ibeatrice2004

[ibeatrice2004]

Evie. The nickname seemed ridiculous now. Evie was the broken girl, the girl who had loved Lyla like they were blood. This wasn't Evie, this was Evelina. The name she had been given at birth, and she had hated since. But Evie didn't fit in the battle, Evelina did.

She looked at the two men kneeling before her, and they met her eyes defiently. We're not afraid of you, the gesture said, and we will not be your subjects. The two men had once spoken for themselves and the rest of Lyla's people when they told Evie they would never take commands from anyone but their own queen. Well, Lyla was dead and they now stared at the person who took their beloved queen's life with rebelion still alive inside them, and she realised the rest of what was left of Lyla's people would be the same way.

They had believed in the cause they fought and were still fighting for with everything they had, just like their leader. Maybe that was the reason Evie had always refused to set her army against them. She would have admired their loyalty and resilience but anger ran through her veins, turning them from red to gold as the Phoenix within her woke.

"You will pay," she said, her voice steady but filled with rage. "Then, you will bow."

Her skin, her face was cracked with the gold and fire her veins now drowned in, and her eyes switched from their usual blue to orange-gold to match. She didn't need a crown, not even a dress, because even in her armour, her hair mused by dirt and sweat, with blood running down the side of her face, Evie looked like the Queen she was. There was fury in her features, etched into her eyes, in the set of her lips, in the firm steeling of her jaw, and especially in the metal-like glow under her skin.

Evelina Greenhart was beautiful but she was much more than that. She was power and pain and wrath where she had once been kindness. They had taken her tenderness to mean weakness, her compassion they took for granted, and they took advantage of her kindness and forgiveness, but she had no more mercy for them. They had taken, and taken. No more.

Frostbite and their alies had destroyed her family and butchered her heart not once or twice, but three times, they had slaughtered people for years on end - innocent people, humans, hundreds - in their search for her and she did not forsake them. She had let them live.

"Killing them would make me no better" she had told herself. "More death won't bring those people back." But now, they had taken thousands and shackled them. No, their deaths would not bring back those blameless people or give them their freedom, or return people to their loved ones, but it would avenge them and ensure no more would share their fate.

This was the end of her line. For her mercy. For her compassion. For Frostbite and their alies. This time, she would end them. Annihilate them. Obliterate them so completely, so viciously that no one dared to do what they did ever again, so extensively no one even thought about it.

Most had died in the battle still raging around them, and the rest were to follow because neither side would give in or they would be imprisoned for the rest of their lives in a place so far away, so deep underground and so packed with her magic the chances of escape were thousands of miles below zero. Evelina would craft the brick herself and lay them if that's what it took. They would be stripped of their magic, every last fraction, not tortured or in physical pain but left to rot in the prison until their bodies broke down and died, only for their souls to go to their true punishment after death.

But not the two men looking at her. They would be pulled apart in mind and body for all the information they could give and the slaves and captives they took would be set free. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they would be free again and she would not rest until they were. Then, they would join what was left of their people to waste away.

She had been kind. Now was the time for Evelina to let loose justice, and what better to deliver it than the Phoenix inside her. And this time, she would not try to stop it.

Electricity crackled in the air and the kneeling men must have felt it too because they exchanged glances before looking back to Evelina. Fire was now dancing in her hands and thunder rolled somewhere in the distance like a drum. "You tore Lyla from me when we were children," she roared, her voice coming out distorted. "You set fire to my house and let my family burn inside it. You ripped me from the family I had rebuilt. You hunted, tortured, killed hundreds of people. For that, you will pay." The last word sounded like the thunder that rolled closer.

They could feel the power radiating from her, the winds picking up, the heat coming from the growing fire in her hands. Lightning hit and huge wings sprouted from her back, white with feathers dipped in gold, and they were on fire, and finally they felt fear. Everyone knew Evelina Greenhart was powerful, but no one could have imagined this. Rain started to fall fast, drenching the battle fields and the soldiers that were in it. Confused, people looked up wondering where the suddent downpour had come from, but their eyes found Evelina, her wings burning through the water and the fire in her hands never dimming.

Slowly at first but faster as more and more joined, people turned to her and stared. "You were so determined to find me and strip me of the Phoenix," she spoke to the two men, her voice projecting impossibly far and the last of the fighting stopped, "but do you really know what a Phoenix is?" Evelina's words carried over the sound of thunder and lightning, over the rain. "Answer the question," she demanded.

"N-no," said one of the men.

"You set out on a journey to break me even more and didn't have a clue of the extent of my abilities." She wasn't shouting, but her voice was loud and still filled with fury. "Do I look at all familiar now? Do you recognise my wings? The fire in my blood?"

"Angel," the man replied again quietly.

A smile crept onto her lips. "Very good." She paused and raised her head, now speaking to the entire battlefield. "A Phoenix is a part of a fallen Angel. Who still wants to fight against me?" Evelina waited, and when no reply came, she chuckled.

Her wings started beating and she rose into the sky, higher and higher until she hovered six feet above anyone else, and she spread her arms wide, a blinding light coming from her. People fell to their knees and onto their faces in fear. Lightning hit close now, and the remaining soldiers fell. But not her own army. They dropped to a knee as she lowered herself, showing respect and pledging allegiance to her.

Then complete darkness fell