Chapter 3

"You dared to raise your hand against Julia? Tomorrow the whole of the Four Seas and Eight Realms will be watching the birthday banquet. If she arrives with a handprint on her face, won't she be the laughingstock of them all?"

"You'd shame the honor of my Heaven itself!"

Les Stewart shielded Julia behind him and reached out to seize the tail feathers.

But the feathers might as well have grown roots. They lay motionless in my palm.

His face had been slighted, and he cleared his throat, sullen.

"Don't forget. That beast you always treasured so dearly. His life is still in my hands."

He meant Ellie's spirit-companion.

The fox I had left behind to look after her when I departed. Cyrus.

"What have you done to him?"

Seeing the tension in my face, Les smiled.

"Apologize to Julia. Return the Phoenix Feather Hairpin to her like a good girl. Do as Julia arranges tomorrow at the banquet, and I'll let him live."

So this was how he had held Ellie in his grip.

I had meant Cyrus to protect her, never dreaming he would become her weakness instead.

Fine. Let me see whether a lowborn Fledgling Fowl like Julia could bear the honor of the phoenix feather, and a dance with the matriarch of the Crimson Phoenix tribe.

I pressed down the fury in my heart and stepped forward slowly, sliding the Phoenix Feather Hairpin into Julia's hair.

Then I bent my knees and gave the required bow.

Just as I began to rise, Les's power pinned me down where I stood.

"Kneel here until tomorrow. Learn your place."

I don't know how long I knelt. When the spell he'd laid on me finally lifted, an attendant led me back to my chambers.

The moment I stepped through the door, I breathed in deep and greedy, trying to catch any trace of Ellie she might have left behind.

But everywhere I looked there were only children's clothes and dolls, little tiger-faced things sewn for an infant.

A thought flashed through my mind, and it nearly knocked me off my feet.

"Was there... was there once a child here?"

The attendant who had led me looked startled, then quickly curled her lip in contempt.

"Losing your mind again? Sewing these useless things all day. Can't even remember you gave birth to your own little monster?"

"What are you saying? Where is the child?"

I seized her arm and demanded it.

"I told you, it was a monster. The Sovereign could hardly allow it to live. Still, the thing had its uses. The Sovereign refined it into an elixir himself, to strengthen Julia's body, and it helped her ascend to godhood without trouble!"

Something roared in my head. My hand fell away, my soul stripped from me, and I sank to the floor.

For the Crimson Phoenix tribe, bearing children is a bitter, brutal thing.

Every phoenix chick born takes the better part of its mother's life.

Even I, back then, was tormented near to death by it.

And my poor Ellie, who had labored to bring a child into the world, only to have its own father refine it into an elixir that went down Julia's throat.

Cast aside by her husband. Torn from her own flesh and blood.

I could not bear to imagine how she had endured ten thousand years of this.

I scrambled up from the floor and ran to the table.

Inch by inch my fingers moved over the tiny garments she had sewn with her own hands.

Night after night of her suffering rose before my eyes, of her despair.

Those eyes of hers, brighter than any star, must have been wept blind exactly like this.

Forcing down the hatred in my chest, I followed the trace of him all the way to where Les had imprisoned Cyrus.

The guards recognized my face and stepped forward, cold, to block my path.

"Consort, the Sovereign has ordered it. You cannot come here—"

One cold sweep of my eyes, and the guards dropped clutching their mouths, blood pouring out of them without end, able only to wail in their agony.

Once, in all the Four Seas and Eight Realms, there was no ground I could not walk.

Only thirty thousand years, and already these juniors had forgotten high from low.

Judging by how they behaved, they had surely bullied my Ellie more than once.

The little I had done was hardly more than a small correction.

In the deepest part of the celestial prison, Cyrus had reverted to his true form, lying on the ground with the breath barely left in him, his whole body a mass of wounds.

He had been the most outstanding youth of the White Fox tribe, and from the first time he saw me he had given me his heart.

But my mind was set on the realm and its people, so he folded away his love and named me his master.

When I left, I entrusted Ellie to him.

I had believed that with his power he would surely keep her safe.

I never imagined he too would be tortured to a state like this.

I walked to him and slowly crouched down.

As if he sensed something, he forced his eyes open.

The instant our gazes met, his eyes reddened, and he reached a trembling hand toward me, choking on the words.

"Master, I'm sorry. Cyrus failed to protect Ellie..."

"It's my fault, all my fault!"

"Les Stewart, that heartless, ungrateful thing, he toyed with Ellie's feelings, and the moment he took the Sovereign's throne he kicked her aside. Poor Ellie, she..."