Page 167 of By the Flames of Her Fury

“Starke,” I whispered, voice hitching. I tried to summon the dregs of my power, but no matter how strong I was, the cuffs dampened any magic still stirring in my chest.

Nothing stood between me and that altar.

The buzzing from the amulet heightened as I was compelled up the platform steps. When I got within a few feet, the golden ropes on the altar extended toward me, wrapping around my limbs and dragging me closer.

“Let—me—go!” I kicked and jerked against their hold, but that only tightened their grip. My arms tingled, fingers growing more numb by the second. One rope twisted through the air and coiled around my throat. “You’ll never get away with this,” I gasped, choking as the rope crushed my windpipe.

My back landed on the stone. The High Elders' faces hovered above me, haloed in the firelight. “You have done well, Malek Mortep of Veridia,” Arcadia said, looking down the platform at Mortep. “You shall be rewarded.”

I craned my neck to watch Mortep ascend the platform steps. His lips curved into a victorious grin. The four of them formed a circle around the altar, and Arcadia raised a dagger to my forehead. The tip bit into my skin, but my voice was only a muffled rasp when I tried to scream.

“We call upon the power of the sun,” he said, carving a shape into my forehead. Blood trickled down my temples, sizzling on the stone beneath me.

Arcadia took my cuffed hands. I tried to wrench them away, but the ropes kept me from moving. His blade cut my palms. “The flame,” he continued. Blood leaked from the jagged lines in the shape of a wing. “And the heart.” He swiftly slashed my shirt open, exposing my chest and the amulet resting against my skin. It burned brighter as he carved one last symbol above my heart. I arched my back, biting down on another scream.

“We’re sorry this is how it must end, but we’re eternally grateful to you, Vera,” Arcadia said. The other Elders and Mortep began chanting in low voices. “With your life, we will finally gain our immortality.”

He joined in with their chants, and the three amulets glowed even brighter. The altar beneath me trembled from their power. A beam of magic flashed from my amulet, connecting with the other two chains in splintering threads above my body. Pain whipped through me faster than I could breathe. It blinded me to everything else, coursing from my chest and into my limbs, my bones, my blood.

I felt the moment their spell started to work. It ate away at the well of dormant magic inside me. The strands above me crackled with power as my life force left me and flowed into the three High Elders and Mortep. Their heads lifted to the ceiling, their arms stretched wide at their sides.

Not like this, a voice cried. You can’t let it end like this.

I dragged in a breath, nearly choking, and tried to grasp at my magic before it left me. Any ember, any shadow, any piece of light. The magic I’d thought was a curse was now the only thing that could save me.

But nothing answered.

Color dulled, but as darkness crept around the corner, flashes of old memories tried to break through. There were gaps, dark places the forging had taken, but some things were still left. Nox sneaking me a glass of whiskey after Mama went to sleep. That glimmer of mischief in his navy eyes. Mama’s black raven wings spread high in the sky. The smell of baked bread.

And then came my prison cell. I may not remember it all, but I would know Swift’s eyes anywhere. I remembered fingers intertwined through the hole. I heard that husky chuckle, as real as if he were here. I saw our sleepless nights on the cold stone floor, the images he painted in my mind of the places he’d take me to. Nothing could make me forget the ache in my heart that could only be filled by him.

I couldn’t remember the night I first saw him. But I remembered the moments that came after. Him in the library, looking at me over a stack of books. His arms around me as he banished the nightmares. Him in those hot springs, my hand hovering over his tattoo.

I had finally stopped running.

My limbs sagged, every ounce of fight draining from them second by second. But I held on to Swift, as much as I could. Every kiss, every shared breath, every smile in the dark. We hadn’t had enough time. Fates, forever wouldn’t have been enough—not with him. But at least I had done one thing right. At least he knew how much I loved him in the end, because I hadn’t run away. Now, I was running to him. To a life beyond the pain and heartache.

I was going to see him again.

The chants faded into a low buzz, and the golden light dimmed. My neck rolled to the side, a tear leaking from the corner of my eye. If I could just find him, one more time…if I could see him through that hole in the stone…

I died searching for his eyes in the flames.

81

Vera

Death didn’t come the way I expected. There was no falling, no void swallowing me whole, no spirits guiding me to the after life. It was just…stillness. It stretched on for what could’ve been seconds or decades, silent and weightless. I couldn’t feel my body. I couldn’t feel the fire from the ritual, nor the cuts on my skin. I couldn’t even feel my own breath.

But then came the fog. It was soft and golden as it seeped into the darkness. It rolled over my feet, spreading like dawn into the emptiness. I looked down to see my body wavering and blurred.

“Am I dead?” I asked. My voice made the fog at my feet billow outward, then curl back toward me. In response, the air shuddered. A deep hum rose from the fog, and a chill swept over my skin, racing down my spine.

Now that, I could feel.

The golden fog separated, swirling upward in columns to form three figures. They bore no real faces, merely holes in the smoke where eyes and mouths should’ve been, and the shadows that made up their bodies swayed in and out of focus. But there was no mistaking who stood before me.

“You are not dead, little phoenix," one of them said, their rich voice racing over me.