ELARA'S POV
I wake up to the sound of metal scraping against stone.
My whole body aches. My head pounds. Silver-white flames still flicker across my fingertips, refusing to go out.
"Easy, Your Majesty." A deep voice rumbles above me. "Your power nearly collapsed the chamber. You're lucky to be alive."
I blink until my vision clears. Standing over me is something impossible.
A knight made entirely of copper and gears.
He's tall—at least seven feet—with armor plates that shift and click with each movement. Where his face should be is a metal mask with glowing blue eyes. Steam hisses from joints in his shoulders. Intricate clockwork mechanisms whir inside his chest cavity, visible through gaps in the plating.
I scramble backward, hitting a wall. "What are you?"
"Sir Copperfield, Your Majesty." The mechanical knight kneels with a grinding of gears. "Captain of the Phoenix Guard. I have waited two hundred years for you to return."
Two hundred years? That's impossible. Nobody lives that long.
"Elara!" Vincent appears through the smoke, coughing. His face is covered in soot and small burns. "Thank God. When your power exploded, I thought—"
"Where's the Queen?" I demand, getting to my feet. "Where's Isabella?"
"Gone. Your blast created enough chaos for them to escape." He reaches for me but I flinch away. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." I'm not fine. My hands won't stop shaking. My magic won't stop burning. "Where's Kai?"
"The bodyguard also escaped in the confusion." Raven emerges from the shadows, her white mask now cracked down the middle. "Though whether he ran toward you or away from you remains to be seen."
The chamber we're in is destroyed—walls cracked, floor scorched black, ceiling partially collapsed. My power did this. I destroyed an entire room without meaning to.
What else could I destroy without meaning to?
"We need to move," Sir Copperfield says. His voice sounds strange, like it's coming from inside a metal barrel. "The Queen's forces will regroup. They'll send blood mages next—ones who can track Your Majesty by the Phoenix magic signature."
"Stop calling me that!" I'm shouting now, hysteria rising. "I'm not a queen! I'm not royalty! I'm just Elara from Cindergrace and everyone needs to stop pretending I'm something I'm not!"
Silence falls over the destroyed chamber.
Then Vincent speaks quietly. "You just destroyed a reinforced underground room with a thought. You're carrying a child with bloodlines that could reshape reality. You survived two assassination attempts in three days." He meets my eyes. "You're not 'just' anything, Elara. And the sooner you accept that, the better chance you have of staying alive."
His words hit like a slap.
Sir Copperfield stands. "Follow me. I know a safe place."
We climb through the rubble and into another series of tunnels. These are older, carved from natural stone instead of built. Water drips somewhere in the darkness. The mechanical knight leads the way, his glowing eyes lighting our path.
"How are you made of metal?" I ask, because my brain is trying to focus on something that makes sense.
"I wasn't always." Sir Copperfield's voice holds deep sadness. "Two hundred years ago, I was human. Flesh and blood. But I failed to protect the Phoenix King during the first coup attempt. As punishment, I was transformed into this—a mechanical body that cannot die, cannot sleep, cannot feel pain or pleasure. I am cursed to serve until a Phoenix heir reclaims the throne."
"That's horrible," I whisper.
"That is duty." He doesn't look back. "I deserve worse for my failure."
We walk in silence until we reach an abandoned clock tower. Sir Copperfield pushes open a rusted door and ushers us inside.
The tower is empty except for broken gears and old machinery. Moonlight streams through holes in the ceiling. It's cold and smells like oil and decay, but at least it's defensible.
Vincent immediately checks the exits. Raven sits on a pile of gears, examining her cracked mask. Sir Copperfield stands guard by the door.
I collapse against a wall, exhausted beyond measure.
"Okay," I say once I can breathe again. "Someone needs to explain everything. Right now. No more hints. No more secrets." I look at each of them. "Why is everyone calling me royalty? Why does the Queen want me dead? What is this prophecy everyone keeps mentioning?"
Raven sighs behind her broken mask. "You really don't remember anything, do you?"
"No! That's what I keep saying!"
"Then let me tell you a story." Raven's voice takes on a theatrical tone. "Twenty years ago, the Phoenix family ruled this kingdom. They were powerful, beloved, and their fire magic kept the realm safe from enemies. But power always attracts jealousy."
"Lady Morgana was the King's advisor," Sir Copperfield continues. "Brilliant. Beautiful. Ambitious. She wanted the throne for herself."
