Sooner or later I'm going to have to think about it, and then I'll be a real mess. -- Unknown

Not everyone had listened to Siarvin's and Irímé's warnings to get out of the palace. It didn't help that they hadn't agreed on a story beforehand and so gave two very different reasons for why the place had to be evacuated. Siarvin said there'd been a magical accident that might become dangerous. Irímé said there was a fire alarm. Neither had sounded very convincing, though their very obvious panic got many people to realise there really was something wrong. Other people assumed they were exaggerating or mistaken and so ignored their warnings.

Norirn Hilatévasvóeln had worked at Gihimayel Palace for over a thousand years. She'd seen enough people running around in a panic to know they were usually getting themselves worked up over nothing. And she was not going to let anything get in the way of her doing her duty. She'd been hired to mop the floors, so even if the end of the world was imminent she was going to mop the floors.

The sudden absence of her co-workers turned out to be a boon for her. She could go about her work without having to interrupt other people and ask them to move out of the way. She filled the mop bucket and set to work on the entrance hall's floor.

Fifteen minutes later Norirn heard running footsteps. They climbed the steps leading to the palace's main doors.

The prank must be over now, was all she thought about it.

One of the doors was flung open with such force it suggested the person had hurled themselves against it. A young woman staggered in and shoved the door closed behind her -- a very dishevelled young woman whose shoes were practically encased in mud. Norirn bristled. There was nothing she hated to see more than dirt on her nice clean floors.

"Go out and take those shoes off before you come in here!" she snapped.

The woman almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled round, eyes wide, and half-slumped half-collapsed against the door when she saw Norirn.

"Get out!" she practically shrieked. "You've got to get out!"

Norirn scowled. Who did this intruder think she was? "Young lady, I have work to do here, and whatever you're here for can wait until--"

There was a crash outside. The door shook with the impact.

Another dragon? was Norirn's first thought. The most emotion she could muster up was mild exasperation. Very little surprised her nowadays.

The woman braced herself against the door even though she looked like she might collapse at any minute. Her voice was a high-pitched screech as she repeated, "Get out!"

A spot of red caught Norirn's eye. She looked down and saw there were pools of blood amidst the muddy footprints the woman had left. An inkling that this was more serious than she'd thought began to dawn on her. Then she saw the red stains on the woman's shoe and trouser leg, and the tear in the fabric, and the brief glimpse she got of blood on the woman's leg.

"What happened?" she asked in horror. The last time someone had been physically injured here was over two hundred years ago, when two representatives of the rival branches of Kaxet'i's royal family decided to have a duel in someone else's kitchen.

Something hit the door with such force that the woman was thrown backwards. She recovered just in time to slam it shut before whatever was out there got in. Norirn belatedly realised that she should have listened to those people who'd warned her to leave. She began to back away slowly. She picked up her mop and held it in front of herself as a makeshift weapon.

The next time the door was rammed with even more violence. The woman was knocked to the ground. All Norirn saw was a figure hurtling towards her at tremendous speed, far too fast to see clearly. Then agonising pain shot through her neck and the world disappeared.

It took Abi a painfully long minute to recover from being knocked down like that. She'd landed on her injured leg. The pain was worse now than it had been before. She pushed herself to her hands and knees.

For several disorientating seconds she couldn't tell if what she saw was real or a twisted flashback to Ilaran's death. Finally she realised it was horribly real. The servant lay sprawled on the floor like a doll that had been tossed aside. Her throat was a mass of blood and muscle. All of the skin had been ripped right off. The possessed Ilaran knelt over her. Abi almost vomited when she saw him tear chunks of flesh out of the unfortunate woman's face with his teeth.

She staggered to her feet. The sound drew the parasite's attention. It charged at her before she could catch her breath. She jumped out of its reach. If she'd had fewer things to worry about she would have been very confused about how she managed to jump all the way to the other side of the room. As it was she hardly even noticed where she'd landed. All that mattered was getting out of the parasite's way. She grabbed hold of the pillar supporting the landing overhead and clambered up it in a trice.

The servant's body began to convulse. Abi stared in horror as the definitely dead woman stood up. Her arms hung lifelessly at her sides and her head was bent backwards unnaturally. Her muscles and blood vessels hung out of the gaping hole in her throat. Through it Abi could see the bones of her neck were snapped and crushed in multiple places.

I have made a horrible mistake, Abi thought.

Necromancy had been outlawed for a reason. Now she knew exactly what that reason was.

The parasite possessing Ilaran might not be one of the world's greatest thinkers, but it certainly knew enough to climb the staircase and try to reach her from above. Meanwhile the undead servant lurched over to the bottom of the pillar. Luckily the landing was far above the ground floor and therefore the pillar was long enough for Abi to avoid both of them. Unluckily she was now trapped, unable to climb up or slide back down, and with the grim knowledge that she couldn't keep hanging on here indefinitely.

Her thoughts flew back to Irímé turning into a dragon, then to the priests telling her she was a phoenix immortal.

This would be a great time to prove them right.

Over a thousand years ago Abi and Arafaren sat together on the nursery window-seat and listened as their mother told them a story. It was the story of a girl who learnt her hometown was about to be destroyed by a traitor in league with an enemy army. So she set out to climb all the way to the Court of the High Gods. Her journey led her through all sorts of dangers. When she finally reached the stairs leading to the gods' court she found an enormous bird guarding them.

