Chapter 751: The Phoenix’s Power [Bonus - ]

Chapter 751: The Phoenix’s Power [Bonus Chapter]

Over the eastern bluffs, a column of churning water shot up into the fog and burst apart into glittering spray, and a heartbeat later a wall of green light rose up to meet it and tore it into mist.

’Are they fighting...?’

A distant thunderclap rolled across the valley floor, followed by another sudden spike of wild competitive mana that made the pine needles on the nearby hedges shiver.

Silas blinked as he knew both of those signatures instantly.

’What are those two doing...?’ he thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh. ’That’s definitely Eluned and Morwenna... Morwenna said she was going to find Eluned, and now their mana’s spiking like they’re trying to crack a fortress wall in half. Hopefully they aren’t actually fighting down there.’

If they blew up anything, he would make them build it all by hand.

Silas shook his head, decided to trust that they were only blowing off steam, and kept walking across the courtyard to the Keep’s heavy double doors.

The courtyard was empty and he took hold of the polished bronze ring-handle before pulling the thick oak door open.

CREEEAK!

Silas stepped into the entrance hall and pushed the heavy door shut behind him.

The iron latch dropped into place with a solid thud that sealed out the cold air.

He stood there for a moment with his back against the cool wood and listened.

The silence that greeted him was absolute as the great hall was completely still.

The big stone hearth on the eastern wall had burned down to low glowing embers that threw long flickering shadows across the polished oak floor and the woven tapestries hanging from the pillars.

The long trestle tables where the household usually gathered for meals were empty and cleared of plates and tankards, with only a few unlit brass candelabras standing on the dark wood.

Silas stood in the middle of the foyer and looked around the cavernous room with one eyebrow raised.

’Where is everyone?’

He knew Rika was up in her room, resting after the long trip to Central City. That made sense but what about everyone else who lived in the Keep?

Talira was nowhere to be found... Neither was Kadi... Even Aurelia, the Saintess of the Argent Flame, who could usually be found somewhere in the Keep in the evenings, wasn’t anywhere in sight.

’Even Kael-Drin...’ Silas thought.

Kael-Drin had mostly wanted to stay in the territory instead of wandering off into the wild, which was why Silas had let the little fire spirit stay.

Normally he’d at least catch a flicker of that crimson glow somewhere in the hall, drifting near the warmest corner and pulsing smugly at anyone who walked past but right now there wasn’t so much as a spark.

’The Keep is quite empty.’

He walked past the long tables with his boots thudding softly on the oak planks.

’I wonder what the rest of them are doing,’ he mused with a faint curious smirk. ’They probably felt Morwenna and Eluned going at it out by the bluffs and ran over to watch... Either way, at least it’s quiet. I can handle Rika’s business without ten people lining up to ask me for something.’

He reached the grand staircase, a wide flight of carved stone steps with a polished walnut banister winding up toward the private quarters.

Silas set his left hand on the banister and took the stairs two at a time, light and quick and nearly silent.

On the upper landing a wide carpeted corridor stretched out beneath stone arches lined with brass sconces burning low.

"I wonder who I should allow to move into the Keep..."

He walked down the quiet hallway with his boots sinking into the thick woolen runner.

He passed the heavy oak doors of the guest suites and the other Heroes’ rooms and finally stopped in front of the dark cedar door at the end of the eastern wing.

Rika’s room.

He stood outside it for a second and listened... Everything was quiet except for a crackling hum of warm mana that seemed to seep through the wood like invisible heat.

He raised his right hand and knocked twice on the cedar.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

"Rika?" he called softly. "It’s me... You awake in there?"

CLICK!

The latch turned before the echo of his second knock had even faded from the hallway.

The heavy door swung wide open and revealed the petite dark-haired figure standing on the threshold.

Rika stood there with an enormous radiant smile lighting up her delicate face and her emerald eyes shining with pure unreserved affection.

Before Silas could say another word, she stepped forward, threw both slender arms around his waist and buried her face straight into his stomach in a tight warm hug.