"So she staged a coup," Vincent adds quietly. "She turned half the royal guard against the family. She struck during the Festival of Flames when the palace was full of civilians. Hundreds died."
My stomach churns. "She killed them all?"
"Not all." Raven stands and walks closer to me. "The King and Queen died. Most of the children died. But two daughters survived—hidden away by loyal guards before the palace fell."
Two daughters.
Isabella and me.
"The older daughter—Isabella—was ten years old," Raven continues. "She escaped into the Memory Veil, a magical realm where she learned to manipulate memories and change her appearance. She became a ghost, watching from the shadows."
"And the younger daughter?" I ask, though I already know.
"Was three years old. Too young to survive alone." Sir Copperfield's mechanical voice softens. "A guard named Marcus carried her out through the sewers. He took her to a remote village—"
"Cindergrace," I whisper.
"Yes. He gave her to a kind couple who couldn't have children of their own. They raised her as Elara Crane, never telling her the truth. They loved her as their own daughter."
Tears stream down my face. My parents—the ones I remember, the ones who died in the fire—they weren't my real parents. But they loved me anyway. They died keeping me safe.
"But the Queen never stopped searching," Vincent says. "She knew at least one Phoenix heir escaped. She sent spies to every village, searched every orphanage, investigated every child with fire magic. And eventually..." He trails off.
"She found me," I finish.
"We don't know how," Raven says. "But something tipped her off. That's why Cindergrace burned. She wanted to eliminate you and all witnesses."
The boot prints. The military precision of the fire. It all makes terrible sense now.
"But I survived," I say. "Again."
"Because of me." Vincent's voice is rough with emotion. "I was tracking you too. When I realized she'd found you, I raced to get there first. I pulled you from the flames and hid you before her soldiers could confirm your death."
"Why?" The question bursts out of me. "Why save me? You're her son! You killed my family the first time!"
"Because I was tired of being her weapon!" Vincent shouts back. "Because I was seventeen when she forced me to attack the palace, and I've regretted it every day since! Because when I saw you—" He stops, breathing hard. "When I saw you in that tavern the night before the fire, you looked so sad. So alone. Just like me. And I thought maybe, if I could save you, I could save myself too."
The raw honesty in his voice breaks something in me.
"Your parents in Cindergrace weren't your birth parents," Vincent continues more quietly. "But they were real. Their love was real. And they died protecting the secret of who you really are."
I press my hands against my eyes, trying to stop the tears. "I need to recover my memories. I need to see my real family. I need to understand who I was before all of this."
"Memory recovery is dangerous," Raven warns. "Your mind blocked those memories for a reason. Trauma. Protection. If I remove the blocks, you'll relive every terrible moment. The attack. The fire. Watching your birth parents die."
"I don't care." My hands spark with silver flames. "I need to know the truth. About my family. About what I'm capable of. About why my village burned and who I'm supposed to be."
"Both your families," Sir Copperfield says softly. "The ones who gave you birth and the ones who gave you love. Both were destroyed because of you. Can you handle that truth?"
"I have to." I stand up, ignoring the exhaustion pulling at my bones. "Because people are hunting me. I'm pregnant with a child everyone wants dead or controlled. My own sister betrayed me. And I have power I can't control that could kill everyone around me." I look at each of them. "I need every weapon I can get. Even if those weapons are painful memories."
Raven tilts her masked head, studying me. "You're stronger than you look, little Phoenix."
"I've had to be." My voice doesn't shake anymore. "So how do we do this? How do I get my memories back?"
"It requires a ritual," Raven says. "And it's not pleasant. I'll have to enter your mind directly, find the locked memories, and forcibly break the seals. You'll experience everything at once—nineteen years of stolen childhood in a matter of minutes."
"Will it hurt?"
"Like nothing you've ever felt." Raven's cracked mask catches the moonlight. "Your mind will try to protect itself. You might see things that aren't real, mixed with things that are. You could go mad from the overload."
"What are the chances I survive with my sanity intact?"
Raven pauses. "Sixty percent. Maybe less given your unstable magic."
"Those aren't good odds," Vincent says sharply. "Elara, maybe we should—"
"I'm doing it." I cut him off. "I need to know. I need to remember."
"Then we'll need supplies," Raven says. "Memory crystals, binding herbs, a clear space protected from interruption. And witnesses in case you need to be restrained."
"How long will it take to prepare?"
