Chapter 2 #3
They’re only twenty feet ahead of us now, helping the last few people out. My chest loosens. For the first time since the attack began, I feel a flicker of hope.
Maybe, just maybe, we can all make it through this.
I shout—“Mother! Father!”
Their heads snap toward me. Hands reach out through the smoke, beckoning Lyra and me forward.
“My son!” A scream cuts through the night—raw, panicked.
Before I can react, my father is moving. He turns, running back into the house without hesitation.
“Branik—wait!” My mother yells after him, following.
But he doesn’t. They vanish into the smoke.
And then—a shape tears through an exterior wall of the house. A Fellborn. And behind it—more shadows.
They pour into the space like a black wave. And my parents are still inside. Trapped.
“Hold on,” I breathe.
I surge forward, flinging flames at every shadowed form that moves. Lyra is right behind me, her lesser magics rising up just in time to trip the ones that slip through my fire. We’re barely managing.
A deafening crack splits the night. The roof of the house caves in with a groan of splintering wood. A blast of heat erupts as burning beams collapse, exploding in a roar of fire and sparks.
“No!” The word rips out of me—raw, feral. My feet are moving before my mind catches up, sprinting toward the collapsing structure.
“Amara, wait! It’s too dangerous!” Lyra’s voice chases after me as I tear away from her grip.
But I don’t stop. I can’t. They have to get out—they have to.
Flames roar higher, the heat blasting my face. Chunks of the house crumble, tumbling inward. I cross the threshold.
Inside, a shadow creature slams into the far wall with bone-snapping force.
I see it—just for a second—Father is there, arms raised, trying to hold the walls with earth magics. The floor rumbles beneath my feet, his voice shouting something I can’t hear over the chaos.
But it’s too late. The beams are already splintering. The fire’s too strong. The stone—it can’t hold. And then—
A sound like the world breaking.
I scream.
But my voice is swallowed by the thunderous crash as the building implodes.
A shockwave tears through the air and I’m thrown backwards—lifted off my feet like a leaf in a storm. I hit the ground hard, skidding through the dirt. My palms tear open, pain knifing through my ribs.
But none of it registers.
My ears ring and I taste blood.
No, no, no—
Through a haze of sparks and swirling embers, I glimpse the house fully consumed by fire. Nothing but charred beams and a plume of black smoke remain.
Oh gods, my parents were right there.
I try to stand but my legs buckle, panic clawing at my throat.
“Amara!” Lyra’s voice pierces the roar. She’s running toward me, her face a mask of terror. “Get back!” She tries to grab my arm to hold me steady.
“No—” My voice cracks. Hot tears trail down my cheeks. “They’re still—”
But it’s futile. My heart twists in agony. The entire structure collapses inward with a thunderous groan, sending fresh flames lurching skyward.
Lyra’s arms come around me, pulling me away from the searing heat. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, voice trembling.
I want to fight her, want to tear free and rush into that inferno. But my legs give out, my will fracturing under the weight of loss.
My parents are dead.
The realization slices like a blade, cruel and final. A strangled cry rips out of me. My vision blurs, my breathing turns ragged.
I couldn’t protect them.
I’ll never feel my mother’s fingers brushing through my hair in the mornings, humming some old lullaby off-key.
I’ll never hear Father’s laugh again as he cheats at cards, grinning like a child who got away with something.
I’ll never smell the herbs from the garden clinging to their clothes when they come in from the fields.
I’ll never sit between them at the table, warm and full and safe.
My eyes are raw from smoke, tears, terror. The crackle of magics burn beneath my skin, wild and untethered. A cold emptiness hollows out my chest.
I can’t think. I can’t move. I can only watch as the last pieces of the life I knew are swallowed whole.
The magnitude of what’s happened hits me like a battering ram.
Something inside me snaps. A raw, guttural scream rips from my throat—so full of grief it feels like it’s tearing me in half. Magics explode out of me in a tidal wave of fury and despair.
It’s grief made fire, wind, and ruin.
The shockwave tears through the square—flames roaring outward, the air crackling with raw power. Shadow creatures disintegrate on contact. Fences splinter, debris spinning like leaves in a storm.
Someone screams. Someone else falls. I hear Lyra shout my name—but it’s far away, drowned in the chaos erupting from me.
And then—silence.
