Ignite (Phoenix Chronicles Book 1)

Chapter 21: Abandoned

A week after everything changed, which Phoenix had taken to calling "the event," Maverick had healed up enough to move around on his own and maintain a decent level of energy. Phoenix caught him wincing out the corner of her eye a few times, but for the most part, he didn't seem to have ever been attacked.

Finny called it a miracle.

Phoenix still thought it was suspicious. Would her brother be invincible now? Would he survive any attack? Or was this a unique, one time event?

Maverick's emotional healing would take time. Phoenix often caught him staring off into the distance, or peering at her with an expression she couldn't quite decipher. When she asked him how he was, he always lied.

"I'm fine."

Her heart felt heavy, and every moment she felt she needed to remain positive, bubbly, and grinning to keep him from falling away from her entirely. If she could make him see the thin but inevitable silver lining, maybe he'd smile again.

The past several days had involved going over maps of Tranchet's Pass that Finny had found for them. Travel plans were the only thing Maverick took an interest in. Phoenix knew, with her parents gone, it would be her job to get Maverick to the Militia.

"It's a dangerous path," Finny said, standing above them as they sat at her tiny table, pouring over the maps. "The Tranchet Mountains hide many secrets and treacherous things."

"Dangerous?" Maverick blinked and looked up at her. Phoenix saw the clouded emotion roiling behind his eyes. "How dangerous?"

"You'll have to have your wits about you every step of the way. This trip wasn't safe to begin with. You're enemies of the crown - you are supposed to be dead, Maverick. One wrong move, one wrong word and it could mean your life next time. And that's before you even get to the mountains."

"We've been training in combat and survival since we were each four years old," Phoenix said, her gaze fixed on her brother. "There's nothing we can't handle when we're together."

"Yeah...uh, right." Maverick nodded, but dropped his gaze as he cleared his throat. "When do we leave?"

"I think next week," Finny said. "Winter is on it's way, and the colder it gets, the worse the traveling will be. The sooner we go, the better."

"We?" Phoenix's eyes widened. "You're coming with?"

"Of course." Finny bustled off, mumbling something about tea.

"Next week, then." Phoenix cast a wary smile at Maverick, who replied with a vague nod, his focus off in the distance.

###

Phoenix woke up with a start the next morning, sensing something wrong. At her brother's insistence, she'd traded him the couch for the spare room's bed. Maverick said she'd taken the couch long enough.

Waking up in the room, though, Phoenix felt...off. She launched from the bed, opening the door as she reached it and then sprinting down the hallway.

"Finny?"

"Right here?" The old woman sat at the table, her eyes roving over a piece of parchment. "You'll want to see this."

Phoenix accepted the piece of paper, reading it as fast as she could.

Laina,

I'm sorry, but I won't lose you, too. I'm going alone. By the time you wake, I'll be long gone. Don't follow.

Mav

"What the hells?" Phoenix jerked back, glowering at the paper. "He left? That...that...THAT filthy no good tarahk!"