“Father!”
She scrambled forward, crying out his name as she swung her arms, trying to peel back the flames, to find him.
No, no, no, she thought. Her arms shook with effort.
Father, no!
He had been there, beside her. Just now. Just mere seconds before. He could not be gone. He just couldn’t.
Her rage swelled and Elena grabbed a flame, tearing it from the pit with such vehemence that the Eternal Fire stilled for a moment—as if shocked. But then it recovered with a vengeance, the flame leaping from her hand back into the pit. She watched the inferno rise. She saw their faces: her grandfather’s youngest brother, her mother, her father. The sacrifices for Alabore’s sin. She saw them open their mouths and wail as the Eternal Fire beat against the ceiling.
Deep rumbles shook the temple, and Elena scrambled to her knees. She could no longer hear Leo’s agonized cries. The priests were shouting; one tried to open the entrance of the tunnels, but the fire surged, blocking his path. It lashed out and grabbed the priest by the arm and sucked him into its pit. Saayna swayed to her feet, blood trickling down from a gash in her ear. She clawed at Elena’s head and tugged upon her collar, yelling at her toget up, run, move, girl, move!
But Elena could not look away from the Eternal Fire. It sang and danced. Curled and sighed. Her father was in there, trapped within the inferno, burned alive.
Burned to death.
Vomit pushed up her throat.
Saayna yanked her to her feet with one violent tug, shoving her forward toward the corridor. Stone and ash rained down on them, the air thick with smoke. The high priestess clutched her wrist, pulling her forward, and they stumbled and ran out into the smoke-filled sky, so dense and grey that Elena began coughing at once. Explosions erupted down the mountainside, and the ground heaved beneath her. Elena teetered.
Pulse fire sparked through the smoke as loud snaps pierced the air.
The trees!They were falling. Down the mountainside, she saw the great forest of her ancestors flatten as if a large hand had crushed it beneath its palm.
“The Eternal Fire, it knows,” the high priestess gasped, and Elena looked to the sky. All she could see was ash.
The high priestess grabbed her chin, and Elena winced as Saayna’s nails dug into her skin.
“The Prophet, he shall rise, but only in the next life,” she said. Her voice was a mix of a wail and a cry of elation. “Together, he and the Phoenix will cleanse the land of our sins.”
There came a great groan; flames surged out of the temple and cascaded down the mountain. Elena threw herself off the steps, but Saayna was not so lucky. The fire engulfed her as she screamed. She lurched to the side, flaring like a torch, and ran for the thicket of trees bordering the temple.
“Saayna!” Elena yelled. She whipped around. “Sam! Yassen! Majnu!”
The fire snapped and lunged for Elena, but she jumped, running for the staircase. She took the stairs two at a time as the temple moaned behind her. Her right foot missed a step, and she skidded, slamming right into Yassen. He yelped, and they both landed on their knees. Elena bit back a cry as pain stabbed her leg, and Yassen clutched his arm. In the dancing light of the flames, she thought she saw the marks there elongate and twist, but then she blinked, and the moment was gone.
“Run,” she croaked.
Without a word, Yassen took her hand, but then the sound of a great crack whipped down the mountainside. Together, they turned. The temple trembled on the cliff above them, as if resisting the beast within, but then it sighed, finally relenting. One by one, the wings of the temple—Truth, Perseverance, Courage, Faith, Discipline, Duty, Honor, and Rebirth—snapped off the center dome, as if the gods were idly plucking petals from a flower.
They tumbled down the cliff, crashing into the forest below. A wave of rubble and dust rose where the temple once stood.
Without thinking, Elena pressed Yassen to the wall, using her body to protect his as the wave tore over them. She gasped, digging her face into his collar. Dust and plaster stuck to her skin, her hair, her clothes. Yassen gripped her tightly, but when the onslaught of stone and debris subsided, she noticed he was shaking. His right arm hung limply.
“Can you run?” she asked.
He nodded. His skin was pallid, his cheeks sunken. A bruise blooming beneath his lip. Yet when he took her hand again, she sensed strength in his grip.
“We need to head for the forest,” he said, coughing. “We’re exposed up here.”
“The hoverpods—”
“They’re gone,” he said. “I think the Arohassin snuck through the tunnels and took them out.”
“No,” she whispered. All around her, she heard the laughter of the fire, and her people’s cries for mercy. She heard screams, commands, and the dying wails of injured soldiers. She heard the deep groans of the forest and the rumble of the shaking mountain. She heard her kingdom crumbling.
“I have to stop it. I have to stop the fire,” she said and looked down at her hands, but her fingers trembled. “I can wield it, redirect it away from the forest—”
