Whether it’s only been a couple minutes or a few hours, I still feel like the King of the universe. The black around us is leaving way to brilliant strokes of gold, so that means I don’t have much time left before I need to trudge back to Østrōm. I don’t want to. I want to make love to Isobel again and again, until half of this burning thirst she awakens in me is quenched.
Earlier this evening I drained down Uncle Thorsten’s potion like a drunkard because for a few blissful moments, it made me feel good about myself. Every time I’m filled with the belief that I’ll finally become what I’m meant to be, only to be disappointed when nothing happens.
But now I want to get drunk on Isobel. She didn’t kill the despair in me for a few short-lived seconds – she cut off one of the monster’s heads for good. Not that my wretchedness won’t creep back the moment I set foot in the fort. But deep down, I know that something about her sweet surrender stitched back a few of my wounds, and I’ll leave the Sōlenz a more whole man than when I came.
I gaze at her slight form stretched out beside me, a tangle of flimsy white fabric and pale, naked skin. My cock stirs. Fortunately – or unfortunately – enough of my common sense has come back for me to realize that pressing her for a second time wouldn’t be the most considerate thing to do.
So instead I lazily trail an index over her soft cheeks, her delicate collarbone, the slight swell of her breasts and that terrible gash. My finger tenses over the mutilated and greyish expanse of skin. I hate her scar, yet it feels wrong to hate any part of Isobel, broken or not.
As my hand rests over her lower stomach, a sudden thought courses through me.
“Isobel!” I gasp, and her lids flutter open. “Do you think we…”
Her gaze drops to the telltale place where I’m touching her. A twinkle of humor enters those huge brown eyes that seem to haunt me even when she’s nowhere near.
“I’m not that way, you worrywart,” she murmurs with a hint of laughter in her voice. “It’s impossible for me.”
For some reason, my heart drops as the vague visions of Isobel rocking a tiny bundle in her arms are swept away. Having a baby now wouldn’t be a good move by any means. We’re both of age by society’s standards, but I don’t even want to think of the nightmare it would cause with my family. Yet a twinge of disappointment still finds its way into my chest.
“Why?” I croak. “Is it because of this?”
The mirth in her brown beams dwindles slightly as she fleetingly glances at my thumb, gently caressing her mangled flesh. She nods.
“Tell me.”
Her lips curl into a wistful smile. “Not now. I want this to last just a little longer.”
I’m about to insist, but a soft beam of light illuminates her face and I understand her words. As much as we fumbled to arrive at this moment, there isn’t one hesitation, one blunder that I’d change if it brought us here. Isobel doesn’t want the scar on her stomach to slash tonight’s perfection away, and neither do I. So I let my protest die and press a kiss to her temple instead, savoring the feel of her downy skin on my lips.
“Another time then,” I grunt.
We lie like that, on top of the world – or her roof, to be exact – until the Sōlenz lake looks like it’s been sprinkled with fairy dust. I wince at the turn of my thoughts. Don’t let Warwick catch you saying anything so sappy, I lecture myself.
I sigh heavily, cursing the universe for letting the sun rise so soon. “I have to go home.”
For some reason Isobel finds my foul mood amusing. She laughs as she tucks a finger into the corner of my mouth and stretches it into a grin.
“Of course you do. No need to get so sour over something that’s inevitable.”
The mere sensation of her touch makes me smile. “I’ll be back.” I sweep a last glance over the beautiful form she let me discover tonight. The stiffening in my crotch area makes me croak: “Soon.”
For an instant it seems like she’ll refuse, her lips already forming an unequivocal ‘no’. But something about the look on my face makes her change her mind. Isobel crawls up until she sits cross-legged, tugging her gown down to her ankles in the process.
I repress a groan. I’ll miss the sight of her gorgeous bare self, but there’s a time for everything, I suppose.
“There’s nothing I’d love more,” she tells me so earnestly it makes my heart squeeze.
I want to push her back down and kiss her senseless, but then I’m afraid I may not get up again until nighttime. So I shoot her a stern glance while I tug my clothes back on, hoping to wash away the doubt lurking in her brown eyes.
“If you don’t see me tomorrow, then I’ll be here the day after,” I pledge earnestly.
She beams, and damn the mawkish bard she’s unleashed in me, but her smile is even more glorious than the morning sun.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
And that’s how much of the following weeks went by. I knocked on Isobel’s door almost every day, until her cottage started to feel like a second home. On each of my visits we made love – but we also did so much more. Things I never thought I’d enjoy. Planting a vegetable patch, climbing trees for eggs or just looking for shapes in the clouds.
