Chapter 19 Elowen
ELOWEN
The screams tear through the square like a blade. For one suspended moment I do not understand what I am seeing. The flames that began as a thin spill of lantern oil have leapt outward in a rush, licking hungrily across the dry grass and the wooden beams of the nearest buildings.
The night fills with sudden heat and chaos as villagers stumble backward in confusion, their earlier anger dissolving into frantic panic. Someone knocks over another lantern in their haste, and the fragile line between accident and catastrophe shatters instantly.
Fire spreads faster than thought.
A man near the square cries out as sparks catch the hem of his coat.
The fabric ignites with terrifying speed, flames racing upward along his sleeve as he tries desperately to beat them out with his hands.
The smell of burning cloth and smoke fills the air, thick and choking, and the sound of terrified shouting rises all around me.
The bond explodes.
The terror rushing through my chest feels like a living thing clawing its way free as the sight of those flames sears itself into my mind. Every instinct in my body screams the same thought over and over again.
They are burning. Someone is going to die. His power answers immediately.
The heat surging through the tether no longer feels like the warmth I once learned to control. It roars through my veins with force, responding to my fear before my thoughts can catch up with it. I feel it gathering beneath my skin, rising like a storm breaking through the surface of deep water.
“No,” I whisper.
The word trembles as it leaves my mouth. Across the square another building ignites. And now this is my fault. This fire is started by me.
The fire spreads across the roof of the cooper’s shop with terrifying speed, the dry timber catching instantly as the power races outward through the village like lightning striking oil-soaked ground. Flames surge upward in great twisting columns that paint the night sky orange and gold.
People begin to run. The square dissolves into complete chaos as villagers scatter in every direction, their frightened cries echoing through the streets as more sparks leap from roof to roof.
The abyssal flame does not behave like normal fire.
It moves with frightening purpose, devouring wood and straw faster than any ordinary blaze should allow.
I feel exactly why. My fear feeds it.
“Oh gods,” I breathe.
A woman screams somewhere to my left as part of a roof collapses inward with a thunderous crash. A man tries desperately to drag a water barrel toward the spreading flames, but the heat is already too intense for him to approach.
“This is my fault.”
The realization slams into me with brutal clarity. Every fire. Every building. Every terrified face running through the smoke. It is all answering me.
The guilt hits harder than the fear.
“No, no, no—”
Strong arms close around me suddenly. Threxian.
His wings unfold in a wide protective arc, shielding my body from the worst of the heat as sparks rain down across the square. The hellish glow along the edges of his wings flickers in violent reflection of the firestorm spreading through Briarthorn.
“Elowen,” he says.
His voice cuts through the roaring panic inside my head. But it is not enough. Another scream rises somewhere in the burning streets.
I see a figure stumble through the smoke with flames licking dangerously close to their feet, and the sight sends a fresh surge of terror tearing through my chest.
“They’re burning!” I cry, my voice breaking as I struggle against his hold. “Threx, make it stop!”
His arms tighten around me.
“I am trying,” he says quietly.
But I feel the truth through the bond. The hell fire no longer belongs to him. It belongs to the fear racing through my veins.
The flames leap again. A barn at the far edge of the square erupts into sudden fire, the entire structure catching with terrifying speed as the power spreads outward across the village.
I choke on the smoke filling the air.
“Stop!” I scream at the flames themselves, my voice raw with desperation. “Please, stop!”
But the fire does not listen. Because it was never answering my voice. It was answering my fear.
Threxian pulls me closer against his chest as another explosion of sparks showers down from a collapsing rooftop nearby. His wings fold tighter around us, creating a barrier between my trembling body and the hell-born chaos tearing through the square.
“Look at me,” he says firmly.
I shake my head helplessly.
“I can’t—”
“Elowen.”
The command in his voice forces my gaze upward. His eyes burn with fierce intensity as he cups the back of my head, holding me steady despite the hard trembling running through my body.
“Breathe.”
The word reaches through the storm of panic tearing at my thoughts. For a moment I cannot obey. All I can hear are the screams. All I can see are the flames spreading through Briarthorn.
