Cayden...

Cayden couldn't breathe. Each one choked in his throat. It was a struggle to draw the next lot of air, to force it down as his eyes stung. His fingers clenched around the kitsune's motionless body, digging into her still seeping fur. There were so many. So many gouges that ruined her fur, so many that shouldn't have hit, brought on by the valkyries vindictive judgement. 

He stroked Rena's fox-like face with a shaking hand, half believing that her chest would rise any moment, that she'd open her eyes or lift her head. His mind refused to accept that she was gone. It didn't seem possible. Didn't seem fair. 

Cayden squeezed his eyes shut, releasing droplets that clung to his lashes. When he opened them again, he wasn't brave enough to look at her body. Instead, he turned his head away, directing his gaze at something, anything that wasn't her, only to find Nazine's eyes locked on Rena's body. 

Two Unbounds marched Nazine from the portal's edge and tried to slot him into a free space in the lines of the kneeling, surrendered Mythics and bound ley guards alike now audience to the portal. As they placed a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to his knees, Nazine broke free of their grip and ran towards Cayden, stumbling over more than one person in the process. 

The Unbounds chased him down, but as Nazine crashed to his knees beside Rena, Cayden caught their shared glance, their uncomfortable gazes as they decided to leave him and returned to their posts. 

"Rena," whispered Nazine, running his fingers over her side, staining his skin with her blood. Tears escaped from the corners of his eyes. "Cayden, please, tell me she isn't dead. Please." 

Cayden just shook his head. "The djinn told the Unbounds to kill me. She took them down, but it cost her. The valkyrie got her revenge."

Nazine curled up on his shins, wrapping his arms around his bent knees and pressing his forehead to the ground as silent sobs wracked his shoulders. 

Cayden felt nothing. He was empty as he'd been when the bond had broken, when Rena's thoughts, however primal, had been torn from his own. The difference was significant. 

Over the heads of the kneeling audience, Cayden saw the djinn take the edge of the portal and spread his arms wide the way he did whenever he was about to tell the world how bad the humans were and how justified the Mythics were in taking as many lives as it took--even the lives of their own kin. 

"Brothers and sisters!" he said, sending a hot coil of anger through Cayden's gut. He had the nerve to call them that when he'd just as soon turn on his own because she'd associated herself with a human, regardless of the purpose behind it? "I understand you must be frightened, and I understand how you must be feeling, on your knees before an unknown power. But I ask of you, have you not been living this way your entire lives?" 

Confused murmurs rose up from the crowd as the djinn began to pace, little sparks of ley flying from his robes as his white hair gleamed under the portal's light. 

"The Order," said the djinn. "From birth, they have raised you. Trained you--not to embrace your own abilities, but to fear them. Suppress them, or face the consequences. Unbounds go missing. They disappear."

Someone in the crowd disagreed. Cayden didn't hear what they said. Only the djinn's voice carried over the distance with any clarity. 

The djinn scowled. "I am not speaking to the human scum that hold you. I am speaking to the Mythic inside each of you. The Mythic who has yearned for control, for freedom! I am here to give you that, to release you from the shackles the Order has placed upon you!" 

Cayden tuned out the speech. He'd heard it all before. If it followed the same format as the first time, after the speech, the djinn would claim the 'defilers' needed to pay for their crimes and promptly execute them. Maybe for this special occasion, he'd keep them to witness his reclamation before he killed them. 

Movement in one of the Unbound lines caught Cayden's eye. He instantly recognised Allegra's features, felt mild curiosity about the nervousness in her glances back at the djinn as she came to kneel beside them. 

Allegra's face fell as she saw Rena's body. 

"I thought I'd be too late," she whispered. She placed one hand on Nazine's back automatically, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. "But not because of this."

"What?" said Cayden, voice flat. He was surprised it came out at all. "You had a plan to stop her going feral?" 

Allegra's free hand pulled a chain out of her tunic, revealing a rose coloured crystal key twined with gold that Cayden had wished for so many nights over the past week. Rena's key. 

"The djinn gave it to me a few nights ago," said Allegra, holding the key awkwardly, like she wasn't sure what to do with it. "I think I felt the moment she went feral. The ley in the key faded, like someone had turned it off. Deep down I knew, but I'd hoped..." She sighed, placing the key beside Rena. "I guess none of it matters now." 

"The djinn could have saved her," said Cayden. "He could have saved her, and he refused, all because she'd bonded with me to save Nazine. Said that he'd been planning to restore her mind until then. He walked away as she died." 

