Page 154 of By the Flames of Her Fury

The tunnels of the bunker twisted deeper, lit by the occasional torch smoldering low in its sconce. We left the voices and footsteps of the others behind, stopping only when the passage narrowed into a shabbier corridor, its ceiling low enough that it nearly brushed my head.

Vera stood with her hands braced on the stone wall, head bowed, blonde hair falling around her face. Water dripped from the ends of it and splashed to the floor. I waited several heartbeats in tense silence before coming up behind her and resting my hands on her waist. She angled her head to the right, letting my chin fall to the crook of her neck.

I breathed her in, eyes fluttering shut. After a year of missing her, of needing her, I never wanted to let her go. But then my shoulder prickled, and the reminder of the infection twisted in my gut. We didn’t know if I had hours or days, but soon, it would take over, and I would no longer be Everett Swift. I’d become one of those shadow wraiths cursed to guard the secrets of Pyraeth like the rest of them.

“You’re scared,” Vera whispered. “I can smell it.”

“You Shifters are so strange,” I said, but the humor fell flat. When she didn’t respond, I sighed. “I’ve been through worse. We both have.”

It wasn’t death that frightened me. I’d spent too long thinking death was a reprieve to be scared of it. The unknown was daunting, though. The idea that I, like Dom’s friend, could be a danger to Vera or anyone else, and that I’d lose myself forever…that was what frightened me.

She spun in my grasp and rested her hands on my still-bare chest. Her breaths were ragged as her arms shook. She’d been holding this in—probably for days. Somehow, her on the edge of breaking down helped steel my own nerves.

“It’s okay,” I murmured. “It’s just me. You can let go.”

A sob burst from her as tears filled her eyes, then slipped down her cheeks. She buried her head in my chest. Wetness coated my skin, and I held her trembling body against me.

“I don’t know what to do,” she rasped. “It’s all my fault for bringing you here, and now everyone’s counting on me. Kieran and Odessa are stuck, Starke’s gone, these rebels think I’m some sort of savior, and now you’re…” Her breath hitched, and she exhaled slowly. “I can’t fall apart. We’ve got to figure this out.”

“Talk to me,” I said. “Let’s think through it, piece by piece. The first step is finding the amulet.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, leaving it rumpled and windswept. “I don’t even know where to start. We’ve looked everywhere the Elders could think of.”

“What information did they give you?”

Kneading her forehead with her knuckles, she said, “There was a scroll written by the original demithes. A prophecy, kind of. It talked about the bringer of light walking the lost paths in the heart of the eternal flame to gather the Sacred Three.”

“That’s a lot of words,” I mused, taking a second to let it sink in. “It makes it sound like the heart of the eternal flame is a physical place.”

Vera nodded. “That’s why we visited any location the Elders thought it could be referring to.”

I paced across the narrow strip of tunnel. “I read something similar. When we were in the archives.” I closed my eyes and summoned the images with my magic, bringing them into focus. The iron door of the Inner Sanctum. The tall, black lectern. The faded pages of that gruesome book, the phoenix drawing morphing into the burned, cracked skin of a human.

Just like the bodies in the catacombs.

“‘The flame eternal cannot dwell in the weak,’” I muttered, picturing the inscription beneath the drawing.

Vera’s spine straightened. “What?”

“Do you remember how I told you I found something when we were in the Inner Sanctum that looked like experiments?” I asked. “Right before the earthquake, I saw a book with sketches of those bodies from the catacombs. I just didn’t know what they were until today.” I fought back a shudder. I could still see those threads of magical light surging into my body, could feel the ropes tightening around my throat and wrists.

“‘The weak?’” Vera seethed. “I hate them. They’re calling the people they killed ‘weak’ just because sucking the life from them wasn’t enough to make them immortal. Their ‘temporary vessels,’ like Sloane said. It’s disgusting.”

“Vessels,” I repeated, remembering the rest. “‘The eternal flame cannot dwell in the weak. It must come from the living vessel, which will be forged in the final days.’ That’s the rest of the inscription. Fates, I can’t believe I didn’t realize what it⁠—”

“Wait.” Vera’s eyes widened. “Say that last part again. From the book.”

“‘It must come from the living vessel, which will be forged in the final days,’” I said. Her gaze went distant, then started darting around, as if she was puzzling something together that I couldn’t see. “What is it?”

“That word,” she said slowly. “It keeps popping up everywhere.”

“What word?”

“Forge. It was one of the symbols you deciphered. And the wraith that touched me—it talked about forging, too.” She paced in front of me. “It said, ‘this is what you forge the world into.’ I thought it was just a strange word choice, but now…” She smacked her forehead. “I’ve been so blind. It’s everywhere. Even the siren. The originals forged the amulets right before they died, but what if they only made the first two? What if the third one hasn’t been created yet?”

My lips parted as the final pieces settled into place. “That’s why the High Elders could never find it. It doesn’t exist.”

“Yet.” Her features lit with excitement. “I have to do what the originals did. I have to forge it first, then we can raise the kingdom.”