That’s how I realized I knew a lot about how to live as the phoenix I may never be, but very little about how to get by as the human I currently am. I probably caught myself in her cast nets more often than I captured any fish, but Isobel was always there to untangle me. Not without having a good laugh, to my disgruntlement.
My escapades to Sōlenz were greatly aided by my brother, who guessed what I’d been up to the instant I sneaked back the night of the ball.
“You smiled at breakfast,” he pointed out the morning after I first made love to Isobel. “I nearly fell off my chair. Considering the injury you almost caused me, I think it’s only fair I know who she is.”
I mustered my fiercest glare, but I was in such a good mood it probably wasn’t as terrifying as intended.
“You’re a phoenix. You would've healed the minute after.” As his brows only flew higher, I grumbled: “I won’t tell you. Not in a thousand years.”
Warwick being Warwick, his smirk grew even more wide. “Oh, a forbidden love story! I always knew you’d be more of a romantic underneath all the gruff.” He clapped my shoulder so hard I stumbled. “Congratulations, little brother. I’m proud of you.”
“Leave me alone.”
Undaunted, my brother looked through the window thoughtfully. “You and I are supposed to travel west tomorrow to discuss the pearl industry with the Merpeople. Father won’t be there.” His azure eyes flitted back to me. “I could say you came.”
My jaw dropped. “You’d do that for me?”
“You’re not half as homely when you don’t look like you just swallowed a lemon.” When I continued to stare at him in astoundment, some of his trademark humor vanished. “Dane, of course I would. You’re my brother. I want you to be happy.”
My gaze dropped to my feet, suddenly guilty about all the times I acted surly with Warwick just because of how amazing he is. “Thanks. I don’t know how I can repay the favor.”
He stood before me and lifted a single finger. “Just tell me one thing.”
Coming from Warwick, I expected him to ask for some racy detail, or at least if Isobel was beautiful.
“Is she nice?”
I smiled, insanely grateful that I was born second to this scoundrel, even if I can never measure up to him.
“The nicest.”
Moments after, I bumped into my mother. Our gazes usually only meet briefly, but for some reason that day she looked longer.
I watched in bewilderment as her fingers lifted to my forehead to swipe away a few stray strands.
“You’re looking so handsome these days,” she murmured almost to herself. “So much like your father.”
A startled but pleased smile stretched over my face, yet my mother’s blue eyes soon hardened with that faraway look of hers. She walked away without another word, but I felt incredibly grateful for the small moment.
As the days went by, Warwick came up with alibis for me time and time again – some slightly more preposterous than others, like the time he claimed I couldn’t make it home for dinner because I was too busy beheading a dragon. But Father would never doubt the word of his most cherished son. So I continued to sneak out of the fort in peace, visiting Isobel to my heart’s content.
“Ah, my favorite nephew,” a low voice utters, pulling me away from my thoughts. “You haven't been at Østrōm much lately.”
I turn away from my contemplation of the scenery through my room’s window, where I spy the forest that separates me from Isobel.
“I’ve been busy,” I say apologetically to my uncle, a double of my father save for his longer beard and the quiet intelligence in his eyes.
“So I’ve heard,” he responds with a slight smile. “So busy you’ve been forgetting to take your medicine, it seems.” He gives a quick glance around and discreetly hands something from underneath his cloak. “I found this lying around the gardens this morning. I filled it for you, so hurry and take the days you missed, or the brew’s potency will be diminished.”
I must’ve dropped it the night of the ball, I realize as I gaze at the familiar gourd, marked with my very own coat of arms – a phoenix perched on the left horn of Taurus, the constellation under which I was born. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell my Uncle that I no longer drink the mixture he prepares for me at all.
The day after making love to Isobel on top of her roof, I was too elated to recall how to buckle my own shoe. For the first time since I turned fifteen, I forgot to drink my potion.
The following night I rushed back to Isobel’s cottage. We made love by the hearth of her fireplace.
I forgot again.
After skipping a whole week I realize I lost my guard altogether. Strangely enough, I wasn’t bothered in the least. My body rejoiced in its new vitality, not missing a drop of the philter that twists my guts in agony.
But that’s not all that was new. Little by little, the idea of leading a life without supernatural powers, of growing older like any other creature on Earth no longer sounded quite as bad.
Not if I can be by Isobel’s side.
The inevitability that lies at the end of a mortal existence still terrifies me. Yet it’s not the same as the disdain with which I used to scorn humans for their weakness, their imperfection, their utter insignificance.
I was wrong. My father is wrong. The whole Kingdom is wrong.
Because Isobel can never be insignificant, at least not in my world. She may not have lethal claws, a nest of serpents on her head or eyes that turn enemies to stone. What she has is more common sense than my whole family reunited, an impish sense of humor and a knack for always finding a break in the clouds.
