His hand shot out faster than I could move. The air cracked, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was as if his grip had found not my throat, but my soul.
Something hot and ancient yanked at me, my flames fighting their way out.
It tore through me like a hook dragging through flesh. My knees hit the floor the second his grip released me. I gasped, fire bursting from my palms in reflexive defense, but it only fed his power. The flames raced towards him, bending, twisting, betraying me.
He tilted his head, watching as light burst from my skin.
“Ah, there it is,” he whispered. “The spark that creates life. It births demons and also destroys them. Do you feel it leaving you?”
Pain lanced down my spine, blinding white. I screamed before I could stop myself, the sound echoing around the throne room.
But beneath the agony came something else, images. Flickers, faces I didn’t know.
A dozen, then a hundred.
Fire mages, their eyes wide and their bodies consumed in spirals of flame. Their magic bled into the same crimson light now threading towards his hand.
I saw them all. Every single one he’dtaken.
“You—” I choked out, trembling. “You took them. All of them.”
“Creation requires sacrifice,” he said emotionless. “And you, my dear, are an exquisite offering indeed.”
I saw how my flames swirled, gathering in his palm. Shaping and creating, becoming a living demon before my very eyes.
It wasn’t large, the size of a watermelon at best. The fires formed into a humanoid body; its eyes opened with a scorching yellow color.
Rage flared hot enough to drown the pain. My fire surged, turning wild, no longer a weapon but a storm. It clawed at the ground, tore through the shadows, fought his pull with everything it had.
The room filled with burning light.
For a moment, I saw his eyes widen, not in fear, but in surprise.
“You think you can resist me?” he asked, though his voice had lost its silk. “Your kind always burns itself out first.”
I forced my head up, sweat and ash streaking my face. “Then watch me burn.”
I let go.
Fire erupted outward, tearing from my skin in a violent burst that shattered the braziers and sent waves of molten heat across the marble. The small demon he had created screamed an ear-piercing sound, before its fires merged with my own once more.
I had stolen his creation from him.
Zinlia shielded her face with an arm as I stumbled back.
The Demon King’s hold faltered. The flames raged between us like wildfire, consuming everything in their path, howling with all the stolen voices I had heard. For a heartbeat, I felt them with me, the other mages, the lost, the devoured. My fire was theirs now, and theirs was mine.
Together wepushed back.
Then the King’s pull on me snapped.
Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of dying flames. The throne behind him had melted into a molten ruin. Smoke hung thick in the air.
The Demon King stood there, utterly still. His dark clothing dripped with liquid heat, yet they were unharmed as if the flames never touched him. He looked at me as one might look at a mystery that had changed shape.
“Impressive,” he murmured. “You have a demon’s stubbornness. But you’re still just a mortal.”
He stepped closer, the heat radiating from him in waves, choking me. “And mortals break. All flames die eventually.”
