Chapter 59
EMBERLINE
Dante had left an hour ago to face my uncle, and I was a ball of raw nerves, pacing and obsessing about everything that could go wrong.
“Don’t wreck the place while I’m gone,” he’d teased, brushing a kiss over my forehead, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Such a normal, husband-wife thing to do, and something inside my chest had ignited.
I couldn’t stop smiling as I rifled through his desk, that little ember beneath my heart burning bright. The wood was dark and scarred, polished to a shine around the edges by centuries of use. Dante’s scent clung to everything—smoke and leather, the metallic undertone of his magic.
The top drawers weren’t even locked, which was practically a written invitation to snoop.
I pulled out ledgers. Precise columns of numbers, assets, shipments, transfers.
I ran my fingers over the handwriting, so perfect, so at odds with my feral husband.
All the Dominico Empire’s dirty little secrets, all written out in neat lines, page after page of illicit dealings with all the Pentarch families… including mine.
A tremor shivered through the floor beneath my bare feet.
I froze, fingers still on the page.
The stones around me groaned, like they were under tremendous strain. The hairs along my arms lifted, and an all-too-familiar prickle crawled down my spine.
The wards were failing.
Even the air tasted wrong—ozone, metal, and something bitter, like burnt sage. My body reacted before my brain caught up; I shoved the ledgers back into the drawer, slammed it shut, and bolted for the stairs leading to the training room.
Dante’s house might have been old and crumbling, but his magic was meticulous. The power of his wards was still humming against my skin, but I stumbled beneath another blast of crushing pressure, something warm trickling down my face, and when I reached up…
Blood.
By the time I reached the top floor, the wards were collapsing.
No, no, no. I had to get out of here, but I needed my weapons…
I shoved through the training room door, the smell of sweat and steel and dust hitting me in the face. My favorite boots were still by the door, and I slipped my feet in, racing toward the pile of weapons—Dante’s blades, my knives, when the floor beneath me buckled.
Warding sigils carved into the beams overhead burned dull red, pulsing like heartbeats.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” I breathed just as the next tremor knocked me off my feet, and I careened straight into a stand of swords, hands sliding along blades, searing pain slicing up through my palm, my arm, as I battled to keep myself upright.
“Fuck,” I stared down at the gash from wrist to thumb, blood spurting from a vein. The entire room shifted, and I stumbled sideways.
I don’t have time to wrap this wound.
I have to get out of here.
Dust and splintered wood drifted from the ceiling beams in a lazy curtain.
With my good hand, I snatched the closest blades I could reach—two throwing knives and a short sword—and backed toward the center of the room, where the magic was the strongest. What would happen if I dematerialized through failing wards?
Bad things, probably.
Fuck, I wish I knew how magic worked.
“Where are you, Dante?” I whispered, even though he couldn’t hear me. A stupid, useless plea, as the sigils overhead flared white-hot, then guttered out completely. Another snap of intense pressure sent a fresh gush of blood seeping from my nose and ears, and my head filled with panic.
These protections were keyed to my husband’s power.
Was Dante dead? Oh gods, was that why they were failing?
That ember that had burned so brightly in my heart went out, coldness seeping through me like Death itself had made a reappearance. He can’t be dead, he can’t. I’d know. I’d feel it, and he promised he wouldn’t leave me.
The house shuddered, stone and wood protesting, glass shattering as windows blew out from the ground floor up. Power gathered outside, like a storm about to break. I gathered enough pitiful magic to ghost myself out of there, not caring about the risks. Get me somewhere, anywhere but here.
I opened my eyes.
Still in the training room, still bleeding like a stuck pig, my ears ringing. Fuck.
I was too frightened, too injured, or bleeding too badly to dematerialize. I was going to fucking die here because I was weak and powerless. Then the world condensed into a single breath, as though it was being squeezed between the hands of the gods.
The entire house—the world—dissolved into chaos. All around me, fire and black smoke boiled, like I was trapped inside a caldera, about to be incinerated.
I closed my eyes, heat scalding my face, surrounded by the acrid scent of burning hair and skin.
Thick, putrid smoke opened up like twin edges of a tattered veil flapping in a violent wind to reveal that beckoning darkness that haunted my nightmares… and now, my days.
I searched for my parents, some part of me yearning to be folded into their arms.
A figure ripped free of that darkness, flying, sprinting toward me from another dimension, and Nico Draconi—dark hair wind-tangled, eyes burning like pale fire—gripped my arm.
This isn’t real, I told myself, his fingers digging into my skin, his cherry-sweet scent wrapping around me.
This cannot possibly be real. I must already be dead.
“Stop gaping and close your mouth, principessa,” he snapped, already dematerializing. “And hang on.”
Smoke and heat and flame exploded all around us as we vanished—too fucking slowly—and I barely had time to suck in a final, searing breath before the world yanked sideways.
Nico wrenched me through a tear in the sky, moving faster than I’d ever moved before.
Cold, razor-sharp air carved along my skin, pressure squeezing my bones until I thought they’d snap. The world turned inside out, streets and rooftops smearing, and for one endless heartbeat, there was nothing but the sensation of falling.
Then my boots hit red tile, and the world slammed back into place.
I stumbled, knees buckling. Nico’s arm locked around my middle, keeping me upright as the rooftop beneath us tilted wildly.
