Page 170 of By the Flames of Her Fury

The Wraith

The shadow wraith drifted down the tunnel. Its purpose was clear: guard the kingdom. Protect the balance the Fates set in motion. Do not let a soul enter or escape. That was the mission embedded in the very stones it was now trapped beneath, the objective threaded into its shadows.

But it remembered…a life.

Splashes of color bled into its black and gray thoughts. A voice that was not its own, hands of human flesh rather than darkness. The wraith struggled to banish the strange memories, but something dragged it deeper into the underground caves.

Wind brushed through its shadows, pushing it down the path. Wisps of smoke curled and uncurled from its body, edges fading and sharpening over and over again as it moved. Perhaps the kingdom needed protecting. Perhaps someone meant to escape, and that was why it was being summoned here.

It floated down yet another unknown path, where heat licked at its shadows. The sensation sparked something, but it could not place the feeling. Only that it was…familiar.

Shadows unfurled as if tasting the heavy magic radiating through the tunnel. It washed over the wraith in waves, and without thinking, it sped up, trailing over stone in a whoosh of unidentifiable determination.

The wraith rounded a corner. The caves opened into a large chamber, and the first thing it saw⁠—

Her. A figure in shades of gray, lying lifeless on a stone altar. Gray blood dripped from her head and chest.

Who is she? the voice in its head hissed. The sour musk of death hovered in the air. She was dying.

That singular thought made its shadows lose control. It was as if claws ripped through its chest. But it did not know this woman. There was something else inside, some distant memory crawling to the surface, fighting through the shadow wraith’s mind.

It drifted farther into the chamber, watching the four beings standing above her. Three of them, the wraith recognized. The demithes who could never be allowed to leave the kingdom. They were frozen, arms extended and heads bowed back in ecstasy. It was some sort of ritual, the wraith thought. White light, brighter than any shade of gray it had ever seen, flowed from a necklace around the woman’s neck and into the three demithes and a fourth man at their side.

The stench of her death grew stronger. Something inside the wraith thrashed, desperate to escape, and the wraith could not help but float closer. To trace the contours of her human face with its gaze. Why was she so familiar?

But then the necklace around her flickered, and the light suddenly stopped.

The entire cave trembled with a violent force. Rocks dislodged from the ceiling and rained down, passing through the wraith’s shadows and crumbling to the ground.

The woman’s eyes opened. Bright gold stared back at the wraith, flooding its world with color. An unknown feeling stirred in its chest. Those eyes…it remembered those eyes.

I know you, a voice in its head whispered.

Then the songbird rose from the ashes.

83

Vera

The entire world froze for a split second, everything glowing in vivid frames before me.

The threads of magic tying me to the High Elders and Mortep stopped. I was left an empty shell, with only silence where my magic had once been. The three Elders looked at me with wide eyes, hair and robes floating around them. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling. Mortep stumbled backward, breaking his connection to me. His lips were parted, his black hair wild and frayed as he ran. At the foot of the platform swayed a shadow wraith that hadn’t been there before.

Then time sped back up. Sound engulfed me—the quaking of the earth, rocks clattering, fire raging from the torches. But the Elders didn’t move.

Thunder rumbled through the chamber, low and steady at first, then loud enough to vibrate my teeth. The air was sucked from the room, pausing everything in absolute stillness, until⁠—

Magic and light detonated through the cave. It shattered back into me in a wave of power. My arms flew back, my head snapped toward the ceiling, and those threads of magical light erupted from the High Elders’ chests, connecting to mine.

Except this time, my magic wasn’t funneling into them.

They all cried out in alarm as power rushed from them and into the amulet around my neck. The golden light shone brighter and brighter, a blinding, cataclysmic energy soaring through my body.

I didn’t understand. The Fates had taken away my magic. But now…

It was returning.

I gasped as that well inside my chest, the one the Fates had sucked dry, drowned in power. Shadows, light, illusions, Alchemy, striding, fire. My phoenix roared to life, and familiar wings shot from my back with fiery fervor.