32. Chapter Thirty-One #3
Archer’s expression tightened, the muscle of his jaw working as he hesitated in the street. The light in his emerald eyes dimmed, the determination deflating as his shoulders sagged and he accepted what we’d both been seeing. Duskmarsh was lost. We were too late.
“You’ll have to shift,” he said, voice gruff. “Or use your magic somehow.”
I jolted, the shock of his proclamation making me gape at him. He wanted me to wield my magic? The thing that made me hateful to him?
“We have to burn them.” He swallowed. “The bodies. As quickly as possible, before they start to turn as well and flame no longer affects them.”
My fingers tingled as I straightened, considering his words. It was the last good thing we could offer these fae, a chance for their souls to move to the afterlife in peace and their bodies to be burned respectfully. I dashed the tears from my cheeks with my hands and gathered my courage.
But shift…in front of Archer? The naked vulnerability of it, to let my enemy see me that way, felt unthinkable.
Without another word, I squared my shoulders and approached the nearest home, lifting my hands and summoning a ball of fire.
Closing my eyes, I exhaled and sent up a silent prayer.
Accept their souls into the afterlife, Mortius.
I hurled the licking flames toward the building, watching them—more powerful than natural fire because it was my magical phoenix fire—swiftly consume the structure.
Smoke swirled and thickened the air, but it didn’t affect me, not like it did Archer, who immediately started coughing. I stepped into the flames, letting them envelope me in heat that did not burn, did not harm. Hidden within them, I let myself shift where my enemy wouldn’t see the change occur.
Familiar warmth spread from my core throughout my body, filling me with a rush of energy and the thrill of my magic gaining in strength in my phoenix form.
Feathers burst from my body and everything transformed in what was now an effortless, painless change, something I could now do without the focus it had once taken as a child, or the occasional discomfort my then-growing and changing body had undergone.
My wings unfurled at my sides, my phoenix eyes taking in the sights with new precision.
Leaping into the air, I flew through the growing cloud of smoke and over Archer.
I moved too swiftly to catch a good look at his expression, not wanting to waste a moment.
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t fully suppress the surge of relief and freedom I experienced finally being in flight again, soaring over the town like I was merely on another outing to feel the wind in my wings and catch a moment of solitude to clear my mind.
But my grief didn’t melt away.
I focused on the well of magic at my core, letting my fire build, calling on all my strength.
It exploded in bursts of flame along my feathers, leaving a fiery trail in my wake as I swept over the streets.
I aimed it outward at the buildings, the bodies in the streets, the abandoned carriages.
Anything that would catch fire quickly and spread, razing Duskmarsh until nothing but ash remained.
It was a glorious, sobering sight. A riot of light and glowing colors in reds, oranges, yellows, and blinding white.
I let the flames dancing across my feathers keep me warm, embracing me in their magic and power.
Though my healing magic didn’t extend to my minor injury—phoenixes could resurrect themselves, at great sacrifice, or heal themselves from a wound that brought them to the brink of death—the sheer force of my magic in my phoenix form gave me temporary relief.
Here, I was light and flame, power and destruction, life and death, all melded into one.
As I set fire to the last portion of Duskmarsh, a niggling warning had me swerve mid-air and coast over the streets again, searching the walls of flames.
Heat emanated from below as the fire licked higher and higher and the smoke swirled thicker.
To me, it was bliss, but to Archer, it would be deadly.
I caught sight of his form at the edge of Duskmarsh, gilded in the darkness by the dancing orange inferno. His upturned face watched me warily, his eyes unreadable.
The ache of sorrow I’d managed to push down as I’d worked rose in me again as my magic started to wane. Exhaustion sank into my bones, alerting me that I’d need to shift back into fae form soon. Burning an entire town was more than I’d ever demanded of my magic in such a short time frame.
I dove, shifting right before I touched earth.
The grief and the pain in my back both struck like a physical force as I returned to my fae body. Pain smarted along my back, reminding me of the vicious cut there. My boots thudded on the path and I caught my breath.
“It’s done,” I gasped, feeling as if I’d run a hundred miles. The world spun, and fresh tears burned the back of my throat. Soon, Duskmarsh would be scarcely a memory in Emberglade’s history, reduced to a patch of charred nothingness.