It feels like I’ve been pacing the council room for hours, awaiting my father and the rest of his staff. Yet I’m grateful for this lapse of time. I need to be alone to weigh my options, to consider my possibilities with as much clarity as possible.
I try to lay out the bare facts though they still fill my chest with unrest.
I won the tournament. I will be crowned King within days. Backing down is unheard of.
Isobel isn’t my mate. If my instincts weren’t spurred when she was literally dying – as I discovered on the battlegrounds at the end of the match – then she’s not the one my phoenix is bonded to.
I love Isobel. I fell for her while I was still human, and she made me discover how beautiful life can be even when it’s riddled with uncertainty. Though I’ve become a phoenix, the part of me she awakened is very much alive.
I halt in my tracks. The false calmness I’m trying to force upon myself collapses. My fist hits the table so hard, I splinter wood – and break a few fingers. Fire engulfs them as they regenerate instantly.
“Damn being a phoenix!” I bellow as I clutch my burning hand. “Damn mates, and instinct, and fate. Damn it all!”
For all my longing, I now realize that the phoenix I’ve become steals away all of my choices. I can’t choose my own future, as my duty to rule a Kingdom I have no interest in governing is already sealed.
I can’t even choose the woman I want to love, as fate has decided otherwise. I can’t redirect my mythical nature’s instincts, I can’t implore destiny to change its plans. Because all things supernatural are set in stone, tied together with that absoluteness I once yearned for.
Now that I got a taste of a mortal life with Isobel, I understand that the beauty of human life lies in its uncertainty. That it can take many different paths, but ultimately, it’s choice that leads a person one way rather than another.
My encounter with Isobel was an accident. Yet at the time, when no defined nature dictated what I should do, it was up to me to decide whichever route I wanted to follow. Nothing obligated me to visit her that time I stormed away from the lunch table. I probably wouldn't be here right now if I’d just decided to practice sword fighting. To be honest, I almost stayed in the stables because I was too lazy to trudge through the woods.
It was my own volition, time and time again, that led me to her cottage.
I didn’t love Isobel at first sight. I didn’t even think she was that pretty. But little by little, as I grew to know her, I chose to find her beautiful, to love her – because there’s a goodness in her I’d be lucky to have in a partner, because her words never failed to lift my mood even at its lowest, because she deserves so much more than the little she’s been given.
As a human, that would be enough and more. I would’ve married her. Built a few extra rooms, adding to her cottage to make it into a nice and cozy home for the two of us. Tried my hand at cooking to avoid that awful stew. Laughed by the fire with her every night, made love to her at any time of day, held her close to my heart wherever the mood struck.
The visions that fill my head are my own version of heaven. Yet even that isn’t enough for my phoenix.
Isobel isn’t my mate, and there’s no changing it.
I hate my phoenix.
I hate the way it manhandles my will and forces me into a single destiny. But I also hate my kind as a whole, so thirsty for dominance that someone as harmless as Isobel is scarred for life. All because of my family’s thirst for power. The memory of her sprawled on the dirt, writhing in pain as she withered away still makes my heart rage.
And yet it was my phoenix tears that saved her.
I drop to a chair and bury my face in my hands in utter confusion. If Isobel had died, I’m not sure what I would’ve done. My fingernails dig bitingly into my skin.
Then a budding suspicion slips past my desperation. My tears! What if…
What if I can heal Isobel for good?
The thought makes me shoot back to my feet, as a plan forms in my mind as fast as lightning. I’ll step down the throne. I’ll yield it to Warwick. It was obvious from the very start that he’ll make the better King.
Then I’ll free Isobel from the dungeons where she’s being held, and we’ll flee far beyond Sōwilō’s borders. When we’re safe, I’ll shed all the tears I have in my body. I’ll press onions to my eyes, for all I care. She’ll be good as new, my family’s mark won’t mar her skin anymore. She’ll no longer be condemned to a pitiful existence by the Sōlenz lake.
I’ll stay by her side as long as it’s humanly possible, and make sure she leads a long life. Too bad if she’s not my mate. Too bad if there will come a point when I’ll stop aging by her side. Too bad even if she makes it to a hundred years old, Isobel will always leave my side much too soon.
I got a taste of what it would feel like to lose Isobel on the battlegrounds today. The memory is barely stitched back together in my heart, and I know it will leave a raging gap when she disappears forever. I’ll deal with the tearing grief later, when it comes. After all, I’ll have a whole eternity to mourn her.
That is, if I don’t decide to seek another phoenix’s lethal poison the instant she’s gone. Perhaps Warwick would do me the favor.
Right now, I want to be happy. And deep in my heart I know that being with Isobel is the only way. I love Isobel, and I’ll make the impossible work like she showed me a thousand times. Even without fate by my side.
Or my family, for that matter.
“Dane, dear boy!” a booming voice exclaims as the door to the council room flies open. “You couldn’t have made us prouder.”
I let myself be pulled into his embrace as he claps me on the shoulder. The warm contact makes my heart twinge. What if this is the last time I ever see him? With my next words, he could banish me from Østrōm for all eternity.
I won’t become King. The crown means nothing to me. All I care about is the human woman you’re keeping as a prisoner right now.
I know what I need to say. Yet for all my determination, I find myself wavering at this decisive moment. Yes, maybe the wild admiration I held for him since I’m a boy gnawed at my confidence and sense of worth. Yet even after all that has been swept away, the ties that bind me to this man aren’t completely severed.
He may be fierce, unfair, misled, wholeheartedly wrong in his views and actions… But he’s still my father, and I feel that fact deep inside my bones as I ready myself to cut our bond for good.
“We need to make this a celebration Sōwilō will remember for centuries to come,” he’s busy instructing his court. “Invite all rulers from mythical states as well, so they get to witness our power for themselves. Dane, the Summer Solstice would make a fine day for a coronation. What do you think?”
That he asks for my opinion is my every dream come true – the one I’ve decided to give up because it can never do me any good.
“Father, I…” I gulp, trying to force the final words out. But I can’t. The coward in me needs a little longer. What if I don’t even get to say goodbye to Warwick? So for now I settle for only part of the truth. “I want to see Isobel in the dungeons.”
My father’s enthusiasm drops. His face turns crimson as fury seeps into his veins.
“You mean that Hunter wench? We hoped our eyes deceived us, but you were quite familiar with her, weren’t you?!”
There was so much commotion at the end of the match that nobody saw me kneel by Isobel as I feared she may draw her last breath. My father must’ve taken only about ten minutes to reach me, but each horrible second felt like it lasted a lifetime.
“Yes,” I mutter as loud as I can muster. “I love her.”
“A human traitor?!” He barks, grey eyes flashing murderous black. “For those words alone, you should be–”
“Honora was mortal,” my uncle interrupts as he pushes past a group of stunned courtmen. “You of all people should understand that affection can blossom even in the most unlikely of places.”
My jaw drops. The only other person who ever spoke Honora’s name was one of the Queen’s chatty companions, and she was exiled for the crime. Doesn’t Uncle Thorsten have any fear?
Yet my father’s rage drops as fast as it arose. Misery and regret wash over his face, and I get a glimpse of the wreck I will become if I don’t make the right decision today.
“Let him see the girl,” my uncle says in a quiet yet firmly persuasive tone. “The news doesn’t have to travel beyond these doors,” he adds with a warning glance at the staff.
I send the man who served as my unlikely guardian angel at Østrōm a grateful look.
“Go then,” my father whispers weakly. “Think of it as your reward for fighting so valiantly today.”
I waste no time in donning a cloak that will shield me from questioning gazes and rush out of the council room.