Set before the TV series/first book.
This story draws on my previous story, "From the Ashes," as background.
"Another living creature has entered my realm."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Phoenix did not react beyond bowing her head as she flew. A ridge jutted from the cracked earth, leading to the live animal, she knew. She veered from her course to follow it.
"You will have your sacrifice," she said.
Laughter made the air tremble. "This need not be a sacrifice, though certainly I would be the last to object. You have given me your own life and more. You may take this one for yourself."
Phoenix's wingbeats faltered in surprise. "Thank you, My Lord," she breathed, already imagining sinking her fangs deep into flesh and wrenching, tearing that beautiful, glimmering life from another's body and inhaling it, life coursing through her blood and bones and muscles and lungs. Once again that wonderful flicker of light would be hers. It had been so long. How long? How long had she been dead? More than a century, surely, at least two or three. She had memorized the constellations of the false stars, how long a rotation took, but she only needed to use the cavern's 'sky' for navigation, the time only for how long a living animal could last.
"It has been nearly three hundred years," said Zotz. "Soon there will be another total eclipse above my temple in the Upper World. You will return there and ensure that my living followers are well prepared."
Another eclipse. Another chance to free her god from the Underworld. And another chance to live.
"As you command, Lord Zotz."
The creature was a bat, a small one with pale fur and long ears and a glow sparking across its fur and patagium. Briefly, Phoenix wondered how it had ended up beneath the earth. Perhaps it had roosted too deep within a cave.
The glow—the life—was so strange after three hundred years, and yet still so familiar. Now it would be hers again. Now she would have what should have been hers three times over.
She shook her head as if to clear the thought. Zotz had owed her nothing. Phoenix had made her choice long ago. She gave what she could; she served him rather than lounging in the jungle paradise for an eternity; she expected nothing in return and yet would receive life.
The small bat was flying over the desert, head and ears swiveling nervously, screeching out frantic bursts of sound to see by. A wind kicked up, throwing grit into the air. Phoenix, accustomed to the Underworld, could see quite well; the live bat had no such luck. Its glow cut through the sudden sandstorm, a clear beacon among the sharp bits of rock. Phoenix could hardly feel them. The live bat struggled.
Gaining rapidly, she rose above the light and, as soon as she was directly over its source, plunged.
She clamped down on the bat's neck, black teeth slicing through arteries and snapping its spine. Blood spurted but she couldn't taste it. Not yet. A final shocked, pained gasp left the bat before that dazzling, singing life seeped from its corpse and swirled in the air. Waiting.
Phoenix shoved her snout into the radiant mist and inhaled hungrily. Warmth spilled through her, through her muzzle and head and ears, her back and chest and wings, and she could feel hot blood flowing in her veins again. Her dead heart jerking and then beating. She breathed in deeply and felt it in every inch of her body. The light and sound surged through her, bringing back sensation. The metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air, tasted thick and salty in her mouth. Shards of stone pricked her wings and face but the sandstorm quickly died down.
Alive.
She expertly ripped off the bat's wings, letting them fall to the ground, and began feeding. It was difficult to do so in mid air, but there was nowhere to roost. When she was finished she dropped the stripped carcass and glanced down at the ridge on the ground. It ended. What now?
Her vision flared as she realized: The Tree. It was her only way out of here. Nearly three centuries of keeping bats from reaching it and she'd have to travel through it herself.
The Tree had the same glow of life that she'd taken from the live bat that had been trapped in the Underworld. That much Phoenix could see from the rim of the valley in which it was situated. Once she entered the valley, she immediately felt the difference. It was so jarring that she froze in midair and dropped a few inches before righting herself.
Cama Zotz was not here. This valley, somehow, was separate from the rest of the Underworld, somewhere Zotz couldn't reach.
As she approached, she discovered that it was not just a glow but raging flames that consumed the Tree. When she came close enough to see a knothole in its trunk, she braked and circled in front of it, wary. She was to enter this inferno? Surely she would die a second time! She would burn alive!
No. Zotz would not have allowed her life if she would die trying to return to the Upper World. As terrible as this Tree looked, it could not be the end.
She shot through the knothole and the only thing she was aware of was astonishing, breathtaking speed.
Jungle.
Not until she reemerged into the Upper World did she realize how empty the land of the dead had been. It had been so quiet there, at least in the wastelands. Here she heard insects buzzing, birds screeching, bats' wingbeats, creatures skittering about. And the smells! She'd very nearly forgotten that sense, but now she could smell rich earth and decaying leaves and sweet flowers and everything else. It was overwhelming after the barren Underworld desert.
Cool fog wreathed the jungle, so Phoenix rose above the canopy. She couldn't quite remember the stars here after so long, but she knew where she was. This was home.
She set course for the Vampyrum pyramid.
I know this is a really short chapter, but it's sort of a prologue. Other chapters will be longer.