CHAPTER TWENTY
I remember dragging Aran upstairs with Will, acting as if he was just a drunken friend.
The stairs were the worst, each step took everything out of me.
My legs shook, my arms burned, my fingers ached from holding on.
He was so heavy, and so limp, that it felt like he might pull me down with him at any moment.
When we finally reached the room, Will shoved the door open with his shoulder and together we half-dropped, half-threw him onto a bed.
Aran groaned, rolled once, and went still.
I didn’t even untie my boots. I simply collapsed, and sleep took me before my head even hit the pillow. And then came the dream.
I was bound to the pillar in our kitchen, rope cutting into my skin as I fought it. I screamed until my voice gave out, but the only answer was fire. Everything was burning. The flames weren’t creeping. They came fast. Violent. Hungry. One second, the room was whole. The next, it was gone.
Fire swallowed everything.
The beams cracked and the roof let out a low groan before the ceiling split open, showering embers around me like sparks from a forge.
The walls shimmered with heat. Paint blistered.
Wood curled in on itself. Smoke curled around me, thick and choking.
Every breath felt like swallowing ash. It clawed down my throat, filled my chest, burned my eyes. I gagged. Coughed.
Then I heard it—
Screaming.
Not mine.
My mother. My father. Einar. Their voices were everywhere, splintered and echoing. Too far away to reach.
“Help!” I cried, yanking at the rope until my shoulders screamed. “Please—please—someone—”
Nothing. Only the crack of the beams and the snap of rope that refused to break. I twisted until I felt my skin split, until the blood mixed with smoke and sweat. The pillar seared my back with heat.
And still, the fire came closer. It wrapped around the kitchen floor, licking up the cupboards, swallowing the table where we used to sit for breakfast. Where I’d learned to bake.
Gone.
The fire didn’t care. It devoured the memories like it devoured the walls. And then it reached me. The heat touched my bare feet first. Blinding, flesh-melting pain that made my entire body jolt.
I screamed again, and nothing but smoke came out. The thing about dreams is that everything feels real while you’re in them. And afterward… they don’t always fade. I remember dreams just as vividly as any memory. I remember the pain. Pain that never was.
A voice cut through the chaos.
Sharp. Real.
“FIRE!”
I woke choking.
For a moment I thought the dream hadn’t ended. The air was thick, glowing orange. Smoke seared my throat and stung my eyes.
The fire was there.
Aran’s voice was the first thing I heard. The room was burning—the curtains, the walls, the roof above us. Downstairs, screams carried through the floorboards. I heard glass shattering, more people screaming.
Will stirred beside me, still half-asleep.
“Get up,” I coughed, shaking him awake. “Will, get up.”
Aran had already pulled himself upright, he stood pressed against the far wall, as his eyes darted from me to the flames.
“You—”
I grabbed for the window latch, and the metal scorched my palm. I screamed, yanking my hand back, stumbling as pain lanced up my wrist. Panic surged.
I kicked at the glass, hard, but it didn’t break. Swearing under my breath, I grabbed Will’s coat from the floor and wrapped it around my hand like a mitt, teeth clenched as I forced the latch open. It gave way with a groan, and cold air rushed in, biting at my skin.
It only made the fire roar louder.
Behind me, Aran crawled toward Will, staying low through the smoke. I watched him slap him across the face, hard.
“Will,” he growled. “Get the fuck up.”
Will stirred, groaning. Barely awake, but Aran didn’t wait. There was no time to wait. Aran hooked his arms under Will’s shoulders, dragging him down to the floor with a grunt. He pulled one of Will’s arms over his shoulder and forced him upright, half-carrying, half-dragging him toward the window.
I leaned out and looked down. Just beneath the window was a slanted stretch of roof, it angled steeply toward the ground. If we could get onto it without slipping, we could jump from there.
“You did this,” Aran spat. Pure venom.
The smoke was so thick I could barely see the walls anymore. Flames climbed the bedposts, licking the beams above.
“I didn’t—” My throat caught. “I don’t—”
“You burned me. I remember it.” Aran stepped closer, eyes wide, voice sharp. “How did you do that?”
A board cracked above us, and ash drifted down like snow.
“I didn’t mean to!”
But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure it was true.
I had burned him.
It was my hands. My rage. I didn’t remember starting a new fire—but it felt the same. Wild. Consuming.
Had I done it again? In my sleep? Why was I setting everything ablaze? How was I setting everything ablaze?
