Victory's Price

Phoenix (Part Thirty-Seven)

Chapter 37

Phoenix slept fitfully. Though a light sleeper she was not often troubled by dreams of the ilk that plagued her tonight.

She tossed, and the chill of the night time air brushed across bare skin. Something moved and she woke. It was not something tangible, it was something tied deeply into her heart and soul, a sixth sense she had fought for and earned with the proper rites of blood.

She stirred, fingers tingling. Away, across the fields and out toward the sea, a Wolf howled. Phoenix smiled, locating the source of her disturbance. For the first time in two hundred years the Stars had accepted another. She had her first competition.

Standing, Phoenix drew the rough material of her surcoat over her head. The bird on her chest fluttered, flashing red like fire in the cold blue moonlight.

She tightened the straps of her sword sheath, feeling no more need to check that the blade remained at her side than she did to ensure her heart marched continuously onwards with its eternal beating.

Striding from the room, Phoenix left it in disarray and the curtains drawn. Petty things had lost all import.

The bar continued to heave. A room of sailors even in these ages had enough experience with the Far Lands to resist emptying in the face of death. But as Phoenix stepped over the threshold the room went silent. She smiled. They were learning.

The tavern door snapped shut behind her and only then did she sense life return to the room. Mumbled conversation seeped through the cracks with the lamplight.

Inhaling deeply, Phoenix took in the crisp ocean air. The night continued to bathe everything in deep purple. Setting off she made her way toward the sea and her wayward ward.

The call was strong in her now and she needed nothing more than to get back to her Stars, both blessing and curse. Over her shoulder, Phoenix's gelding nickered in the soft, after-dark quiet. She had not forgotten the beast but she would return to continue onwards only when she had returned the man that held the keys of her future to her side.

Though she had expected to find him wailing his miseries out to sea, Wolf waited for her on the outskirts of town.

"So you felt it." She did not need to question.

There was no way he could not have felt it. When the Stars accepted a man's soul they took a piece in insurance.

"What is it?" He asked.

He should have known, he should have been longing for it. But she could not blame him for ignorance.

"The Stars." She said. "They want you. It is a good sign."

"What do you mean? I thought I already was a player."

Phoenix shook her head, realising that she was going to have to teach the whole world the subtleties of her domain all over again.

"That feeling." She said. "The one where you think a little piece of your heart has been stolen. That's the Stars, taking a part of you. When we are closer it will no longer feel so empty. That was officially the point of no return. I told you the Stars used to be men of magic, well they have their consciousness and their rules." She laughed bitterly. "You have just paid your entrance deposit and the chances of getting it back are slim."

Wolf crossed his arms. A reaction to his thought and not the chilling wind.

"I just experienced acceptance?"

Phoenix snorted.

"If that's what they call it."

"But it's supposed to be rare! It's a foretelling of great things; it's a prophecy, a sign. One man in a thousand gets acceptance."