Allegra swore. "The more I'm around him, the less I'm certain he's doing this the right way. Part of his draw was that he wanted all Mythics freed from the Order. Not just the ones that agreed with him on everything." 

Still curled on the ground, Nazine was muttering to himself. 

"No," he murmured into the ground. "No. I can't. She didn't die for nothing." 

"She died for you in the end, Zin," said Cayden. "As long as you make it out, it's not nothing. She healed your key." 

The djinn's voice grew louder as he swept up the cries of the Unbounds in a rising frenzy. Cayden caught the word 'defiler' in there, but at this point he was beyond caring. Let them try to get him. They'd find out exactly what the revenge of a ley guard entailed. 

"No!" said Nazine, louder this time. His tone wasn't one of denial or grief, and Cayden pricked his ears, suddenly wary. "I can't. We can't. We'll burn up."

"Zin?" said Cayden, aware that the phoenix's temperature was rising rapidly. The feathers of flame along his arms were turning blue as the heat crept up. "Nazine, what's going on?" 

But Nazine wasn't listening. Not to Cayden, anyway. To something internal.

Nazine exhaled. "I do trust you, but--" He cut off, listening. "So you're saying I don't get a choice. It's going to--fine. Let's do it." 

Allegra cried out in pain and snatched her hand away from Nazine's back as he sat up, the flames engulfing his entire body. When Nazine's eyes opened, fire burned in his iris, and in one terrifyingly, magnificent moment, Cayden knew what was going on. 

He placed Rena's head on the ground and stepped over her, reaching for Allegra and pulling them both away as Nazine got to his feet, the flames burning higher and higher, brighter and more brilliant until Nazine's outline was lost inside it. 

"He's burning out!" cried Allegra, fighting against Cayden's grip. "What are you doing? Stop him! Get his key, we can still stop--"

"No," said Cayden. "He's not. At least, not unless they screw this up." 

"Screw what  up?" screamed Allegra. 

The commotion at their end had silenced the djinn and turned the heads of Mythics and humans alike. Many backed away as the heat became too much, some of the more leafier Mythics seemed especially nervous. 

"His ascension," said Cayden, right as the flames reached their peak and split. 

The tips of two fire-formed wings peeled away from each other, revealing the bird-like body cocooned within. A graceful neck with a black-tipped beak and eyes the colour of coals stretched towards the sky as the flames sweeping across the ground became a tail. Red at his core, the colour faded to yellow at the tip of every feather, sending embers drifting off into the air around him with every beat of his wings. 

The djinn was running over. Calling out for the Unbounds to stop the phoenix. He knew as well as Cayden did what was going on, and he was scared. There were few things stronger than the power of a djinn's wishes, and the will of an ascended phoenix was one of them. 

A few of the braver Unbounds made forward, but those that made it past the sheer heat the phoenix was emitting were blasted by a wall of fire. Water evaporated. Vines shrivelled. 

The phoenix was all. 

It turned its gaze upon Rena's body, untouched by the flames though its tail drifted across her matted fur. 

"A true sacrifice has been witnessed," said the phoenix in a voice that drifted across Cayden's mind as much as his ears. "A sacrifice untainted by pride or selfish ends, made with pure intentions without knowledge of reward."

"A phoenix's ascension," said Cayden, hope burning in his chest. "It unlocks one ability, and one ability only. It's only been recorded once in the past." 

The phoenix flapped its wings, bringing it one space higher than before. 

"And as this action was born of courage and unmatched devotion, let her too be reborn by flames!" 

The head of the phoenix dove towards the ground. Wings pulled in, it hit Rena's body with a cry. Its flames scattered across the ground, concealing that within until just as suddenly as it'd appeared, the phoenix was gone, leaving behind nothing but a staggering Nazine and a pile of waist-high ash. 

Nazine quickly lost his balance and collapsed into a pile, caught only by Allegra's reactions as she darted forward. Cayden ran towards the ash, sweeping as much as he could aside with each stroke of his arms. He thinned the pile quickly yet still not quickly enough until his fingers came across a shoulder.

In a frenzy, Cayden cleared the remaining ash with precise movements. He uncovered the rest of the shoulder. A fox-like ear. Strands of black hair. He scooped a hand behind the slender neck and lifted Rena's head--her human head--from its bed of ash, resting it on his blood-soaked leggings, waiting for the moment of truth. The moment that would shatter the numb ringing in his ears. 

She breathed. 

