The dragon dissipated at last.

As soon as Horatio caught his breath, he said to Silvia, ‘Have you still got the Phoenix feather?’, wanting to check that it was safe.

‘Yup!’ said Silvia, producing it from the down the front of her dress where she had tucked it during the battle and holding it aloft with a cheeky smile.

‘Quickly!’ said Ceres, running to her side. ‘We must use it on Alexander!’

Something in Horatio bristled at that.

‘Hold on,’ he was surprised to hear himself saying. ‘Are we sure that we want to use it on Alex?’

Ceres regarded him with a frown that crinkled up her beautiful face. The others all looked quizzically at him too.

‘Why wouldn’t we, boy?’ asked Primus.

Horatio’s cheeks flamed with heat, but he hoped it didn’t show. ‘I don’t know… I mean, if it’s capable of bringing someone back from the dead and it only has one use then it’s an astonishingly powerful item... Maybe we should save it to use on someone else, in case one of the rest of us is killed?’

‘Don’t you get it, sellsword?’ said Tyler the Time Mage. ‘The way this is going, we’re all going to die!’

‘Yes,’ said Ceres, ‘and Alex is the Chosen Hero of Destiny! We must use the Phoenix Feather on him to win him a second chance at defeating Brax!’

Is he? thought Horatio. Must we? But he said, ‘You’re right. Of course he is. We should use the Feather on him. I was just being foolish…’

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‘Well I don’t know how to “use” this thing,’ said Silvia, looking down at the flaming feather in her hand, wonder shining in her eyes.

‘Ceres,’ said Primus, ‘as the party’s paid up Healer, perhaps you could do the honours?’

‘Of course,’ said Ceres. ‘I would be delighted to. It shouldn’t be too difficult.’

The priestess took the feather from Silvia and knelt down next to Alex’s body.

She simply touched the feather to the hero’s pale white forehead, placing it upon his brow.

The whole feather flared with white light and then burst into even brighter, bigger flames and Ceres hopped up and back with a squeal. Horatio caught her to stop her from falling over backwards, then looked on in astonishment with her and the others as the whole of Alex’s body burst into flames as well, burning with red and orange leaping heat that warmed his face and giving off a thick smoke that made his eyes water.

‘Er, was this meant to happen?’ called Silvia over the sound of the crackling fire.

‘I hope so!’ Ceres called back.

No sooner had they exchanged these words than the flames suddenly died down, disappearing to leave only a few last tendrils of hissing black smoke that coiled up into the air and dissolved.

In their place, in a circle of grey ash, lay Alex, completely naked. His hair was even whiter than before, were that possible, white as snow.

The Chosen Hero of Destiny opened his green eyes, then blinked a couple of times.

‘Of course…’ said Primus quietly, ‘just like a Phoenix... Reborn from the ashes…’

Alex pushed himself up into a sitting position.

‘How long have I been out?’ he said, looking around at the assembled party. ‘How long did it take you to use the Feather on me?’