It had been three days since Rory had passed. I was pushing it, time-wise—hence his impatience and, perhaps, a little fear. But I’d had no choice—the weather in Melbourne had been so bad, a fire would have struggled to remain alight. And while, as a phoenix, I could have kept the flames burning, I couldn’t afford to waste energy when I had no idea how much I’d need for the ceremony. Because no matter how long I’d been doing this, no rebirth was ever exactly the same.

I brushed stray strands of red-gold hair out of my eyes as I moved into the center of the clearing and toward the square stack of wood I’d already piled there. The dry grass was harsh and scratchy underfoot, and the scent of eucalyptus teased my nostrils.

It was a perfect day for resurrection.

I reached down to the inner fires and called them to my fingers. As flames began to dance and shimmer across their tips, I stopped on the west side of the bonfire and raised my hands to the sky. Sparks plumed upward, glittering like red-gold diamonds against the blue of the sky.

“By dragon’s light,” I intoned softly in a language so old only the gods or another phoenix would understand, “and the mother’s might, I beseech thee to protect all that surrounds me and the one I call from me.”

As the words of the spell rolled across the silence, the air began to shimmer and spark with the colors of all creation. It was the heat of the day and the power of the mother, of the earth itself, rising to answer the call of protection.

“Banish all that would do us wrong,” I continued. “Send them away, send them astray, never to pass this way. So mote it be.”

The sparks I’d sent skyward began to fall gently down, but they never reached the ground, caught instead in the gentle hands of the shimmering light.

I moved to the north section and repeated the spell. The shimmering net of sparks extended, and the hum of its power began to vibrate through my body. I echoed the process on the two remaining sides until the net had joined and my entire body pulsated to the tune of the power that now surrounded me.

I faced the bonfire and again raised my face to the sky, watching for the precise moment the sun reached the pinnacle of its arc. Heat, energy, and sparks ran around me, through me, a force wanting to be used, needing to be used.

Now, that inner voice said.

I called to my flames, then stepped into the center of the bonfire. As flesh gave way to spirit and I became nothing but a being of fire, the wood around me burst into flame. I held out my hands and raised the fire to greater heights, until it burned with a white-hot heat.