Page 103 of Only Flames Remain

Aveline was on her hands and knees, soaked from head to toe amid a sea of glass and brackish debris. Minnows fluttered against the wooden floorboards. Reeds and algae were scattered across the room. Enora had been thrust against the back wall beneath the force of the tide too, retching up water as she pushed her ivory hair out of her eyes.

In a heartbeat my wings were at my back. I flew to Aveline’s side, pulling her up as the glass bit into her palms, leaving fresh trails of her blood in its wake.

What the fuck just happened?

Aveline fell against me, a sob tearing free from her throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She turned to search for Enora as her words broke off, finding her wide eyed in the corner, her wet dress plastered against her frame.

I grasped Aveline by the shoulders and pulled her away from my chest only enough to meet her gaze. “Are you all right?”

She nodded; her cheeks devoid of the angry pink flush that had painted her skin mere moments ago. She was pale and shivering in my grasp.

“Was that…was that you?” I asked, scanning the room.

There wasn’t a single thing left untouched by the swell. The water had been pulled from Blackwater Lake. Aveline met my gaze and a long beat of silence fell between us before she tentatively nodded her head, confirming what I already suspected.

When I had first touched Aveline’s skin, my own magic had magnified back at me. I had felt fire and brimstone. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but that sensation had changed when we arrived in Stormgaard.

Then, I felt the exact opposite.

Cool water and soft mist as if I stood on the shore.

It was her magic.

The tinctures and poisons she had been dosing herself with suppressed her own power and allowed magic to be thrown back like a mirror. Without them, her true power had begun to bleed through.

Aveline wasn’t human at all.

The gods didn’t see fit to bond me for an eternity to a human. No…Aveline had the magic of the tides.

But as I gazed down at her, drenched in water from the consequences of her own brimming anger, one thought permeated everything.

What did that make her?

CHAPTER 30

Aveline

The tincture. The poison.

It had been masking my magic…burying it deep, deep down. When I ran out of my elixir in Stormgaard I had felt…different. I had sensed my magic beginning to surface, only I hadn’t known it at the time. I had sensed the water droplets calling out to me.

I had simply thought it was Sorin’s magic. Fae magic was vast, and I had never met Vireth before. I didn’t have a deep enough understanding to comprehend what was going on.

It hadn’t been a dream at all…but a vision. A memory from my mother. Enora’s own mother vowed to ensure Enora would guard me. Safeguard this secret my mother so staunchly protected.

That I wasn’t human at all.

But if I wasn’t human…what was I?

Why had my mother lied to me about my father all these years?

I turned to Enora as she rushed across the room, her boots crunching against the shattered glass as she tore me from Sorin’s grasp and pressed me against her.

“I am sorry, Aveline. I only meant to protect you. To keep you safe.”

I nodded against her, tears dripping down my cheeks to mix with the brackish water I had drawn from Blackwater Lake. Water I had called from beyond the windows with my own magic.

Magic.