There was no need for Pyris to close Pyren’s eyes, he passed peacefully in his sleep.

“FLEROVIUS.”

The young man had taken to napping under a tree just as his grandfather had.

The general had to kick him awake.

He jolted awake in a panic.

“Take this.”

Pyris tossed Pyren’s robe at him.

“Grandfather’s robe?”

“You are now High Priest of the Phoenix.”

He looked at the old brown robe with confusion.

“He is retiring?”

“Nobody retires from that role. Put it on.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

Flerovius didn’t cry, he didn’t whine, but he didn’t accept it either, not until he knelt down and felt him.

The soldiers understood why Pyren had asked for firewood, and began to construct a pyre for him.

“I can’t believe that he wanted to be cremated out here.”

“Do you see the tree that he died under? Old and knotted, a gnarled thing.”

“What of it?”

“He met your great grandmother under that tree.”

“Really?”

“Maybe. He only told me the story once, that she and him met outside the city, near the edge of the Blackwood under an ominous tree.”

The general had never known Pyren as a young man, he had been the wise elder since before he could swing a sword.

“I think that he knew he was going, and he wanted to be with her again.”

Pyris climbed the tree, gathering a few dead branches.

Yet he was not a young man anymore, he hadn’t been for nearly a decade.

He lost his footing on the way down and broke his leg.

He was a stoic, and that meant that he would just pretend that nothing had happened even though everyone who saw him try to put weight on it knew that it was broken.

The not yet old yet no longer youthful man sat down on the ground to check the damage, and the little chick hopped onto his leg.

“You want to help?”

He pulled the dagger from his belt and cut open his pant leg.

It was black and blue with a large lump on it where the bone had nearly punched through.

Phoenix cocked her head to the side, then jumped on the lump.

He winced and nearly passed out when the little bird pecked at the wound, trying and failing to hide the pain under coughs.

“You know how to help, don’t you?”

She looked at him, cocked her head to the side again, then went back to pecking.

He wouldn’t dare blaspheme against her, but he was starting to wonder if she was trying to help at all.

After some time, something in her mind clicked, and she roosted on the lump, which gradually receded.

Not only was Pyris’s leg healed, but the calluses on his hand faded away as well and his bald patch began to regrow.

“FLEROVIUS.”

The man had been kneeling at his grandfather’s body, stuck in the shock of grief; he was alone again.

Yet he came when called.

“Yes, General Pyris?”

“Take these branches, use them as the starting point for the fire.”

“I hardly know how to-”

“Then ask one of my men where it is best to set them.”

Flerovius felt the little god picking at his leg; she knew the scent of the robe and wanted back in.

Pyris and Flerovius worked together to lift the priest’s body into the pyre.

“Please, grant him his last rites.”

He tried to recall the words, but he wasn’t certain.

“Before us lay the keeper of fires, the… priest of…”

Pyris nearly struck the boy for failing to listen to his grandfather, for shirking his duties and instead drinking away his sorrows.

What a pitiable little milksop the general thought; he never knew his parents, yet he rose to the challenges of life without whining

“Oh Great Phoenix, your servant of mortal flesh and limited light lay before you, keeper of fires, send this soul to cinder, this priest of your flock, who has lived his life longly by your will.

May he reunite in your blazing glory when the wick of our lives reaches its end, and shall we wish to burn as brightly in life as this man did.”

The last rites did not need to be exact, but the most important part was to speak them with confidence.

He hunched his shoulders in shame, this man, he should be the priest, not me, thought the young man.

“Flerovius, as his last living family member, please, send his soul to Inferno.”

“Yes, of course.‘

Nobody handed him a flint and steel, and he aimlessly looked around for the solution, which came in the form of a chirp.

He looked down and saw the chick in a pocket inside the robe, perfectly sized for it, and it looked up at him.

“Right.”

He pulled it from its favorite spot and set it on the nest of dry branches gathered from the ancient tree.

