‘Why do I feel as if something bad is happening right now?’ Mark asked Jenny as they walked down their favourite path in the forest, they had many a time fled to, ever since they had again fallen in love with each other. It was quite dark and the huge trees right and left of the narrow trail created a gloomy atmosphere. The perfect place to cuddle and speak without fearing others to overhear their conversation.

But today they had been unusually quiet. Jordan’s end was drawing near, a week at most. That made both of them chase their own thoughts simply happy to know the other was there. But even the soothing presence of his phoenix-side’s life-partner couldn’t calm his mind today. A glance to his side and he knew Jenny was the same.

‘I don’t know, dear. I feel the same, though there is nothing different here, it feels like the atmosphere is changing. People are talking…’ Jenny said in a low voice as if not to disturb a sleeping dragon.’ Jenny answered both of his questions, the one he had asked and the one he had merely implied. A slight smile crept on his lips; he loved his woman. But it disappeared soon, giving place to the frown he had worn all day. The days were getting darker, Jenny was right about that.

‘People are always talking… but you are right the atmosphere is changing… people frown upon the clans nowadays. As if someone was rallying them up… but who? Who would profit from a scenario nobody can win?’ Mark asked himself just as much as he was asking Jenny. That was the thing that had been occupying his mind ever since he first got aware of the strange murders and the unrest in both clan-member’s and human’s minds.

He sighed. This growing unrest was dangerous. Keeping peace was like balancing on a knives edge. And the first victim to this uproar would surely be his weakened phoenix-clan. The fall was inevitable. It was only a matter how hard the landing would turn out to be. His position, though officially stable was all but that. People didn’t know him. The timing of the fatal attack on his predecessor was too well timed to be a coincidence. He would have to give his all to keep the falling clan together and was likely to face resistance the moment Jordan died.

‘Though I would like to disagree I think you are right, someone is rallying them up. As for the who… I think it’s the vampires. They are the only ones that are not frowned upon, as if they were not the leeches, they are, but some kind of exalted heroes, misunderstood and lovely.’ Jenny snorted and turned her head towards Mark, who had suddenly halted his step and seemed to be in his zone.

The phoenix-princess sighed as she knew this kind of expression; her father’s face had shown it every time he used his powers as king of the Teine Clan. No one had told her, that her husband-to-be had become the de-facto-ruler of the clan, but she had felt it the moment he had entered their shared bedroom.

The buzzing of his connection to the whole clan. The nexus. Some of the weaker minded kings had been exchanged early because their mind couldn’t carry the load without shattering. She knew, she wouldn’t have been able to handle it, much less with the ease Mark showed right now, as he was using the clan’s connection to the ley-lines to browse through the information every clan-member had on the vampires. She shuddered; the thought was creepy.

The powers of a white-phoenix were vast in the field of mind-magic. The powers of a white-phoenix that happened to be the king of phoenixes were even vaster. Mark had access to the minds of every single being that had blood-ties to the phoenix-clan. It was good that the young king had no intentions to abuse this link. The few times he had used it to learn how to use it – the power of loyalty- it had creeped himself out, but right now it was of great use. For him and for the sake of his clan’s safety.

It felt like a hive-mind. Browsing through every information even the smallest child had overheard on vampires and filtering the important information out of the pot purée put a strain on his mind which resulted in a partial transformation. He felt flames and feathers appearing and disappearing like tidal waves whenever he sank deeper into the nexus. Mark groaned. This feeling of his power alienated him from his old life in a way, that made him feel weary, but the urgency and wrongness that had led him to try this were enough to spur him further.

Jenny watched the changes in her lover. Now she knew out of experience he was alone. Any interference from the outside would only trigger his primal defence, a fire that could turn even a phoenix or a dragon into ashes. All she could do was watch him until he resurfaced. The strain of his doing was now visible on his face.

Diving as deep into the nexus as he did now came at a cost. His phoenix-side, that was always growing more prominent in his character, since he started spending that much time in this form to grant a smooth take-over from her farther, would surface even more.

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Jenny wasn’t all that sure if she liked the changes, she had induced in the man she had claimed as her partner. Sometimes it felt like she was losing him. He had definitely changed from the shy and sometimes childish detective she had first met.

