The Phoenix carried me.
Not metaphorically, not symbolically—I mean that in the most literal sense possible. Her talons were curled beneath the cradle's rim, delicately cradling the carved ivory like it was a sacred egg, and her wings—gods above—her wings tore through the sky like fire made flesh. Every beat of them ignited the clouds behind us, casting a burning wake over the land below.
And below?
Fog. Miles of it.
A sweeping sea of thick gray, curling like fingers trying to grasp upward, desperate to pull us down. The land beneath was veiled, obscured in a soup of smoke and secrets. Even with my baby-soft eyes and a skull barely sealed shut, I could sense it—that weight, that wrongness. This wasn't ordinary fog. This was the Foglight Expanse. I knew it well. I made it, after all.
Or I had.
Back when I was a writer.
Back when this was fiction.
Back when I wasn't strapped into a crib being flown like sacred luggage over one of the most haunted deadzones in Yv'Graal.
I craned my tiny neck upward, just enough to glimpse the creature herself—the Phoenix. She was colossal, easily spanning a ballista's range wingtip to wingtip. Her feathers were not just red—they were crimson galaxies, dotted with ash constellations and tipped in gold. She smelled of thunder and scorched time. Her eyes were hollow pits of heat, yet they shimmered with a gentleness that unnerved me more than her fire ever could.
Why was she helping me?
I had no answer. Only heat. Only flight.
And fog.
The deeper we flew into it, the more unnatural it became. Shapes moved beneath us—shapes that shouldn't crawl, slither, or float. Towers loomed for seconds then vanished. I saw the silhouette of a boat, sailing upright across nothing, tethered to a lighthouse made of teeth.
This wasn't just a cursed land.
This was a graveyard of ideas. Concepts abandoned. Magic left half-formed. Failed gods still dreaming they existed.
My skin prickled, and not from the cold.
The Phoenix let out a low cry. Not a screech—no, this was deeper, mournful. Her fire dimmed, burning not bright, but blue. Sapphire and solemn. As if even she knew we were trespassing through more than land.
We were flying over regret.
My regret.
I remembered writing this place. The way I'd designed it as a punishment. A dumping ground for war criminals and broken dreams. But now, from this angle, from this life, I saw what it truly was:
A memory made monstrous.
Below us, the fog thickened. And I felt a shift in the air.
Something noticed us.
And it wanted me.
The Phoenix cried again—this time louder.
She flared her wings.
And dove.
---
The Phoenix soared low.
Too low.
Her fire dimmed further, the flames trailing her wings now little more than embers. The fog parted in lazy curls below us, peeling back just enough to show glimpses—flashes—of what lay hidden beneath the gray. My infant heart thudded like a war drum, slow and heavy, each beat screaming that something was wrong.
Then I saw them.
Bodies.
Naked. Shivering. Tied to wooden stakes in a rough circle like offerings—or sacrifices. Their skin was pale, smeared with ash and streaks of dried blood. Eyes wide with despair. Mouths stuffed with cloth or gagged by ropes of sinew. They didn't scream. They didn't move. They only trembled, awaiting something worse than death.
Surrounding them, half-shrouded in the swirling mist, were the beast men.
Not just beasts. Not just men.
These were creations, foul unions of predator and perverse design. Their bodies were immense, bristling with muscle and fur. Clawed hands gripped bone-spears or massive stone axes. Horns jutted from heads like malformed crowns. Their faces were the worst of all—an unholy blend of human and animal: hyena grins with human eyes, wolf snouts split with lips that could speak, tiger maws stretched over jawlines made for biting words.
And they watched. Not with hunger.
With ceremony.
One of them, tall and black-furred with scars across his bare chest, stepped forward. He roared—not as a beast, but as a warlord. His voice was cracked thunder, layered with meaning. The others bowed, not from fear, but reverence.
A rite was unfolding.
"Phoenix," I whispered—or thought I did. My mouth didn't work right. Still too small. Too young. But she heard me. She felt me.
Her body twitched, her flame rippled.
We hovered just above them now. The mist rolled back, and I saw the whole circle—ten humans, all stripped of dignity, all bound for something ancient. Ritualistic symbols were carved into the muddy ground around them. Runes I didn't recognize. That I hadn't written.
This wasn't part of my book.
Someone else had added this.
The Phoenix dipped a wing slightly, drawing us into a slow curve. I felt her tremble. Not from fear—but indecision. She could scorch them all in seconds. Burn the beast men, free the prisoners. But something held her back. She didn't belong here, not fully. Her presence was a break in balance. And if she struck first...
The consequences could be catastrophic.
The lead beast man lifted a clawed hand to the sky. The fog hissed. Thunder cracked—but not above us.
Below.
Something was rising. Beneath the ritual circle. Beneath the captives.
A shape. A limb. No, many.
Tentacles of smoke and shadow began to slither up from the earth, caressing the ankles of the tied humans.
The ritual was working.
The Phoenix beat her wings once—hard.
And we shot upward, back into the fog, just as the first scream was swallowed by mist.
Chapter 5.3: The Sky Alone Remembers
A shriek split the mist.
One of the beast men had seen us.
Then another. Then all of them.
Snarls rose like a tide. Clawed hands gripped spears carved from bone and obsidian. They didn't hesitate. Dozens of arms moved as one, launching a flurry of jagged projectiles into the air. The spears spun end over end, whistling death through the fog.
The Phoenix screamed—not in fear, but defiance.
Her wings snapped wide. Heat pulsed through her feathers, and for a brief moment, her fire returned—just enough. She twisted mid-air, spiraling upward with impossible grace. Spears shot past us, some close enough to tear feathers from her wings. One scraped my side, and though I didn't bleed, it burned like ice.
Higher.
She soared through the final veil of fog, breaking into open sky. The clouds below us churned like a living sea, and the sun above burned golden against endless blue. But the Phoenix was fading. I could feel her heat draining with each beat of her wings.
Thin air. Too high.
She wheezed once—a sound no bird should make. Her body wobbled in flight. The cold pressed in. I felt her feathers cool, her light dimming. Her eyes fluttered, and for the first time, I feared she would fall.
But then—
A silhouette pierced the sky.
It wasn't a mountain. It wasn't a cloud.
It was a tree.
A tree so massive it defied all sense. Its bark shimmered like bronze, and its trunk rose forever, vanishing into the heavens above. One of its branches—wide as a village—jutted out toward us like a waiting hand.
The Phoenix, with the last of her strength, veered toward it.
She landed hard. Her claws scraped bark. She stumbled. Then she collapsed, wings splayed, chest heaving.
And she set me down.
I tumbled softly onto the warm, firm wood. It hummed beneath me—alive and ancient. My tiny body rolled to a stop, and I lay on my back, gasping.
Above me, only sky.
The sun glared down, bold and unchallenged.
Below me, an ocean of cloud stretched forever. No land. No beast men. No war cries. Just white, endless and gentle. Like a world wiped clean.
The Phoenix curled around herself beside me, feathers rising and falling with shallow breath. Her fire was nearly gone. But she had saved me. Carried me higher than dreams dared go. Away from the ritual, away from the beast men, away from whatever lay beneath the fog.
I sat up slowly.
Alone.
Surrounded by sky and silence.
And for the first time since I woke in this fragile infant form, I wasn't afraid.
Because the only thing left now—
Was up.