Phoenix Rising (The Keeper Origins Book 3) Read online

  PHOENIX RISING

  THE KEEPER ORIGINS BOOK 3

  JA ANDREWS

  Phoenix Rising, The Keeper Origins Book 3

  Copyright © 2022 by JA Andrews

  Paperback ISBN: 9798819777213

  Hard cover ISBN:

  Website: www.jaandrews.com

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise- without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations, events and incidents (in either a contemporary and/or historical setting) are products of the author's imagination and are being used in an imaginative manner as a part of this work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, settings, or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 2020 by Deranged Doctor Designs

  Interior art © 2022 by Wojtek Depczynski

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT LAST BOOK)

  Hello, Dear Reader!

  Welcome to the final installment of Sable’s story.

  If you haven’t yet read the story of the Ghost of the White Wood (the story of Melia and Evay that has such huge repercussions in Sable’s story), you can download it for free from my website.

  It’s short, only a few chapters, but I’m rather fond of it.

  You can find it at jaandrews.com/ghost

  Happy Reading!

  Janice

  And now, without further ado: the final chapter of Sable’s story…

  For Jason,

  The last, quick (240,000) words

  of the story you helped create.

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  Printable Maps

  Nudges of Flame

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Part III

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Part IV

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Part V

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Part VI

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Part VII

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  The Queen and the Keepers

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  Bloopers

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PRINTABLE MAPS

  To download printable maps from jaandrews.com, click here

  NUDGES OF FLAME

  —an excerpt from Chapter 2

  of Interesting Beginnings

  by Flibbet the Peddler

  I wish more of the nudges that shaped history were the gentle kind—the signing of a treaty, the commitment to protect the weak, the spreading of a story that will enlighten minds.

  Alas, humans are more prone to stagnate than to change willingly, and so most nudges are affected with force and terror and blood.

  Most nudges come at the slicing of a blade or the searing of a flame.

  The final chapters of Sable’s beginning certainly did.

  More blades than I hope to see again, and the fire…

  Who could ever forget the fire?

  The further history moves from those early days, the more it would have me call her Issable, but when I met her, she insisted on Sable.

  She’d been a year in the service of the Prioress Narine when I encountered her again, but it was the Prioress Vivaine who controlled her, using the skill Sable had for recognizing truth and lies to further negotiations with the Kalesh Empire.

  For years I had harbored a distrust of Vivaine, but it wasn’t until the summit on Tutella Island that I let that distrust grow.

  Ah, I have shifted to talk about myself as I’m wont to do when I think of this time. I so rarely get to be a part of these things.

  But you are here to read of Sable.

  That summit was pivotal. It was where Sable took back the voice Vivaine had stolen from her and stood against the Kalesh. Had she been allowed to really speak, perhaps the rest of history would be different.

  But there was the fire.

  I have recorded many horrible, haunting things in my time, but the fire that killed my dear friend Narine is one I cannot bring myself to touch on.

  Something about the flames burned Vivaine as well. If I had to guess, I would say Vivaine loved Narine, in whatever way her cold, twisted heart could love. Narine may have been the only truly good person left in Vivaine’s life, and with that loss, Vivaine made the final turn toward darkness.

  Whatever the reason, the control she’d held over her own lust for power cracked that night, and something far more dangerous and deadly bubbled out.

  But worse, something about that fire nudged her dragon. Something about that act shifted the relationship between the prioress and the creature. That was the moment when the dragon stopped being merely a prop for Vivaine’s posturing, and became a force in his own right.

  When I ran across Sable in the rebel camp with Andreese and Tanis, it was the first time she was in the right place. In Immusmala she’d been a prisoner, with Atticus she had been finding her family, but with the northern rebels, she was finally home. She didn’t know it yet, maybe the home wasn’t even created yet, but the shift that day was so foundational I could barely string words together.

  That was the day I gave her Ghost of the White Wood. It was the story of the zabat Melia, the rebel leader who had fought the Empire with her elven friend Evay. It felt right, of course, to give Sable the story of the woman the Empire had failed to crush, but I couldn’t have known how pivotal the story would be.

  When I gave Sable the book, she was broken. Her dreams of the rebels had been shattered by a connection with her old gang boss Kiva, and she was ready to leave.

  I admit I stepped in.

  I try so hard not to. The disaster I caused at Pyrrenford haunts me, and so I do try. But this…this was too much.

  She belonged there, she was needed there, and she was going to leave.

  If I hadn’t, would she have gone? Would the rest of it have happened if I had just stayed in the background like I should?

  But I didn’t stop, because I knew, with a clarity that I rarely attain, that she should stay. These were the rebels and she was the zabat. So I told her that exhausting, impossible thing the old man told me so long ago when he gave me my cart. The day he told me the true price of it.

  You can escape, or you can take the world as you find it, broken and jagged and weak, and you can step right into the midst of it. Take what it is and spend yourself making it what it should be.

  Even as I said it, everything inside of me wanted to weep for what it would mean to her.

  Because I knew she would listen.

  And she did.

  The world moved toward war, and she rallied the troops of three Northern Lords, managing to unite them in a way no one ever had.

  It might have been a great victory, until Vivaine.

  Immusmala had never been in danger. Vivaine had merely tricked Sable into bringing the army south, and then punished the north by sending Kalesh troops to attack
their unprotected homes. The prioress sold out countless innocent people to the brutal Empire in a bid to keep her own city safe.

  It wasn’t just about the city, of course, there was so much more to it than that. But at the time, we still thought it was merely about one small city on one small peninsula jutting into the Southern Sea.

