Page 200 of The Incendiary

“Ary!”

The urgent jostling of my body dragged me back to the present. My breaths sputtered out in trembling clouds, and it took me a few moments to realize that tears streamed down my cheeks. Elias’s hands squeezed my shoulders.

“Hey.” He searched my face. “Are you all right?”

“Sorry.” I shook my head to get rid of the sounds and memory. “I’m fine,” I lied.

Elias’s apprehensive gaze lingered on me, brow furrowed, for a few uncomfortable moments before he mercifully returned his attention to the bloody corpse.

“This wasn’t the work of any beast,” Elias uttered grimly. “Someone murdered that girl.”

An eerie wind blew through the clearing, lifting the hairs on the back of my neck down to the base of my spine.

“Why is her heart ripped out, Ary?” Shera asked me nervously. “That’s… that’s like…”

Like me in Brinnea, eight months ago.

My limbs grew weak, my stomach nauseous with dread.

I had an overwhelming feeling that this killing had been staged for me.

“It’s a trap,” I muttered to Eli, though I wasn’t sure if he heard me. I turned and sprinted toward Finn and Gemma’s horse. “Get her out of here!” I commanded Finn, waving them away. “Run! As far and as fast as you can!”

Gemma rolled her eyes. “We aren’t going to just run off, Ary⁠—”

“Where?” Finn cut her off, eyes locked with mine. Unlike Gemma, he saw my fear, and he didn’t doubt it. “Go where?”

“Anywhere,” I told him. “Anywhere but here, just go!”

He tightened his arms around Gemma to keep her locked safely in her seat and turned their horse straight north.

“Finn? No!” Gemma snapped, turning to stop him, but he had full control of the reins. “What are you doing? We can’t just…”

Her angry voice trailed off and was stifled by pounding hooves as their horse galloped off into the night.

“Mavic, Ezra!” I called back, chest heaving with frantic, panting breaths. They were both off their horses. “Follow them!”

Mavic shook his head. “I promised Marin I wouldn’t leave your side. No offense, Your Highness, but my older sister is scarier than you.”

Ezra joined us and nodded. “We’re here to defend you.”

“Ary.” Elias grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him. “How do you know it’s a trap? Corpses are unfortunately a common enough⁠—”

“Because that’s exactly how I died in Brinnea!” My fingers dug into his forearms. “Ripped-out heart, gutted from chest to waist.” I pleaded with my eyes in case my words weren’t enough to convince him.

Our orders from Molochai were to break you, not kill you, Alec Gerard had said to me in the showers.

Molochai was taunting me. I could sense the cold nearby. The absence of all things good. It was drawing nearer, and I could feel that evil magic like a part of it had broken off inside me and never left. It began to vibrate, a painful warning in my chest.

“I just know it’s him,” I insisted to Elias. “I need to draw them away from the Caves.”

“My soldiers can handle fighting Insidions, Ary.” His reassuring grip tightened on my shoulders. “We have for ages.”

“I don’t think it’s just Insidions.”

His face tightened. “You think Molochai’s here?”

I nodded. “I can feel him.”