There were rumours about the Verdant Wilds. Rumours that the jungle drove people crazy, that if you lay down to sleep the roots and vines would seal you in a living coffin. Ravenna didn’t actually believe any of that drivel, but it was still unnerving to be in the midst of the thick vegetation.

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The air around her was hot and heavy with humidity. Still, she trudged on, checking her map every now and again. The edges of the parchment were soaked with sweat but she couldn’t afford to stop and try to dry it out.

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Ravenna reached for her flask but found it empty. She crouched down at a small river, only to jump away. Pointed teeth and large eyes stared up at her from below her reflection. The evil looking fish blinked at her. After a moment it seemed to decide that she wasn’t about to put her fingers in the water, so it drifted away casually on the current.

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She hurriedly screwed the lid back onto her flask. She’d find somewhere else to fill up from. As long as she could find a water source that didn’t have any strange creatures ready to nibble on her.

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She pushed a few black sweat slicked strands of hair out of her face. When she’d first entered the jungle, her hair had been tied up into a practical bun. Most of it had escaped from that though. She squinted at her rough map. Some of the ink was running. The elder she’d tracked down in Wolfglenn had given her directions, but they’d been basic at best. He hadn’t even been sure that the temple still existed.

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A familiar heat skated down her fingers and she cursed, trying to drop the map. Too late. The spark had already caught, and the parchment burned to a crisp in a moment. Ravenna huffed out a breath and grimaced. The map was running out of usefulness now that she was in the heart of the Verdant Wilds. It might have been helpful when she needed to escape this place, but she’d have to do without.

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She wandered deeper into the jungle through large trees and creeping undergrowth. Her long sleeves clung to every inch of skin it could, but she didn’t pay it any mind. The temple had to be here somewhere. She scanned the nearby vegetation. All she could see was green and brown. No flashes of red brick that had been used to build Idril’s temples.

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Old tomes talked about a time that Idril’s temples could be found all across Silverscry. But those accounts were from centuries ago, from before the Great Culling. A time before people turned on their deities and everything associated with them.

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Ravenna ducked under a branch. If the temple hadn’t been claimed by the jungle, then it was likely one of the last of Idril’s temples left, a beacon to the fire goddess herself.

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There was a rustle and movement beside her. She jumped away and swallowed down her scream. To her relief it was just a bird—she gasped—no, it was a phoenix. A young one, it had only red feathers. The older a phoenix was, the more burnings it had been through and the more orange-yellow feathers it grew.

“Hi, buddy,” Ravenna cooed in a soft voice. She stepped a little closer.

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The phoenix regarded her with large gold eyes. It had an oversized hooked beak which turned from bronze to black as it tapered. It’s long tail feathers spread across the ground behind it. the phoenix squawked and the feathers on the back of its neck raised up, shaking back and forth with the noise.

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Ravenna let out an excited laugh, it was a male then. She’d never seen one in real life, never thought she’d get the chance to. They were so rare, hunted to almost extinction just like all the mythics had been.

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The phoenix stretched its broad wings and with another squawk it took off. Ravenna raced after it, running through the dense jungle. Phoenixes were known to take refuge in their goddess more than the other mythics did with their deities. If anyone knew where the temple was, it would be this phoenix.

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Leaves and vines slapped her as she passed, and she almost ran into a few branches but she refused to slow down. She couldn’t lose him.

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Finally, Ravenna came out into a clearing and skidded to a stop. Her breathing was uneven as she stared up at the temple. The stone was old and weathered. The canopy was closed overhead and moss grew all over the large red slabs that made up the structure as if the jungle was attempting to reclaim it. But the temple stood tall, grand even after almost a century of being abandoned.

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The phoenix glided in loops up near the canopy then it suddenly dived and slipped into the temple through a set of narrow openings at the top.

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The temple had four sides and five tiers, each tier was at least double Ravenna’s height. The middle of each side had a set of steps that led to a flat top. The top was where burning ceremonies to celebrate Idril’s many blessings would have taken place.

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The burning platform wasn’t Ravenna’s goal, she needed to be inside at the alter where people would make personal pleas to the goddess and ask for her guidance and mercy. It was also where the most skilled acolytes kept all of the ancient tomes.

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She hurried over to the temple; there was a door cut into the stone next to the stairs and she pushed it. The stone swung open easily.

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The difference was immediate as she stepped inside. The wet heat of the Verdant Wilds didn’t hang in the air. Instead, it was cool against Ravenna’s skin after her trek through the jungle. The inside was just as grand as the outside. There wasn’t multiple levels, instead the sides of the room ran up until they reached the underside of the burning platform, creating a cavernous space.

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Every inch of wall space was covered with murals depicting Idril and the deeds of her most famous acolytes. Stories Ravenna had grown up hearing in hushed whispers from her father in the dead of night. The walls were covered in metal rods. Perches, she realised. From back when acolytes would bond with mythics.

A steady trickle of water came through one wall and collected in a basin near the floor. This overflowed onto the ground and ran into a small drain in the floor. That unwound something tight in her chest. She wouldn’t need to get water from rivers with strange sharp toothed fish.

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The floor was littered with dead leaves and small skeletons. She glanced at the phoenix who had settled on one of the lower perches. She gestured at the collection of bones. “This is your doing I presume.”

He cocked his head to the side.

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She pulled open her satchel and dug around for her dried meat. Once she’d found it she unwrapped it, peeling away a single strip. She threw it to the bird. He swooped to catch it. He landed on the ground and guzzled the meat down greedily. “Where are your parents?” she asked him. Then she reached out her hand to him.

