Eliana's fingers dug into Hanara's arms as if the princess were the last thing anchoring her to the world. She stared at the door, then at her daughter, eyes rimmed with pain and a fierce, impossible steadiness.
"Go. Now!" she screamed frantically, the sound ragged over the thunder of approaching boots.
Hanara's head shook.
"Mother. We–"
"I can't follow you. I won't be able to go far. You need to take your baby brother and leave!" Eliana panted, each word a shard. Sunfire burned under her ribs. Her jaw worked as if to keep from coughing blood in front of Hanara. She pivoted to Tael, who stood frozen, terror and duty warring in her face.
"Take her! Now!"
"No! I'm not leaving without you, Mother!" Hanara spat, teeth clenched.
Tael hesitated, her hands trembling.
"Do it, Tael! Now!" Eliana gasped, lips trembling as if the command cost her the last of her strength. Hanara's sobs stuck in her throat. Words failed her. Tael's throat closed, and for an instant, the woman looked as if she would collapse beneath the weight of her loyalty. Then duty sharpened her. She moved, fingers closing around Hanara with desperate firmness.
"No! Mother! I'm not going!" Hanara screamed, grief and defiance braided into one raw sound.
Eliana smiled through smoke-darkened pain—small, almost proud.
"Fly. Fly and protect your brother. Princess, don't waver…" she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.
Tael darted to the opposite wall and found the carved seam she'd known existed for years. She yanked the hidden trigger. Stone groaned. A narrow staircase yawned downward. Hanara would not look away from her mother—would not burn the image from her mind. As the hidden door slammed and began to close, Eliana's body betrayed her—blood finally slicked her lips.
Boots shattered the silence. The bedroom door was kicked open. A knight strode in, not Tait but another commander, someone whose uniform cut like accusation.
"Find the princess now!" the commander barked.
"Yes!" the knights replied, a chorus of iron.
Eliana laughed then—a brittle, incredulous sound. She turned and fixed the commander with a defiant glare.
"I should have known never to trust the entire army… For his own mate to open doors for someone else… I wonder, Commander Shane. How did it feel when my father burnt your arm?" she asked, voice threaded with venom and something like triumph.
The commander, Shane, approached, hatred slow and certain on his face. He stepped closer, and the air between them curdled.
"Your father was a monster. One attack wiped out our entire frontline. I was glad to see his daughter share his fate," Shane answered.
Eliana laughed again, the sound split by the fire inside her.
Zilant shoved through the knot of knights and into the room. He searched the space with frantic eyes, looking for Hanara, only to find Eliana, bleeding and betrayed.
"No… This isn't what was supposed to happen," Zilant trembled, his voice raw as he stared into Eliana's eyes.
Eliana gave him a bittersweet smile that broke something inside him. He dropped to his knees. The breath in his chest snagged on a sob he could not let loose.
"A child born into such a broken empire… I only wish you could change it one day. If not, she'll know nothing but sorrow," Eliana murmured, words like a benediction and a curse.
Zilant moved toward her, as if he might hold back fate with his hands alone. Tait burst in, slamming into Shane and grabbing at his armor.
"How dare you defy my orders?! The order was to just ask–"
"Your father knew. You were too weak to strike, so he sent me to follow. Who would have known that you found a way to finally enter the Phoenix Clan?" Shane sneered, cruel satisfaction folding his features into a smile.
Tait went pale—not from fear but from betrayal. His hands shook. The truth was a blade he had not expected. Mercy had been the mission he believed in. This—this was slaughter. He let go of Shane's armor and turned, helpless, toward Zilant, who was crawling to Eliana's side.
Eliana convulsed once. Light—firelight—burst from her and, with a sound like rain on stone, her body disintegrated into ash. There was no lingering scream, only the hollow hush left in the absence of a living figure.
"Zilant!" Tait roared, scooping the prince away with a motion that was equal parts protection and denial. He covered Zilant's eyes, anything to stop him from witnessing the finality of what had happened.
Zilant couldn't look away. He stared at the space where Eliana had stood until the weight of grief flattened him. Tears carved tracks down his face.
"Princess is not here!" one of the knights called, eager hands already fanning out into the halls.
Shane cursed as he stared at the ashes.
"That cursed phoenix. Search the entire palace now!" he ordered. Knights scattered like wolves, claws extended.
Below the palace, Tael ran the dungeon corridors with Hanara cradled in her arms. Her heart pounded against her ribs so hard it hurt. She reached the end, lifted the hatch, and pushed Hanara up into the faint night air. Hanara wanted to tear back to her mother, to rip open the stone and retrieve the life that had just been folded into smoke. Tael peered out, muscles coiled to listen. The coast seemed momentarily clear. She turned, rough hands gripping Hanara's shoulders.
