The guards didn’t dare look between one another. Slowly, they each reached for their helmets and took them off their heads as they knelt to the ground before her.
“My name,” she asked of them.
“Aydra Ravenspeak—”
“Your Majesty—”
“My Queen—”
Aydra stepped forward in front of the one that had called her by simply her name, and she felt her head tilt down at him. The tip of her sword raked gently against his skin. “What was that, Belwark?”
The guard’s eyes rolled up to meet hers.
And then he spat at her.
Her sword met his throat without hesitation, and his head rolled cleanly to the floor.
Fire from his rocky insides caught the rug, and she stamped it out with her boot. She turned on her heel towards the door. A deep breath entered her lungs as blue flames flashed in her memory, but she squashed it with the adrenaline of the phoenix coursing through her bones.
Lies.
The word reverberated through her consciousness.
And she kicked in the door.
Rhaif was standing on the other side of the room, staring out of the window. He had his arm lazily crossed over his chest, one hand stroking the unkept stubble on his chin. He barely turned his head in her direction upon hearing her come in.
Rhaif’s brow raised as he looked her over. “Got a bit comfy in the Forest, did we?”
Aydra thrust her sword back into her belt and began to take her riding gloves off one finger at a time. “Spit it out, Rhaif,” she dared him. “Say what you really mean.”
He looked her over once more, watching her as she stripped herself of the leather braces on her arms, the tight belted corset around her midsection.
“Have you come to kill me?” he asked as he faced her.
She threw the leathers off her body and onto the floor across the room. “Is that what you think?”
“I think you came running in here after you found your sister had been hurt. Not a fault of mine, despite what she may say.”
Aydra almost laughed. “Not a fault of yours?” She reached for her sword on her belt and twirled it in her hand a few times. “Is that huge scratch across your face not from her eagle defending her?” she said with a point of her blade.
Rhaif’s jaw tightened. “Why are you here then if not to avenge your beloved sister?”
She scoffed and shook her head. “You know, I did initially come for her. I did come to avenge her, to protect her, as I thought she needed. But my sister has proved she can take care of herself.” She paused and allowed her eyes to flicker towards the window, seeing the shadow that passed over the sun, and she felt a fire rising inside her that she’d not anticipated.
“I am not here for her any longer. I am here for me,” she warned him.
“For you?” His eyes flashed fire, and she gripped the hilt of her sword tighter in her fist. “What will you do? Call the crows?”
Her neck cracked as she took a step back. She felt out into the void for the phoenix, feeling her eyes begin to flutter. The core of the great bird pulsed through her. She could feel the warming of its insides burning through her body.
“What do you say to a fair fight this time?” she mused. “No pushing me off ledges or killing my creatures. Fair. Flame for flame.”
Rhaif stepped away from the window, fingertips blackening by the second. He pushed his shirt over his head, and the blue flames began to wrap around his lightning streaked torso. He pulled his own sword from his belt, and the blade heated beneath his grip.
“By all means,” he mocked.
Her sword clashed with his above his head. Rhaif’s shouts and grunts echoed off the walls as he pushed her backwards. Aydra ducked and pivoted back, her sword barely missing his chest. She lunged forward and swung hard. His sword caught hers before she could slice his waist.
