Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
EVIE
“ W hen?” I asked in a deadly voice as I ran, the tears quickly drying on my cheeks. The dream had felt so frighteningly real.
Adara and Leesa raced at my side. Goose had stayed behind to protect the house.
He’d grabbed a kitchen knife and stood on the veranda with shaking knees, but a determined look on his face. He wasn’t letting anyone in or near our home.
Our feet whipped against the deserted streets of Phoenix Peak.
No alarm blared.
No guards rushed toward the main gates.
No buckets of water were desperately carried to drown the fire.
Nothing.
“I noticed the flames five minutes ago.” Adara marched with a vengeance.
She was furious.
So was I.
The smoke billowed toward the sky past the dark wall, forming a menacing cloud.
I circled my palm around my switchblade bracelet, making sure it was secure. “Are you sure it’s his house?”
Leesa struggled to keep up, cape billowing behind her. Her silky nightdress peeked from underneath and the ribbons she tied her curls with came undone. “Goose swears that’s the same place he delivered the medicine to.”
Same place.
The gods weren’t this vindictive and the odds were never this grim.
As soon as we reached the main gates, the twenty guards stationed there criss-crossed their spears, blocking our passage.
“Nobody leaves Phoenix Peak after dark,” the biggest and burliest of them sneered, thin lips curling.
He had only been gone a few hours, and the rules were already changing? I smelled something fouler than the ash coating the tops of the trees.
“Since when?” Adara sneered right back.
“It’s for the protection of the citadel residents.”
“A house is on fire!” Leesa pointed at the cloud of smoke turning more menacing by the second.
“It’s in the Capital,” the same guard said, completely serious. Though I noticed three of the ones behind him giving each other concerned looks. “This is Phoenix Peak.”
Leesa was so surprised by his callousness that her hand hung there limply.
“One of yours is in danger,” Adara hissed. “Do you have no shame, Myrcel?”
One of the guards from the back, raven hair curling from underneath his helmet, stepped to the side.
“We should open the gates,” he said, voice pure gravel.
“Remember the hierarchy!” Myrcel gripped his spear tighter. “The fire won’t pass through the wall.”
The absolute nerve of this selfish, foolish–
“We don’t have time for this.” I stepped forward, face hidden behind the same hood I’d borrowed for all my illicit escapades; Adara had insisted I wear it, but I was about to blow what little cover we had.
I didn’t wait to be denied again. I flicked my right wrist. Billows of blue light twirled around it.
A shudder passed through the guards. One of them touched his forehead and muttered a prayer.
“Let us pass,” I said calmly and tilted my chin up, enough for them to see my murderous gaze. I’d learned this tactic from him . Emotions had no place in confrontations. “Or I’ll burn a hole straight through the gates. If you won’t protect your own, we will.”
“These gates are ancient, nobody can do that.” Myrcel scoffed, but I heard the small quiver in his voice.
Oh, I definitely couldn’t even scorch a mark on that thick wood, held upright by gods-knew how many spells, both new and forgotten.
But the guards didn’t need to know that.
The tendrils grew. “Try me.”
Myrcel’s spear shook, but he didn’t budge. “We are on strict orders to not let anyone pass tonight–”
The gates groaned open. The curly-haired guard had activated the mechanism. Without the closed gates to give them courage, the rest of them dashed to the side as the three of us ran forward.
“What are you doing?” Myrcel hollered at him. “We were told not to! We have families, young children at home. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Find out his name,” I whispered to Adara. “We might need to protect him.”
Adara nodded grimly. “Pull your hood down. This might be a diversion to get you out of Phoenix Peak.”
I doubted it, but did as she asked.
The Blood Brotherhood throne was forever out of my reach. Dear Kaya would sit on it with her perfect face and her perfect voice and her perfect crown. I didn’t have enough political power for someone to go through all this trouble for me.
But vengeance had a weird way of twisting minds.
While Pheonix Peak was silent and indifferent, the Capital was in an uproar.
In the chaos, people ran and screamed, carrying sleepy children as far away from the mayhem as possible.
Water sloshed as countless buckets changed hands in a line of terrified and determined civilians. Angry flames licked the tops of the trees.
“The gates opened! Phoenix Peak is coming to our aid!” someone from the gathering crowd shouted with so much hope, my heart clenched.
No, Phoenix Peak was forbidden from coming.
It was just the three of us.
In this part of the Capital, the houses were pressed together in long lines. But the flames didn’t touch the buildings on either side, despite their owners’ loud, tear-soaked prayers that the threat wouldn’t spread.
Owyn’s house was a torch in the night.
Owyn, the only guard who’d ever been kind to me.
This was no accident.
Even in the disorder, everyone worked together to extinguish the flames. But they seemed to grow with each bucket of water splashed against them.
“That’s not right,” Adara mumbled as we weaved our way through the crowd.
It was alarmingly wrong. The fire had already devoured the wooden roof, but the entire house was lit up.
The walls were made of stone.
Stone didn’t burn .
An acrid, metallic scent clung to the air, choking the ones closest to the fire.
The wooden door had been turned to blazing cinders. The glass on the windows began to liquefy at the edges.
Impossible.
“Magic,” Adara hissed as we breached the crowd.
“Dark magic,” I mumbled, my lungs strained from the run and the smoke. The flames were too bright, danced too quickly. “Where’s Owyn?”
“More water!” a woman at the front of the line roared. Drenched in sweat, her long red hair clung to her back as she threw another bucket of water onto the door. The flames ate it up as if it was fuel. “They’re still inside!”
My heart dropped. Cold fury raced through my veins and ignited my power once more.
There was only one reason Owyn could have been targeted.
Me.
A child’s wail resounded from behind the wall of embers.
I have to protect them.
The pocket of magic inside burst open, flooding me.
Help me. Shield me to shield them.
Adara twisted toward me. “Don’t even think–”
Too late.
The blue tendrils didn’t sprint down my arms as usual. They burst from my chest, enveloping me in a protective cocoon, brighter than the flames.
Frightened gasps erupted around me; I was barely aware of them.
My power dipped into my very essence, sipping from my life force.
Magic always has a price.
This price was different.
My power muddled my thoughts, dragging me into a trance. I might as well have been one of the witnesses watching me turn into a blue torch.
No sensations.
No emotions.
No fear.
Only the crisp, clear goal of entering the burning house and saving the survivors.
Before Adara could stop me, I raced toward the burning building.