“This place has lain in ruins for hundreds of years, Darcy. I seriously doubt they’ve been waiting for our slow asses to show up here all that damn time. More likely they’d offer up this same chance to any Phoenixes who had Emerged in the time since their kind fell. But considering the fact that there haven’t been any of our Order born in all that time, it’s fallen to us instead.”
Darcy and Gabriel exchanged a look which I knew was about my sceptical attitude and I flipped them off, causing them to snigger at my expense as we kept pushing through the overgrown jungle towards something Gabriel seemed certain was there - despite the fact that there was nothing to suggest we would find anything but more lush greenery ahead of us.
A shock of power suddenly rolled over us and I sucked in a breath as it hummed and buzzed through my flesh, feeling like the touch of a thousand kisses on my skin and making my hair damn near stand on end.
“Descendants of the royal line,” a voice filled with unearthly power spoke within my mind and one look at Darcy confirmed that she could hear it too. “Bringers of a new dawn. Seekers of the past.”
I gritted my jaw as the power thrummed with more energy, making my whole body tense up as it seemed to dig its way right down to my bones, hunting down the heart of me and measuring what it found.
“The time for you to rise is close.”
The power released its hold on me and I stumbled forward a step, catching Gabriel’s hand as he held it out to me like he’d already seen me falling and was waiting to catch me. Darcy fully collided with him and he held her on her feet too, chuckling a little as she swore.
“The magic that lingers here is ancient and impossibly powerful,” he said, like that wasn’t terrifying at all. “Come. The Palace of Flames is waiting.”
“Because a palace waiting for us isn’t at all creepy or concerning,” I muttered, following as he walked on. “Inanimate objects just hang around and wait for us now.”
Darcy breathed a laugh and I grinned at her as we strode forward along a path which was lined in bronze metal that peeked out from beneath the overgrown foliage. My entire body seemed to buzz with a vibrant kind of energy as if the stones themselves were sentient and they knew that we were here.
"A lot of the palace is beneath the ground now – there are tunnels which lead to any number of places, though the few times I have visited here before, the stars guided me exactly to where I needed to go,” Gabriel explained as we reached a fork in the path, one trail leading right towards what looked like a dark cave which cut into the rocks while the other twisted left where I swear I could sense a huge building just lurking out of sight through the trees.
“We need to go that way,” I said, pointing to the left where an enormous golden gate stood closed and tangled with vines and other jungle greenery. It was almost impossible to make out and yet the moment I looked at it, I just knew it was there, almost like I’d been here before but I sure as fuck hadn’t.
Darcy nodded her agreement, clearly feeling the same pull on her power that I was, the sensation tugging like a cord tied behind my navel, urging me onwards.
As Gabriel pulled a final swathe of vines aside, I couldn’t help but suck in a breath as my gaze fell fully upon the ancient entryway to The Palace of Flames.
“Wow,” Darcy breathed while I cursed in a way that was a whole lot less civilised.
The jungle had done a good job of trying to conceal what had clearly once been a stunning palace built with yellow stone which sparkled with veins of quartz and looked golden in the light of the sun that blazed above us through the trees.
Gabriel stepped aside as Darcy and I strode forward, moving towards the gate while the thick foliage brushed at our legs, leaving them damp with moisture.
A monkey started hollering in the trees above us and I craned my neck to look up, spotting some colourful birds sweeping between the branches and making my eyes widen with wonder.
We made it to the gate and I reached out to grasp it at the same moment Darcy did, connecting to our earth magic and encouraging the vines to slither off of the metal, making the jungle retreat until the tall, golden gates stood clear before us.
The moment we withdrew our hands, the gate parted, swinging open with an echoing clang which made the animals in the jungle screech and race away through the trees.
A courtyard opened up beyond it, the walls of some huge structure just visible on the far side of the cobbles.
“This is where I leave you,” Gabriel said, drawing my attention back to him where he stood behind us.