too long in the cold. Dark blood seeped from a wound in its side, staining the white petals black.
Seraphina's hands trembled as she reached toward it, then pulled back. Touch a phoenix without permission, and you'd be burned to ash. Everyone knew that. But this phoenix was barely breathing, its chest rising and falling in shallow, desperate gasps.
"Please don't die," she whispered, knowing how foolish she sounded. As if a legendary immortal creature would listen to her, the family disappointment. The girl born without a spark of magic in a house full of beast tamers who could command dragons and unicorns with a thought.
The phoenix's eye opened. It was enormous and golden, with a pupil like molten amber, and it fixed on her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Help me." The voice echoed in her mind, ancient and crackling like a wildfire. "Please."
Seraphina's heart hammered against her ribs. Phoenixes didn't speak to humans. They didn't ask for help. They certainly didn't say please.
"I can't," she said, hating herself for the words. "I don't have magic. I can't heal you."
"Not healing." The phoenix's mental voice grew fainter, more urgent. "Bond. Choose you. Please. Dying."
Bond. The word sent ice through her veins. A keeper bond was sacred, unbreakable, tying a human soul to a beast forever. Her siblings had bonded with their creatures through elaborate ceremonies, with witnesses and priests and her parents' proud tears.
This was nothing like that.
"I don't understand," Seraphina said desperately. "What do I do?"
"Hand. Heart. Choose."
The phoenix's wing shifted, revealing something clutched beneath its talon. A feather, but not like the dull, dying plumage covering its body. This one blazed with inner fire, pulsing with light that made her eyes water.
Seraphina reached for it before she could think better of it. The moment her fingers touched the feather, pain exploded through her hand, racing up her arm and into her chest. She gasped, trying to let go, but her hand wouldn't obey. The feather was burning its way into her palm, burrowing beneath her skin like a living thing.
"Stop," she choked out, but the phoenix's eye was closing now, its presence in her mind fading.
"Oath," it whispered. "Keeper. Protect. Save. Bond."
The words weren't a request. They were a command, ancient and absolute, carved into the foundation of the world. Seraphina felt them settle into her bones, into her blood, into the hollow place inside her where magic should have lived.
And then the pain vanished.
She collapsed forward, catching herself on trembling arms. The feather was gone, absorbed into her skin, leaving only a faint golden mark across her palm like a brand. The phoenix lay still, its breathing so shallow she couldn't tell if it was alive or dead.
"No," Seraphina breathed. "No, you can't die. Not now. Not after that."
She pressed her branded palm against the phoenix's chest, right over the wound. She had no magic, no training, no idea what she was doing. But the bond thrummed between them now, a thread of gold and fire connecting her heart to the creature's fading one.
"Live," she commanded, pouring every ounce of her desperation into the word. "Live, damn you."
The phoenix's eye opened again, just a sliver. "Name?"
"Seraphina," she said. "Seraphina Ashford."
"Ember," the phoenix replied, and there might have been satisfaction in that mental voice. "I. Am. Ember."
Then its eye closed again, and Seraphina felt the bond pull taut, like a rope drawn to its breaking point.
The back door to the house slammed open. "Seraphina?" Her mother's voice, sharp with alarm. "What in the name of the gods are you doing?"
Seraphina looked up to see her entire family spilling into the garden. Her mother, still in her silk dressing gown, with her silver griffin perched on her shoulder. Her father, his massive war bear looming behind him. Her older brother Kieran with his twin serpents coiled around his arms, and her sister Lyra with her white stag at her side.
They all stared at her. At the dying phoenix. At the golden mark blazing on her palm.
"Seraphina," her mother said, and for the first time in Seraphina's memory, her voice held something other than disappointment. It held horror. "What have you done?"
"I bonded with a phoenix," Seraphina heard herself say, though the words felt impossible. "And I think someone is trying to kill it."
Her father's face went pale. "That's the last wild phoenix in the realm."
"I know."
"If it dies, and you're bonded to it..."
"I know," Seraphina said again, because she did. She could feel it through the bond. If Ember died, the oath would take her life too.
Her mother crossed the garden in three swift strides and knelt beside her, examining the wound with practiced eyes. "Shadow poison," she said grimly. "Only dark magic could hurt a phoenix like this. Someone very powerful wants this creature dead."
"Can you heal it?" Seraphina asked, hating how small her voice sounded.
Her mother's silver eyes met hers, and for once, there was no judgment in them. Only grim determination. "I can stabilize the wound. But shadow poison doesn't have a cure, Seraphina. It will keep spreading, keep killing, unless you break the curse at its source."
"Then I'll break it," Seraphina said, the words coming out fiercer than she felt. "Tell me how."
Her father and mother exchanged a look that made her stomach drop.
"The poison comes from the Shadow Citadel," her father said slowly. "Deep in the Wraithwood, where the dark sorcerers make their home. To break a curse like this, you'd have to go there. Face whoever cast it. And they won't give up their magic willingly."
The Wraithwood. Seraphina had heard stories about it all her life. A forest where the trees drank blood and the shadows ate souls. Where even the bravest beast tamers feared to go.
"How long do I have?" she asked quietly.
Her mother's hand tightened on the phoenix's wing. "With the bond draining your strength too? Three weeks. Maybe four, if we're lucky."
Three weeks to cross half the realm, find the most dangerous sorcerers alive, and force them to break their curse. Three weeks for a girl with no magic and no experience to save a dying phoenix and herself.
It was impossible.
Seraphina looked down at Ember's still form, at the golden brand on her palm, at the thread of fire and hope connecting them. The phoenix had chosen her. Out of everyone in the world, everyone with magic and power and skill, it had looked at her and said please.
She wouldn't let it down.
"Then I leave at first light," Seraphina said, meeting her mother's eyes. "I'll need supplies. A map. And someone who knows the way to the Wraithwood."
Kieran stepped forward, his serpents hissing softly. "You can't be serious. You've never even left the estate."
"Then it's time I did."
"You'll die," Lyra said bluntly. "The Wraithwood will kill you in a day."
"I'm already dying," Seraphina shot back, holding up her branded palm. "At least this way, I'm doing something about it."
Her father was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded, once, sharp and decisive. "The girl speaks truth. If she stays, she dies. If she goes, she has a chance."
"A very small chance," her mother murmured, but she was already casting a healing spell over Ember's wound, golden light flowing from her fingertips. The bleeding slowed, though the dark veins spreading from the injury didn't fade.
Seraphina felt the bond strengthen as Ember's pain eased, just a fraction. The phoenix's presence in her mind was a warm coal now, barely glowing but still alive.
Still fighting.
"You won't be alone," her father said. "I'll send a message to an old friend. A keeper who knows the Wraithwood better than anyone. If anyone can guide you, it's him."
"Who?" Seraphina asked.
Her father's expression turned grim. "Caspian Darkwood. The Raven Keeper. He's the only one who's entered the Shadow Citadel and lived to tell about it."
The name meant nothing to Seraphina, but the way her siblings stiffened told her everything she needed to know. Whoever Caspian Darkwood was, he was dangerous.
Good, she thought fiercely, feeling Ember's faint approval through the bond. She'd need dangerous if she was going to survive this.
"Send the message," she said. "And someone help me carry Ember inside. We have a long night ahead of us."
As her family moved to help, as her mother's magic stabilized the dying phoenix just enough to keep it breathing, Seraphina felt the weight of the oath settle fully onto her shoulders.
She was a keeper now. Bound to a creature of legend, marked by fire, hunted by shadows.
And she had three weeks to save both their lives.
The adventure, impossible and terrifying, was about to begin.