Page 102 of Only Flames Remain

“What are you talking about?” I asked her softly. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”

My gaze dropped to the bite mark that marred the skin where her neck met her shoulder. Heat pulsed through me, my blood flooding with desire at the thought of what had happened in these rooms last night.

Her gaze searched mine before falling to my bare torso. She dropped the hand she had been pointing at Enora, deflating. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?” I asked, voice soft.

My hand itched to reach out to her, but thought better of it. Things had irreparably changed between us last night, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still in love with my enemy. It didn’t change the fact that she didn’t know about our fated bond yet.

She remained silent.

“I assure you; I have no idea what you two are talking about,” I said softly.

“I had a dream. My mother was speaking with Enora’s mother about the tinctures. How I had to take them to hide my true lineage. That it was the only way to suppress who I truly am.”

Enora opened her mouth to speak, but I put up a hand to stop her before she could utter a single word. “Before you deny it, I know all about the poisons, Enora.”

“You know she carries poisons with her. But did you know she takes the poisons herself?” Enora asked skeptically.

My head snapped to Aveline. “What is she talking about? Why would you be poisoning yourself?”

“Why would you?” Aveline accused back, crossing her arms once more over the thin shift. “The ixia would have killed you if you hadn’t built up a tolerance to it on your own.”

Enora tsked, turning toward the arched glass windows on the far wall of the bedroom. “So many, many secrets,” she muttered under her breath.

Aveline turned toward Enora. “You’re one to talk about secrets. You have been keeping a secret from me my entire life!”

“I assure you—I don’t know of what you speak,” she replied, mouth thin.

Aveline’s head fell back, a frustrated hand running through her raven hair and pulling it.

“I know about the poison! My mother told yours that she had to poison me to keep my magic at bay. That if anyone found out what I was…they would use me. That you needed to know the truth in order to protect me properly. To be my guardian.”

I became deathly still as her words registered.

Aveline had magic.

She wasn’t a human after all. But then…what was she? And that didn’t explain or justify why she needed to poison herself.

“Enora!” Aveline shouted, hands falling against her sides in frustration. “You are my closest friend! How could you keep this from me?”

Enora’s face crumpled in shame. “I was only trying to protect you.”

The words were soft beneath the roaring that filled my ears. Enora’s gaze flitted to mine with a question in her gaze, as if she heard it too.

What was that? It sounded like…

“Enough!” Aveline’s voice rang out so sharply I fell back a step, only to be immediately thrown to the ground as the arched glass windows on the far wall burst open in a shower of water and glass.

“Aveline!”

I cried out to her, but the tide of water swept my feet out from under me.

Glass cut against my skin as I was thrown against the wall, the wind knocked out of my lungs, my head cracking against stone. My vision swam black as the room filled with lake water.

For an unending moment I held my breath, hoping and praying the tide of water would retreat. My lungs felt like they might burst by the time the swell swept back out of the room through the now obliterated windows.

It did not take the destruction it had wrought with it.