I was the only phoenix egg laid in three thousand years. Before I even cracked my shell, I was already the most pampered, revered thing in the entire Celestial Canopy. My eight fathers—the ruling elders of the Phoenix Clan—took turns pulling guard duty around my nest. The entire clan revolved around me. And honestly, they had to. If the phoenixes didn’t hatch another egg soon, our species was headed straight for extinction. Life inside the shell was pretty sweet. Perfectly heated, overflowing with cosmic energy—I was seriously considering staying in here for another few centuries. Then, the glowing script started scrolling across the inner wall of my shell. [No, no, no! In a few days, the antagonist is going to steal the phoenix egg. The shell gets shattered, and when the little phoenix hatches, she's missing a whole wing! I'm actually crying right now, this is devastating.] [And the eight elders? They're going to drown in guilt. Do you know Bram's hair turns entirely white overnight because of this?] [If only the baby phoenix could wake up her Fledgling Tongue early! She could warn them from inside the shell. Too bad it usually doesn't wake up until right before hatching.] Excuse me? I haven't even hatched yet and you're telling me I'm going to be disabled?! I stared at the glowing comments, stunned into a three-second silence. Then, I rallied every ounce of my spiritual energy, aimed it outward, and let out a tiny: "Chirp." The world outside went dead silent. In less than a heartbeat, eight anxious fathers rushed to the nest, eight pairs of eyes staring wide at my shell. "Did... did she just make a sound?" Inside the dark, I let out a smug little grin. It was time to teach this woman, Mona, a very valuable lesson: even if I was just an egg, I was not an egg she could mess with. … My eight dads crowded around me, none of them daring to take a full breath. Bram, the eldest, pressed his ear right up against my warm shell, his eyes wide with desperate hope. "Just one more... speak to Daddy again, little one..." Fine. You want a chirp? You get a chirp. I focused my mind, aiming my spiritual voice straight at the shell. "Chirp-chirp-chirp! Chirp—chirp-chirp-chirp!" What I meant was: That woman Mona is a snake! She’s going to steal my wing! Keep her the hell away from me! Bram bolted upright, his voice cracking with pure emotion. "She did it again! You all heard that, right?" Hugh, the third elder, leaned in closer, his face practically melting with paternal doting. "That upward lilt at the end... is she baby-talking us?" Me: Are you kidding me right now? Matt, the fifth, nodded along, his eyes already misting over. "She knows her daddies are here. She’s happy. Oh, our sweet little Pip is so precious..." Wow. Thanks for the spectacular leap in logic, Dad. "Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!!!" I cranked the volume up to eleven, screaming loud enough to rattle the calcium. Matt wiped a tear. "Look at that! The louder she gets, the happier she is. She’s absolutely thrilled!" Only Owen, the second elder, remained silent. He stood a couple of feet back, his hands clasped behind his back, listening with a face carved from marble. "Stop guessing," he said, his voice clipped and cool. "None of us actually know what she’s saying." Bram's excited expression faltered, replaced by a heavy sigh. "Owen is right... the Fledgling Tongue of the ancient phoenixes is an entirely separate spiritual dialect. It requires a specific translation method." "A method," Owen added dryly, "that has been lost to time for three thousand years." A heavy, helpless quiet fell over the Sanctum of the Sun. My eight fathers stood there, staring helplessly at one another. Here I was, screaming my little heart out inside this shell, and they couldn't understand a single word. I was thrashing around inside, my magic spiking in pure frustration. Then, another line of text flickered across my vision: [And here comes Mona. She’s going to claim she knows the Fledgling Tongue, hijack the translation rights, and rewrite everything you say to fit her agenda...] Right on cue. A voice as sweet as poisoned honey floated in from the entrance. "Lord Bram... perhaps I could try." Mona stood at the threshold, her slender frame poised, her eyes wide with carefully manufactured humility. "The ancestors of the Vulpine Court once shared a deep bond with the ancient phoenixes. Our archives still hold fragments of the Fledgling Tongue scrolls. I wouldn't call myself an expert, but... perhaps I could be of some assistance?" Rowan, the seventh elder, was the first to jump to her defense. "I can vouch for Mona. I brought her here myself. The Vulpine Court indeed possesses those ancient texts; I verified it months ago." The floating screen went wild: [Rowan was saved by Mona three months ago! He’s completely wrapped around her finger. Every word out of his mouth is just clearing a path for her!] [She doesn't know a single syllable of the language! She's making it all up on the fly. But the elders have no way to double-check her, so they're going to fall for it hook, line, and sinker!] Bram glanced over at Owen. Owen studied her for a beat. "We can let her try. But whatever she translates must be cross-referenced for consistency." Mona offered a graceful bow and glided over to my nest. "Little one," she murmured, resting her hand lightly against the warm shell. "Don't be afraid. Big sister is here." The moment her palm touched me, my magical pulse flared in sheer revulsion. "Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!!!" Get your filthy hands off me! Mona pulled her hand back, turning to the eight elders with a masterfully crafted expression