"How did the bird get there?" Arafaren asked every time they heard the story.

Abi suspected he would much rather hear that story than this one. Sometimes he got his way and their mother told them the full story of the phoenix's creation. Sometimes she just summarised it.

"It was born from the blood of the goddess of justice," Hartanna said. "She was injured in a battle with the gods of evil. Her blood fell into a pool of lava and took the form of a bird." This time Arafaren didn't get his way since she immediately went back to the story she was half-way through. "The phoenix stopped the girl and told her she couldn't come any closer. The girl asked why.

"'Because anyone who has ever committed any sin, no matter how small, will be instantly incinerated if they come near me,' the phoenix said.

"The girl explained why she had come and asked for help. Remember, the phoenix was born from the goddess of justice and there is nothing it hates more than treachery. So when it heard her story it plucked out one of its feathers and gave it to the girl.

"'Take this and give it to the traitor,' it said. 'It has enough of my power to destroy him but not enough to hurt you.'

"So the girl took the feather and went back home. She found the traitor was still there, pretending to be an upstanding member of the town while plotting against them. In front of everyone she handed the feather to him. At once he burst into flames and burnt until there was nothing left but ash."

Over a thousand years later Abi remembered that story. And something buried deep inside her burned.

An ear-splitting shriek rose from the entrance hall. It was cut off abruptly. If anyone had been outside they would have heard a faint crackle like a fire burning inside the hall.

In the last few hours Ilaran had experienced so many horrific things that pointedly ignoring them was the only way to avoid becoming a raving lunatic. He did not think about the taste of blood in his mouth. He did not think about what the parasite would do to anyone it got its claws on. He definitely did not think about how the unfortunate cleaner had died and become a monster. Over his lifetime he'd perfected the art of focusing on trivial details and keeping certain things out of his mind until he had time to think about them and fully comprehend how nightmarish they were.

When the parasite went up to the landing and tried to attack Abihira from above, Ilaran focused entirely on trying to fight it. He did not think about how close its claws came to tearing right through her skull. He did not think about how the second parasite down on the ground floor was trying its best to climb up after Abihira. He certainly did not think about how there was nowhere for her to go unless she grew wings.

The parasite leaned further through the bannisters and tried to grab Abihira's hair. Ilaran did the telepathic equivalent of punching it in the face. He still didn't know if he was hurting it or not, but at least he distracted it. Its hand passed harmlessly several inches above Abihira's head.

It happened so suddenly. A flash of light, a blaze of almost unbearable heat, a blur of movement below, and the next thing he knew Abihira was gone. The pillar she'd clung to was singed. The metal bannisters were red-hot. With an angry screech the parasite recoiled from them. It raised its head. Ilaran looked through its eyes -- technically his own eyes, but that was another thing he was trying not to think about -- and did a double take.

Abihira hovered in mid-air. Two long wings extended from her shoulders. Each of them was longer than she was tall. The flight feathers were dark blue while the covert feathers were a deep blue-green. They were shrouded in flickering blue flames.

The presence of a phoenix, like the presence of a dragon, was said to inspire awe. Ilaran looked at Abihira and felt only exasperation -- the sort of fond exasperation he'd last felt so many years ago when Nuvildu did something stupid.

Of bloody course she's a phoenix, he thought.

Ordinary people had to content themselves with obeying the laws of reality, never causing widescale chaos, and having commonplace animal forms. Abihira broke every law she felt like, unleashed monsters on an unsuspecting world, and could turn into one of the most famous birds ever to exist. He had to wonder if some god had decided to give her every blessing they could think of but forgot to give her common sense.

Abihira's head twisted back and forth as she looked from one of her wings to the other. Ilaran had never seen her look so baffled.

"...Huh," she said at last. "So I am a phoenix."

If he'd been himself Ilaran would have had trouble resisting the temptation to shake her until he shook some sense into her.

Now is not the time to worry about that! he yelled telepathically. You're supposed to be able to destroy evil, so destroy those parasites! He paused as he remembered the stories about phoenixes. Everyone agreed that they destroyed every sinner without discrimination. Ilaran knew perfectly well that he'd committed many sins in his life. ...And try not to destroy me.

The parasite possessing the servant recovered from its shock. It was apparently not a very intelligent parasite because the first thing it did was try to grab Abihira. With a beat of her wings she shot out of its reach and almost flew right up to the ceiling. Her startled yelp showed she hadn't meant to do that. She tried to fly lower and did a mid-air somersault instead. In spite of the seriousness of the situation Ilaran couldn't help remembering his attempts to get used to his eagle form. He winced in sympathy. At least Abihira did not appear to have a fear of heights to contend with as well as her new wings.

Speaking of wings, why was she in her in-between form? Why hadn't she completely turned into a bird instead of just gaining a bird's wings?

Ilaran thought of the trouble they'd had getting Irímé un-dragonified and grimaced. They'd better not be in for a repeat of that.

The second parasite made another leap for Abihira. She swung one of her wings directly at its head. It burst into flames before her wing even touched it.

An ear-splitting shriek rose from the entrance hall. It was cut off abruptly as the parasite was wholly consumed by blue and white flames. Within seconds it disintegrated. All that remained were specks of ash and scorch marks on the floor.