Chapter 14 #2
He didn’t look at her as he hurled the oil across the room, across the walls, across what little of her life remained. The fire roared louder, surging higher and faster.
“You see?” he rasped, backing toward the door. “It was always meant to end this way.”
Claire wrenched the door open, coughing as smoke poured into the corridor. “Mirela—now!”
Claire wrapped both arms around her, dragging her backward as the flames roared behind them. Mirela stumbled, her feet heavy, her gaze locked on the fire.
Ferron slipped past them. As he fled, Mirela heard glass breaking elsewhere, oil sloshing, the unmistakable sound of more fire being fed.
He was lighting the cathedral as he ran. He was purposely trapping them both inside.
The bells above them groaned, and Mirela’s heart sank at the thought of them being consumed by the fire as well.
Not her bells… God, please, not the bells.
Smoke thickened, rolling down the stairwell.
Claire hauled her forward, step by step, her voice steady even as panic clawed at it. “You’re with me. You’re here. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Mirela moved only because Claire dragged her.
They burst into the stairwell as smoke poured downward in waves.
It was thick, black and swallowing the stone steps ahead of them.
The heat pressed in from every side, the air burning her lungs with every breath she tried to steal.
Above them, wood splintered as beams groaned under the weight of fire.
“Mirela—stay with me,” Claire gasped, her voice already ragged, each word tearing at her throat.
She coughed hard, stumbling, and Mirela caught her instinctively, wrapping an arm around her waist, feeling how light she suddenly seemed.
The bells began to toll. Not rhythmically. Not properly.
They screamed.
The ropes burned above them snapping loose, the bells swinging wildly, shaking the tower to its bones.
A beam crashed down ahead of them, splintering stone, sending sparks skittering across the floor. Mirela flinched, panic clawing up her spine. Her vision tunneled as the flames surged closer, licking along the walls as it devoured tapestries, and saints’ statues.
Claire’s grip tightened painfully. “Look at me,” she wheezed. “Just me. Don’t stop. We need to run.”
Mirela’s eyes focused on Claire, on her wild hair, on her narrowed, half-open eyes. They needed to escape. She needed to push this fear away and save her. If she lost Claire, all her suffering would’ve been for nothing, and Mirela would not tolerate that.
Grabbing Claire’s hand tightly, they ran through falling ash and choking smoke and corridors collapsing in on themselves.
Mirela shielded Claire with her body when embers rained down. It wouldn’t be the first time her body had been in contact with fire. Back then, she was a child; now she was a woman, and if she had to burn once more, she would gladly do so to protect Claire.
As burning wood fell too close, she ignored the burning splinters on her back as the air itself seemed to turn against them. Her scars screamed, her breath stuttered, the past clawing at her mind, but still she moved.
She would not stop.
Not now.
Not for this.
The great doors loomed ahead, barely visible through the smoke. Claire sobbed, half relief, half terror as they stumbled forward, coughing, choking, dragging themselves the final distance.
Mirela slammed her shoulder against the grand doors. They burst out into the square and collapsed onto the stone, sucking in breath after breath, the night sky spinning above them. The fire was deafening now.
Notre-Dame burned, the tower groaning. Mirela turned to Claire, who coughed next to her, her body shaking. Pulling her to her side, Mirela moved her long raven hair away from her face and watched her gasp for air.
Mirela barely had time to register the relief before a scream tore through the square.
“Mirela!”
From the smoke and flame, a figure stumbled forward from the open doors of the cathedral. With robes ablaze, skin blackened and blistering, the stench of burning flesh sharp and unmistakable, Judge Claude Ferron staggered to the cathedral’s stairs, his arms reaching, his voice raw and broken.
“Mirela! Help me!” he screamed. “You owe me!”
Ferron’s unsteady steps tore through Mirela as his skin peeled, bubbling. Unable to see, he flailed his arms to where he thought she was.
Mirela’s body betrayed her as soon as she heard his words.
Her feet moved towards him, drawn by habit, more than an actual need to save him.
He didn’t deserve salvation, and yet, she couldn’t help but take another step, her hands shaking as she tried to think of something, anything that would save him.
Just as she was about to take yet another step, Claire wrapped both arms around Mirela, hauling her back and pressing her face hard into her shoulder.
“No,” Claire said fiercely, her voice cutting through the chaos. “There’s nothing you can do,” Claire said, blocking the sight and the sound of the man who had ruled her life with fear.
Mirela crumpled. She clutched Claire’s habit, holding her tightly. A cry tore from her chest, not from grief, not for him, but for the lie she had lived. For the mother she never knew. For the life that had almost ended in that tower.
Behind them, the cathedral groaned as stone cracked and crumbled. The bells gave one final fractured sound as fire roared.
People gathered around them to see the burning of Notre-Dame. Mirela recognized the travelers from the festival. Their faces were just as shocked and petrified by the sight. And yet, one of them ran to her and Claire, to place a coat over their shoulders.
Ferron’s screams were swallowed by the thunder of collapsing stone.
Mirela closed her eyes tightly, squeezing Claire to her. It wasn’t until she felt a soft kiss on the top of her head that Mirela pulled away.
Claire cradled Mirela’s jaw. Her face was streaked with soot, her emerald eyes were bright, a quiet promise moving between them. Claire was alive, she was there; she was real, and they were free.
Turning to face Ferron’s now burning corpse, Mirela sat on the ground of the square, Claire next to her.
“And he shall smite the wicked,” Mirela said, her voice steady, “and plunge them into the fiery pits.”
The cathedral fell, and with it, the last of his power.