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“My body is much younger than my soul.” Vharax continues in that deep, melodious voice. It’s comforting, almost as much as my mother’s was when I was a child. “As is the knowledge I possess. Be patient as I learn who I am, just as you are learning who you are.”
“I don’t know who I am,” I admit softly.
“Do you not?” Her voice drops, becoming a purr. Dangerous and confident in a way I wish I could be. “You are a storm brought to life. Flame given flesh. You have suffered, but you do not break. You do not bend. You most certainly do not bow to small men. You, Idril Elydrien, are meant to burn.”
My hands tremble, and I press them into the cool ice and stone. There’s truth in her words. A conviction slips into me and searches out every crack and fissure in my heart. The ones that made me believe I’m not good enough. Not strong enough. Not brave enough.
My father created them, chipping away at me for decades. My Mates widened them with their betrayal and cruelty. Worst of all, I ignored them, letting them fester and grow larger every day, until they became a part of me.
Scared. Submissive. Broken.
‘You do not bow to small men…’
Heat flares in my hands, slithering through my blood like fiery silk. It flows through me with purpose, heading straight for my chest where it slips between my ribs. It spreads, growing roots in a deliberate refusal to leave.
‘You, Idril Elydrien, are meant to burn.’
That certainty expands further, searching out those cracks inside of me and filling some with power. Not like my abilities. Something more permanent. A sudden, inescapable awareness of who I truly am.
Not someone who bows. Not anymore.
“Yes,” Vharax hisses with delight. “We will burn together, Last Daughter. But first… first we will soar.”
The pillar explodes under my hands, fracturing into a thousand spiderwebs that explode throughout the cavern. There is no more darkness, not like when I first opened my eyes and found myself in this Void. All that exists now is pure, fiery-hot luminescence, everywhere at once.
The world shatters, the bright white light blanketing me in a mirror of the dark Void I stepped into. It’s all I can see. All I can feel, smell, and touch. The ground disappears from under me, and then I’m falling, or flying, or both—cocooned in light and the thrumming whooomp, whooomp of a beating heart.
Moments before I wake, I feel Vharax once more, her voice soft as silk and hard as stone. Both further away and closer than before. It rumbles through the light, its tone threaded with determination.
An order. A command. A plea.
“Do not crawl, Daughter. Rise.”
* * *
Waking up feels like slamming back into my body after falling from a great distance. My eyes snap open, and the first thing I see is Branwen, hovering in front of my face. Her mouth is moving, her hands gripping me tightly around my upper arms.
“Idril! You need to get up, now!”
My body jerks. Air rushes into my lungs, filling my chest. I bolt upright, hands snapping out and latching onto Branwen’s forearms.
I don’t ask her what’s wrong. One glance at our surroundings tells me precisely why she’s so frantic.
Like my dream, the entire cavern trembles and pulses with a bright, glowing light. The ground shakes and sways, matching the rhythm of the thrumming whooomp, whooomp that’s followed me from my dreams and into reality.
The air’s buzzing with electricity, making every hair on my arms stand on end.
Behind Branwen, bathing her in an otherworldly radiance, the pillar beats to the cadence of my own heartbeat. Like it knows I’m awake, the light grows even brighter as Vharax’s final words burn through my blood.
‘Do not crawl. Rise.’
I push myself up, and once I’m standing, I urge Branwen behind me and turn to face the pillar.
“What—what are you doing?”
She reaches out and pulls me to a stop. Glancing down, I’m startled to find myself dangerously close to the water’s edge.
The pillar—Vharax—calls to me, urging me closer. I know I need to get to her, but there’s an entire body of water between us, and I still don’t know how to do more than doggy paddle.
