“I’m not strong enough,” I said, the words ripping out of me. Tears blurring everything—Aran, the dirt, Will’s face. “I’m not—I’m not stro—”
Aran’s body jerked beneath my hands. Then went still. Too still. His breathing had turned to shallow gasps, chest barely rising. Lips pale. Skin clammy.
He was slipping.
Fast.
Dying.
If I didn’t fix it, he was going to die there, in a pile of dirt and blood and charred skin, and it would be my fault.
Mine.
I’d be a murderer. I’d have burned someone alive. And Will would’ve never looked at me the same way again. He’d hate me. Hewould. And I’d deserve it. Then they’d hang me. Trial or not, I’d get the noose.
Gods. Fuck.
I opened my eyes and looked at Aran, and I tried to see the good in him. If there was still a part of him that I cared for. I thought about his life. Everything before he betrayed us.
Aran was someone’s son. Selma’s boyfriend. Will’s brother, in all but name. What had they seen in him that I couldn’t anymore? I had liked him once. Or tried to. When he was still human. When he wasn’t one of them.
I lowered my hands again, and found the place where his pulse still beat, faint and fading. If he died now, I would never know why. Why he left. Why he helped them, why he betrayed us. I needed to ask because I needed to understand. And if he died, I never would.
So I let my palms settle against his chest, felt the tremble in my fingertips, the sick sweat clinging to my skin.
Please.
It was a small prayer, a pleading to the gods if they were listening. And the light came again. Soft. Barely there. As if it was afraid, too. But this time, I didn’t fight it. I let it come, felt it spread from my chest, through my arms, into my hands.
A pulse of life.
”You’re… glowing,” Will whispered.
I didn’t look. I just tried tofeelit.
I thought of Aran as a boy. Running with Will in the woods. Laughing. Kicking mud. Him challenging Licia to do silly dares.
He wasn’t just a traitor. He wasn’t just a coward. He was a whole person once, I had to believe that. I had to believe there was something left to save.
The warmth grew stronger, buzzing through me, steady and low.
Please let it be enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I remember dragging Aran upstairs with Will, acting as if he was just a drunken friend. The stairs were the worst, each step took everything out of me. My legs shook, my arms burned, my fingers ached from holding on. He was so heavy, and so limp, that it felt like he might pull me down with him at any moment. When we finally reached the room, Will shoved the door open with his shoulder and together we half-dropped, half-threw him onto a bed. Aran groaned, rolled once, and went still. I didn’t even untie my boots. I simply collapsed, and sleep took me before my head even hit the pillow. And then came the dream.
I was bound to the pillar in our kitchen, rope cutting into my skin as I fought it. I screamed until my voice gave out, but the only answer was fire. Everything was burning. The flames weren’t creeping. Theycame fast. Violent. Hungry. One second, the room was whole. The next, it was gone.
Fire swallowed everything.
The beams cracked and the roof let out a low groan before the ceiling split open, showering embers around me like sparks from a forge. The walls shimmered with heat. Paint blistered. Wood curled in on itself. Smoke curled around me, thick and choking. Every breath felt like swallowing ash. It clawed down my throat, filled my chest, burned my eyes. I gagged. Coughed.
Then I heard it—
Screaming.
Not mine.
