And then, finally, the book hardened into the flecked stone that matched the obelisk. The sacred stones remained as they were, their vibrant colors glittering in the moonlight shining in through the stained-glass windows.
Avalon shook her hair out of her face and put on the mask.Sable?Is it working?
Sable was silent for a long moment, but Avalon knew she was there.I… I’m not certain. Have we done everything correctly?
Avalon didn’t want to tell her what the Wraith had said. She couldn’t bear to fail—not here. Not now. Not after everything they’d been through.
Avalon lifted herself to her feet, her heart growing heavy. This couldn’t be happening.
We’ve failed,Sable choked out.
No,Avalon said, her voice soft yet hopeless.You’ve done nothing wrong.
It was me,she wanted to say.I’vefailed you.But she’d put up a wall in her mind, and Sable was too distracted to notice.
Avalon tore the mask off, ignoring Sable’s panic. It was only for a moment. She needed to be alone as she threw her head back and screamed.
It was a horrific, guttural sound. Loud enough to shake the glass on the windows and send a morning dove fluttering from the rafters. Powerful enough to send a sharp pain through her chest and leave her lungs screaming for oxygen.
Gasping for air, her heart aching with the devastating realization that she’d failed her friend, the floor beneath her suddenly gave out. There was an ear-splitting crack, like two boulders hurled against one another. The stone crumbled, the walls of the temple falling apart, the pieces tumbling around her. She scrambled for solid ground, holding tightly to the mask, but the entire structure was collapsing. For half a second, Avalon stupidly believed her scream was loud enough to bring the temple down. It had certainly felt like it.
Another scream—this time one of terror—erupted out of her lungs, scorching her throat as the floor beneath her disappeared.
Suddenly, she was airborne. Gravity welcomed her with open arms, and her stomach plummeted beneath her feet.
Down, down, down. Fire exploded somewhere far below, as if birthing a phoenix. Shards of rainbow glass, crumbling stone columns, and marble fell alongside her.
The mask slipped out of her grasp, flashing brightly like a ruby as it reflected the raging fire that grew ever closer. Flames coiled toward the black sky, and in the distance, the River of Fire glowed red. People fled for shelter, screaming as if the end of the world had come.
Perhaps it had.
The heat grew more intense the farther she fell. If she was lucky, she’d pass out before she reached the fire, lose consciousness before it could eat through her skin. If she’d failed at freeing Sable, she didn’t want to live anymore. Their bond had transcended friendship; she was the sister Avalon never had. What she felt for the warrior…a part of her dared to call it love.
Of course it was love.Of course.If only she’d listened to the Wraith. If only she had realized that she loved Sable before she placed the book inside the obelisk.
Before darkness swelled up to swallow her whole, there was a flash of light. In the dead silence, she heard the rustle of a wing. It was likely a bird, but the other part of her that dared to wonder—dared to dream—thought it might be something more.
After that, she couldn’t be sure of anything.
~
Near the outskirts of the city, Killian watched as the tower collapsed. As fire rushed in a tidal wave toward the people at the festival—all of them now staring in mute horror.
The flames traveled quickly, faster than wind. This was no ordinary fire. It undulated like a living thing, rushing like a great flood of water bursting free from behind a dam. There was no crackling, no sound of the destruction it wrecked as it traveled swiftly toward the city and its innocent civilians.
It was silent as Death.
Killian knew that if he saved the city, all his efforts at concealing the truth about himself would be lost. The king and his henchmen would know how many lies he’d told, and he would be executed for deceiving them all. But he also knew that Sable—his beloved sister, and the Goddess of Fire and reincarnation of Hilandria—was the reason this wave of red destruction was descending upon them. And once Sable was free, if she found out she was responsible for an entire city and its inhabitants burning to ash, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
But Killian had plenty of secrets. He wasn’t just a Shield; protecting his mind and body was not the only power he possessed.
While Sable had been blessed with fire, Killian was one of the Waterfolk, so his gift was water. Not only could he control the lakes, the rivers, and the ocean—he could also control the rain. With the barest of thought, he could open the sky like floodgates. Rain was at his fingertips; nature was his ally.
When they were children, when the king’s guard had thrown them into the Tyrrhenia River, they should’ve died. By all rights, they should’ve died. But the river—the spirit inhabiting the waters there—had sensed who, and what, Killian was. What he might become. And it had spared their lives, washing them up in the Realm of Wind instead of drinking up their souls, as it had done a good many people who’d entered the waters before them. To this day, Killian wasn’t sure what the spirit was, or how it had come to be, but it had saved them—saved themboth.
And he would pay that favor forward tonight.
Without another thought, he started running. Fire poured over the hills. It licked at his heels and singed the ground, driving him faster. Thunder shattered above the city, shaking the ground. Every hair on Killian’s body stood on end, and his ears began to ring as magic flooded his veins and sparked at his fingertips.
