The Last Phoenix- Book 1 of the Legends of Henge Series

Chapter 19

Arielle Clements

I had known nothing good could come of doing an illegal game of Capture the Flag. That's why I hadn't gone. And now two of my idiot teammates were in the Medical Tent and I had to bite my tongue and not say "I told you so," like I really wanted to.

Now one of them had been stupid enough to actually run towards the fire and the other everyone suspected to be the cause of the fire. Not to mention they thought she was evil and wanted to kill them all.

Harper had been mildly burned by the explosion, mildly while Lark was much worse for wears. She had several bad burns and scrapes and was still unconscious. Either way, they were both not going to be here for the first day.

Utter idiots.

I looked myself up and down in the mirror, wondering why they had chosen white of all colors for the girl's uniform. It also included a white button up shirt with a black tie underneath the white blazer with a black outlining stripe.

The short black skirt with two white stripes was also absurdly short and I felt like if I bent over I might flash someone.

This was not okay, I thought as I stepped into the hallway of our dorm. Now that it was only down to Bailey, Anvi, and I on our side we all had our respective rooms to ourselves.

The boys' uniforms were extremely similar but rather than skirts they had long black dress pants and instead of white blazers with a black stripe, they had black blazers with a white stripe.

There was a knock on the door and I was quick to answer it. Luna and the rest of her team were standing outside on our porch. They weren't wearing their uniforms.

"Why are you-" I started to ask but Luna just pushed past me.

"Professor Aurum wants you down by the Medical Tent," Luna announced, flopping down in an armchair and stretching across it. "And also, you know the uniforms are only supposed to be worn on specific days, like assemblies and stuff like that, right?" She smirked around at us. "That's why you only get one set."

"How were we even supposed to know that?" Bailey asked incredulously.

Luna smirked and pointed to a large book. It was alone on our currently empty bookshelf. "It's in your student handbook," she replied.

"Who reads that?" Lance snorted, flopping down in a seat with Luna.

"Yeah, did you guys? I find it hard to believe that Luna read that," I pointed out. Luna just smiled breezily.

"That was all Cander. He's big into reading, that kid," Luna laughed.

We made our way to the Medical Tent as soon as we had all changed back into normal clothing. "This is stupid," Lance retorted.

"What?" I asked.

"That we have to go to the Medical Tent so we can probably discuss what happened that night when most of us had nothing and want nothing to do with it," he grumbled, brows furrowed.

"Hey you were there too!" I pointed out.

"Yeah but I don't care what happened to them. I hardly know them and I don't plan on knowing them. I don't want to associate with idiots," he replied. Was he just trying to piss me off?

"Too late, you can disassociate with yourself," I hissed through my teeth. He glances sideways at me looking mildly surprised.

"Not sure why you're getting so pissed. They aren't your friends. It's not like you owe them anything," he continued.

"Maybe not but at least I know that they're better people than you," I snapped. "I'd much rather associate with them than you."

He continued to stare hard at me until he rolled his eyes a second later. "Whatever," he dropped back to the other guys.

"He's kind of a dick isn't he?" Bailey pointed out next to me.

"Yeah, he is," I agreed.

That's when I noticed the screen of a TV in one of the houses. It showed a picture of a woman, not much older than 25 or so. She had long golden blonde hair and golden eyes, much like my own. A small flag on the bottom marked her missing and my stomach dropped.

Asteria Glass. The last phoenix. She was missing? "Arielle?" Bailey tapped my shoulder. "Are you alright?"

I shook my mane of curly brown hair. "Yeah, I'm fine," I assured her, still not able to rip my eyes away from the image on the screen.

"Asteria Glass?" Bailey asked. "I never expected her to turn up missing... well, yeah I did but it's still a surprise."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she's the phoenix right?" I nodded. "I mean, plenty of people are probably dying to get their hands on her, right? But still. She's super powerful, it's surprising someone actually got to her."

"Yeah," I replied.

"Are you guys coming?" it was Anvi. When we got to the Med Tent, Professor Aurum was waiting outside.

"Hello, students," she greeted, bowing her head slightly to each of us. "I want you all to forget each rumor you heard about the incident because I'm about to tell you what really happened.

"They didn't cause anything that happened. I don't care what they were doing or if they were apart of a harmless yet illegal Capture the Flag game. That is not what I'm concerned with. I am concerned with what burned down our entire Nocturnal Section.

"That, I'm sure you're all wondering, was not a natural occurrence. Something, or someone, burned them down and we don't know why," she finished. "That's all we know and that's all you need to know, now go see your teammates."

The others surged forward but I felt Aurum's gaze boring into me as I held back. "Asteria's gone," I stated.

"She is," Aurum agreed.

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"Was it her?"

"I don't know." This infuriated me.

"How can you not know? It showed every sign of being a phoenix and you know it. She's the only one, it had to be her," I pointed out, not really wanting to believe it.

"I know but we both know that Asteria wouldn't do something like this of her own accord," Aurum explained. "Someone's using her like a puppet. We are trying to find the one controlling the strings."

"Be honest with me," I pleaded. "Do you have any idea who it could be?"

"No." That scared me more.

Question of the Chapter: What kind of pets do you have and what are their names?

My Answer: I have three cats named Dumbledore, Gandalf, and Mad-Eye (he has one eye), three dogs named Merlin, Luna, and Dhugal, two tortoises named Neville and Calcifer, two fish named Crabbe and Goyle, and a hedgehog named Hagrid. Yes, my family is a family of nerds who like to name their animals after wizards.