"Let's get out of here," Tael said, voice urgent as she pulled Hanara through the opening.
They stumbled into the indoor garden. One of the phoenixes was still there, uneasy and vast. Hanara's protest shuddered out of her like a broken sob.
"No… Mother–"
"Princess. This is not the time. I'll divert their attention. You ride with Worish… Alone," Tael ordered.
Hanara's body shook.
"Tael… I cannot–"
"You must! Yelenis has already taken Hansel away. Now you need to go," Tael interrupted, urgency brittle with grief.
Hanara clung to her, wanting to resist but feeling the truth of what Tael said. Tael hugged her with a grief-stricken face, whispering the formal farewell that made Hanara howl with pain.
"It was a pleasure serving you as my master… Princess Hanara."
The phrase itself was a blade. Hanara screamed—an animal, a child, a princess—then flung herself toward Worish. Tael stood, wiped her face, and with a single hard breath raced from the garden.
"Princess is over here!" she shouted, and the deception was a single, shining lie. She ran, pounding through corridors and slamming doors. Her cry drew pursuers away.
"Now!" Worish bellowed, launching from the garden. The great bird surged into the air and fled toward the mountains, the one place dragons feared to enter.
Hanara glanced back once. The Phoenix Clan's roofs were a map of living heat: tongues of fire racing across each structure, greedy and bright. Tears slipped through the wind as she held Hansel tighter, feeling the world she had known buckle and burn.
They reached the highest ridge. Hanara leaped from Worish's back. Yelenis stood guard, beak set, protecting the nest and the child. Hanara ran to Hansel and folded herself around him.
"Ha-ba!" he giggled, immediate and terrible in its innocence. He clapped, oblivious to the ruin curled below. Hanara held him as if she could press the moment flat and keep it whole.
Yelenis leaned close, a great feathered shoulder pressed to Hanara. The phoenix whispered in tones that were older than the palace. Hanara listened, the words a map to what might come. She looked at the nest and the smoldering valley beyond and understood: the knights' dragon wings would come. This was not an end—they had to prepare.
Below, the Dragon knights finished their brutality. Corpses lay in grotesque tangles. Charred bodies were heaped like a careless monument. Blood soaked the scorched earth. Shane watched with cruel satisfaction. Tait's fingers trembled as he surrendered his sword to the ash-dusted ground of the clan he had once sheltered in his delusions of mercy. Zilant stood frozen, wings slack and dark, his shelter reduced to smoke that still curled against the sky. The shame of inaction sat on him like lead.
"This is… inhumane," Tait muttered.
Shane's laugh was coarse.
"This is how we earn respect!"
Tait's face was a map of disbelief.
"A chance of respect?! They welcomed us with open arms! Instead of putting their swords to my neck, they gave us a place to stay and food to eat. They didn't share our beliefs, but they still showed us respect!" he snapped.
Shane's contempt cut through.
"You fool. They planned to poison your wine last night. If I hadn't stopped them—" he sneered.
Tait reacted without thinking: a punch sent Shane to the ground, a bloom of blood at his lip. Shane spat at Tait, a gesture of hatred and scorn.
"How can a Dragon-royal born like you be so weak?"
"You're naive, Prince. Although you're a prince, you're weaker than your brother," Shane taunted. Tait kicked him, rage boiling.
"Insult me again, and you'll lose your tongue. Or maybe your head. I dare you," Tait threatened, voice low and dangerous.
Shane's nose bled. He glared up at Tait with furious surprise. Tait moved to Zilant, placing a hand, gentle, shaking, on the prince's shoulder.
"Uncle… why did this have to happen?" Zilant asked, voice small.
Tait's eyes pricked. He knelt to Zilant with the tenderness of a man trying to hold another human life steady against a storm.
"Zilant. We have to go now. We have to find the princess and prince… Before it's too late," he said softly.
Zilant's face crumpled at the thought.
"What if they get hurt too?" he asked, sorrow pressed into the syllables.
"I won't allow that to happen. If anything, I will take them under my protection," Tait promised, pulling Zilant into an embrace. "Just like how I took you in…"
"Uncle… I actually saw them…" Zilant mumbled, voice small and urgent.
Tait froze, eyes searching for ears. He leaned close.
"Where?" he whispered.
Zilant hesitated, then lifted a finger, trembling, pointing toward the mountains. Tait followed his finger. The path ahead was a thin hope.
