Page 145 of By the Flames of Her Fury

He nodded. “I’m Kieran. Welcome to the Ashen Order.”

As Tessa took my arm and guided me to the carriage, I glanced back at the tunnel entrance one final time.

I will come back for you.

70

Everett

“Help!” I cried out, twisting and turning in my bonds. I was strapped to the top of a rough stone altar, with magical rope cutting into my neck, wrists, and legs. The three High Elders loomed above me like shadowed demons. Their lips moved as chanting filled the air, and fire erupted along the wall at their backs. I choked on the smoke, struggling to draw breath through the rope tied around my neck.

“We call upon the power of the sun,” Arcadia said over me. He raised a dagger and lowered it to my forehead. The tip sank into my skin as he dragged it down. A stinging pain lanced through me, and I sucked in a breath.

He moved the dagger to my hands and repeated the motion. “The flame,” he continued, then sliced it through my shirt, right over my songbird tattoo. “And the heart.”

I gritted my teeth together to keep from crying out. My back arched off the altar, straining against my bindings. The amulets around Arcadia and Maeve’s necks began to glow. Some sort of magical light erupted from them and plunged into my chest.

The pain was so immense, so sudden, that it stole the breath from my lungs. My vision went in and out of focus as their magic pulled me, like it was sucking something from inside of me.

An icy emptiness mixed with the pain as my limbs began to sag, no longer strong enough to hold themselves up. I could feel it draining every inch of me. I called out once more, but it was weak. The light connecting me to the Elders grew brighter, along with the fire behind them. Colors swam across my vision, growing darker by the second.

But then—the fire moved.

The flames shot upward and shifted into a bird, sharp wingtips blazing as it nosedived for Arcadia. He stumbled backward, and the beams of light surging into me stuttered.

The fire bird slammed into his chest. It dissipated on impact, encasing his body in an orange inferno. Julius muttered a spell, and a rush of wind cycloned around Arcadia. It made the fire scatter away from his body.

But then the blaze reformed into three burning swords. They spun in the air toward the High Elders, flames dancing from the handles. The Elders reeled backward off the platform, and the magical light flowing into me went out completely. I inhaled ragged breaths as my magic ricocheted back into me.

“What is this?” Julius snarled, battling a fire sword with his own wall of shadows.

“Where is it coming from?” Maeve echoed. She ducked away from an oncoming blow and erected a shield charm.

But Arcadia’s keen eyes landed on the opening of the cavern. His lips parted on an exhale. The very air wavered, my chest tightening in anticipation as I slowly turned my neck.

“She’s here,” Arcadia murmured.

Fire and smoke licked along the floor, rising upward until they revealed a form. Standing in the firestorm was Vera with her flaming wings outstretched, her gold eyes lit with fire. Blonde hair whipped around her face.

My mouth opened in slack-jawed surprise. She was wrath incarnate. She was magnificent.

She was mine.

“One more step,” she growled, “and I will burn you to the ground.”

Behind me, the Elders formed a line. Arcadia banished his magic and held his hands up to her in a motion of peace. “Vera,” he said, “I know what this looks like.”

“Do you?” Her wings flexed dangerously, fire spitting from them.

“We understand your confusion.” Arcadia took a step forward, coming up from behind the altar.

Vera’s fire flared in response. “Oh, I’m not confused. I’m murderous.”

“You must listen to me,” Arcadia urged. “Everything we have done has been in service of something greater than you can imagine. That has been our goal all along, you know that. Our kingdom restored, a thousand years of suffering ended.”

“You’re delusional,” Vera spat. “How does killing him restore your kingdom?”

“You’re right,” Maeve conceded, moving to Arcadia's left. Julius drifted right to the other side of me without a word, the three of them slowly fanning out around the platform. “We never wanted it to come to this,” she continued. “He became a threat to our vision, to your purpose, and we were simply doing what needed to be done to ensure our freedom. We are not your enemy, Lightbringer. We⁠—”