Her lips part as if she’s trying to say something, but nothing comes. She only looks at me, steady and unflinching.
Then she nods. Once.
My vision blurs. Fire leaks from between my teeth, curling into the air in ragged threads.
The demon doesn’t notice, too focused on its prize, the one it’s been awaiting for thousands of years. The one I’m about to deprive it of.
I’m sorry, my soul whispers. To her, to myself, to every future that dies with this choice.
I draw in a breath that feels like it splits me in two. I gather every shred of fire I have left. Not wild. Not raging. Focused. Final.
For her.
If this is the last thing I ever give her, then it will be peace.
For a heartbeat, I hesitate.
Not because I doubt what must be done. But because loving her has always meant wanting one more second.
Her eyes stay locked on mine.
No fear.
No regret.
Only trust.
I unleash the fire.
It pours from me in a blinding torrent, white-hot and absolute, far hotter than anything meant to burn flesh. She’s fire-born. Fire-touched. To affect her, it has to be more.
A dragon’s flame stripped of fury and driven by mercy, it wraps around her suspended form, devouring the dark smoke feeding on her and forcing the demon to recoil with a shriek of rage.
Haven doesn’t scream.
She doesn’t thrash or beg or fight it.
She burns.
Light consumes her, too bright to look at, too final to undo. Her body dissolves into brilliant flame and heat, every trace of her breaking apart under the intensity of my fire. Magenta and purple magic surges wildly for a heartbeat, flaring like a dying star as it mixes with my flames?—
Then there is nothing left to take.
No flesh.
No bone.
No soul for the demon to claim.
Only ash.
I cut off the fire as suddenly as it began, leaving the air thick and silent. Gray motes drift downward, slow and weightless, settling against scorched earth like snowfall at the end of the world.
I roar. The cry tears out of me, raw and broken, shaking the ground beneath us. It’s grief and rage and love tangled together, a sound that has no language, no shape. Only loss.
As ash settles on my scales, the demon screams.
Not in pain. In rage.