Shane released two dragons: a full-grown adult and a smaller hatchling. Zilant leapt on the larger dragon with Tait. Shane took the smaller, snarling at the sky as they rode toward the high peaks where phoenix nests nestle on cold stone. Worish screeched, fury and warning, as the dragons bore down.
"Princess!" Worish screamed. He did not wait for diplomacy. Shane blew a sharp whistle. Tait's dragon inhaled and breathed a gout of fire, striking Worish with brutal force. The great bird stumbled, feathers crisping and smoking.
"Worish!" Hanara screamed, sprinting to her wounded companion. His feathers were blackened. Blood mixed with ash. Her hands shook as she touched him. Rage and sorrow welded into something fierce.
She turned toward the dragons—toward Zilant among them. Her eyes shifted from glassy grief to molten anger. The spark inside her grew red.
"How dare you step into sacred sky, cursed with fire? You will pay with your life!" she shouted, voice threading through agony and command.
Her palm touched Worish's scorched wing. He looked at her and, with a weak smile, breathed, "Go on."
The containment she had clung to broke. A storm of power unfurled.
The air around Hanara bent. Light warped. Yelenis cried out, a sound like a bell cracked in thunder.
"Hana, don't—!"
It was too late.
The sky detonated. A sheet of incandescent force roared outward. Tait flung himself over Zilant, wings and armor shielding them both, but the blast was merciless. The small dragon and its rider were swallowed by the fire—no shape remaining, only a scatter of cinders that fell and vanished. Tait screamed in agony as searing heat licked his back.
When the ash settled, a great dragon crashed onto the nest, heavy and injured. Tait and Zilant scrambled free, panting and bloody. Tait's back was burned raw. Zilant's face was stricken. The sight of death had lodged a new, colder thing in him.
"Uncle…" Zilant whispered.
"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" Tait asked, voice taut with fear.
Zilant shook his head, the question of his own pain swallowed by weightier things.
"But you are…" he mumbled.
Tait forced a smile and knelt by Zilant.
"Zilant, you're more important to me than myself," he said, voice ragged but steady.
A cry cut through the wreckage. Zilant threw himself toward the sound and began digging through charred eggshells and blackened debris. His hands scraped ash, then—
"Hansel!" he called.
Baby Hansel lay wailing, small and raw, free from the worst. Zilant scooped him up, urgency and relief stamping his movements. Tait took the child from him and cradled the boy with hands that trembled.
"He…" Zilant began, words snagging.
"Uncle, we have to protect him. He should not–" Zilant forced out.
"Zilant, no one knows…" Tait whispered, steeling the lie that would buy them a chance.
Zilant repeated it like a benediction: "No one knows…"
Tait walked toward the dragon, Hansel held against his chest. Zilant stared at the ruined nest and made a vow without words: Hanara, I will bury your parents' ashes. I'll make sure I protect Hansel and bring him back home.
Days ground past like millstones after the Phoenix Clan was turned to ash. Hanara awoke with a groan, skin slick with sweat and lungs burning from the heat she had released, an aftertaste of scorched sky in her mouth. Her head pounded. When she opened her eyes, she was not in a palace bed but in a mossy wooden cabin that smelled of damp earth and old wood.
"'Bout time you wake up," a man's voice said.
Hanara snapped upright, eyes darting. A man sat near the hearth, regarding her like a slow burn, sizing her up. The cabin was humble. The air felt foreign and safe and dangerous all at once.
"Who are you, and why am I here?" she demanded.
The man studied her, then shrugged.
"Beats me. Your stupid bird thought bringing you here was a good idea," he answered discouragingly.
Hanara rose, testing her limbs.
"Then you know the bird. Otherwise, she wouldn't bring me here," she said, narrowing her eyes. The man made a sound like a sigh and took her in from head to toe.
"You have your mother's hair, but you don't have her eyes. Your eyes are as red as rubies…" he said, noting the scarlet in her irises.
Hanara huffed.
"I definitely have my mother's eyes. Wait—how did you know my mother?" she snapped.
He laughed, a rough, humorless sound.
"Heh. You're slow-witted. Your mother isn't… Did you get your genes from your grandfather?" he taunted.
The question stung.
"For your information, both of them died the same way… Don't you dare mock them as if you knew them…" Hanara answered, bitterness bright on her tongue.
The man's expression shifted. His hands dropped to his lap as if steadying himself. Something like regret crossed his face.
"What do you mean… 'the same way'?" he asked, suddenly serious.
Hanara blinked, tears rimmed but held. She swallowed and said the one name that had been a thorn in the back of her throat since Eliana's ashes.
"Sunfire nectar."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 🪶 🔥 Princess, Don't Waver ❄️ 🐉 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~