of profound heartache. "She says... she’s terrified." "She says it’s so cold and dark inside the shell. She just wants her daddies to stay close." Bram’s eyes welled with tears in an instant. "Oh, my little Pip... Daddy’s here. Daddy will never leave you..." I wanted to scream until my throat bled. She's lying to you, Dad! Listen to me, not her! Owen stood at the periphery, saying nothing. But I noticed his fingers tightening slowly beneath his long sleeves. From that first day, Mona gave me a masterclass in gaslighting. She was the undisputed queen of fake translations. When I cursed her out, she translated it as "The little one says she’s hungry." When I screamed warnings about her, she told them "She’s just having a nightmare." When I warned them she was planning to harvest my wing, she offered a sweet smile and said, "She wants big sister to tell her a story." And she was convincing. Her delivery was flawless, her tone saturated with the perfect blend of warmth and motherly concern. She deserved an Oscar. Matt was so moved he cried eight times a day. Bram looked ready to build a monument in her honor, and even Hugh began personally brewing her spiritual tea. The sheer volume of tears shed in the Sanctum could have filled a small lake. As for me? The more I tried to speak, the more she twisted my words. The louder I shrieked, the more my eight fathers beamed and cooed about how "vibrant and happy" I was today. I was so angry I nearly hatched prematurely out of sheer spite. The only thing keeping me from sinking into total despair was Owen. He never spoke, but he never stopped watching. He wasn't watching Mona, either—he was watching my shell. More specifically, he was studying the exact frequency of my magical vibrations. On the second day, he finally broke his silence. "Miss Mona," Owen said, his tone flat and chillingly precise. "You claim she is 'happy,' yet the magical pulse on the shell’s surface is contracting violently, as if in defensive recoil." The room held its breath. Mona's smile faltered for a fraction of a second, but she recovered with terrifying grace. "Lord Owen, the Fledgling Tongue's emotional resonance doesn't always align with physical energy outputs. It’s like how a mortal might weep from overwhelming joy. There is often a delay in the magical veins—a phenomenon explicitly detailed in the ancient scrolls..." She delivered the lie calmly, draped in intellectual authority. Owen stared at her for three agonizing seconds before letting it drop. But I caught the new line scrolling on my screen: [Owen is suspicious, but he has no hard proof. Mona’s narrative is too airtight for him to dismantle right now...] On the third day, Mona made her move. Not against me—but against Owen. I was chirping away like usual, draining my spiritual reserves just to make noise, when Mona suddenly stopped. She let out a soft, troubled sigh, her face clouding with delicate conflict. "She says..." she whispered, as if the words pained her. "She says she doesn't want Lord Owen near her." An icy silence descended upon the room. Owen’s hand froze at his side. Mona lowered her eyes. "I hesitate to translate this... but the spiritual waves are unmistakable. It’s a deep-seated fear and rejection." She turned to Owen, her voice dripping with counterfeit sympathy. "Lord Owen, I believe your aura is simply too cold for her. Her fragile spirit cannot handle such heavy, dominant pressure..." Rowan immediately backed her up. "She’s right, Owen. Your aura is incredibly intense. I’ve noticed the shell’s temperature drops half a degree every time you step close." Matt chimed in, "Maybe... just keep your distance for a while? Let Mona handle the closer monitoring." Inside my shell, I was practically throwing myself against the walls. She was isolating him! Owen was the only threat to her plan. If she pushed him out of the room, there would be no one left to stop her. The glowing script confirmed my worst fears: [Exactly! In the original timeline, Owen fell for this. Overwhelmed by self-doubt and guilt, he removed himself from the guard rotation. That’s when Mona struck on the Night of the Eclipsed Moon. When Owen discovered the truth, his hair turned snow-white overnight—not Bram's, his.] My soul shook with panic. "Chirp! Chirp-chirp-chirp!" Mona parted her lips to offer another lie, but Owen raised a single hand, cutting her off. "No need to translate." His voice was flat, entirely devoid of warmth. "If my presence frightens her, I will step back." He took three deliberate steps away from the nest. "But I will not be removed from the guard rotation." He stared at Mona, his eyes cold as glacial runoff. "I will keep my distance. That should suffice." Mona smiled, her expression a portrait of sweet compliance. "Of course, Lord Owen. I only wanted to be safe." She didn't press further. But I knew the truth—she had already won half the battle. Owen was still in the room, but he had been marginalized. She had successfully positioned herself as the sole bridge between my fathers and me. And piece by piece, she was burning that bridge to ash. Over the next two days, Mona began tightening her net. Whenever she touched my shell under the guise of "nurturing the egg," I felt a razor-thin thread of foreign energy probing me—like a needle seeking a crack in the stone. The interference was so subtle, buried beneath the constant hum of the incubation array, that it was like a single drop of ink in a vast ocean. Indetectable. And every warning I shrieked was twisted into another lie. I stopped hoping she would speak a single word of truth. The countdown on my screen dropped from seven days to four. On the fifth day, Rowan called an