Chapter 10 #2
“I should walk the grounds,” I said suddenly, the need to move, to think, to process settling in my bones. “I’ve been meaning to explore more of the castle.”
Darian waved a dismissive hand. “Go. I’ll keep an eye on them. Someone should probably make sure they don’t accidentally declare war on the kitchen staff.”
“You sure?”
“Isara.” He fixed me with a look that was equal parts amused and exasperated. “I’ve survived raising Fionn this long. I think I can handle two more for an hour.”
Brynelle pushed herself to her feet, brushing grass from her leather pants. “Mind if I join you? I could use the walk, and there are parts of the grounds you haven’t seen yet.”
I nodded, grateful for the company. As we moved away from the training field, the sounds of delighted chaos faded behind us, replaced by the gentler sounds of wind through leaves and distant water.
“You know,” Brynelle said as we wandered down a cobblestone path that wound between ancient oaks, “I’ve been watching you with them... it’s beautiful. The way they look at you.”
“They look at me like I might disappear at any moment,” I said, the truth slipping out before I could stop it.
“No.” Brynelle’s response was soft but certain. “They look at you like you’re home. Like as long as you’re there, everything else will be okay.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I focused on the path ahead.
The gardens here were wilder than the manicured courtyards near the castle, more like controlled wilderness than formal landscaping.
Ivy-covered walls gave way to groves of silver-barked trees whose leaves shimmered with an otherworldly light.
“Darian seems happy,” I said, grasping for safer conversation.
Brynelle’s smile was genuine. “He is. The mating bond... it suits him. He was always meant to build something, to protect something. Having Eilrys and Fionn gives him purpose beyond just being Varyth’s second.”
“And you?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. “Do you have...?”
Something flickered across her face—too quick to read, too complex to understand. “I’m married,” she said. “But not... not mated. It’s different.”
Ice skittered under my skin. The distinction sat heavy between us, loaded with implications I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand. “Different how?”
“Marriage is a choice. A commitment.” Her fingers twisted together as we walked. “Mating is... inevitable. When it happens.”
“And if it doesn’t happen?”
Brynelle was quiet for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. “Some of us don’t need it.”
The path curved around a small pond where water lilies bloomed in impossible shades of blue and silver. Brynelle paused to trail her fingers through the water, her reflection wavering in the gentle ripples.
“Sometimes I think that’s enough,” she murmured, so quietly I almost missed it.
Before I could ask what she meant, the world exploded into violence.
A hand clamped over my mouth from behind, fingers digging into my jaw hard enough to bruise. My body reacted before my mind could catch up.
I bit down hard on the fingers pressed against my lips, tasting blood as my attacker cursed. My elbow shot backward, connecting with something soft, ribs, maybe stomach. The grip on me loosened just enough for me to twist, hands already reaching for weapons that weren’t there.
Three of them. No, four. All dressed in dark leathers, faces hidden behind masks.
Beside me, Brynelle was fighting like fury incarnate, her wings snapping wide as wind howled around her. One of the attackers went flying, slammed into a tree with enough force to crack bark. But even as I watched, two more were on her, and gods—
Ropes. They had ropes marked with symbols that glowed with sickly light, and the moment they touched Brynelle’s skin, she screamed.
Her magic cut off like someone had severed a lifeline. The wind died. Her wings folded, and she hit the ground hard, thrashing against bindings that seemed to burn her even as they held.
I lunged, but hands caught me again, more of them now, too many to fight. Rough fingers dug into my arms with bruising force.
“You sure it’s her?” one of them hissed, his voice muffled behind the mask.
“Has to be. The scent matches the one we found at the Veil.”
These weren’t random bandits.
They were here for me.
“Check for the others,” another commanded, and my heart stopped beating entirely. “There was more than one scent at the crossing point.”
No.
Not just me. They wanted Mireth and Eryx.
My children.
My babies who were laughing and playing with dragons just minutes ago, covered in soot and joy and the kind of innocence I’d fought to preserve through a year of hell.
The panic crested into something else. Something molten and furious and absolutely fucking feral.
“The children aren’t here,” I snarled against the hand clamped over my mouth, biting down again when the bastard didn’t let go.
“We’ll find them,” the leader said with casual certainty that made my vision go red. “Ashterion has plans for all of you.”
Like hell.
The fury wasn’t mine anymore. It was something older. Something that had been sleeping in my marrow since I crossed the Veil, coiled tight and patient, waiting for exactly this moment to wake up hungry.
The thing beneath my skin roared.
And I erupted.
Black flames exploded from every inch of my body.
They poured out like I was bleeding darkness, like someone had cracked my ribs open and all the rage I’d been swallowing for a year came flooding out in a torrent of shadow and cold fire.
They didn’t burn me. They should have. Fire was fire, and flesh was flesh, but these flames felt like an extension of my rage, my terror, my absolute refusal to let anyone touch my children.
The flames spread across the ground in serpentine waves, climbing trees, wrapping around flowers that wilted and blackened at their touch. The air itself seemed to dim, reality bending to accommodate the fury bleeding out of me in frozen, hungry torrents.
One of the masked bastards was screaming. The sound cut off abruptly when my fire found him.
He didn’t get back up.
The flames wanted more.
They hissed it in my bones, in the spaces between heartbeats where reason used to live. More. More. More.
Feed us the ones who’d threaten children. Feed us the ones who’d drag innocents to shadow lords with plans. Feed us everyone who thought they could take what wasn’t theirs and walk away breathing.
The fire didn’t care about mercy.
Neither did I.
The hands holding me jerked away with screams that tore through the afternoon air like broken glass. I caught a glimpse of the one who’d been covering my mouth—his gloves were ash, his fingers blistered and raw where the flames had touched him.
