The river next to us was too still. I kept my eyes on it because I couldn’t look at him. Not with everything bubbling up inside me. I didn’t want to see pity in his face. Or worse, fear.
“I can’t control it when I need to,” I said. “And when I don’t want it to happen, it comes rushing out of me, tenfold. I don’t even know how you’re sitting so close to me. It isn’t safe.”
“I’m not scared of you,” he said, a little too casually. But there was something in the way he said it. “I mean… I was. But I’m not anymore. I don’t think.”
I turned to him, my eyes narrowing.
“You should be.” The words just came out. Sharp and bitter. “I couldn’t save my brother, I couldn’t save Novil. I couldn’t even protect myself from those monsters.”
Aran’s face shifted. Just slightly. But I saw it.
“If only I could’ve done to them what I did to you,” I muttered. “If I’d had the fire then. If I knew how to use it.”
“You can’t keep dwelling on the past, Kera,” he snapped. “It’ll destroy you.”
“Don’t tell me what’s good for me.”
Then he reached for me, like an idiot. Like that would help. Like I hadn’t scorched him the last time he did.
Boys never learn, but I hope you do.
My brother’s words came back to me. It should have comforted me, to remember him. To hear his words in my mind again. But it only poured gasoline on the fire inside me. And that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to take control, not lose it again.
I shoved Aran’s hand off my shoulder, harder than I needed to.
“You’re not good for me!” I yelled. “When I saw you—I wanted you dead.”
His face went pale.
“You… wanted me dead?” he asked.
“How could you do it?” My throat burned.
Aran’s face twisted, guilt carved into every line. But his eyes gave him away, there was that flicker, that quiethere we go again, like he thought I should’ve let it go by then.
“They gave me no choice!” he snapped, arms flaring at his sides.
I shot to my feet, breath sharp, chest tight.
“Your word means nothing to me,” I spat. “I lost my brother because of you.”
“And I lost Selma because of them!” he threw back. “I ran the second I found out what they were planning.”
“You knew?” My voice rose. “And you didn’t warn us?”
My hands were already glowing, but I barely noticed. The heat crawled across my skin like it was trying to get out. Behind me, a tree split open with a sharp crack as flames burst from its trunk, racing up into the sky. The clearing turned gold, shadows twisting at the edges.
“Kera!” Aran’s voice cracked.
“YOU’RE AS GUILTY AS THEY ARE!” I bellowed.
The ground slipped away beneath me. Aran shrunk as he scrambled backward on his hands, staring up at me like he didn’t even know what he was looking at anymore.
“You didn’t shoot him,” I roared, my voice shaking with fury, “but you might as well have. You let him die. You let them do what they did.”
”You don’t mean that!” he said.
The flames screamed higher, wild and alive, and my chest felt like it would split open. The power tore through me, fast and unstoppable.
