The bolt disintegrated into ash.
Her booted feet stepped across scorched dirt. Stone melted beneath her. Sand turned to glass.
The men stared, frozen in fear.
“Leave. Now,” she ordered in a voice that sounded as ethereal as she looked.
Spring’s kidnapper staggered upright, dragging Spring to her feet and jerking her back against him. A knife gleamed against her throat.
Phoenix stopped.
One step away from annihilating them all.
“You move,” the man snarled, “and we gut the girl. Hear that? Anyone else moves—we gut the cat. And you? You, little fire demon? We’ll sell your ashes.”
He sneered.
Phoenix’s eyes narrowed. The swirling colors inside them deepened—nebulae of rage and starlight.
“You will harm no one,” she said, her voice no longer human. It echoed with the weight of galaxies.
Heat cracked the air around her.
Her body began to shift.
Fire exploded. Wings of light and ash unfurled.
Where a girl had stood, a fiery phoenix with the head of a dragon now towered—radiant, terrible, magnificent. Flames crowned her skull. Fire crackled at her talons. The earth shook beneath her feet.
The man screamed and slashed wildly—only to watch his blade melt like wax in the sun.
Arrows turned to cinders mid-flight. Nets burned before they could fly. Bolts hissed into glass puddles at her feet.
A second later—the others arrived.
Zohar and Bálint dropped from the sky like thunderstones, landing behind her. Their dragons unfurled—scaled, gleaming, growling.
Alice’s hands crackled with energy, golden magic dancing across her arms.
Adaline re-formed beside them, her body glowing like dawn mist touched by the sun.
They stood together, backs straight, eyes burning.
An army of fire, air, power, and purpose.
The marauders shrank back.
Phoenix raised her wings high, flames licking the clouds.
“This is your last warning,” she said, her voice a storm.
“Leave her. Leave them—and run.”
The ground split behind her.
The air shimmered.
The Guardian Protector had emerged.
