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I walked on a ground of whitest, purest flames.
With every footfall, light beamed up my toes, ankles, knees, and thighs, illuminating bones and blood, replacing mortal flesh that I still carried in my mind’s eye.
A cresting wave of light drenched me.
Light everywhere.
In me.
Around me.
Through me.
Above me.
Rich and depthless, mysterious and luminous.
I shivered in the presence of pure, undiluted power.
But then, the ivory glow vanished beneath a crashing blanket of fire. Chiming bluebells and booming summer storms tore through the sky.
I fell.
Plummeted.
Falling, falling, falling, enveloped by yellow and gold, caught in the greedy arms of flames that welcomed me back with a billow of soot and smoke.
I landed heavily.
My knees smarted as I crunched against the sizzling grass. I struggled to catch a breath as my head swam with dizziness.
A snake of heat around my ears. “You should not have stepped into the light,” the fire seethed.
The burning tree I remembered from the last trance suddenly sprouted from the fire-licking ground, its boughs heavy with rippling cinder and leaves dripping endless ash. I was given form again, fire-graced and smouldering with coals.
I gasped and choked as the tree’s flaming trunk shot black with rot. Its roots in the earth fanned out like a spider web, all while its bark became a pyre.
Leaves turned brittle and wilted.
Branches broke and crashed to the fiery grass below, becoming tinder for a new kind of flame. A black kind. One that burned with ice instead of heat.
“The wolves tried to warn you. We tried to warn you. Solin will try to warn you. Even you have tried to warn you. Yet you are deaf and blind and ignorant. This is your final warning, Life Giver. Do what we say, and you might avoid what’s coming.”
Another gust of yellow and red flame, centring at the base of the now charred and blackened tree. It was no longer blooming and proud but a crumpled shell, its trunk hollow and leaves gone.
And, at the base of the tree, Solin appeared.
The Spirit Master raked a fiery hand through his flaming hair, dislodging a few embers until they glowed on the cinder robes he’d been given.
His glowing eyes cast up, catching mine.
Shock widened them; he scrambled upward. The grass smouldered where his feet stepped, simmering with dampened coals. “Runa!”
He knows my name...
I didn’t have time to speak as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me from the ground and causing us to spark and sizzle. “You found your way back to me.”
I nodded against his shoulder, my arms locking around his powerful, trim waist. I hadn’t realised how much I’d grown to care for this man. How much I yearned for someone to approve of me, to accept me, to see me and still choose me.
Tears seared my eyelashes as he pulled away and grinned. His teeth were the glowing heart of a flame. “I knew you’d return.”
“I’m so sorry I broke our hand hold, Solin.”
He scoffed and shook his head. “That’s in the past. I’ve been well cared for in my keeper’s arms these past few hours. I’ve had trances that last far longer than a night before.”
Worry pinched me.
How long does he think it’s been?
“Far longer than a night?” I asked carefully.
“Yes.” He smiled. “Sometimes I’ve stayed amongst the fire until well past daybreak.”
Doing my best to keep my voice level, I said, “It’s been longer than just a night, Solin.”
“Has it?” He raked both hands through his hair, the sleeves of his fire robes swinging with char. “We best wake then. Tral will be fretting.”
“Tral.” I caught his eyes. “Your brother.”
He scowled and lowered his hands. “How do you know that?” He looked around at the fire with a stern stare. “Did the flames tell you we are kin?”
I shook my head. “Tiptu told me. But Tral told me the rest—”
“How could you speak to the chief and chiefess while you’ve been in the fire with me?”
The fire chuckled around us. “Because your acolyte escaped.” A cyclone of cinders surrounded us before petering out by the dead tree. “She summoned a swarm of bees and flew out of our grasp. She used the water element to wash away our hold on her. She’s been with him ever since.”
“Him?” Solin asked.
“The one who walks with death and shadows.”
Solin froze. “You’ve been with the foreigner?”
“Darro,” the fire hissed, giving up all my secrets. “The Zenasha word for moth. Messenger of—”
“Death and darkness.” Solin rubbed his flickering arms.
Zenasha...was that the name of the tongue Darro and I spoke? The dead language that was no longer used?
Solin suddenly grabbed my shoulders, squeezing tight. “How long have you been with him, Runa?”
I delayed answering by asking, “How do you know my name?”
His lips thinned with impatience. “The fire speaks to me, even when you leave the very trance I conjured to aid you. The flames mentioned you’d gone on your own quest for knowledge. That you would return and not to worry. I assumed that meant you were still in the flame’s control, yet now it tells me you’ve been with him all along.”