It comes so suddenly my ears ring, like the world inhaled—and forgot how to exhale. Where there was flame and screaming and the terrible tearing of shadow-things ripping into homes, there’s nothing now but the faint crackle of embers. Ash hangs in the air like smoke that forgot how to fall.
The surviving villagers stare, stunned, some knocked to the ground. A few clutch their arms or heads, scraped or bruised from flying debris. They’re looking at me like they don’t know what I am.
I don’t either.
I raise my head, still on my knees. My body is trembling, a sickly heat coursing through my veins—like my magics set me on fire from the inside out. Each breath is a struggle. I want to lie down, close my eyes, pretend none of this is real.
But the reality before me makes that impossible.
My shockwave of power swept out in all directions. The fires that were devouring the village are extinguished, leaving smoldering timbers and plumes of gray smoke.
And bodies.
So many dead because of the Fellborn. Neighbors, friends . . . people I grew up with now lying motionless in the dirt, twisted in ways that make my stomach lurch. Blood streaks the ground in dark, congealing pools.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, bile threatening to rise.
Not a single shadow creature remains. They’ve vanished, as if they never existed. But the carnage is undeniable proof of what really happened here.
My mind spins with the horror of it.
“Amara . . . ” Lyra’s voice is uncertain.
I spot her behind a splintered wagon. She rises on shaky legs, her gaze fixed on me, she is sobbing between gasps. My own vision swims, and I blink tears away, feeling them burn their way down my cheeks.
Gods, my body is screaming. My muscles feel like lead, my head spinning with dizziness and nausea.
It all converges on me: grief, horror.
I am literally kneeling in the epicenter of destruction.
“Ly,” I croak, my voice nothing more than a whisper.
My hands shake as I push myself upright, unsteady on my feet. I’m utterly spent.
She takes a tentative step forward, then another, until she’s standing over me, her expression a knot of shock and sorrow.
“You . . . destroyed them, you saved so many . . . ” Lyra’s voice wavers as she looks around at the devastation, at the hush that hangs over the village.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out.
For what? For surviving? For not saving everyone? For unleashing something I don’t understand?
She kneels beside me, gently touching my shoulder. I can’t meet her eyes.
My skin tingles, the remnants of raw magics still buzzing under the surface—like an angry swarm of bees with nowhere to go. Nausea rolls in my gut, and I sway.
Lyra’s grip tightens. “Careful,” she whispers. “You’re hurt—we’ll . . . we’ll figure it out.”
I’m swept by another wave of dizziness and intense exhaustion. The world tilts and I clutch Lyra’s arm.
“Amara?” she says urgently. “Amara! Your nose is bleeding!”
She wipes at my face with the sleep of her shirt.
“J-Just . . . need . . . ” My words blur, my head lolling forward.
In the haze of grief and despair, I see an image—beyond the ruins and stunned faces of those who survived.
Two men step from swirling purple light—as if the night split to let them through.
The first is older, he moves with strength and power beneath a worn cloak.
His hair, streaked with gray at the temples, frames a face that looks like it was carved by decades of conflict.
A gnarled staff is clenched in his fist, arcane markings swirling along its length.
In his eyes, I glimpse both fatigue and unwavering purpose.
The second man is younger, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in dark leathers, the fabric pulled taut across muscles that move with a warrior’s grace. Even as I fade, something about him catches my breath.
His features are impossibly striking—sharp cheekbones, a chiseled jaw, and lips that part slightly as he surveys the devastation.
But it’s his eyes that seize me. They’re fierce and unyielding, and right now they sweep across the carnage with a raw intensity I’ve never encountered.
The older man’s gaze flicks between me and the smoldering wreckage. He grips his staff tighter.
“It’s definitely her,” he says, voice rasping with urgency. “The Spiritborn.”
The what?
The younger man fixes his stare on mine. It feels like the rest of the world collapses into static, leaving just the two of us. He looks at me like I matter. Like he knows what I am, even if I don’t.
And gods, I wish my parents could’ve seen it first.
My pulse slows, eyes are growing heavy, and I’m painfully aware of the sputtering magics still dancing along my skin, like stray embers that won’t quite burn out.
The weight of everything swells again, slamming into me with the force of a tidal wave. I break into a cold sweat as darkness envelops my vision, and my knees buckle. Lyra’s arms struggle to hold me upright.