But minutes passed in uncomfortable silence without her lighting the fire.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

She just stood as tall as she could and began to caw at him.

“Are you hungry?”

She couldn’t understand him, so she just kept making loud sounds.

He racked his brain, trying to remember what a newborn Phoenix ate, then finally he checked the pockets of the robe, and found a small vial, barely even a thimble of thick black pitch.

He took the cap out and she hungrily shoved her head inside.

Yet still, she refused to start the fire.

He picked the chick back up, and thought once more about what to do.

His grandfather could handle a Phoenix easily, and there were tricks to making one shoot fire.

He remembered when he was a boy, and his grandfather first showed some of his duties towards their god.

Flerovius rubbed Phoenix under her neck, and she spit up a ball of thick fire which burned his hand, yet most of it had fallen where it should, causing the dry branches to catch quickly.

There was no gathering of ashes or bones, these things would remain where they were.

Just as the forest burned by her in her battle against Fulminavis, these ashes would one day help to grow new plants, returning to the cycle of life.

During the entire burning, Phoenix had rested on the chest of the priest, passively pulling in some of the heat, but she allowed the full burn before she devoured her dinner.

When she stepped from the pyre, her down was much fuller, she was no longer thin and sickly looking, but a rather puffy little deity.

Phoenix ran back to the robe she loved, which happened to be attached to Flerovius.

“It is time that we returned.”

“That’s it? 140 years, and he dies in his sleep, the only witnesses are a bunch of soldiers?”

“He died peacefully in his sleep after witnessing the grandest of divine events one could hope to see, that is what we should all strive for. To die brightly does not mean to die in a blaze of glory, it means that you have kept lit the lives of those around you, that your warmth spread to them and kept their flames high.

Your grandfather was the light of a hundred lives.”

Pyris patted the young man on the shoulder and then turned to walk away, to lead his men back to their city as heroes, victors, honored warriors.

The victory march was sadder than any had expected, many of the soldiers traded stories back and forth about their meeting with Pyren, yet Flerovius had few compared to Pyris.

When the first sentries saw them, they rang the victory bells which played a triumphant sound that shook one's bones.

By the time the army of what was once well over 50,000 men from a half dozen cities walked through the gates, the people had prepared their flowers, orange and red marigolds that seemed like flames themselves.

Though Pyris had led the army, it was Flerovius who led the parade.

He held out their god in his hands, and though worry was part of rebirth, that they had returned at all was a great sign.

Had the Fulminites won, had their god survived, surely these men would not walk slowly and wave.

He wore his best fake smile, he was a people person, or at least people put up with him, but Flerovius felt none of the joy that he should’ve felt having returned from war alive or having witnessed the death of a god and the rebirth of another; he was without family, again.

There was drinking and dancing and more and more cheering when they confirmed that Fulminavis was dead, the great thunder beast had fallen by the spur of their god.

It was a shame that they couldn’t recover the body which, as it turned out, left no body behind.

Flerovius may not have been as overjoyed as he seemed, yet he still took part in the debauchery of the festival.

In the morning, he awoke in bed with a woman whose name he couldn’t remember, and with a god pecking him on the nose, begging for breakfast.

When he refused to wake, she began pecking at his hair, plucking and then burning it one piece at a time.

He groaned awake after a time, waking his lover along with him.

She began to laugh as soon as she was conscious.

“What?”

She couldn’t stop laughing, and instead she pointed at his chin.

The chick was satisfied only after his face was nearly entirely clean shaven and his hairline was cut back a few inches.

He looked like an old man, yet Phoenix looked quite satisfied sleeping in her pocket once more.

“YOU.“

He balled his fist, yet she looked at him with such innocent eyes that he couldn’t help but forgive her.

He half groaned and half laughed as he laid back down, one leg planted on the floor.

She jumped from the bedside table where he had tossed the robe and landed right on his face.

“Are you still hungry?”