Good.
The fire avoided Brynelle entirely, flowing around her like water around a stone.
It reached for her attackers like it was hunting.
“What the fuck—” one of them started to say.
He didn’t get to finish. The flames found him, wrapped around his legs, and he hit the ground screaming. The others were backing away now, but there was nowhere to go. The fire had surrounded us, contained us, and it was hungry for the blood of anyone who thought they could threaten what was mine.
The flames roared higher, and I felt a shift in the very air around us. The garden was changing, reality bending to accommodate the fury pouring out of me. Shadows deepened. Even the water in the pond turned black as ink.
A figure slammed into the ground beside me.
Winged. Male. Unfamiliar.
He was tall, powerfully built in that way that suggested he could snap necks as easily as breathing.
One side of his head was shaved close to the skull, while the other bore hair that shimmered between midnight blue and indigo, falling past his shoulders in a cascade broken by tight, intricate braids.
He took one look at the carnage around us. At the bodies wreathed in my flames, at Brynelle writhing against her bindings, at me standing in the centre of it all like some nightmare queen, and smiled.
It wasn’t a nice smile.
A blur of white hair and fury hit the ground a heartbeat later. Shaelith, her usually perfect composure replaced by something that looked suspiciously like bloodlust.
She didn’t pause to assess. She sprinted to Brynelle’s thrashing form, sliding to her knees beside her.
The winged male moved like liquid death. His blade sang as it arced through the air, the steel gleaming with an oily iridescence that made the air around it shimmer.
One of the masked bastards tried to run.
The male caught him mid-stride, that massive blade taking his head clean off in a spray of arterial crimson that painted the burning grass like abstract art.
I couldn’t stop it.
The flames poured from my skin like I was bleeding starlight and shadow, each pulse stronger than the last. They reached for the remaining attackers with serpentine grace, beautiful and terrible and so fucking hungry I could taste their need on my tongue.
One of the masked bastards was trying to crawl away, his legs charred, leaving a trail of blood and burned leather. The fire found him anyway.
“Please,” he gasped, the word wet and broken. “Please, I have—”
The flames didn’t care what he had. They cared what he’d wanted. What he’d planned to do to my children.
Shaelith’s hands worked quickly at Brynelle’s bindings, her fingers finding the knots and pressure points with the efficiency of someone who’d done this before. The ropes fell away like dead snakes, their sickly glow fading as they hit the ground.
Brynelle rolled over, gasping, her dark skin marked with angry red welts where the cursed ropes had touched her. But she was breathing. Alive. That was what mattered.
The fire disagreed. It wanted to find more enemies, more threats to burn. It pressed against my ribs like a caged animal, desperate to break free and hunt.
“Isara.”
The name came from behind me, low and careful, like someone trying not to spook a wounded animal.
I didn’t turn. Couldn’t. The flames were climbing higher now, reaching for the sky like they wanted to set the very air on fire.
“Isara, you need to stop.”
Varyth. Of course it was Varyth. Come to watch me lose control, come to see exactly what kind of monster he’d pulled from the Veil.
“Listen to me.” His voice was closer now, though I couldn’t hear his footsteps over the roar of flames. “The fire is yours. It obeys you, not the other way around. Draw it back.”
I tried. Gods, I tried. But the flames had tasted blood and freedom, and they didn’t want to go back to whatever dark corner of my soul they’d crawled out of.
They wanted to burn everything. Everyone.
Until the world was nothing but ash and the memory of those who’d thought they could take my children from me.
Cool mist wrapped around me like silk, threading through the flames. Not fighting the fire—claiming it. Absorbing it. Drawing it back into whatever abyss it had crawled from.
The relief was instantaneous and devastating.
My knees buckled. The world tilted sideways, reality reshuffling itself into something that made sense again.
Strong arms caught me before I could hit the ground.
Varyth’s chest was solid against my back, his heartbeat steady and sure beneath the fine fabric of his shirt. The mist poured from him, cool and soothing, wrapping around us both like a cocoon.
“Easy,” he murmured against my hair, his voice rough. “I’ve got you.”
My vision swam, black spots dancing like burned moths behind my eyelids. But through the haze, I could see Shaelith kneeling beside Brynelle, her white hair a stark contrast against the charred grass.
“Get her to the healers,” Varyth snapped, cutting through the ringing in my ears. “Now.”
Shaelith didn’t argue. She slipped her arms under Brynelle’s shoulders, hauling her upright with surprising strength for someone so slight. Brynelle was conscious but shaky, her iridescent wings dragging behind her as they moved toward the castle.
The winged male was crouched over one of the bodies, the one whose head was attached, at least. His massive hands moved with surprising delicacy as he searched through charred leather and ash.
“No insignia,” he called out, his words carrying across the ruined garden. “No marks. No identifying features.”
“Find out how they got onto the grounds,” Varyth ordered, his tone arctic with controlled fury. “Someone had to let them in.”
“My children,” I gasped, struggling against Varyth’s hold. “Where are—”
“Safe.” His arms tightened around me, steady and unbreakable. “They’re safe, Isara. Still playing with Dariandralis’ boy. They don’t even know anything happened.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” His voice was gentler now, some of that glacial control melting away. “Dariandralis has them. They’re protected.”
The relief hit me harder than the exhaustion. My children were safe. Laughing, playing, innocent of the nightmare that had just tried to tear our world apart.
The garden spun around me, reality tilting and swaying like I was standing on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. Varyth’s mist clung to my skin, cool and soothing, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the tide of blackness creeping in from the edges of my vision.
The last thing I heard was Varyth’s rumble of my name and the sound of my own heartbeat slowing to match the rhythm of something ancient and terrible that had finally awakened inside me.
Then, nothing.