BOUND TO THE PHOENIX QUEEN

“You’re the reason we lost everything, Elena. You and that… cursed thing inside you.” I froze in my tracks as the words sliced through me like shards of broken glass, each syllable dripping with the kind of venom that only came from years of fermented pain. I stood frozen in the doorway of our cramped kitchen, my backpack sliding off my shoulder to hit the linoleum with a dull thud. The familiar scent of stale alcohol hit me, and my eyes burned when I realized she’d been drinking again—again. It was barely 8:00 a.m. My mother didn’t turn around. She didn’t have to. I could see the rigid set of her shoulders, the way her knuckles had gone white where she gripped the edge of the counter. The empty wine bottle beside her told me everything I needed to know about how her night had gone. How every night went now. “Mum, you’re drunk. You need a shower… come on, I’ll help you.” “Don’t.” She whipped around, and I was struck by how much older she looked than her forty-two years. Her dark hair hung in greasy strands around a face that used to be beautiful—before the divorce, before we lost the house, before I destroyed everything. “Don’t you dare try to act all cozy and caring. Not today.” “But if you’d just listen—” “Listen?” Her laugh was bitter, broken. “I listened eight years ago when you swore it was an accident. I listened when you promised it would never happen again. I listened when your father packed his bags and told me he couldn’t live with a monster.” The word hit me like a physical blow. “I’m not a monster.” “No?” She took a step closer, and I could see my reflection in her bloodshot eyes. “Then what do you call someone who burned down their own sister’s bedroom? What do you call someone who—” “Stop.” My voice cracked. “Please, just stop.” “You want me to stop? Fine. But you know what today is, don’t you? You know what day it is?” Of course I knew—and I had no idea why I was surprised that she would get her head out of her bottles enough to remember. “It’s Sofia’s birthday,” I whispered, the words scraping my throat raw. “Would have been,” she corrected, her voice dropping to a whisper that somehow hurt more than her screaming. “Would have been her sixteenth birthday. My baby girl… Do you know what she wanted? Do you remember?” I did remember. Sofia had circled it in her diary, the one I’d found in the wreckage of her room. A riding lesson at Meadowbrook Stables. She had talked about it for weeks—how she was going to ask for a job there when she turned sixteen, how she was going to work with horses every day. “She wanted riding lessons,” I managed. “She wanted to be a veterinarian. Just like her father.” Mom’s voice broke on the last word. “She had it all planned out. Community college, then state university, then vet school. She was going to save animals, Elena. She was going to make a difference.” My chest tightened, that familiar pressure building behind my ribs like a dam about to burst. Control, I reminded myself. Perfect control. I had spent eight years perfecting the art of feeling nothing, of keeping the monster that lived beneath my skin locked away where it couldn’t hurt anyone else. “I know,” I whispered. “I know she was.” “But you took that away from her.” Mom’s voice hardened again. “You took everything away from her. From all of us.” “I didn’t mean to—” “Didn’t mean to?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You had a tantrum, Elena. A tantrum that killed your sister. And now you want to go to school and pretend everything’s normal?” The burning in my shoulder blade began to flare, that strange heat that always came when I was upset—when the careful walls I’d built around myself started to crack. Don’t feel. Don’t react. Don’t let it out. “I’m trying to move forward,” I said quietly. “We both need to move forward.” “Move forward?” She took another step closer, and I could smell the wine on her breath, see the red-rimmed eyes that used to sparkle when she looked at me. “There is no forward, Elena. There’s just you, walking around, breathing, living, while she’s six feet under. There’s just you, getting older every day while she stays eight forever.” The words hit their mark with surgical precision. I’d heard variations of them before—hundreds of times over the years—but there was no getting used to them, or the hurt accompanying them. “Go ahead and leave for school…” she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Maybe it would be better if you didn’t come back today. Maybe it would be better if you just… disappeared. Like you should have instead of her. It should have been you! And not my baby girl.” The burning in my shoulder flared, spreading down my arm like liquid fire. For a moment, I swore I could smell smoke, but when I glanced around the kitchen, everything looked normal. Broken, but normal. I grabbed my backpack and fled. ⸻ The air bit at my face as I walked the three miles to Millbrook High, my worn sneakers crunching through leaves that had already given up their fight against the coming winter. The walk gave me time to rebuild my walls, to push the hurt back down where it belonged. By the time I reached the school’s brick façade, I’d almost convinced myself that I was fine. Almost. The hallways