Soul Blaze by Aprille Legacy Read Free Book Online

everything had been for me. I’d been aided by
my magic, I realised now.
“Why did you need to take it a second time?” I asked.
“Have I been here before?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t I remember anything?”
    “When you crossed back to the human realm, you lost
your memories in the transition,” Iain said. “This man,” he
tapped the portrait. “Is responsible for that.”
I looked at the portrait, and something hot stirred in
my chest.
“I lost a year, because of this man?”
“Yes,” Netalia said, watching me closely.
    I picked up the portrait, feeling the coarse parchment. I
ran a thumb over the painting, the brush strokes rough
against my skin.
    “What’s his name?” I asked eventually.
“He is known to us as Phoenix,” Iain said. “He’s a year
older than you, and a disaster waiting to happen. He has
the ability to start a war. You need to stop him before that
happens.”
“Why me?” I asked. “Won’t he just... reincarnate?”
    “Not if you kill him,” Netalia replied. “There is
something special about you. If you were the one to kill
him, he will never reincarnate.”
That didn’t really make sense to me, but I had too many
questions to dwell on the one.
“How many times has he reincarnated?”
“This is the third.”
“Is it immediate?”
“No. It can take many years for him to be reborn.”
“So how long has it been since he was killed last time?”
Iain sat at his desk heavily.
“Roughly one thousand years.” He said.
I stared down at the portrait, my hands trembling.
“Why has he reincarnated again? Didn’t the last person
do their job properly?” I demanded.
“No. He was killed in battle, and not by the person that
needed to do it.”
I put the parchment back down on Iain’s desk. I hugged
myself, cupping my elbows in my hands.
“Am I a reincarnation?” I asked quietly.
Only Netalia’s sharp intake of breath behind me gave
away the fact that I’d just stumbled upon something.
    “Yes.” Iain said slowly, and I could almost see the
wheels turning in his head, trying to work out how much
to reveal to me. He paused for a second too long.
    “Just tell me, Iain!” I shouted, slamming my hands
down on his desk. “Stop hiding things from me! Tell me
the truth, or I swear I’ll hole up quite happily in my room
and grow old. You can have your damn war, but you
won’t be getting any help from me.”
The sudden silence in the room was broken only by the
rattling of the beads in the glass bar.
    “Well apparently the stick isn’t working,” Iain said,
completely nonplussed about me shouting in his face. “So
how about a carrot? You help us, and we’ll give you your
magic back.”
    My breath caught in my chest. That beautiful fire? The
power that I could almost taste when it took a hold of my
veins? I held my hand out as though he’d just hand it over.
“Not now. After you kill him.”
I told him to do something unlikely. Netalia gasped.
“Charming,” he said. “Do we have an agreement?”
    “You’re asking me to kill someone,” I said, my voice
low. I still had my hands on his desk. We were about eye
level. “I’m not going to agree to that.”
    Instead of answering, he lit a small ball of fire in the
palm of his hand. My throat tightened as I saw my magic
again. The white flames danced, tinged with green. I
needed it back.
“Do we have an agreement?” he repeated.
As though someone else had taken control of my body,
I heard one word fall from my lips.
“Yes.”
~Chapter Seven~
    The next few days passed in a blur. I barely
remembered agreeing to kill this man, this Phoenix, who
threatened war. All I could think about was the white fire,
the magic that they’d stolen from me. Home seemed a
distant place now. I could barely remember what my
bedroom looked like. I couldn’t remember the sound of
my mother’s voice. My waking hours were consumed by
the thought of the magic, the feeling of it rising with the
adrenaline in my