Now an aura of calm but barely bridled power surrounded him, like the aura her father had always had, before falling in such dire straits. She knew it was this kind of power that made him the perfect candidate for being the phoenix-clan’s new king. And although her lover and parents always omitted the details of her father’s misery, she felt it was this power, that was killing her father now, just as much as the attack he had fallen prey to. All of that made her feel anxious. Jenny felt she couldn’t lose another man she loved. Much less her phoenix-side’s life-partner.

Mark found the answer. It was a puzzle out of many a little piece of information several clan members had unwittingly gathered, unaware of their importance. He cursed inwardly. That was the drawback of his new power, a minor one compared to the price he knew he soon would be aware of, but still. One had to know the question to ask the nexus. Now that Jenny had directed his attention to the vampires it was as clear as day to him that it had been them the whole time.

As for why the Tepez-Clan who was the only clan that was not directly reliant on the ley-line energy to survive was the one who had instigated the breaking of seals was still beyond him.

The young king-in-waiting pulled himself back out of the nexus and changed completely into his phoenix-form. ‘Come on, we have to hurry!’ he cried and motioned the dumbfounded Jenny to change and follow him, as he knew time was fleeting.

‘What has happened? Why are we in such a hurry? What have you discovered?’ she asked while changing as well.

‘Later! We have to hurry or anything we know is going to be at stake!’ he cried and flapped his huge wings to take off. He could only hope they were not already too late.

The fragments of what he had seen haunted his mind while he accelerated to a speed he had never ever reached while flying. Soon the trees were left behind them. He cursed himself if he only had used the nexus earlier, now it felt like it would be a miracle if they arrived in time.

When connected to the nexus he had travelled years back to the start of the Tepez-clan’s preparations. They had alienated the major clans from one another, always using small disagreements to drive a wedge between them. Meanwhile buying authors to slowly change the human’s view on them. The human’s, a part of him knew this was the price he had to pay this time…losing his connection to humanity even more…but that was something he could occupy his mind later with. Now he had to hurry.

The pictures of an old mansion on the other side of town. Of people doing a strange ritual. Yes, they had traitors amongst their own. Some of the lesser members of his clan had actively collaborated with the order. One even had planted the trap to kill Jordan. But those people, too, had to wait right now. He knew their names and faces. That much had been expected.

He gulped as he thought of the one thing, that was driving him crazy. Damien. Joline’s father was alive, if one could call being a vampire alive. Jenny didn’t know. But Joline, Joline did. She was the mule in his inner circle. If he had had teeth at the moment, he was sure they would have hurt by now. His beak was thankfully much harder.

Damien Lestrat was now a one of the vampires’ top generals and had played a major role in the whole intrigue. First openly as lover to the phoenix-clan’s princess than later out of the shadow as the man for the dirty work. Mark was totally at a loss how to tell Jenny about it. But as hard it was it was not important, now in the face of the impending catastrophe.

The thought of the plans he had witnessed made him push himself even harder to fly a little faster. Jenny was now barely keeping up. His greater wingspan was telling now. Every other time he would have slowed down, but not today. Not if the whole clan was about to burst into flames, literally. The reason he and Jenny had been send away to spend the afternoon outside was that he had to be elected as a new king. The vote was thought to be held as impartial as they came, that meant, he as a white phoenix, a mind-manipulator at the height of his power had to be absent.

The old king barely able to sit upright anymore was not a danger to the election. Mark knew even without him manipulating the clan the election was but a formality. A relic of a time when there had been more than one eligible candidate with the necessary power.

All clan-members would be present at the city mansion. All of them in their human guise. But not for long if he couldn’t stop his enemies’ plan. They were about to set the mansion on fire. Joline was the culprit-to-be. Nothing but a bad and costly joke at first glance, since phoenixes could walk through fire unscratched, but only in their phoenix-form.

Still just a nuisance at the first glance, but if one counted a camera-team and a live-stream in, that would film the clan-members change forms and the carefully spread story of phoenixes being fire-devils, along with a very tendential reporter… one could imagine the fear that would be invoked.

That alone would have been bad enough, but the vampires had gone even further. They had planted several ‘witnesses’ that had ‘seen’ how he and several other high-ranking clan-members had kidnapped the minister of internal affairs- Jordan Teine. The fact that Jordan would change to his human form in death would not help him either in proving his innocence.

All bank-accounts had been frozen. A total disaster. His only chance was to stop his future-wife’s daughter from dooming the whole clan. A hope that grew thinner with every passing second.

They reached the city’s outskirts. Only to be greeted by the sound of an explosion and smoke rising to the sky. He had lost.