  What we did know was that swords had been drawn, and the first battle had been waged.

  Sable had almost ensured it would be the last, but there were too many swords, and too much blood.

  The nudge had been give at the edge of a blade.

  But it was nothing compared to the fire that was to come.

  PART I

  The stage, at the beginning must be dark, for it was a dark and troubling time.

  It cannot be too dark, because things got worse.

  But lanterns should be shuttered, costumes muted. Like the stage is covered with shadows from the storm you thought was past…

  -Stage notes from the opening scene of The Phoenix Rising by Atticus the Playwright.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Shadows spread long grasping fingers over the shore of the Black River, and the bloody, exhausted line of soldiers waiting to board the riverboats. Those already on board shuffled supplies into place, their shoulders set in a quiet, grim determination.

  Sable sat in the bow of one of the larger boats, ripping another strip of cloth from the pile of fabric, rolling another bandage and adding it to her growing pile. She let her hand rest on the pile for a moment.

  Reese lay beside her, his skin grey and waxy. She reached out and brushed a lock of blood-crusted hair off his brow. His forehead was cool, and she pressed her palm to his cheek, pushing a little more vitalle into him.

  “Watch him,” Serene had said when Sable had first found Reese lying bandaged and unconscious on Kiva’s merchant ship in the docks of Immusmala. “Give him a little vitalle if you can spare it.”

  But after hours of offering him what little energy she had while they sailed to the mouth of the Black River, the flow was down to a trickle. Now that they were finally settled on a much smaller riverboat, ready to head back to the north, the vitalle she pushed into him barely warmed his skin before it dribbled to a stop. Underneath her hand, he grew cold again.

  A spray of fire shot over the trees along the riverbank, leaving a trail of glittering sparks as Innov circled the shore choked with soldiers. Hundreds of weary eyes turned up toward the phoenix, bathed in her golden light until she skimmed over the side of the boat and alighted on the rail above Sable’s head. A shower of embers rolled and bounced harmlessly down the wood like tiny fires, settling on Sable’s shoulders and lap, burning for a breath on Reese’s cold skin before winking out.

  Atticus’s voice came from the gangplank, convincing the soldiers that fitting his wagon onto the riverboat was a perfectly logical thing to do. From where Sable sat, she could just see the roof, a bit of bright, cheery blue, like some fluttering decoration from a distant festival that had been caught up and blown here to land among the muted sea of uniforms.

  Serene crossed the deck toward Sable. Her black robe was streaked with dirt and wet in spots with something that glistened more darkly than water. Her eyes were shadowed with smudges, her nearly black hair was pulled back in a tight knot, and her face was drawn.

  Jae came with her, carrying another pile of fabric and a lantern. His normally quick smile was weighed down with exhaustion as he dropped the cloth onto Sable’s pile.

  “Has he woken?” Serene asked, handing Sable a waterskin.

  Sable shook her head. Serene knelt on the other side of Reese, setting her hand on his forehead.

  “How bad is it?” Sable asked quietly.

  Serene cast out. Both she and Sable lit up in Sable’s senses like bonfires of vitalle, blazing with life, but between them, Reese’s body held only a hint of warmth, no stronger than a bed of dying coals.

  Serene’s wave rolled farther across the boat, and first Jae, then the soldiers flared into towers of heat. The small sensation of warmth from Reese faded until Sable was left gripping his cold hand.

  Serene sank back against the side of the boat, meeting Sable’s eyes with a grave expression. “His ribs aren’t broken, but the cut was deep. He lost so much blood I’m surprised he’s still alive. I cleaned the wound and closed it as well as I could, but…” She looked back down at Reese. “If it doesn’t get infected, and if he gets a lot of rest, he may recover.”

  Sable looked between Serene and Jae. Neither of them looked hopeful. “May?”

  Serene watched Reese take slow, shallow breaths. “Or he may not. If he lives, it will be a long time before he’s strong enough to fight. He needs time and rest and a good dose of luck.”

  “And vitalle?” Sable asked.

  “It helps. It gives his body the strength to heal.” Her hand moved to her own stomach.

  Sable sat forward. “Does it hurt the baby when you heal people?”

  Serene shook her head. “Not if I’m careful.”

  “We hope.” Jae’s eyes, lined with worry, lingered on Serene before he moved over and knelt next to Sable. “Teaching you how to manipulate vitalle is long overdue. We’ve had too much to worry about since we met you. But we have time on our hands now, so I thought we’d remedy that. Luckily for us, and unluckily for Reese, he is the perfect exercise for practicing control.”

  “Jae is a thousand times better at teaching than I am,” Serene said, pushing herself to her feet. “So I’ll leave him to it. Whenever Reese is awake, get him to drink.” She motioned to the waterskin. “There’s wartroot in here. It’ll help with his pain. When we get to Tutella Island, we’ll have someone who knows what they’re doing look at him.”

  “Be careful,” Jae said to his wife as she started across the deck.

  She gave him a weary smile over her shoulder.

  With a sigh, he turned back to look at Reese. “His most pressing problem is that he lost a lot of blood. His body will make more, but it is a slow process, and until then, he’ll be incredibly weak. We can help that to a limited extent. All our vitalle does is give his body the energy to do what it’s already doing. He’s not strong enough to use a flood of it. He needs slow trickles, just enough to help the healing. As he gets stronger, he’ll be able to use more.”

  Sable set her finger on the cool skin of Reese’s arm. “And if he gets weaker?”

  “Then there will come a point when no matter what we do, his body won’t be able to use it.” He looked up at her with a small smile. “We’re not at that point, and we won’t worry about it unless we get there.”