From the ashes of the Phoenix Divine Bird, only one true bird was supposed to rise. But my parents were having sex all the time, trying to get pregnant. Then they birthed two daughters from the sacred ashes instead of one. The Phoenix Clan had never seen such a scandal in thousands of years. And Moros, the god of fate, broadcast his prophecy across all of Mount Olympus. The true god would be born from the ashes, and she was destined to be the wife of Ares. That was the prophecy. But the strangest thing happened. My sister was a brilliant red ball of fire, but she didn’t have any divine markings. I was a ragged, scruffy, and pathetic low-level bird, yet my forehead glowed with that powerful mark. My parents stared at me. They believed that I stole the power from my sister. They thought I was too ugly for such divine power. I didn’t get a chance to explain. My mother yanked the powerful mark right out of my forehead. Then she tossed me into the dead, mist-choked wasteland known as the Fields of Erebus. In the Phoenix Clan, bloodline was everything. Pure divine blood ruled everyone. But my people had muddied our bloodline with monsters and beasts for centuries. Our divine power faded. And we even got kicked out of Mount Olympus by Hera because we accidentally offended her. Now, with extinction breathing down our necks, everyone pinned their hopes on my mother. She was the last Phoenix Divine Bird with pure blood left. However, my mother fell for a freak. My father had a sparrow’s body and a human face. But he was also sharp and charming. And he knew how to talk sweet. My mother let him in despite the elders cursing their union. Their forbidden love only diluted her pure blood even more. The entire clan watched my mother’s belly and waited for a miracle. My dad spent his days squatting on those ashes. He talked to me, caught sunbeams, and told sappy love stories about him and my mother. If an elder got angry at his antics, he just pointed at the ashes and boasted about me. Then the day of our birth arrived. Every shaman, every elder, and Moros watched. Even Zeus and Hera watched from Mount Olympus, ready to judge us. My sister and I hatched together. She emerged bathed in holy crimson. Her feathers blazed like a piece of the sun. It was the proof of pure blood. But I was a disaster. I was grey and had bald patches. I was just an ugly chick who looked nothing like a Phoenix. I looked like a dirty little sparrow. All the elders lost their minds over my sister. “The true pure blood! She’s the chosen one!” they shouted. They practically wept onto her feathers because she was their last hope. No one cared about me. I shivered in the cold ashes and tried to speak up. I wanted to say that I was the true pure blood, but a rough hand yanked me up. Heads swiveled toward me. All eyes blasted through me and stared at the blood-red mark glowing on my forehead. My mother’s shriek could shatter worlds. “You damn useless thing! How dare you steal the True God’s mark? You filthy little thief!” My dad jumped beside her and shouted. “Such evil, already at birth! You’re a disgrace to our kind!” I spread my ugly, patchy wings. My eyes were wide as I tried to scream the truth. “Mom, Dad! Look at me! I’m Carson, your daughter! I’m the real Phoenix Divine Bird!” “Shut up! You hideous, ragged bird! You think you deserve to be my child?” my mother screamed. “You dared to steal my darling’s divine mark. I’ll tear you apart!” Then a firestorm of agony shattered my world. My mother clawed the mark from my forehead. She ripped out a bloody feather that burned with power. Gold-streaked blood ran down my face. I couldn’t even make a sound. I just thrashed silently in the cold ashes. Moros finally broke the silence. His voice was full of awe. “Her blood shines with gold. That’s the mark. That’s the blessing. Only a true Phoenix Divine Bird has that.” But my mother wouldn’t believe him. She was hysterical. “Impossible! That curse is no blood of mine. Only my beloved Carson is worthy. That thing is just a thief.” The elders agreed with her. “Exactly! Birds like that deserve to die. Let’s not waste our time.” Moros fell silent. My mother looked at me with hate and disgust. She raised her god-whip. I closed my eyes and braced for the pain. Before she could strike, Moros spoke once more. “She’s a Phoenix Divine Bird, no matter what. Her blood heals any wound. The War of the Giants left Ares in a coma. Could you let me have her and offer her to the God of War?” Phoenix Divine Bird blood was god-tier medicine. That was why the entire divine realm was panicking over Ares. My parents traded glances and finally gave in. “If it’s for Ares, fine,” they said. “But that freak is never welcome here. Let her die far away from Phoenix lands.”
