The Mark Of The Phoenix

Chapter 1 The Cave Of Echo's

The sun was high over the golden fields of the borderlands, but the air between the twin princes was thick with a familiar, simmering tension. It was their fifteenth birthday—a day that should have been marked by celebration and shared pride. Instead, it was being spent in the tall grass, bows in hand, following the King’s command to prove their worth as hunters.

They were twins, but the resemblance ended at the bone. Kaulie moved with the practiced grace of a soldier. His blonde hair was cropped short and neat, catching the sunlight, and his blue eyes were constantly scanning the horizon with a focus that was almost weary. His tunics were always pressed, his boots polished, and his quiver sat perfectly centered on his back. He was the "Good Prince," the one who listened to the tutors and memorized the laws of the realm.

Gavin was the shadow to his brother’s light. His dark hair was long and unkempt, falling into his eyes, which were a restless, stormy gray. His clothes were stained with mud and snagged by briars, and he carried his bow as if it were a toy rather than a weapon.

"Keep your head down, Gavin," Kaulie whispered, crouching in the brush. "You’re making enough noise to wake the dead. We’re supposed to be tracking, not stomping."

Gavin smirked. As they moved through a patch of clover, he stuck out a muddy boot. Kaulie, focused on a distant movement in the trees, tripped and tumbled forward, his bow clattering against a stone.

"Gavin!" Kaulie hissed, pushing himself up and dusting off his knees. "What is wrong with you?"

"You’re too stiff, brother," Gavin laughed, leaning against a tree. "Father said to bring back game; he didn't say we had to look like statues while doing it. You’re so busy being 'King-like' that you’ve forgotten how to actually have fun."

Kaulie scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "I take things seriously because they are serious. One day, the safety of the kingdom will be in our hands. You can't tease your way out of a famine or a war."

Gavin rolled his eyes and notched an arrow. Without warning, he spun and let the shaft fly. The arrow whistled an inch past Kaulie’s ear, thudding into the bark of a tree behind him.

Kaulie froze, his face turning pale. "That could have killed me!"

"If I wanted to kill you, the arrow wouldn't have missed," Gavin said with a chillingly calm smile. He didn't look sorry; he looked bored. "Father always tells you to lead the hunts because you’re predictable. You do exactly what’s expected. Boring."

Gavin turned and began walking faster, heading away from the kingdom gates and toward the jagged line of the northern woods.

"Gavin, wait!" Kaulie shouted, jogging to catch up. "Father said to stay within sight of the towers. He said if we can see the Cave of Echoes, we’ve gone too far."

"Father says a lot of things," Gavin called back over his shoulder.

As they neared the edge of the forest, the world began to change. The vibrant green of the fields gave way to gray, wilted grass. The air grew unnaturally cold, a damp chill that seemed to seep through their tunics and settle in their marrow.

Soon, the sound of life vanished. The birds stopped their singing; the crickets went silent. The trees here didn't grow—they rotted, their branches drooping like the limbs of a weeping man. The flowers were nothing but shriveled, blackened husks in the dirt.

"There it is," Gavin whispered.

In the distance, the mouth of the Cave of Echoes yawned like a jagged wound in the mountainside. The ground around it was a wasteland of white. At first, it looked like stones, but as they got closer, the truth became clear: the earth was carpeted in the bleached bones of animals and the unmistakable remains of men.

"Gavin, stop," Kaulie begged, grabbing his brother's sleeve. "Look at the ground. Look at the trees. Nothing lives here. The Harpy... Father says if she hears a heartbeat, she’ll never let it go. Please, let’s go home."

"Go on then, Kaulie," Gavin mocked, shaking him off. "Run home to Father like the good little prince you are. Tell him I found the place he was too afraid to show us."

Gavin stepped onto the dead ground, his boots crunching over a ribcage. He stopped at the very mouth of the cave, where the sunlight died. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a jagged piece of flint. Gavin loved fire; he loved the way it danced and the way it destroyed. He had been scolded a dozen times for starting small blazes in the palace gardens, but he couldn't stay away from the light.

He grabbed a sturdy, fallen branch and struck the flint against the stone wall. Sparks. He struck it again. Sparks. On the third strike, the dry wood caught. He held the makeshift torch high, the orange flames casting long, dancing shadows into the damp darkness of the cave.

"See?" Gavin shouted back to Kaulie, who was standing ten yards away on the edge of the living grass. "There’s no such thing as a—"

Gavin’s voice died.

Kaulie’s heart stopped. From his vantage point in the sunlight, he saw it. Behind Gavin, deep in the shadows where the firelight couldn't reach, a massive shape shifted. It looked like a cloak at first, but then it unfurled—two enormous, tattered wings that blocked out the back of the cave.

"Gavin... behind you..." Kaulie’s voice was a strangled whisper.

"Chicken," Gavin snorted, starting to turn. "You’re seeing—"

Before he could finish the word, a pale, clawed hand shot out of the darkness. It gripped Gavin’s throat, snuffing out his breath. The torch fell from his hand, sputtering out in the damp dirt.

A pair of golden eyes ignited in the dark.

Gavin’s eyes went wide as he was jerked off his feet. He didn't even have time to scream before the Harpy—cursed by the Phoenix to stay within the shadows—dragged him backward. He vanished into the black maw of the cave, the sound of his fingernails scraping against the stone the only thing left behind.

"GAVIN!" Kaulie screamed, finding his voice at last.

He ran toward the cave, but the cold was like a physical wall, and the darkness seemed to growl at him. He realized with a sickening horror that he couldn't go in. He was a fifteen-year-old boy with a wooden bow, and his brother was in the clutches of a nightmare.

Kaulie turned and ran. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs felt like lead, heading back toward the kingdom gates, screaming for his father and the guards, leaving his twin behind in the dark.