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He eyed her. When she got close, he clicked his beak and flew up to one of the perches out of her reach.

Light streamed in from the gaps in the roof—the ones the phoenix had used to come inside—but that would only last as long as the sun was up. She didn’t know how long she’d be searching for answers here, so it was best to struggle through lighting the candles now rather than later when it got dark.

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She headed for the closest lantern and was pleased to find that there was still a large candle inside. Ravenna closed her eyes and tried to channel the familiar heat through her body.

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Nothing.

Not even a tiny flicker. She couldn’t feel her magic—instead a tight uncomfortable itch spread across her back and arms. She cursed and took a few calming breaths. It hadn’t been long ago that she’d had almost perfect control over her magic but now…well things had changed.

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Now she was either unable to access her own magic or randomly lighting things on fire. It was worse than losing her flames completely because she knew it was still in there somewhere. It just wasn’t hers anymore.

Absent-mindedly she rubbed her arms through her sleeves trying to alleviate the tight itch that had spread over her scars. The little phoenix studied her carefully.

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She tried to cast her mind back to basics, back to when Dad was teaching her from an old, battered tome. It was easy to think that fire was anger and chaos, but it wasn’t. Sometimes it appeared that way, but controlled fire wielding was calm and purposeful. It was knowing exactly what you were trying to do, it was precise destruction.

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She focused completely on the candle wick, on every piece that twirled together to make it, on the dust and dirt that had gathered on it over the years. She imagined the wick slowly heating until it was too much and burst into glorious flame.

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A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead as she worked. It was like trying to reach through marshy water of Sweet Bog but she felt a little movement in her magic—a slight flinch.

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It was enough.

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She grasped the thread and pulled on it, trying to access the magic deep inside her.

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The candle burst to life.

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Ravenna gasped and fell to her knees. It shouldn’t have been that hard. The phoenix perked up and flew down beside her. He hopped a little closer and peered at her. She chuckled. “That impressed you, huh?” Slowly she reached for him, and he nuzzled into her hand. His feathers were soft and hot to the touch. She stroked him and said, “If you’ve been waiting for a fire wielder to show up then I’m sorry you got stuck with me.” The young phoenix cooed—he didn’t seem to mind.

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She stood, her knees a little wobbly. It didn’t take long to find a dry stick, then she lit it from the candle and used it to light the rest of the candles manually. There was no way she could expend so much energy to light them all with her magic.

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The little phoenix hopped around after her as she moved. She turned and regarded him. “You need a name little one.”

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He squawked and blinked at her.

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She considered him for a moment. “How about Flint?”

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He squawked again.

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“I’ll take that as a yes.” She headed over to the alter. Or more accurately the shelves behind the alter. The shelves were stuffed full of tomes but none of the titles leapt out as being particularly helpful. So she settled on starting with a tome called, “The Basics of Fire Wielding.” She studied every page, but there was nothing about blocked magic, nothing about what happened to a fire wielder that got burned.

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She moved onto the next tome. Then another. And another. And another. She piled the tomes around her as she worked. Luckily, her magic seemed to have settled after lighting the candle because she didn’t have a flare up—no ancient texts were lost to spontaneous flames.

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Flint hopped around her as she worked, sometimes getting a little close to the pages. She had to move the books multiple times so that the heat he exuded didn’t cause a fire. At one point he disappeared and returned with a plump black rat. He then proceeded to rip into it and eat it on the alter in front of her.

“Ewww,” she said.

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He clicked his beak, shaking some of the blood off himself and splattering the page she’d been reading.

She leapt up and shook off the tome. Most of the blood came off onto the floor but the stain from the droplets stayed on the page. “Flint, that wasn’t nice.”

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He squawked and flew back up to one of the perches, leaving behind the half-eaten rat carcass.

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She sighed, who knew having a phoenix around would be so disgusting. She pointed at the rat. “Come and take this back outside.”

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He blinked at her.

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“Flint!”

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He settled down on the perch, his feathers puffing out.

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She groaned. Ravenna didn’t want to see a half-eaten carcass the rest of the time she was reading. She grabbed a stick and reached out to flick the rat off the alter—then at least it would be out of sight. As she touched it, the soft body gave way for the stick and she gagged. At the same time heat surged through her fingers. Fire raced down the stick engulfing the rat.

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Flint leapt into the air and soared around in circles, cawing loudly and almost in triumph. The mouthwatering scent of charred meat filled the temple. That was way worse than the half-eaten carcass. She’d spent a week living off mostly dried meat, nuts and sometimes, if she was lucky, fruit. Ravenna gagged again, this time because she didn’t want to be tempted by the smell of charred rat.

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She needed to put the fire out. She scooped up her flask and hurried over to the water basin. There, she dunked the flask under the water. Bubbles escaped as it filled.

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Behind her there was a loud BOOM. The force threw her to the ground, and she was engulfed by a sweltering intensity that only came from a fiery blaze. It cast her back in time, to fire raging down her back, the smell of her own flesh burning in the air and her brother standing over her.

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As quickly as the vision took over it was gone again. She rolled onto her back, sucking in deep breaths. I’m okay, nothing is wrong.

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Once her breathing was under control, Ravenna got up and her mouth fell open. There was a woman standing on the alter where the rat had been. Little rivers of molten red fire curled across her dark brown skin. A rippling gold dress hugged her body. Her hair was gathered into a bobbled mohawk on the top of her head, making her look regal. And as she stretched, smoke curled off her skin.

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Ravenna instantly knew who she was…but it was completely impossible.

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She was looking at Idril. The fire goddess, who was supposed to have died over a century ago.