Chapter 3
Serafina
I’m being carried. Strong arms are firmly wrapped around me, hugging me into a warm chest. A chest that smells of hazelnuts and honey. A scent I’ve loved since I was seven years old.
Char.
My eyes blink open. His sharp jaw hovers over me as his legs move one after the other, causing me to gently bob up and down.
Char.
He doesn’t see that I’m awake.
“Char,” I finally say his name out loud, but it comes out as barely a whisper, barely a breath, but he stills all the same.
His footsteps come to a halt, but he doesn’t look at me.
“Char.” I brush my fingers against his lightly stubbled cheek.
Pain shoots through my arm, so much so that I almost miss how he shivers at the contact. “Char, what’s wrong?”
He turns his head, so he’s looking down at me. His breathing is heavy as he sets me on the ground.
I know we’re not far from people anymore. I can hear voices coming from the end of the street. He must have been carrying me for a while.
“What’s wrong? Are you serious, Serafina?”
The way he says my name jars me, like a slap to the face, the sting so unexpected it takes me a while to process his question.
“Well, I mean, I know what’s wrong. We were just attacked by those fucking dogs, but—”
“Just attacked? That’s what you think is wrong?” His fingers find his hair, and he pulls. “How long have you known?” His question throws me because how could I have possibly known that they were following me? Following us? “How long have you known, Serafina?”
I shake my head, still confused by his words. “Stop calling me that,” I snap because he never uses my full name, and he’s saying it like it’s a slur, like he’s disgusted.
“Serafina?” he questions. “It’s your name, so why wouldn’t I call you it?”
“Because you don’t call me Serafina. To you, I’m Fi. I’ve always been Fi.” My voice is weak, and I hate it. I hate it because it confirms everything I know he already thinks about me.
I am not strong, I am not capable, and I will not survive.
He exhales harshly, a bitter groan escaping his lips. “Okay, Fi.” But the way he says the nickname makes me feel even worse. “How long have you known you’re an Essentari?”
Suddenly, realization strikes, and I’m furious.
“You think I knew? And kept it from you? My best friend?” My voice rises as I force myself to my feet. Pain wracks my body, blinding and all-consuming, but I grit my teeth and push through it before jabbing my finger into his naked chest.
Wait.
Where the hell did his shirt go?
“I don’t know. You tell me.” He grabs my finger and shoves it away.
“Screw you, Char.” My hands curl into fists, trembling at my sides. “Screw you.”
“Yeah, Fi? That’s all you have to say?”
“I’ve never lied to you. Never. Why would I start now?” I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me. Like he doesn’t trust me. Like he doesn’t know me.
“Maybe you’re gunning for the top spot.” He clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “Maybe you’re more ambitious than I ever gave you credit for. Maybe you plan to—”
“Oh, will you just shut up!” I yell. “If I’m an Essentari—”
“If?” He barks out a harsh laugh, one full of so much hostility and rage that I want nothing more than to slap him right across the face, if only to knock some damn sense into him.
This isn’t Char.
This isn’t my Char.
“You’re kidding, right?” he continues. “I just saw you turn into a fucking ball of fire. Fire, Fi! Burned your damn clothes to ash. By the gods, I could barely touch you after you fainted.” He grinds the words out, and my eyes go wide, panicked.
I scan my body, which is now covered by his shirt, and my cheeks flame at what that means. I was naked.
Char saw me naked.
“You’re an Essentari. And not just any Essentari, a Pyroflame.” He turns away from me, resting his arm against the brick wall and leaning into it.
A Pyroflame. An Essentari that can harness the element of fire.
Our village has never had one before, and we’ve been thankful for it.
Pyroflames are known to be unstable. Those who form a connection with an element tend to have similar qualities.
We don’t know much about how it works, but I know fire is uncontrollable.
It’s volatile…just like I am. Of course, of all the elements, this is the one I would resonate with most.
Lucky me.
“Well, I didn’t know,” I say softly, moving my fingers to massage my temples, my gaze fixed on the dry dirt beneath my feet.
Am I really a Pyroflame?
How is that possible?
I’ve only ever felt…normal. No, not normal. Weak. Pathetic. Certainly not powerful like the Essentari are.
Those who command the elements are strong. They have to be in order to wield such power, which is probably why everything hurts so much. My entire body aches like never before, as if channeling the flames pushed each muscle past its breaking point.
Char is quiet for a long time, and my thoughts—my questions—start to consume me.
“You need to leave,” he finally says, and my entire body tenses.
“What?” My eyes snap to his back.
“You heard what Norin said. He knows what you are. And it won’t be long until everyone in our year knows it, too.” He lets out a long sigh. “You won’t make it to trial day. They’re going to kill you. Tonight. Tomorrow. I don’t know when. But they will kill you, Fi.”
He turns to face me. I can’t read his expression. Is he angry? Scared? I can’t tell, and with Char, I can always tell.
“But…but I have nowhere to go. I…I won’t survive if I leave.”
Life is difficult enough inside our village perimeter, and beyond it is nothing.
