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The Fire—The Fire! screamed a little voice inside my head. And I also heard the voice of the Blind Crone saying, “Beware, child—The Fire isn’t finished with you yet.”
I had nearly been burned to death before—it had cost both my parents’ lives to save me. Had I only cheated death for a little while? Was this really how my life was destined to end? Burned to a crisp by Drake flames in a far distant land where I didn’t belong?
I hated to say it, but the answer was looking like a very definite yes.
95
Ari
My heart was pounding as I strained against the manacles that held me. All of my attention was fixed on Kaitlyn as they pushed her to the center of the room to meet her fate.
Kaitlyn…L’lorna! How I longed to be with her! To shelter her from the coming flame! She was Blood-Bonded to me now, so she would have been immune to the flames of my own Drake. Unfortunately, that immunity wouldn’t carry over to the flames of another.
I could feel her fear and dread through our newly formed bond, just as I would soon feel her pain and anguish. I set my teeth, prepared to take as much of the pain as I could from her. Watching the female I loved be burned to death would be terrible but if I could take the pain for her—if I could bring her anguish into myself instead of letting her experience it—I thought I might bear it without going completely mad.
My Drake, however, was strangely calm and quiet within me. I would have expected him to be spreading his wings and thrashing to get free, as he first had when they had placed the damn manacles on me to keep him contained. But now that Kaitlyn had drunk of his blood, he seemed almost tranquil—so quiet I wondered if he had gone to sleep.
“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded of him. “They have Kaitlyn and they’re going to burn her!”
“She has taken my vein and had her fill of my blood,” he replied in that same tranquil tone I couldn’t understand.
He had been most insistent on this earlier, and I had obeyed his wishes, though I didn’t understand them. And now that Kaitlyn had drunk from him, he seemed content—though I didn’t see how he could be. There was no way she could survive the coming ordeal.
The Trial of Flame is something every Drake male must go through on his tenth name-day—or his fifteenth if his Drake hasn’t manifested by age ten. Whichever age he is, the test is always the same. He has to stand in the center of a circle of adult Drakes and allow their flame to wash over him to prove his worth. The heat of the flames causes his own Drake to break forth automatically to protect him. In this way boys whose Drakes are late to manifest are often made to shift for the first time.
But Kaitlyn had no Drake to shift to—she had no second nature within herself. I was certain if she had, I would have felt it when we Bonded. You can’t hide something as big as a whole other creature you share your body with from the person you are Blood-Bonded to—it simply isn’t possible.
So I knew what was going to happen when the Drakes started shooting flames at her. She was going to go up like a torch, right before my eyes.
And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.
The only thing I could do was send a wave of love and devotion to her and a promise to try and take as much of the pain as I could.
“Oh, Kaitlyn,” I thought at her. “I love you, my L’lorna. I love you forever!”
96
Kaitlyn
I felt Ari sending me love and strength through our newly forged Bond and I was incredibly grateful for it. Without his love and the courage distilled in the blood of his Drake—which was flowing through me like electricity through a wire—I couldn’t have even stood upright when the men pushed me to the center of the vast marble floor and left me there.
As it was, I forced myself to stop shaking and stood with my chin lifted and my shoulders back. I might start screaming when the flames hit me—in fact, I was pretty sure I would—being burned alive freaking hurts. But I wouldn’t beg or plead. I wouldn’t let that be Ari’s last memory of me.
The men pushing me stepped back, out of range of the flames and I was alone. I heard Sanchez bellow an order—“Flame now!”
I closed my eyes and waited for the end.
But the end didn’t come.
The Fire did, though. I felt it pouring down on me like hot rain, enveloping me, licking at me like hungry tongues, setting my hair afire with light.
