Crack.
The sound echoed in the silent cavern. The giant egg shattered. Fenyra, who had been watching with anxious hope, froze in place.
Then came a sound of pure, heart-wrenching agony. A shriek of a soul being torn apart.
Her tears fell like rain, her small body wracked with sobs of grief and helplessness.
"Master, I'm begging you, please, save my mother!" she cried, her voice breaking. "If you save her, I'll do anything! Anything you ask!"
Orion could only shake his head, a deep regret in his eyes. There was nothing to be done.
Where the great egg had stood, there was now only a scattering of brilliant golden feathers and the stark, white skeleton of a phoenix, standing as if in defiance of death itself.
"Fenyra, my child, don't cry."
The voice was no longer cold. It was the voice of a mother who, having spent a lifetime wearing a mask of stern discipline, had finally let it fall in her last moments to speak gently to her child.