Just dry sand, dead trees, savage beasts, and cracks so deep they seem to bleed darkness—a permanent reminder of the earthquake that shook our entire village the night I was born.
The one my mother blames for my abrupt entrance into the world.
I arrived nearly two months early, the stress of the tremors sending my mother into labor. I barely survived my first few weeks of life, my muscles so weak and my bones too frail. Almost twenty-one years later, and not much has changed.
How could I of all people live beyond the perimeter? I’ve ventured out there only a handful of times to find ingredients for my balms. But I’ve never once crossed the Great Chasm. I’ve never seen the world that exists beyond the fracture.
“You won’t survive if you stay,” he emphasizes. “And your element won’t keep you safe. You’ll never learn to control it with that fucking temper of yours.”
I want to argue with him. I want to tell him that I can learn how to harness the fire and keep my temper in check. That I can master the element.
But I don’t.
Because deep down, I know he’s right.
“Besides, you probably killed that man back there. If Norin doesn’t come for you, the Enforcers surely will.”
A sickly feeling settles in my stomach, and I think I might throw up. My hands find the side of a building and I heave, desperately needing to breathe, to force this feeling away.
This guilt.
This agony.
Did I really kill him? He was still alive when we left him there, wasn’t he?
“But—” I clear my throat as I blink back my emerging tears. “It was self-defense. Surely that must count for something?” I glance at him over my shoulder.
“You really think that matters?” He shakes his head as if I couldn’t be more daft, more unaware, and delusional.
“It doesn’t. Norin will twist the narrative.
Who knows what he’ll tell them. The Enforcers will come for you, he’ll make sure of it, and when they do, they won’t care what you have to say. ”
“But you’re the mayor’s son. You can tell them, tell them what happened! Tell them I had no other choice!”
“It won’t do any good. You need to leave,” he says again, and my palms start to sweat because where would I possibly go? “And I’m coming with you.”
“With me?” I ask, knowing I couldn’t have possibly heard him right.
“That’s what I said.” His jaw locks, and I can tell he’s serious.
“You can’t evade the trial, Char. You’ll be hunted. Not by Norin and his crew, but by the Enforcers. Evading the trials is treason.” Char knows that.
“Prince Ryjax never had to go through the trials. He was exempt. For every single one, he was exempt. It’s not bloody right.”
“He’s a royal,” I say, not because I think that means he shouldn’t have to pass the trials, but because it’s a fact.
The royals and the Elites are always exempt.
Always.
“Well, I’m the mayor’s son.”
“It’s not the same, and you know it.” I take a step toward him. “Besides, you’re slated for the number one spot. You can’t throw that opportunity away. I won’t let you.”
“I’m not giving you a choice. You won’t last a week out there. Not without me.”
He’s right. Of course, he is. I just said the same thing myself. But when he says it, it sounds so insulting, so condescending, and I have to bite my cheek to keep from telling him that.
“Go home. Pack a bag. Make sure it doesn’t weigh much, and meet me at the bridge,” he says, referencing our secret hideout. A spot we found when we were kids in one of the abandoned sections of the village. A spot that’s always felt safe because no one else knows about it.
“But, Char—”
“Go, Fi, we don’t have a lot of time.” He turns to leave.
“What did you mean when you said that you love me?” The words pour out of me before I have time to think them through. But they’re out there now. I can’t take them back, and neither can he.
He stops dead in his tracks, but he doesn’t turn around. “You know what I meant.” His voice is steady. Calm. Almost too calm.
“I don’t, though.” I want to tell him to look at me, to face me. But I can’t.
Instead, I sway my foot back and forth, brushing the dust-covered ground, and wait for him to respond.
Suddenly, he spins. His gaze connects with mine then drops to my mouth.
“Yes, you do.”
He takes two long strides, and then he’s kissing me.
Lips that have always looked warm and soft, feel cold and hard. I freeze, and he pulls away, putting a small amount of space between us.
His eyes bounce between mine, and then he kisses me again.
I’ve been kissed before. Once, when I was eighteen and had just survived the second trial. Those of us who made it through lost ourselves in celebration, myself included. I watched Char sneak off with a beautiful blonde, and I had no intention of spending the night alone.
So I found a boy I had talked to a handful of times, and I kissed him.
I don’t remember much about that night, only that I fumbled my way through it, passing out from too much drink not long after the kissing began.
Char found me the next morning, still tangled in the other boy’s arms, leading him to make all sorts of assumptions, assumptions I refused to correct because the hypocrisy made me see red.
He was furious, which only made me furious, especially since I knew his night had not been so innocent.
Now, every time I see that boy, he darts in a different direction.
Char’s sharp teeth press down on my bottom lip, the sensation bringing me back to the present.
I open my mouth on a silent breath, and his tongue slides in with a greedy moan.
Tasting me.
Exploring me.
But then, he pulls away again.
His face is still close, his eyes penetrating as he sucks in a shaky breath.
“I’ll meet you at the bridge. Midnight. Don’t be late.”
And then he’s gone.