I woke up blurred and broken in a pitch-dark ravine. Pain leaked out of my battered bird body. Moros looked at me with pity. He drew a blade and sliced my brow. Warm blood gushed into a gleaming obsidian bowl. The agony ripped through me. I shook and couldn’t scream. I fought to keep from passing out. I caught a glimpse of a towering shadow of a man lying on a stone bed. Before I could see more, blackness swallowed me whole. Moros ran his hand gently down my feathers. “Hold on, little one. Only your blood can save Ares now.” He carved open the man’s arm and merged my magic blood with his. Divine power hummed in the air. Once he was done, he brought a cold chalice to my beak. It was Olympian water. First he bled me dry, and now he tried to heal me? It felt like divine roulette. But my survival instinct took over, and I gulped it down. The chill burned hot. A rush of fire coursed through me and sealed every wound I had. I barely had time to catch my breath before Moros picked me up. He dragged my limp body to the edge of a forgotten abyss. The next time I woke up, I was nowhere near the golden skies of Olympus. I was in a wasteland blanketed with death and gray mist. It was the Fields of Erebus. This was the borderland between the Underworld and the mortal realm. It was the playground of the god Erebus. Here, the ground cracked and cursed magic steamed up. Monsters prowled and damned souls cried in the darkness. I staggered to my feet and flapped my crooked wings. I was desperate to fly, but I found a wild boar instead. It had yellow tusks and drool stringing from its lips. It slinked out of the fog and locked its hungry eyes on me. A wicked sneer crossed its face. “Well, well. Erebus delivers a real treat! I didn’t expect a snack today.” Terror ripped through me. I fought to get away. “Stay back! Get away! Don’t touch me!” My tiny voice chirped frantically. The beast’s snout twitched as it sniffed me. It drank in my scent. “So sweet. God-blood tastes different. If I eat you, I’ll level up!” Slobber splashed everywhere as it dove for me. Its razor tusks tore through my wing. I blacked out. I was sure I was dead. But then, I saw a light. A burning gold shield appeared and surrounded me. The boar slammed into it and snarled. It was catapulted through the mist. Its huge body spun mid-air and crashed into a tree. The impact snapped the tree clean in half. Blood spilled out of the boar’s mouth. “Damn it! What the hell?” the beast grunted. Before it could get up, a man dropped out of the sky. He was tall and broad. He slashed his sword, and silver flashed. The metal bit into the beast’s flesh. The brute squealed and shuddered in agony as blood poured from its jaws. It kicked twice and then died. The man scooped me up in his enormous hand and nestled me in his palm. He fastened a necklace around my throat. It was plain, but it glowed with divine gold. He didn’t say a word. He mounted his beast and carried me to a wooden hut deep in the Fields of Erebus. I was half-conscious, but I felt his warmth as he put me down. As I faded again, I saw the outline of his powerful back vanishing into the gloom.
When I woke up again, I was trapped inside a cold iron cage. Black roses curled up the bars. Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, had made me his pet. I remembered it clearly. A tall man had saved me. It definitely wasn’t that gloomy bastard Hades. He only fed me once a day. The food was cold, rotten scraps that pulsed with the tainted Underworld air. It wasn’t fit for a vulture, let alone a Phoenix-blood like me. But that wasn’t the worst part. He clamped iron chains around my claws. He locked me down as if I could sprout wings and vanish. It was laughable. Even if I broke free, I had this scrawny, ashen sparrow body. How far could I fly? I had no divine power. I only had feathers and grit. “Kraa!” A hoarse screech sliced through the suffocating silence. I jerked awake. Black flames charred my soul again. The pain seared every nerve. This was torture. This was murder. Hades’ calculating eyes drilled into me. They were cold, cruel, and unblinking. He summoned the black fire. He scorched my feathers until they turned to ash. “Pathetic. Useless. All these years and still not a single Phoenix feather. You are just as worthless as your ragged father.” The smell of burning flesh and despair filled the air. Every nerve in my body screamed. I bit down hard. There was no way I would whimper. I refused to let that monster see me break. I refused to let him bask in his twisted game. Anger flared inside me. He was testing me and torturing me just to see if I would shatter. I couldn’t stay here. If I did, I would die soon. I would just be another broken thing in his collection. When Hades’ maidservant came to feed me, I struck. My beak darted out and bit her finger hard. She howled, and I bolted from the cage. I was too careless. The chain was still locked tight on my leg. I crashed to the ground and my bones rattled. Pain exploded through me, but I refused to quit. I was bleeding and raw. I thrashed and tore at the chains with everything I had. Then, one moment changed everything. A tear, red with blood, slid from my brow. It splashed against the worthless trinket I wore on my neck. Golden light blazed. Somewhere deep inside my fragile bird chest, ancient power surged. The chains erupted. Fragments flew like shrapnel, and I broke free. My wings beat wild and frantic. I ran. I scrambled. I clawed my way out of Hades’ dark palace with every last drop of strength. Shouts echoed everywhere. “Hades’ pet bird has escaped!” If he caught me now, the next time would mean a hell so much worse. I would never leave that cage alive. I swore I would rather die than go back. I didn’t hesitate. I ran fast. I dodged his hellhounds. I dove into the twisted fog at the edge of the Fields of Erebus. It was the borderland, crawling with wild things and monsters. It was a dump, but right then, it was the only place where I had a chance. I stumbled onto a shack. It was rickety and half-collapsed in a pile of boulders. There were scratch marks on the door. They looked weirdly familiar, but my head was a foggy mess. That chain around my neck caught a bit of my god-blood and glowed with a freakish, golden shine. Since then, the scars from Hades’ dark flames had healed. Some lucky godly heir must have dropped it, and I had snagged it for free. I set up a shelter. Every day, I perched in the scraggly tree outside and sunned myself. Below me, mutant monsters with five heads tore each other apart. It was honestly way more entertaining than the backstabbing in Hades’ palace. Just as things got good, a black shape streaked above me. I tried to curse out whoever was tossing trash from the sky, but something slammed into the back of my skull. The world spun. Everything blacked out. I tumbled out of the tree, dazed. When I came to, there was something in my arms. It was small, scaly, and dark as midnight. It was a snake. It was barely breathing, sickly, and battered. It had a lone white mark on its tail. I circled it a few times. “Damn, bro, you look like hell. Nobody wants a mess like you. You fit perfectly with a lost cause like me.” I wiped dirt off my face and dragged it inside. “Lucky you crashed here instead of landing in Hades’ stew pot. He would have dropped you in soup for sure.” I dug through the cupboards and found some leftover god-herb roots. I chewed them into a bitter mash and shoved it at the little black snake. “Come on! I picked this up while the monsters brawled. If you weren’t as pitiful as me, I would never waste these scraps on you.” The stubborn thing wouldn’t open its mouth. It didn’t matter. I jammed the herb in my own beak. I broke his jaws open and force-fed him. Watching this little black wreck, something warmed in my chest. It felt like finding a shitty brother in this hellhole. For once, I wasn’t totally alone. “In a place like this, ugly fuckers like us? We stick together. It’s the only way to survive.”
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