buzzed with the usual morning chaos—lockers slamming, the sharp crack of sneakers on the polished floor. I kept my head down, navigating through the crowd with the practiced invisibility of someone who’d learned that being seen was dangerous. My locker was in the far corner, away from the popular kids’ territory, which suited me perfectly. I was spinning my combination when I heard it. “Well, well. Look what the dumpster dragged in.” Madison Pierce’s voice cut through the hallway noise like a blade. I didn’t look up, nor acknowledged her presence, but I could feel her approaching with her usual entourage of perfectly groomed minions. “Ignore her,” I muttered to myself, but it was too late. She was already committed, and ignoring Madison never worked. In fact, it just got her more aggravated. “I’m talking to you, freak.” A manicured hand slammed against the locker next to mine, and I flinched despite myself. Madison’s reflection appeared in the metal of my locker door—blonde hair in perfect waves, lips glossed to match her pink sweater, eyes that sparkled with the kind of cruelty that came from never having to face real consequences. “What do you want, Madison?” I asked without turning around. “Ooh, she speaks!” Madison’s friend Chloe giggled. “I thought maybe you’d finally learned to keep your mouth shut.” “Did you hear about the Salvation Army drive?” Madison continued, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “They’re collecting clothes for the less fortunate. I was thinking you could just donate your entire wardrobe. Though I’m not sure anyone deserves to wear those rags.” Her friends giggled on cue. I forced myself to turn around, to meet her gaze with the blank mask I’d perfected over the years. “Leave me alone. I’m not bothering anyone, Madison.” “Oh, but you are.” She stepped closer. “You’re bothering me just by existing. Walking around here like you belong when everyone knows you’re nothing but trailer trash.” “You know, I might be trailer trash… but at least I don’t have to tear other people down just to feel good about myself,” I said quietly. It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it the moment the words left my mouth. Madison’s pretty face twisted in anger. “What did you just say to me?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You think you’re better than me? You, whose daddy ran off the moment things got tough? You, whose mommy drinks herself stupid every night?” “Leave my family out of this,” I warned, but my voice came out weaker than I intended. “Why? Are you embarrassed? Embarrassed?” Madison laughed. “You should be. Do you know what my mom told me about your mother? She saw her at the grocery store last week, stumbling around the wine aisle at ten in the morning, muttering to herself like a crazy person.” Heat flooded my cheeks, but it was nothing compared to the fire building in my chest. “Stop.” “Stop what? Telling the truth?” Madison’s smile was sharp enough to cut. “She was talking about you, wasn’t she? About how you’re cursed. About how you murdered your own sister.” The words shattered something inside me. The careful walls I’d built over eight years crumbled in an instant, and the thing I’d kept locked away came roaring to the surface. “I said STOP!” The scream tore from my throat with a force that surprised even me. The hallway fell silent, dozens of eyes turning in our direction, but I barely noticed. All I could focus on was the burning that was no longer just in my shoulder—it was everywhere, consuming me from the inside out. Madison stumbled backward, her perfect composure cracking. “What the hell—” “Oh my God,” Chloe breathed. “Look at her eyes!” I didn’t know what she was talking about until I caught my reflection in the locker door. My brown eyes were glowing, literally glowing, with golden light that seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. “Elena,” Madison whispered, and all the venom had drained from her voice, replaced by something that sounded suspiciously like fear. “Elena, what’s happening to you?” Golden light began to emanate from my skin, starting as a subtle shimmer but quickly intensifying until I was practically glowing. The temperature around us spiked, and I heard someone in the crowd mutter about the radiators malfunctioning. “Is she… is she on fire?” someone whispered. “Call a teacher!” “Call 911!” “She’s on fire!” “She’s cursed! She’s gonna kill us all!” “Nobody move!” The voice came from somewhere behind me, crisp and authoritative. “Everyone stay exactly where you are!” I turned, expecting to see a teacher or security guard, but instead I found myself face-to-face with three people I’d never seen before. A woman with silver hair and eyes like winter storms. A man with kind eyes and an ageless face. And a girl about my age whose beauty was so otherworldly it made my breath catch. The silver-haired woman stepped forward, and I noticed that she didn’t seem at all surprised by the golden light pouring from my skin. If anything, she looked… relieved. “Elena Martinez,” she said, and her voice carried an odd echo, as if she was speaking from a great distance. “We’ve been looking for you for decades.” I felt the power inside me pulse once, twice— And then everything went white.