“People are going to die,” I whisper.
The guilt twists through my chest like a blade.
“This is my fault.”
“No,” he says.
But I feel the hesitation beneath the word. Because we both know the truth. Another building collapses somewhere in the distance.
The ground trembles slightly beneath the impact as a tower of sparks erupts into the night sky. The fire spreads faster with every second, leaping across the rooftops of Briarthorn like a living creature unleashed.
The control I fought so hard to learn is gone. Completely.
The flames are no longer answering anything but my terror. I cling to Threxian’s arms as the village burns around us, the weight of the destruction pressing down on my chest until it becomes difficult to breathe.
“I can’t stop it,” I whisper.
The words come out broken.
“I can’t stop it.”
The words seem to vanish into the smoke before they fully leave my mouth. My hands clutch at the front of Threxian’s shirt as though holding onto him might somehow anchor the storm raging inside my chest, but the power surging through the bond refuses to quiet.
It pours through my veins with relentless force, answering every terrified thought that flashes through my mind.
Each scream that echoes through the square feeds it further, each collapsing beam and spreading flame driving the panic deeper until the fire feels less like something outside of me and more like an extension of the fear I can no longer contain.
Another roof collapses across the street with a deafening crack of splintering timber.
The crowd below scatters in blind desperation as pieces of flaming wood crash into the street.
A pair of villagers drag an elderly man away from the falling debris while someone nearby shouts for water that will never arrive in time.
The sight tears something loose inside me.
“I didn’t mean this,” I whisper hoarsely, though the words sound hollow even to my own ears.
My gaze drifts helplessly across the burning square, searching desperately for some sign that the destruction will slow, that the flames will falter if I simply force myself to breathe the way Threxian taught me.
But every attempt at calm shatters the moment another terrified voice rises through the smoke.
The fear refuses to release its hold. I feel his power answering it again, gathering with renewed strength beneath my ribs as the panic spirals outward. The flames surge higher across the rooftops, twisting into enormous columns that illuminate the entire village in a shifting sea of firelight.
“Elowen,” Threxian says again, his voice lower now.
I finally notice the strain beneath it. At first I think it is simply the tension of the chaos around us, but then I feel something else through the bond—a sharp, burning resistance pushing against the hell fire flooding the square.
Threxian is fighting it. Not the villagers. Not the guards. The fire itself.
His wings tighten protectively around us, yet his body is rigid with effort. Hell-born energy coils around him in violent currents as he tries to choke the spreading flames, forcing them back with sheer will.
And it is hurting him. The realization hits me hard.
I can see the backlash tearing through him, the power rebelling turbulently against the restraint he is forcing upon it. The heat around us pulses and twists erratically, flames bending toward him only to surge outward again as the fear fueling them refuses to diminish.
“Threx,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
He exhales slowly through clenched teeth, his arms tightening around me as another building ignites across the square.
“I am trying,” he says.“I really am!”
The words sound strained. Pain flashes through the bond again, sharp and unmistakable. Panic surges instantly in response.
“You’re hurting yourself,” I gasp, pulling back enough to see his face.
Abyssal flame reflects in his eyes as he struggles to contain the chaos spreading through Briarthorn. The effort is written across every line of his body, every tense movement of his wings as he forces the flames away from us.
“It does not matter,” he replies quietly.
But it does matter.
The realization that he is suffering because of the fire I unleashed sends another wave of terror crashing through my chest. The bond reacts instantly, the infernal current surging outward with renewed force as the fear multiplies inside me.
Across the square, another house erupts into flame.
“They’re running,” I whisper faintly, my eyes following the terrified figures fleeing into the smoke. “They’re trying to get away from it.”
Another explosion of sparks erupts as the cooper’s shop collapses inward, the flames devouring the remaining beams in seconds.
My breath catches painfully.
“They’re running from me.”
The truth crashes down with brutal clarity. Everything I fought to prevent is happening anyway. The entire village is burning because I was afraid.
And now the only person trying to stop it is the one person my fear is hurting the most.
This is no longer something I can control.
It is only beginning.