“Out the window!” Will choked behind me. “Now!”
I didn’t argue. I swung a leg over the window frame, heart slamming against my ribs.
It was the only way out. I’d never liked heights, but I gritted my teeth and shoved myself out.
The soles of my boots hit the tiles, and they gave way instantly, sliding under me like loose sand.
My knees buckled, and I dropped low, my hands scrambling for anything to hold onto.
The roof tilted hard beneath me, every instinct screaming don’t fall don’t fall don’t fall.
Smoke poured from the window. Villagers ran with buckets, shouting below me.
Aran scrambled through the window, he didn’t hesitate.
His body hit the roof with a thud and slid the same way I had, off balance, barely catching himself.
Then Will came next, still coughing, dazed, but alive.
I grabbed the edge of the roof and lowered myself until I was hanging by my hands, boots kicking the air.
I let go.
The fall wasn’t far, but it felt like I was dropping into a void. For one terrible second, I was weightless. Then the ground slammed into me.
I hit feet first, too hard, my knees buckled, dropping me straight onto my ass with a thud that rattled up my spine. Pain shot through my tailbone and gravel scraped my palms.
That was… so undignified. I sat there for a moment, legs folded awkwardly under me, staring down at my scraped palms. Dirt clung to the cuts. My skin was raw. I wondered how long it would take them to heal.
For some reason, they would. Whether I deserved it or not.
A soft thud behind me. Then another. Aran and Will landed far more gracefully than I had. Even Will, still coughing and dazed from the smoke, managed to stay on his feet.
“What the fuck did you do?” Aran growled. He didn’t yell it. He didn’t have to. The cracks in his voice were louder than any scream. “What did you do to me?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even lift my eyes to meet his.
Just behind him people were running. Crying. Screaming. Their lives, their things, their normal slipping through their fingers because of something I couldn’t even explain. I couldn’t look at that. I couldn’t look at him.
“I didn’t do anything!” I cried, my voice shattering on the last word as I turned to Will. Expecting him to reach for me, to ground me, to believe me.
But that’s not what I saw.
I saw fear.
“Please…” My voice cracked.
It wasn’t just his eyes. It was the way he held himself, rigid, pulled back, like I was something dangerous. Like standing too close to me might get him burned too. Like he didn’t know who I was anymore.
And I couldn’t blame him.
Because I didn’t either.
I had burned Aran. I’d set the inn on fire. And maybe the dream hadn’t ended. Maybe it had never been a dream at all.
People were whispering, and I could feel their eyes all over me.
Like they weren’t just afraid of the fire.
They were afraid of me.
I got up, legs shaking, heart still somewhere in my throat, and I ran.
Not from the smoke. Not from the fire. From them.
Past the flames. Past the screaming. Past the villagers already crying out for water and gods and mercy.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. The forest loomed behind the inn, its treeline curled like fingers, waiting to pull me under.
I wanted to vanish. I wanted the world to forget I ever existed.
I didn’t know where I was going, I just needed to be nowhere.
Far from the fire. Far from them. Far from me.
I ran from the way Will looked at me.
From the monster I didn’t remember becoming.
Eventually, my legs gave out and I crumbled at the base of a tree.
I curled in on myself, arms wrapped tight around my knees, and I cried.
Not soft tears. Not quiet, pretty tears.
The kind of sobs that rose from the pit of your stomach and scraped your throat raw.
I could still feel the fire inside me, and I was sure I’d end up burning the entire forest down.
I was danger. Will did right to back away from me. Any normal person would have.
It was still inside me. I could feel it coiled beneath my skin. In my ribs. In my teeth. Begging to be let out again. I had healed Aran. I saved his life. That should’ve meant something. But it didn’t, because I was also the one who burned him.
I don’t know how long I sat there alone with my thoughts. Long enough for the adrenaline to drain and leave me hollow. Long enough for the wind to settle in my bones. I’d heard Will calling my name, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want him to find me. I didn’t want to see that fear in his eyes again.
It hurt too much.
Then a crack split the stillness. Footsteps. Careful and slow.
Like a hunter, sneaking up on its prey. It wasn’t Will, the silhouette was taller, shoulders broader.
Aran.
He stepped into the moonlight, his face carved in pale silver and shadow.
“What are you doing here?” I rasped. “I’ll only hurt you again.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. The anger was gone.
He edged closer.
I scrambled back. “No,” I snapped. “Stay away.”