"Hehe..."

Silas let out a rich breathy chuckle that vibrated against her cheek through his jacket as her arms locked stubbornly around his middle.

Her grip was shockingly tight for someone who barely reached his breastbone.

She squeezed the air right out of his lungs like an affectionate python so he brought both hands up, resting his left palm on the curve of her small shoulder while his right patted her back in a slow soothing rhythm.

"Alright, easy there," Silas laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Calm down before you crack my ribs... I was only gone an hour or so... I think."

Rika gave him one last defiant squeeze and kept her face buried in his stomach for another three seconds before she finally let go.

She looked up at him with her cheeks flushed a soft petal pink and her bright emerald eyes practically glowing in the warm light of the corridor.

"Every hour you’re out there without me feels like three cycles of the moon, Master," she murmured, in a sweet soft voice she tried and failed to make sound dignified.

"Come on inside," Silas smiled, nudging her gently back over the threshold with his knuckle.

Rika stepped back into her room with her bare feet padding silently across the thick woven rug in the middle of the floor.

Silas followed, caught the heavy door with his left hand and pulled it shut... the latch clicked into place with a quiet satisfying snap that cut off the sound from the hall.

’Alright, we need to focus.’

Rika hopped lightly onto the edge of the mattress and sat with her hands pressed flat on the wool coverlet on either side of her as her legs dangled and kicked the air in tiny happy arcs.

Silas stayed on his feet and leaned his back against the sturdy wooden frame of a wardrobe near the foot of the bed.

He folded both arms comfortably across his chest and studied her with genuine curiosity.

"So," he said, his voice dropping into an easy conversational tone. "How are you actually feeling after fusing with the Phoenix?"

Rika’s face softened into pure radiant delight.

"I feel amazing, Master," she said without a shred of hesitation, tipping her head back with a quiet contented sigh.

Perched right on top of her head, nestled in the thick messy silk of her black hair like a little golden crown, sat the Primordial Phoenix.

The hatchling was no bigger than a songbird, covered in a downy coat of brilliant golden feathers that gleamed like polished amber in the lantern light.

As Silas watched, the tiny bird puffed out its chest, gave a soft drowsy chirp and let out a faint curling puff of ember-smoke from its little beak, then tucked its wings tight against Rika’s scalp to keep warm.

Rika reached up with one slender finger and gently stroked the downy feathers on its belly.

"I know I was acting a bit weird," she admitted, a sheepish blush dusting the bridge of her small nose as her emerald eyes slid sideways. "I had those... childish tendencies, since the bond was new. Clinging to your sleeve, whining about sweets, throwing little fits over nothing... The bond was so raw that the hatchling’s baby instincts were leaking straight into me but it’s settled now... I feel good."

She looked back up at him, and her eyes widened with a sudden eager spark that made the golden bird on her head twitch its crest.

"Would you like to see my power, Master?" she asked breathlessly. "More or less what the bond has actually given me?"

Silas grinned and shifted his weight against the wardrobe.

"Sure."

Rika’s playful smile disappeared in a fraction of a second.

She slid off the edge of the bed and planted her bare feet on the rug.

Her hands dropped to her sides, and her frame straightened until she carried herself with the terrifying weight of a goddess who had walked the world far longer than Silas.

She closed her eyes.

VUUUUUUM!

The air in the room changed.

In the space of a single heartbeat the air turned thick and heavy and bone dry.

The pleasant smell burned away, and in its place came a sharp scorching smell like the air right before lightning strikes.

The hair on the back of Silas’s neck shot straight up as Rika’s presence sank deeper and deeper, down into something vast and divine.

Under her pale skin, brilliant golden veins of mana lit up like molten copper wire... They spread out from her heart, surged up her throat and traced down her arms to the very tips of her fingers.

The fire wasn’t wild or chaotic, surprisingly, it felt quite suffocating and it pulsed with the slow steady heartbeat of a sun that would never die.

Her fiery mana spread through every vein in her body, filled her to the brim, and then had nowhere left to go but out.