She made no sound, and instead roosted on his forehead.

Suddenly his hangover was gone, and he had fully forgiven her for having eaten most of his hair.

Since he was now awake, he decided to go to the temple.

His grandfather had cared for him since his parents died a decade ago.

He didn’t resent the Phoenix for this, they had quickly become sick while she was away holding back Fulminavis, but he was never really the same after losing both of them at such a young age.

The priestesses had mourned not their leader, for they knew he was in Inferno, the home of their god.

“High Priest, how wonderful to see you this morning.”

Flerovius was confused for a moment.

“High Priest? Are you hungover?”

He didn’t know her name, but clearly the woman knew of him.

“No. I just expect my grandfather when I hear someone call out like that.”

“Yes, we all do.”

She hadn’t yet directly insulted him, but he was certain that it was coming.

“Are you here to look over the scrolls? To… refresh your memory?”

“Do I know you?”

He looked around at the few other priestesses, but none of them were willing to step in, each wore their scorn more openly than this woman.

“You don’t spend enough time in the temple to know me.”

Phoenix looked up from her pocket, and the woman held her arms in a cross pattern, right hand on left shoulder, and so on.

“Oh Immortal Phoenix, you bless me with your presence.”

She held her hands out, and Phoenix jumped in them.

The priestess was trembling with joy, and tears ran down her face, yet Phoenix just cocked her head to the side and then hopped back into Flerovius’s pocket.

“I shall guide you to the scrolls.”

He hadn’t actually asked, but the woman walked away from him anyway, looking back after a few steps and ordering him to follow with her eyes.

One might expect the room to be dusty and full of cobwebs, but the records room was one of the most well maintained parts of the temple, only the Phoenix Throne was better kept.

“Here are the scrolls related to caring for a newborn Phoenix, which I am sure you need only skim to remember the contents of. Did you know that Pyren could recite any scroll here from memory? And that he expanded the library by nearly a quarter? Ah, but of course, surely you knew that, you are his grandson after all, the High Priest of the Phoenix by blood right.”

“Did I do something to you?”

“Oh, of course not, you never did anything at all.”

“What did I do that you hold such spite for me?”

“Whatever do you mean? I am simply here to help guide you through your library, since you are the High Priest of the Phoenix. You made sure to preen her this morning, yes?”

“I… I was busy, I haven’t done it yet.”

“Of course, you are surely quite busy, so busy that you missed the morning message. Did you know that Pyren hadn’t missed a morning message in 90 years? Even when he was away, he made sure to send letters with addresses for the day.”

“You seem to know a lot about my grandfather.”

Her eyes and nose twitched with fury.

“Yes, he was a great man. I’m sure you will live up to his every expectation.”

Flerovius had never been made to cry by a woman, yet she was coming very close.

He spent his day pouring over every scroll, running out on occasion to gather items from the temple.

His grandfather had not just written many scrolls, but he made addendums to the ones already there, giving instructions on which things should be placed where.

Each shelf, drawer, and room had been clearly marked, along with the bottles and boxes.

When the sun had set, and he was nearly ready to go back to his home, the priestess from earlier placed a cup of hot hibiscus tea on the table.

“Thank you. But I didn’t ask for tea.”

She jolted back, twitching with anger again as she realized how she moved through routine that no longer applied..

“Apologies, he drank a glass every night.”

He took a sip, finding that it was perfectly cooled to a drinkable temperature, yet he didn’t like floral teas and cringed after drinking it.

Flerovius pulled a small waterskin from one of the robe pockets and poured it into the tea; she could smell the alcohol.

She rushed away holding the plate so tightly that her knuckles were white.

He however, barely paid attention to her leaving, instead savoring the taste of the old whiskey which was given to him as a gift for his promotion.

Flerovius passed out from a bit too much savoring, but Phoenix was wide awake and chirping for food.

He awoke to find himself once more with a splitting headache, yet what he didn’t find was his small feathered ward.