Jonas felt uneasy about Ashur’s attitude. He seemed to be taking the recent news of most of his family’s massacre in stride. He couldn’t tell if Ashur grieved their loss or celebrated it. Or did he feel nothing at all?
“Lower your weapon, Taran,” Jonas growled, then hissed out a breath. “Why are you back so soon anyway? Didn’t you have belongings to gather?”
Taran didn’t budge. He kept the sharp tip of his sword pressed to Ashur’s throat, his biceps flexing. “The roads are blocked. Granny Cortas has decided that all rebels are to be slain on sight. Since we blew up the city dungeon yesterday, there’s nowhere to put any prisoners.”
“All the more reason for us to go now,” Nic urged.
“I agree with Nicolo,” Ashur said.
The angry squawk of a bird caught Jonas’s attention. He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up at the golden hawk swooping above the ship.
Olivia was getting impatient. That made two of them.
He willed himself to remain calm. He couldn’t afford to make any rash decisions.
Just then, an image of Lysandra slid into his mind, along with the sound of her laughter. “No rash decisions? Since when?” she would have said.
Since you died and I couldn’t save you.
Pushing his grief away, Jonas forced himself to focus on the prince.
“If you want any chance to board this ship,” he said, “then explain how you’ve managed to rise from the dead only to walk right up to a group of rebels like you’ve only been out for a tankard of ale.”
“Rise from the dead?” Taran repeated, his furious expression giving way to confusion.
Ignoring Taran, Jonas searched for any sign of intimidation in the prince’s demeanor. A signal that he feared for his life, that he was desperate to escape his homeland. But only serenity filled his pale eyes.
It was unsettling, really.
“Have you ever heard of the legend of the phoenix?” Ashur asked smoothly.
“Of course,” Nic replied. “It’s a mythical bird that rose from the ashes of the flames that originally killed it. It’s the symbol for Kraeshia, to show the empire’s strength and ability to defy death itself.”
Ashur nodded. “Yes.”
Jonas raised his eyebrows. “Really?” he said.
Nic shrugged. “I took a class with Cleo on foreign myths once. I paid more attention than she did.” He flicked a wary look at Ashur. “What about this legend?”
“There is also a legend of a mortal fated to one day do the same—return from death to unite the world. Grandmother always believed that my sister would be this phoenix. When Amara was a baby, she died for a brief moment but came back to life, thanks to a resurrection potion our mother gave her. When I recently learned of this, I had the same potion created for me. I’m not sure I truly believed it would work, but it did. And as I rose at dawn in the temple where I’d died the night before at my sister’s hand, I realized the truth.”
“What truth?” Jonas demanded after Ashur fell silent.
Ashur met his gaze. “That I am the phoenix. And it’s my destiny to save this world from its current fate, beginning with stopping my sister from her dark need to blindly follow in my father’s footsteps.”
The prince fell silent again as his audience of three stared at him. Taran was the first to laugh.
“Royals always think so damn highly of themselves,” he sneered. “Legends of heroes who defy certain death are as old as legends about the Watchers themselves.” Taran glanced at Jonas. “I’m going to cut off his head. If he gets up after that, consider me a believer.”
Jonas didn’t think Taran was being serious, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Lower your weapon,” Jonas growled. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
Taran cocked his head. “I don’t take orders from you.”
“Do you want passage on this ship? Then yes, you do take orders from me.”
But still Taran didn’t budge, and his gaze grew only more challenging.
“You giving Jonas a problem, Ranus?” Felix’s voice boomed out, just before he came to stand at Jonas’s side.
Jonas was grateful that Felix Gaebras—with all his height and muscles—was on his side. A former member of the Clan of the Cobra, a group of assassins who worked for King Gaius, Felix’s ability to cast a deadly and intimidating shadow was no accident.
But Taran was just as deadly and just as intimidating.
“You want to know about my problems?” Taran finally lowered his blade to his side, then nodded at the resurrected royal. “This is Prince Ashur Cortas.”
Felix peered skeptically at the prince with his good eye. After spending the last week imprisoned and being mercilessly tortured for poisoning the Kraeshian royal family—a crime Amara had blamed on him—it was his only eye; the other was covered by a black eye patch. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“He is.” Nic had stayed very quiet, never taking his attention off of the prince, wearing an expression that was equal parts stunned and confused.
“I’m not.” Ashur spoke patiently to Nic.
“It could be a trick.” Nic’s brow furrowed in concentration as he studied the prince carefully. “Perhaps you’re a witch who possesses enough air magic to change your appearance.”
Ashur raised a dark eyebrow, as if amused. “Hardly.”