"Two hours. Maybe three." Raven moves toward the door. "I'll gather what we need. The rest of you keep her alive until I return."
She disappears into the night, leaving us in the abandoned clock tower.
Sir Copperfield takes up guard position. Vincent sits across from me, worry etched on his soot-stained face.
"You don't have to do this," he says quietly.
"Yes, I do."
"What if the memories are worse than not knowing? What if—"
"Vincent." I meet his eyes. "I'm carrying a child. Your child. A child that prophecy says will either save or destroy the world. I can't protect them if I don't know who I am or what I'm capable of." I touch my stomach gently. "They deserve a mother who isn't running blind."
Something shifts in Vincent's expression. Awe mixed with fear mixed with love.
"You're going to be an amazing mother," he whispers.
Before I can respond, Sir Copperfield's mechanical voice interrupts: "Someone's coming."
We all freeze.
Footsteps echo up the tower stairs. Too many footsteps.
Vincent draws his sword. Sir Copperfield's gears whir as he prepares for combat.
The door bursts open.
But it's not soldiers.
It's Kai—my former bodyguard—and he's not alone.
Behind him stand at least twenty people, all wearing the same phoenix tattoo on their arms. Their eyes glow with barely contained magic.
"Your Majesty," Kai says, breathing hard. "I've brought the Phoenix Resistance. Every survivor who's been hiding for twenty years, waiting for you to return." He kneels. "We're here to serve our rightful Queen."
One by one, the others kneel too.
Twenty magic users, all looking at me like I'm their salvation.
"Rise," I say automatically, because I don't know what else to say.
They stand. A woman with burn scars covering half her face steps forward.
"Your Majesty, we've received intelligence from inside the palace." Her voice shakes. "The Queen isn't just hunting you to eliminate a threat. She's planning something worse."
"What could be worse than killing me?"
The woman's scarred face goes pale. "She's discovered you're pregnant. And she's decided not to kill you after all." Her next words come out in a horrified whisper. "She's going to keep you alive long enough to give birth. Then she'll raise the child herself—as her weapon. An Ironhart-Phoenix hybrid under her complete control."
My blood turns to ice.
"She's already preparing a prison," another resistance fighter adds. "Deep under the palace. Magical chains that suppress fire magic. She'll keep you locked there for the next seven months, then take your baby the moment it's born."
Vincent's sword clatters to the ground.
"No," he breathes. "She wouldn't. Even she wouldn't—"
"She absolutely would," Kai interrupts. "And there's more." He looks at me with dread in his eyes. "She's captured Isabella. Your sister is being tortured for information about your location. The Queen is using her pain to draw you out. She knows you'll try to rescue her."
"It's a trap," Sir Copperfield states.
"Obviously it's a trap," the scarred woman agrees. "But it's also your sister screaming in a dungeon."
Everyone looks at me.
Twenty resistance fighters. A mechanical knight. A conflicted prince. All waiting for me to decide.
Do I risk everything to save the sister who betrayed me? Or do I run and let her die while I try to recover my memories and figure out who I really am?
"Your Majesty?" Kai prompts. "What are your orders?"
I stand there, pregnant and powerless and pretending to be something I don't feel like, while my sister—who sold me out to the Queen—suffers because of me.
And in that moment, I realize something terrible.
I may not feel like a queen.
But I'm going to have to become one anyway.
"How long do we have before Raven returns with the memory ritual supplies?" I ask.
"Two hours," Vincent says.
"Then we have two hours to plan a rescue mission." I look at the resistance fighters. "Because we're saving my sister. Trap or not. She's family."
Kai's face breaks into a fierce smile. "That's our Queen."
But as the group begins planning, I catch Vincent's worried expression.
He leans close and whispers so only I can hear: "Elara, if this is a trap—if the Queen captures you—I won't let her keep you in that prison. I'll kill you myself before I let her turn you into a breeding experiment."
The words should horrify me.
Instead, they're the most loving thing anyone's ever said.
"Let's make sure it doesn't come to that," I whisper back.
He nods, but we both know the truth.
In two hours, I'll either have my memories back and the power to save everyone.
Or I'll be the Queen's prisoner, counting down the days until she rips my child from my arms.
There is no middle ground anymore.
Time to choose who I'm going to be: Elara the victim, or the Phoenix Queen who burns down anyone who threatens her family.
Even if that family is complicated, broken, and full of traitors.
Even if becoming that queen means losing who I used to be forever.