“Open the gate to the garden,” I say, forcing the words out. “Get as many out as you can.”
He nods once and is gone.
I allow myself one second—just one—to stare at the wall of fire racing toward us. I hate myself at this moment, because no matter what I do next… lives will be lost. Then my gaze snaps to the house—to the cellar.
The workshop is already in ruins by the time I reach it. Books are scattered across the floor. Beakers lie shattered beneath a half-toppled bench. Cracks spider through the stone walls. Creatures scramble in every direction, fleeing broken glass enclosures.
I grab a flashlight, rip up the rug, and wrench open the hidden hatch beneath. As soon as it’s open, I move fast—scooping up animals, insects, anything alive—and ferry them underground. Five frantic trips.
By the fifth, Orán is shouting my name from above.
“Eridessa! Eri—fucking answer me!” Fear cuts through every word.
“In the cellar!”
“Hellgates, woman… I thought I’d lost you.” He takes the stairs two at a time. As soon as he reaches me, his grip locks around my arm. “We have to go. Now.”
He’s coated in soot, sweat carving paths through ash on his face. My lungs burn. My skin prickles from the heat. I’m coughing and struggling to breathe, but I won’t give up saving as many lives as I can.
“Eridessa.” His eyes fill with a quiet, knowing sadness as his grip tightens on my arm. “You can’t save them all.”
I wrench free and snap, “Well, I’m damn well going to try!”
“And you’ll die doing it.” His voice turns ice-cold. “I won’t let that happen.”
He latches onto me once more and tries to manhandle me toward the fucking door. I struggle to free myself, even slapping him across the face, but it’s impossible to tear myself loose.
He ends up caging me against his body, grasping my face and forcing my eyes to meet his.
“Let me go!”
“No. Hate me if you want. Fucking hate me, but I’m getting you out of here.”
I fight him. I do.
I twist, shove, strike—anything to break free—but he’s stronger.
He hauls me up the cellar steps, dragging me into air so hot it feels like it’s flaying skin from bone. Smoke claws down my throat, and I choke on it, coughing hard as it burns its way into my lungs. My eyes sting, water, blur. I try to shield my face, but it does nothing. The heat is everywhere, suffocating, searing, my skin already raw and blistering.
And then I see it.
My home.
The fence. My garden. Everything is burning to cinders.
A sob rips out of me. “No—” I surge forward, reaching for it, for anything I can still save.
Orán catches me. His arms lock around me, iron-tight, pulling me back against him. He lowers his head beside mine and, in a voice rough with regret, says, “I’m so sorry, Eliora. I saved as many as I could.”
A deep, thunderous groan rises from the earth. A fissure rips open in the ground, and Orán quickly pulls me out of its path. Dirt collapses inward.
A sharp, violent crack rents the air.
We both look up.
A massive tree at the edge of the forest, one engulfed in flames, totters and begins to fall this way.
The earth shudders violently and shifts. I lose my footing and go down hard. Orán releases me and throws his hands up toward the burning tree. Mid-fall, it slows, and subtly its trajectory changes, enough to matter greatly.
