Phoenix: The Rising Read Online Free PDF

across the partially submerged land bridge that connected Paoha and another smaller island to the mainland. Laylah knelt on the still-warm earth of Paoha, held her child up to the rising sun, and began her prayer.
    Before dawn of the second day, Laylah clutched her only child to her breast and collapsed as exhaustion finally overtook her. She lay in a fitful sleep, jarred awake every few minutes by visions of her child’s impending death. It was during one of these semi-conscious moments that she became vaguely aware of a form moving in her direction. Forcing her eyes open, she smiled as a winged being, more virile and handsome than the mightiest of warriors, walked by. The fire-haired vision, clad only in a loincloth, paused briefly. It smiled as it looked down at Laylah and the child in her arms. So beautiful, Laylah thought as it continued towards the center of the island. Laylah’s eyes closed once again.
    Within seconds, a blinding light seared through her lids, jolting Laylah back to reality. She thought it was the rising sun that had awakened her, but it wasn’t the sun at all. A fire just as brilliant as the sun burned at the center of the island.
    Laylah shielded her eyes as the fire burned, shooting frantic tongues of orange, red, gold, and green high into the sky. Within moments the flames subsided, and Laylah rose to her feet. She walked slowly toward the spot where she had seen the fire, then picked up her pace as she approached, holding her now lifeless child next to her pounding heart.
    As she neared the spot, Laylah’s pace slowed and her brow furrowed. A familiar sound echoed in her ears. Was that a whimper? Her own child lay in deathly silence against her chest. Laylah's eyes widened as she looked towards its source.
    Lying in the middle of the charred out area that held the fire she had just witnessed, was a baby—a baby unlike any she had seen before. The babies of her people all had the same ebony hair and dark skin, just as her own child had. This one was moon pale. Hair the color of fire covered its head. She had heard of this type of child in a legend passed down by the women of her family through the generations. . .
    Every three hundred years, a creature in human form would return to Paoha. There, it would be consumed in fire, and be born again as a child, but it would not return alone. Giants—The Great Ones—offspring of human women and The Fallen Ones, would pursue it and try to keep it from being reborn. Only then would the Fire Child become mortal and die a mortal’s death. The Great Ones were driven to commit this act out of jealousy. Although their fathers were immortal, they only lived the lifespan of mortals, as they were the offspring of mortal women. This Fire Child could not be allowed to have some thing that should be theirs . It had to be stopped.
    The memory of the legend played through Laylah’s mind until another gentle whimper brought her back to the real world. She swallowed as her heart began to thrum. The child turned its green eyes to her, smiled, and reached out.
    Laylah strapped the cold, stiff corpse of her firstborn to her back. It reminded her of a bundle of sticks, and she would think of it that way as she journeyed back to the forest, just to make it easier to bear. Sleeping contentedly in her arms was the child given to her by the Great Spirit: a new life to replace the one that was lost.
    The burial was quick and bittersweet. The birth depression she had made now served as the child’s grave. After mounding the loose dirt she had dug out only a week earlier over the body of the child, she covered it with stones to mark the spot. Similar impromptu graves could be seen spotting the floor of the forest, signs of the precarious mortality of the Numa people. When she had finished, Laylah sat, leaned against the oak tree and held the fire-haired child to her breast.
    Her tears fell silently as the child suckled. Would the elders and her husband allow her to keep the