"By a fae's wings, he did it," said Cayden, unable to stop staring. Like if he did, she'd disappear. If he let go, she'd vanish. His fingers found the sides of her head. "That pigeon brain actually did it." 

Rena continued to stir in the ash, bringing the next awkward point to light; she was naked. As her tails swept more of the ash aside, Cayden wasn't the only one to realise it. 

Allegra pointed into the crowd of Unbounds. "Arachnae, sister! Weave the kitsune something to cover herself with!" 

Another one of the Unbounds with a cloak ran over, placing the fabric over Rena as finally, she opened her eyes, those striking violet irises once more able to take in the world around her. 

"Restrain her!" said the djinn, advancing. "Restrain the kitsune and the defiler!" 

"Why?" said Allegra, stopping him mid-stride. "She's a Mythic, just like us! You'd restrain one of our own who has done nothing to threaten us?" 

"She has done everything to threaten us!" said the djinn. "The Order has brainwashed her to the point where she is incapable of seeing clearly! We will help her to realise, but now is not the time to be--"

Cayden helped Rena sit up, where she took in the scene with large eyes, her tails curled protectively around her and ears perked. Curious, yet wary. 

"You can't judge that without speaking to her!" said Allegra. "What if she's realised the truth?" 

"Fine," said the djinn. He strode up to Rena, whose ears went flat against her head. "Kitsune, where do your allegiances lie? With the Order, or with your kin?" 

Rena blinked, seemed to notice for the first time that every set of eyes was on her as she shrank back into Cayden, muscles tense and clinging to the cloak. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, flinching, like the sound of her own voice surprised her. "Who are my kin? What's the Order?" 

Cayden froze. 

The djinn straightened with a smile. "It appears she hasn't retained her memories through her rebirth. That will make future education much easier."

As the djinn turned and strode back towards the portal's edge, Allegra hauled Nazine closer to Cayden and started to search the ash for something. 

"Rena?" said Cayden, drawing her attention. "Do you remember anything?" 

"Should I?" she said. Her ears pricked. "Who are you? Who am I?" 

Cayden rubbed the sides of his face. Of course. Nazine might have rebirthed her body, but Rena's memories, everything that made her human would have still been destroyed after she'd turned feral. Even a phoenix couldn't heal a shattered mind. 

Yet Rena still sat there, waiting for an answer. 

"My name is Cayden," he said. "I'm the protector to the phoenix that brought you back to life. Your name is Rena, and you're a kitsune Mythic with powers over fire and energy. You're the reason the phoenix is alive right now. You're the reason I'm alive right now."

"Ah ha!" said Allegra, holding up Rena's key triumpantly, frantically brushing off the ash. She held it out, pressing it into Rena's hands before pulling out her own. "It's your crystal key, see? Just like mine!" 

Rena stared at it. "Am I supposed to do something with it?" 

"You don't feel anything?" asked Allegra. "No connection, nothing?" 

Rena turned it over. "It's pretty. Is that a connection?" 

Allegra looked crestfallen, but Cayden had an idea. 

"Rena, can I see something?" he asked. She nodded, and he placed a hand over his own sternum. "Is there a mark on your skin around here?" 

Rena shifted the cloak just low enough to reveal the space Cayden had indicated. A silvery mark, a small oval with arcs of light that overlapped each other glinted in the fading sunlight. "Like this?"

"She's been reborn," said Cayden to Allegra. He paused as the arachnae from earlier handed Rena a freshly woven dress of gossamer. "Literally. Just as when a new Mythic is born, she has the mark. It hasn't turned into a key yet because she hasn't used her ley. Her old key isn't a part of this body any more. She's completely reborn--memories included." 

They didn't get a chance to investigate further. Just as the djinn reached the edge of the portal once more spouting lines about beginning the reclamation and taking back what the Mythics had lost, the shadows behind Cayden shifted. Figures emerged, one after the other as a moving shadow brought them through one by one. None of the Unbounds moved as the ranks continued to grow from the shadows. 

Half of their number were garbed in a practical version of the Order's robe and marked with their insignia. The other half were Mythics. Chaotic Mythics, the keys of which were clutched in the Order's hands. 

The Order's response team had arrived. 

*+*+*+*

A/N - Since I like living, I thought I'd keep going with the chapter writing and get this one out so you guys weren't left with that other one. 

No one ever say I don't love you guys. 

Pleeeeeeeeeeease vote / comment. Mythic reached #12 in fantasy (HIGHEST ITS EVER BEEN WEW), and there's only... *counts* 4-5 more chapters left to go unless things get crazy. See if we can crack top 10? =>