Aria's POV
The twisted phoenix slams into Ravenor with the force of an avalanche.
They crash into the black sand in a tangle of wings and fire and screaming. I scramble backward as flames—both black and shadow—explode outward. The heat sears my face even from twenty feet away.
"Ravenor!" I scream, but I don't know if he can hear me over the creature's insane shrieking.
Through the bond, I feel his pain. Feel the twisted phoenix's claws tearing into his already-damaged wings. Feel his rage and—underneath it—his fear.
Not fear of dying.
Fear of becoming that thing.
I have to help him. But how? I don't know how to fight. Don't know how to use this power burning in my chest. I'm useless, just like Celeste always said—
No.
The thought comes fierce and sudden. I'm not useless. I saved Ravenor from Seraphine by sharing power through the bond. Maybe I can do it again.
I close my eyes and reach for the connection between us. It's there, pulsing like a heartbeat—gold threads of magic linking my soul to his. I grab onto them mentally and push, sending my power flowing toward him.
Ravenor's head snaps up. His golden eyes find mine across the battlefield, wide with shock.
Then his power explodes.
Black flames erupt from his body, so massive they consume the twisted phoenix completely. The creature screams once, then disintegrates into ash.
Silence.
Ravenor stands in the center of a circle of scorched earth, breathing hard. His wings are singed but intact. Blood runs down his arms from where the phoenix's claws caught him.
But he's alive.
He turns to me slowly. "What did you just do?"
"I... I shared power. Like before."
"That was different." He walks toward me, and there's something dangerous in his expression. "Before, we were touching. Connected physically. Just now, you reached through the bond from a distance. Without permission. Without training." He stops right in front of me. "That should be impossible for someone untrained."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know—"
"Don't apologize." His hand catches my chin, tilting my face up to meet his eyes. "Do you have any idea what you just did? The level of control that requires? The instinct?"
I shake my head, my heart pounding.
"You're dangerous, little bride." But he's almost smiling. Almost. "More dangerous than I thought. Good. You'll need that to survive what's coming."
"What was that thing?" I ask, my voice shaking. "That twisted phoenix?"
His expression darkens. "That was Kieran. He was imprisoned here fifty years before me. When I first arrived, he was still sane. Still fighting." Ravenor's jaw tightens. "By the time they released him—accidentally, during a magical experiment gone wrong—he'd been broken beyond repair. He attacked everything. Killed dozens before they put him down permanently."
"But I thought you said—"
"I said he was put down. Not that he stayed dead." Ravenor looks at the ash pile where the creature fell. "Phoenix magic is resurrection magic. We don't die easily. Kieran's been trapped in a cycle—dying, coming back mad, dying again—for decades. The Scorched Wastes are full of his corpses, and every time the land shifts, one of them comes back to life."
Horror crawls through my chest. "That could have been you."
"That should have been me." His eyes meet mine. "Three hundred years is more than enough to break anyone. The only reason I'm still sane is..." He trails off, looking away.
"Is what?"
"Hope." The word comes out bitter. "Stupid, foolish hope that I'd escape someday. That I'd find who killed Meridian and make them pay. That maybe—just maybe—you were still alive somewhere." He laughs darkly. "Hope kept me sane. But it also kept me suffering. Some days I wished I could just let go. Become like Kieran. Stop feeling anything."
The pain in his voice makes my chest ache.
"But you didn't," I say softly. "You survived."
"Survival isn't victory, Aria. It's just... continuing." He turns back to me, and his eyes are haunted. "Every day I wake up, I have to choose not to become that. Choose not to let the rage consume me. And some days, that choice is so hard it takes everything I have."
I understand that. I understand choosing to keep going when everything hurts. When you're not sure there's a point.
Without thinking, I reach out and take his hand.
He flinches, like he's not used to gentle touch.
"Then don't choose alone," I tell him. "We're bound, right? That means your fight is my fight. Your pain is my pain. So let me help carry it."
For a long moment, he just stares at our joined hands.
Then he pulls away.
"You don't know what you're offering," he says roughly. "My pain isn't some poetic metaphor. It's three hundred years of torture. Of watching my body break and heal and break again. Of screaming until my voice gave out. Of—" He stops, jaw clenched. "You feel a fraction of it through the bond, and it makes you dizzy. If I let you carry the full weight, it would destroy you."