I gagged on the bile clawing up my throat, everything in my stomach coming up in a violent wave.
He held me in his arms as I purged my stomach, murmuring to me the entire time.
Finally, I lifted my head, forcing my soot-filled eyes to focus.
We were three, maybe four streets away, perched on the sagging roof of some narrow house. The air tasted like smoke—
“Don’t look, Emberline,” Nico warned, his breath warm against my ear as he turned me away from the destruction already branded into my brain.
Dante’s house—our house—was gone.
I wrenched free to watch flames roar like a white-hot beast punching through ancient wood and stone.
The flames glowed blue, fragments of Dante’s magic scattering like dying stars.
A second explosion sent a smoke cloud spiraling upward, before the concussive blast slammed the breath from my lungs, Nico grabbing me to keep me from falling.
“Oh gods,” I whispered. That had been my house. My things. The bed where Dante and I made love, the desk with his secrets, the training room with all my weapons—
Gone. In less than a minute.
“Whoever did this is dead,” Nico growled, voice brutally calm, dirt and ash coating his face.
Terror punched through me, cold and sharp. “Dante.” His name scraped out of my burned throat. “Was he—?”
Nico’s hands around my arms tightened. “He should still be at the palazzo with your uncle.”
“You don’t know that.” I yanked away, but he held on, his gaze slightly wild as he looked me over, breath coming faster, heart racing as fast as mine.
Then his nose flared, eyes narrowing on my sliced-open hand.
“Saints, you’re hurt. Fuck, Emberline, you’re burned.
And your hand is bleeding. Bad. Here, let me.
” He ripped off the bottom of his shirt, dropped to his knees in front of me, and bound up my hand, fingers deft and gentle as a strange numbness took over.
Dante can’t be dead. He can’t be.
Why am I so numb? Shock. I’m going into shock.
“He wasn’t inside, I’m sure of it,” Nico insisted, watching my face as if expecting me to collapse into tears.
There were mortal voices rising from the street as neighbors stumbled out, still in nightclothes, screaming. A few brave humans hurled buckets of water at the edge of the flames, as if something so vicious could be tamed.
“We were attacked,” I realized, my foggy brain like soup. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“I was close by. Dante asked me to keep an eye on you.” Nico’s gaze never left the blaze.
The orange light carved hard angles into his face, bringing out every regal line.
He was coated in black soot, the ends of his hair frazzled, his clothing ruined.
“Whoever did this invested an obscene amount of power to ensure complete destruction. This wasn’t a message. ”
I swallowed. “It was an execution.”
“Yes, it was.” Smoke curled up into the sky, a dark banner everyone in this city would see.
A public execution.
My pulse hammered in my ears. Marcello and Giovanni… they knew.
They knew Dante was a threat. As far as my uncle was concerned, I was already out of the picture, but my husband… he was a loose end to be eliminated. Another surge of blinding fear choked me.
“Don’t look like that. Dante is unkillable.” Nico stated this like an indisputable fact. “He survived the pits for fifty years, Ember. It will take more than a few blocks of C-4 to get rid of him. He’s still at the palazzo, putting on his wronged-husband act for Giovanni.”
I stewed over that for a moment and decided he was probably right.
But I had to see him in the flesh to know for sure.
“What do you mean… keeping an eye on me?”
Nico’s mouth curled. “I was on a nearby roof when the ward fell, principessa. In case you decided to take matters into your own hands again.”
I must have looked offended because he threw his head back and laughed, teeth bright against his filthy face.
“Your husband doesn’t trust you as far as he can throw you.
Neither do I. And I watched you snoop through his desk.
” He waggled his burned-off eyebrows at me.
“Find anything interesting? Love notes from old girlfriends?”
“I almost died in an explosion, and you’re making jokes?”
“Is it too soon?” he asked, perfectly serious.
“Way too soon. I need to find him.” I peered toward the family palazzo. “Make sure he’s okay.” A flicker of fear went through me as I realized this fire was visible from all over the city. Surely, Dante would have seen it by now?
“You’re supposed to be dead, remember?” Nico reminded me drily. “It might ruin the illusion, having you walk into your palazzo, asking about your dear husband. We could say you were a ghost,” he suggested. “A wraith come back from the Underworld, and we’d only be half lying.”
This time, I almost laughed. The sound came out raw instead.
“What are you looking at?”
Nico was squinting hard at the fire, a strange expression on his face. “I thought I saw…” He shook his head. “Never mind, I’m seeing things. Just the wards finally disintegrating. I’m sure it’s nothing.” But he kept staring, that deep furrow between his brow.
The vise around my chest clenched. Someone tried to kill my husband.
Our enemies wanted to send a message?
Fine.
“They want a war, they’ll get one,” I vowed quietly.
Nico pulled his gaze away from the fire, his expression turning to approval. “Good,” he agreed. “Because now that everything is out in the open, you’ll need that do-or-die attitude. I’ll hide you somewhere safe, then I will find your husband while you stay put.”
“You’d better,” I muttered, as the fire raged on, turning the memories we’d barely had time to make into ash. I lifted my chin and made myself a promise.
My uncle was now my enemy, and there was no mercy for enemies.
A lesson he’d taught me, and I’d learned well.