emergency meeting with three other elders, proposing to give Mona full control over the auxiliary incubation array. "She has cared for the egg for three months with absolute devotion," Rowan argued. "Furthermore, she is the only one who can understand her voice. Letting her manage the delicate calibrations of the array is ten times safer than leaving it to eight clumsy old men like us." Matt immediately agreed. Jasper, the fourth elder, hesitated briefly before nodding in assent. Three to one—Hugh’s sole dissenting vote was effortlessly drowned out. Bram wasn't there—Mona had conveniently sent him away to inspect a new batch of incubating crystals. Owen wasn't there either. Because he hadn't even been invited. Mona secured full clearance over the array. That very night, she slipped a Soul-Siphon Shard into the array's core. I felt it instantly. The pulse of the magic outside shifted—a faint, parasitic tremor, like a heartbeat with a stolen rhythm. My screen flared with frantic red warnings: [Soul-Siphon Shard embedded! On the Night of the Eclipsed Moon, the shard will activate and drain your phoenix core. Your shell will shatter, and your left wing bone will be violently severed!] [You have three days left.] Three days. I made a choice. I stopped screaming. It was useless anyway; she would only chew up my words and spit them out as lies. Instead, I decided to save my strength. I would pool every drop of my spiritual consciousness, every ounce of raw energy. I would save it until I had enough to speak a coherent, undeniable word. Not a chirp. A word. A word in their tongue. A line of text drifted up: [To unlock actual speech before hatching requires your spiritual power to reach a critical mass. At your current rate... it will take exactly three days.] Three days. Mona was going to strike on the Night of the Eclipsed Moon, exactly three days from now. My voice would return at the exact same moment. I was walking a razor's edge. On the first day of my silence, the Sanctum of the Sun descended into panic. "Why is she silent?" Bram fretted, pacing around my nest like a caged animal. Mona offered her signature soothing smile. "Her sudden spiritual awakening took a lot out of her. She’s simply resting to recover. Don't worry, Lord Bram." And Bram believed her. On the second day, I maintained my silence, gathering my power drop by drop, slow as fermenting wine. Mona took advantage of my quiet state to adjust the "outer parameters" of the array. She claimed she was optimizing my environment, but in reality, she was dismantling the array's defensive barriers, clearing the way for the Soul-Siphon Shard. Owen sat far in the corner, his face an unreadable mask. But his eyes never left the nest. He was watching. The third day. The countdown on my screen hit zero. Mona had "optimized" the guard schedule—tonight’s watch belonged to Rowan and Matt. Her two easiest marks. Bram and Owen had been relegated to the day shift. The board was set. The Night of the Eclipsed Moon arrived right on time. As darkness fell, the spiritual tides of the world began to recede. The ambient magic inside the Sanctum dwindled, draining away like water at low tide. Mona stepped into the chamber, her movements slow and deliberate. For once, she wasn't smiling. "Lord Rowan, Lord Matt," she murmured. "The spiritual energy is dangerously low tonight. I need to calibrate the array manually to keep the shell warm. It may take some time." Rowan waved a hand dismissively. "Do what you must." Matt even went so far as to hand her a fresh cup of tea. Mona approached the console, her fingers brushing the glowing runes. Deep inside the array, the Soul-Siphon Shard began to hum. I felt it. Deep within my soul, her parasitic mark flared to life. It stretched out like a thorny vine, taking root, spreading, and clawing its way into my core. My life force was being dragged out. Siphoned. The pain was blinding. It felt like someone was reaching deep into my bones and wrenching them apart. Where my left wing should have been, the fragile, unformed bone began to splinter. Tiny fractures raced along my meridians, burning like liquid fire. The screen flashed one final warning: [Now. Right now. Use the pain. Force the spiritual eruption—this is your only shot.] Pain. It whited out my mind, exploding into a blinding shockwave inside the shell. But I didn't cry. I gathered every drop of agony, every shred of rage, and every ounce of the power I had hoarded for three days, compressing it into a single, razor-sharp point. Not a chirp. Their language. A word. A clear, undeniable sound they would understand. I opened my beak— "Liar." Outside, all sound ceased. The cup in Rowan’s hand shattered against the stone floor. Matt surged to his feet. Mona’s fingers froze on the console, her eyes wide with a flash of genuine, unadulterated panic. Then came the next words. Heavy. Burning. Powered by the raw fire of a three-thousand-year-old soul, breaking through the stone: "She... is... lying... to... you..." The moment the words cleared the air, the massive doors of the Sanctum of the Sun exploded inward. Owen stood at the threshold. He wasn't on duty tonight. But he was here. His gaze swept past the trembling figures of Rowan and Matt, locking onto Mona, whose hand was still buried in the array. The light of the Soul-Siphon Shard leaked through her fingers, impossible to hide. Owen’s voice was soft, cold as falling snow. Yet each word resonated through the rafters of the temple. "I knew it." He stepped over the threshold. "I waited seven days. Just for you to make your move." And finally, the smile slid completely off Mona's face.
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