"Then teach me to be stronger."
"It doesn't work that way!"
"Then MAKE it work!" My voice rises to match his. "You keep telling me I'm dangerous, I'm powerful, I'm Meridian's daughter. But then you treat me like I'm fragile! Like I'll break any second! Which is it, Ravenor? Am I strong or weak?"
"You're both!" he shouts back. "You're powerful and completely untrained! You're brave and emotionally destroyed! You're my daughter and a complete stranger!" His wings flare wide. "You're a contradiction that shouldn't exist, and I don't know what to do with you!"
The confession hangs in the air between us.
We're both breathing hard, both trembling with emotion—his rage, my hurt, all tangled together through the bond until I can't tell where he ends and I begin.
"I don't know what to do with you either," I admit quietly. "You're my father, but you're also terrifying. You saved me, but you also said you'd let me burn out. You act like you don't care, but through the bond, I feel..." I touch my chest. "I feel how much it hurts you to look at me. How much you wish things were different."
His face goes carefully blank. "The bond makes you think you understand—"
"The bond doesn't lie." I take a step closer. "I feel your grief. Your guilt. You blame yourself for not saving my mother. For not finding me sooner. You think if you'd been stronger, faster, smarter, we'd all be together right now."
"Stop."
"You think you failed us—"
"I SAID STOP!" Power explodes from him, throwing me backward.
I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from my lungs.
Ravenor stands over me, wings spread, eyes blazing with golden fire. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to dig into my head and tell me what I'm feeling!"
"I'm not digging!" I push myself up, ignoring my bruised ribs. "It's coming through the bond whether I want it or not! You're broadcasting your emotions like a scream, and I can't shut it out!"
"Then learn to!"
"HOW?" Tears burn my eyes. "How am I supposed to learn anything when you won't teach me? When you keep pushing me away?"
"Because getting close to you HURTS!" The confession explodes out of him. "Every time I look at you, I see Meridian. I see what I lost. What I couldn't protect. And I can't—" His voice breaks. "I can't lose you too. I can't watch you burn out or get killed or—"
He cuts himself off, turning away.
The silence that follows is heavy.
I stand slowly, my whole body aching. Through the bond, I feel his walls slamming back into place. Feel him locking away the emotion. Becoming cold again. Distant.
"You won't lose me," I say to his back.
"You can't promise that."
"Yes, I can. Because I'm choosing to survive. Just like you did." I walk around to face him. "You think you're the only one who's scared? I'm terrified. Everything I knew was a lie. Everyone I loved betrayed me. And now I'm bound to a phoenix king who might go insane at any moment." I force him to meet my eyes. "But I'm not giving up. And I'm not letting you push me away. So you can be angry at me. You can shout at me. You can tell me I'm weak and useless. But I'm not leaving."
Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, or respect.
"Why?" he asks quietly. "Why do you care what happens to me?"
"Because you're my father." The words feel strange but right. "And because I think... I think we can save each other."
Before he can respond, the ground trembles again.
We both tense.
"Please tell me that's not another—" I start.
Three more twisted phoenixes burst from the earth, their shadow flames scorching the air. Their eyes burn with the same madness as Kieran's.
Ravenor's face goes pale. "We need to leave. Now."
"But—"
"These creatures are drawn to phoenix magic. Your awakening sent out a beacon." He grabs my wrist. "Every broken phoenix in the Scorched Wastes is coming for us."
As if to prove his point, more shapes appear on the horizon. Dozens of them. All twisted. All mad. All converging on our location.
"How do we fight them all?" I breathe.
"We don't." Ravenor's wings spread. "We run."
He lifts me into his arms and launches us into the air just as the first wave of creatures reaches our position. Their screams echo across the dead wasteland—a chorus of broken minds and shattered souls.
And through the bond, I feel Ravenor's terror.
Not of them.
Of becoming them.
"Hold on," he says grimly. "This is going to get much worse before it gets better."
Behind us, the twisted phoenixes pursue, their shadow flames painting the sky black.
And somewhere ahead, in the deepest part of the Scorched Wastes, something even darker stirs.
Something that's been waiting for this exact moment.
Something that's been watching Ravenor for three hundred years.
Waiting for him to finally break.