Tennyson rolls her eyes and begins to slide the ring on her tiny finger.
“Don’t,” I say pushing her hand away, the ring falling to the grass. I look at her; she’s the picture of perfection sitting there, yet some-
thing is off. I knew it then. She scared me.
“Why would you want to get into trouble?” I ask softly. She smirks, her lips curling and her eyes growing fierce.
“Because it’s fun to get in trouble.” And then she snatches back the ring.
“If you want a ring, wear your own.”
“No, Auntie hid it and I don’t know where,” she whines. “Besides, I like what isn’t mine. I like what’s yours.” And then Tennyson slips the ring on her tiny finger.
That is when the lightning strikes her, straight in the heart. A storm sweeps in, rain falling faster than I’ve ever imagined in my life.
I watch myself take the ring from her finger and hold it tightly in my palm as Auntie runs from the cottage wailing over her daughter’s lifeless body. We watch in horror as a gust of wind breaks through the rain filled sky, sweeping Tennyson away.
Auntie screams, blaming me for Tennyson’s death.
But Tenny was the one who wore the ring. She was the one who wanted trouble. She was the one who changed everything.
Now I am nothing but a fiery flame.
I didn’t tell Remedy that I wanted to find answers together. She came to me, a sister I never knew, and I sent her away. And now I can’t even live with that because now there is no more living.
There is only death. Me. Dying.
Dead.
The lights are bright, and the tunnel is narrow, and this is the end.
I’m alone in the fire and this is where I remember Tennyson’s sweet, sweet, voice.
I remember Tennyson’s sweet, sweet, face. I remember Tennyson’s dark, dark, heart. Ash falls all around me and I blink.
I should be gone but instead, I am on a tower, a tower that is on a stage. Lights shine down on me, and ash moves in a gust of wind around the massive theater.
I’m not dead. This is not hell. This is... the stage of SOAR.
I kneel, looking out at the massive crowd. The eagle is on the stage in the distance, flapping its wings as Brecken, Sawyer, and North fight him off. But everyone seems to stop mid-fight and instead, turns to face me. Vaughn and Arrow are near, I feel their presence. I don’t turn and look. No, I don’t turn at all.
Instead, I rise.
The orchestra begins to play, and the crew returns backstage and everything is changed and yet everything is the same.
I am still the star of the show.
Only now, it’s a different kind of show altogether. I’m not just soaring.
Now I’m literally rising from the ashes.
I stand and shake out my hair and brightly colored feathers.
Looking at my hands, I see my fingertips, but my body has changed. Feathers form a dress around my torso, and I have a massive tail sweeping the floor.
Half bird, half woman.
Orange feathers and green flickers of light. I am purple, and I am green, and I am red.
I’m not a sparrow and I’m certainly not a starling. Not even a lark.
Taking a deep breath, my first breath in this new form, I feel comfortable in my own skin. More than comfortable.
I am a phoenix rising from the ashes, ready to fight. I don’t know how this happened. Maybe it’s magic from my mother. Maybe it’s the ring. Maybe it’s both or maybe it is nothing.
Maybe it’s just me.
I step off the tower, but I don’t fall to the ground. Instead, harnessing my strength as a phoenix, I move toward my father, my arms outstretched as I draw the eagle toward me. I remember the way Gaia used the wind to send the eagle away. I use the same force now. But instead of sending him away, I am bringing him near.
After all, Remedy can make an earthquake end and a fire cease. She told me Harlow can stop a tsunami or a hurricane or flood. I can move the wind and end a storm.
This storm.
The one Zeus created. It’s ending tonight.
“Who am I?” I ask the eagle as he flies closer and closer to me. He still doesn’t see me as a threat. He thinks because he is Zeus that he is more powerful than me.
But he is wrong. He knows nothing about me. “You are my daughter,” he says.
“Then why do you want me dead?” “Because you are my enemy.”
“How can I be your enemy when I don’t even know you are?” “You are your mother’s daughter.”
I smile at that because the words are true. My mother was strong. She was selfless. She did what she could, and she did her best and she did enough.
And maybe I have another mother. A mother who met this evil man and brought me into this world and left me as an orphan and I don’t know what that even means but it doesn’t matter right now.