Phoenix Rising (The Keeper Origins Book 3)
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.”