“Let me go,” Perian pleaded. “I just want to leave.”
“What did you do!”
That was enough to get his sister in the room, and she gasped at the body on the floor.
“He’s dead,” Fomadin said. “He killed him. Fire and water, he’sdead.”
“What are we going to do with a dead body?” she demanded, eyes wide and scared. “What are we going to do?”
“Just let me go!” Perian begged.
But they were nearly hysterical. He saw the moment Fomadin had the idea. He ducked into the other room and came back with a lamp.
His sister’s eyes went wide. “This is my home!”
“And you want to explain why there’s a dead body in it?” he demanded. “Why there’s two dead bodies in it?”
She shook her head, mute, and Perian pulled frantically at his restraints.
“Just let me go!”
Fomadin didn’t listen, eyes full of hate and fear as he threw the lantern into the corner, where it smashed and the fire began to immediately eat up the wooden wall.
No stone here.
Not the castle.
Not safe.
“Please don’t do this,” Perian begged.
They closed the door, and then they were gone.
Perian tugged harder at the restraints, but there was still no give in them, there had never been any give in them. Smoke soon began to fill the air, dark and oily because this wasn’t a nice fire in a fire pit or in a fireplace, this was a fire that was consuming a house, that was eating everything it found, and it was going to find Perian.
It was already hotter and harder to breathe.
Was this what it had been like for his father, dying in the house of pleasure? Perian had always hoped he’d died in his sleep, unaware of the terrible fate that was coming for him. That fire had happened in the very early hours of the morning, an accident according to the papers.
More desperately than ever, Perian hoped that it hadn’t hurt, that he’d been unaware of it, and that it had been over quickly.
Perian could now attest to how terrible it was watching those flames get closer, the heat growing suffocating even with the cold in his bones that nothing could touch. He kept pulling on the restraints, his wrists stinging and burning, and then he twistedaround and tried to kick at the wooden bar with his feet. It creaked but didn’t move. Sweat was trickling down Perian’s face and into his eyes. His feet kept slipping. His stomach roiled.
He tried to expel the desire he’d fed on. If only he could do that, maybe he’d feel a little better. Or maybe he was about to die with the body of the man he’d killed stretched out of the floor beside him and beginning to catch fire. Maybe there was no feeling better.
Perian wasn’t a Warrior or a Mage Warrior. He’d never thought there’d come a time where he would kill anyone.
But Perian wasn’t just Perian now, was he? He wasn’t just not very good at training to be a Warrior. He was a carnalion, and he’d been able to pull the energy right out of a man—because he’d desired Perian in a sick and twisted way, and Perian had been able to use it against him.
The smoke was getting thicker, and Perian’s breaths were growing labored, interrupted with fits of coughing. His eyes stung from the smoke and from the tears he didn’t even realize at first that he was crying. He hadn’t wanted any of this, but he hadn’t been given a choice.
Was this always how it was going to end? He still didn’tunderstand, not really, but they said carnalions were susceptible to fire. Maybe it was fitting, after all, that this was the way Perian was going to die.
The world had gone all hazy, his stinging eyes not able to process anything anymore, the wall of heat so intense that it was like a blanket, a searing blanket pressing up against him, choking him.
The door suddenly burst open, making the flames leap and swirl even higher, the wall of heat and smoke suffocating, and blackness reached out and grabbed Perian.
He wished he’d gotten to see Brannal one more time.
