They are desperate and they are dying, and for some unknown reason only I can reignite their flame. It frightens me that they feed by extracting the heat from living things – sometimes by force. I’m assured that I won’t be harmed, but I am not so certain.

Despite all of this, I have fallen in love with one of them. I desire Roman so greatly that I cannot think straight. He warns me that we cannot be together – that a union between a human and a phoenix would kill me. But neither one of us can walk away.