Chapter One - Ember I wake up to a snowball hitting my face. I groan as they hit my scorching feathers and evaporate. I grumble incoherently and roll over, my wings acting as a shell. The snowballs seem to grow bigger and continue pelting me. I sit up and stretch as the snowballs slow down. I use my fire power that all Flame Feathers have to build a flaming wall, stopping all snowballs from hitting me. My attacker gasps in awe. I chuckle, as this is how nearly every morning goes, and her reaction is always the same. “Alright, you win,” she says. I smirk in triumph and let the wall come down in a burst of flame. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That was Lumi. Lumi is my adopted sister, and she is a Snow Feather. Most phoenixes don’t know about the Snow Feathers’ existence, and those who do believe that they all went extinct during the Great War. There are 4 tribes of phoenixes. There are the Flame Feathers, which I am, and they hold the most power and riches. There’s the Sea Feathers, who mostly live underwater and do not have a good relationship with the Flame Feathers, and the Earth Feathers, who we don’t know much about plus they mostly keep to themselves. And then there’s the Snow Feathers, who raised Lumi and I. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lumi is hovering a few feet off the ground, her silver-light blue feathers shining in the morning light. I get out of my nest, which is hanging off a cliff on Diamond Peak, the highest mountain in the Diamond Alps. The sky is clear, and the sun is shining so brightly I have to shield my face with my wings. I shiver as the cold wind whips around me, swirling so fiercely it almost seems like it's alive. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am a Flame Feather, but I live with the Snow Feathers because my egg was found alone in a cave of an Ice Serpent, ready to be eaten. Aella found me, and took me home to her nest on Diamond Peak. I really owe my life to her. She didn’t have to take me in. Phoenixes are not very generous to other tribes. Tundra and herself have been raising myself along with Lumi as if I was one of their own. I’m really grateful for them, but sometimes I wonder… what would’ve happened if I hadn’t been stolen by the snake? If I would’ve lived with other Flame Feathers? And why was the snake so far away from the Diamond Alps? Why was Aella so far from the Alps? That’s a thought I have frequently, but I’m not sure Tundra and Aella would know either. I can only imagine the bliss of not having to worry about burning them, because they would be fire resistant, like me. I would’ve made friends, would’ve known my real parents, I could go to school with other Flame Feather hatchlings rather than just reading boring old textbooks with old outdated information reading that the Snow Feathers have scavenged over the years, and have been wrongly treated until Queen Icicle came along, blah blah blah…. Yeah yeah yeah. Everyone says Queen Icicle is the best, but whenever she flies around our mountain, she glares at me like I’m an Ice Serpent ready to destroy all of Øyenes. Like it’s my fault I can kill Snow Feathers with just a touch! My thoughts start to drift. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 16 years ago… My eyes well with tears as I remember the egg, Lumi’s would-have-been brother. The bright, blue shell speckled with silver, the thin crust, gleaming in the dawn light. I had never seen a real phoenix egg before. I was intrigued. I wanted to touch it. I reached out, but as soon as I put my claws on it, the shell blackened and started crumbling to ashes. I yelped and recoiled, but it was too late. I turned away and put my wings over my head so I couldn’t watch what was happening. The last thing I remember was the screeches of the burning chick, his life over before it even began. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