Isobel is only imperfect in that one day, she’ll die. My heart clenches at the mere idea.
In the few weeks I’ve known her, she didn’t only fill my life with her smiles and wit. She shook its very foundations so that now, instead of looking at the world from the pitfalls of my resentment, I can stand on my two own feet. Or almost. I still need to hold Isobel’s hand.
I can’t even begin to imagine how empty I’ll be inside when she dies. But as long as I stay by her, I can prevent that from happening anytime soon. If I’m human, perhaps I’ll only have to know the awful loneliness for a few moments before I disappear as well.
“Good Gods Dane, it’s not just you who isn’t in Østrōm these days… It’s also your mind!”
I shake my head and focus back on the present. The flask of potion. Uncle Thorsten.
“Sorry,” I say as my fingers wrap around the vial. “And thanks for your help all these years. Your support meant a lot to me.”
His eyes narrow in suspicion. Perhaps he noted my use of the past tense.
“I’m always with you, Dane. Never forget that.”
A horn blasts, announcing that dinner is being held. Startled, I let go of the gourd.
“We should hurry,” I point out as I rush towards my door. “Father hates it when anyone is late.”
I don’t even glance behind to see if he follows me as I jog down the stairs to the dining room. My thoughts have made me realize that there’s a very important announcement I must make today. But at the table my parents are discussing state affairs. I don’t dare interrupt them.
“Another Hunter has been captured,” my father is saying.
My mother frowns. “I shall miss the jewelry Rudyard brought me each month from around the Kingdom. Short as he was, I never would have suspected he was half human.”
Her husband nods solemnly. “Elves are a dastardly species as well. No wonder they’re so ridiculously small. It befits their petty natures.”
“What will you do with him, my King?”
My father stiffens at the biting coldness of her tone. “Rudyard can make an invaluable spy. He can lure the rest of the Hunters into a trap so we capture them all.”
“Because your silly plan to make Ehren speak didn’t work,” she sneers.
“Rudyard seems a lot more cooperative. He doesn’t want to die.”
Before my mother can argue and the meal generates into yet another heated discussion over humans, I shoot to my feet.
I need to say that I’ve made peace with my mortal nature. So the expectations I can never fulfill can come to an end. So Warwick can be crowned once and for all, as it was always meant to be.
I know I have to speak, but I'm afraid.
“Father,” I finally blurt when our plates are being taken away. “There’s something I must say.”
My interventions at the table are so rare that even the staff stares at me. I curl my fingers around my glass, acutely aware of the dozen pairs of eyes fixed on me.
“Well,” my dad presses impatiently as I stay silent. “What is it, Dane?”
I clench my fists, praying for courage. “We don’t need to wait for me to become a phoenix anymore.”
Wrath suddenly contorts the King’s ruddy face, but before he can even bellow his disapproval, Warwick grabs my arm and tears my attention away.
“Are you insane? You are a phoenix, Dane. I’m sure of it. You’re about to ruin your chance to sit on the throne just because you’re so damned impatient! For all you know you may shift tomorrow, and then you’ll literally have eternity to regret this dumb decision.”
I shake my head. “No, I…”
My tendons tense as I read the shock on my brother’s face, the cold disappointment on my mother’s, the raging fury on my father’s. I must tell them that this is my choice and I’ll stand by it. I hope at the very least that Warwick won’t scorn me for being human, for choosing not to fight a battle I can’t win.
“No son of ours gives up!” My father barks from across the table.
The rest of his rant is eclipsed by a sharp pang of pain in my palm. I peer down, belatedly realizing that I gripped my glass so hard it shattered in my hand. Blood pools on the mahogany table, yet more proof that I don’t belong in this fort where only invincible conquerors dwell.
And then as sudden as a wildfire, the unthinkable occurs. Before my very eyes and those of my entire family, miniscule but brilliant flames surge from my wounds. That burning sensation rises to the tips of my fingers, the same feeling I experienced so long ago I half-believed the time I nearly set my brother on fire was no more than a very detailed nightmare. The flickers work at the bloody cuts, sealing the gash together until my hand is good as new.
I don’t have time to understand what happened before I’m engulfed in an embrace I haven’t felt since I was a child.
“Indeed, we will wait no more!” My father exclaims as his grey gaze dances with emotion. “It seemed the day would never come.”
For some reason the pride I’ve always yearned to see on his face is too hard for me to look at. In a daze, I glance at Warwick who can’t hide his glee, my mother who sports a small but satisfied smile.
“You’re a phoenix now,” my father says. “In a week or two, you should grow your wings. You’ll be one of us.”
Why do those words make my stomach drop when all my prayers have finally come true?