WHOOOOOSH!

A deafening blast of golden mana burst out of Rika’s frame in an expanding wave... It hit Silas like a battering ram!

THUD!

The breath was knocked clean out of him.

His boots skidded back across the oak floorboards and his back slammed hard into the solid wardrobe behind him as the wooden panels groaned under the strain, and the heavy iron-latched windows rattled violently in their frames.

RATTLE-RATTLE-RATTLE!

The loose furs on the bed whipped wildly in the scorching gale, and the heavy velvet curtains billowed up toward the ceiling as if a desert storm had blown straight through the room.

Silas threw his right arm up to shield his face and squinted into the blinding golden haze of heat that filled every corner.

’What the hell...’ he thought, his dark blue eyes going wide as the gold ring in his irises flared to life and his breath caught in his throat.

The light kept building.

For one long moment he couldn’t see anything at all... it was just gold which was so bright that it soaked through his closed eyelids and turned the inside of his skull to sunlight.

Then, slowly, it settled.

Silas lowered his arm and opened his eyes all the way to take in the sight standing in the middle of the room.

Rika was floating three inches above the rug.

Her long black hair had completely defied gravity and spread out around her in thick rippling waves that danced and coiled through the air like living ribbons of smoke.

Around her whole body blazed a towering half-transparent aura of roaring golden flame, sculpted into the shape of a huge ancient bird with sweeping razor-edged wings that curved protectively around her shoulders.

Every few seconds the great spectral wings rose and fell, slow as breathing, and every time they moved a fresh wave of heat rolled across the room and the shadows on the walls swung wildly.

The candle on the bedside table bent its flame toward her like a flower turning to the sun, even the lantern on the ceiling hook leaned on its chain, as if every fire in the room wanted to be closer to her.

’Amazing...’

The flames didn’t scorch the floorboards and they didn’t set the bedspread on fire either... They burned with a divine selective will that answered to her and her alone.

Rika slowly opened her eyes.

The emerald was gone and in its place were two pools of molten liquid gold that burned with authority.

"I can do several things with this new fire, Master," Rika said, and her voice came out layered and echoing, like the crackle of a volcanic fissure ringing together with a chorus of distant bells.

On top of her floating black hair, the little golden hatchling let out a piercing triumphant squawk.

SKREEEEEE!

It flapped its tiny downy wings and puffed out a cloud of sparkling amber embers that melted harmlessly into her burning aura.

Rika reached up and let her flame-wrapped fingers brush against its beak with a soft fond smile that broke through the terrifying aura for just a moment.

"Easy now, Sunny. Don’t get too excited... Oh right, where’s Crow? I haven’t seen him for quite a while."

That Bird was one of the only reasons that they had managed to meet Silas as well as enter Blessed Land, so she was pretty grateful.

’Don’t tell me Crow ran away...’

She lowered her gaze back to Silas and watched his reaction with those molten gold eyes.

"I can use different kinds of flames, too," she explained, a fond note slipping into her layered voice. "And this is only the beginning... The more Sunny grows, the more this power will grow along with me... My ceiling has been completely shattered, Master."

Silas stared at her, feeling the heat wash over his skin without so much as singeing his clothes... A deep admiring whistle slipped out of him.

’This is Rika?’ he thought, his heart still pounding against his ribs. ’The same girl who shrank into a wool blanket with a half-eaten sausage when Thor looked at her? The one who hid in her room for days?’

"That’s incredible, Rika," he said. "Seriously."

Rika’s lips curved into a subtle mysterious smile.

The towering bird of fire around her gave one slow rhythmic beat of its blazing wings and stirred the hot air in the room.

"There’s another thing I’d like to show you with these flames, Master," she said softly, her voice settling back into its normal velvety tone, though her molten gold eyes stayed fixed on his chest.

"Oh yeah? What’s that?" Silas asked, letting his hands drop casually to his sides.

Rika tilted her head a little with her black hair drifting around her like silk in water.

"Can I injure you for a second?"