Page 45 of The Lost Elemental

I stepped around Kai and started for the doors. He called my name, but I ignored him, picking up a jog. There was something Riven had said in the midst of his tirade. That Phoenix had likely gone wherever he did each night. Riven and Kai didn’t know where that was. But I did.

I ran across the quad to my dorm. The door banged against the wall as I charged through, heading for the stairs. My muscles burned as I took the steps two at a time. By the time I reached the roof, I was panting.

My hand closed over the door handle, and I paused, trying to catch my breath. I said a silent prayer that Phoenix was here and pushed the door open.

“I knew I should’ve picked somewhere else.”

Phoenix leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the roof, staring out at the horizon. He hadn’t even looked my way, yet he knew it was me.

I ignored the less-than-warm welcome and started towards him. There were no longer sparks jumping off him, but those smoky shadows were there, swirling and clinging. I didn’t let that stop me either. I lowered myself to the ground next to him and leaned back.

I didn’t say anything. I simply sat. After a moment I laid my hand over his, our fingers overlapping like an intricate tapestry.

Phoenix stared down at our joined hands. “How can you stand to touch me?”

I reared back. “Why wouldn’t I? You stepped in when I was frozen, scared out of my mind. You kept me from getting a face full of fire.”

“Could’ve killed my brother.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know that. I could feel how terrified you were. It was coming off you in waves. Wanted to kill him for that.”

“Phoenix.” I didn’t know what else to say. There were people in my life who had wanted to protect me. My mom, Charlie in his little boy way, even Lainey. But I’d never felt the fierceness that I sensed coming from Phoenix right now.

Phoenix turned back to the horizon. “He’ll have it out for you now. I had to stop him, but now he knows I care. It’ll put a target on your back.”

“It won’t be the first one.”

“He’ll keep coming for you.”

There was such defeat in his voice, it twisted my insides. My fingers curled tighter around Phoenix’s. “Why?”

“He’s always hated me. From the moment he realized falling behind me in the birth order meant he wouldn’t get to rule. And he blames me.”

“For what?”

Phoenix was quiet for a moment, just staring out at the forests surrounding the school. “Our sister dying.”

My fingers squeezed his reflexively, but I didn’t have any words to give him. Because nothing made that kind of loss easier.

Grief etched into the lines of his face, making Phoenix seem so much older than his twenty-one years. “He’s right. I couldn’t save her. I tried so damn hard. But I failed.”

“What happened?” I shouldn’t have asked. Shouldn’t have made him go there. But I had to understand this thing that had marked him so deeply.

“We were playing in the woods by the castle. Hide-and-seek. But assassins had gotten through the palace walls. They found her before I did. You’ve never heard screams like that.”

He shuddered as the memories rocked through him. “I ran the moment I heard the first one. But I was too late. There was so much blood. She was just lying there, her life flowing out of her. I tried to end them, but my powers were still bound.”

“Phoenix…”

“They turned their knives on me. I’ve never burned like I did that day.”

His words from the other night echoed in my mind. “You became the fire.”

“It’s the only way I could survive. I let it swallow me whole. My father’s guard found me. They had no idea how I was still breathing. The air was barely making it in and out of my lungs.”

My gaze tracked to Phoenix’s forearms, covered in tattoos. But beneath those tattoos, there was more. Scars. So many I’d never be able to count them all. They crisscrossed his skin like a patchwork of torture.