CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a different room. Warm light flickered from a nearby oil lamp, casting shadows across polished wood floors. A massive oak desk stood in the center, and behind the desk, shelves of liquor stretched from floor to ceiling, every bottle glittering like a jewel.
The boys were there.
Will and Aran, tied to the legs of the desk.
Slumped. Silent. I tried to move, but I couldn’t.
My arms were bound behind me, tight. The ropes bit into my wrists with every twitch, and everything hurt.
My face. My ribs. My head throbbed with each breath.
But worse than the pain was the weight—this bone-deep exhaustion crawling through my body.
I could feel it, thick and cold, like the magic had drained everything from me just trying to keep me alive.
Will stirred faintly, his head lolling to the side, a swollen eye cracking open.
He tried nudging Aran with his shoulder, but there was no response.
Aran stayed limp. Still. Licia lay on the floor not far away, her arms twisted beneath her, skin ghost-pale.
Her chest rose so faintly I thought I’d imagined it.
“Will?” My voice came out thin. “Aran? Please wake up.” I whispered.
A shadow slid across the floor. The man in the suit stepped into the room like he owned the world, his shoes clicking against the wood. He crouched in front of Aran, fingers clamping his face, tilting it upward.
Aran’s eyelids flickered.
“Yes, Aran,” the man said. “Wake up. Wouldn’t want you to miss this.”
“Get your hands off him!” I roared, jerking against the ropes until pain shot up my arms, fibers tearing into my skin.
He didn’t even look at me. He stood, adjusted his cufflinks, and turned to Will.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You thought paying for the night meant she belonged to you. That she was yours to keep.”
Will looked up at him, bloody and stubborn, lips twitching just barely.
“I misunderstood,” he rasped.
The man’s boot drove into his stomach, the force knocking Will sideways, held up only by the rope.
“STOP!” I cried out. “Please! Don’t hurt him—don’t hurt them! It was my idea—”
“Kera, no!” Will coughed. “Don’t.”
Finally, the man turned to me. His eyes locked on mine, dark and calm and cold. He crossed the room, grabbed me by the throat, and yanked me up onto my knees.
“They’re already dead, sweetheart,” he said softly, fingers tightening until black spots crawled into the edges of my vision. “Can’t have people stealing from me without consequence. That’s bad business. I’m sure you understand.”
My lungs screamed, and my wrists twisted against the ropes, raw and useless.
Behind him, one of the guards spoke. “The one with dark hair sold her to us. Now he’s helping her get out. They’re running a scheme, sir.”
The man tilted his head but didn’t bother looking at the guard. “Is that true, girl?” he asked, voice almost curious. “Are you trying to swindle me?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’ll show you what I do with thieves. Then I’ll make use of you. Make you earn your keep.”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
“Careful,” he murmured. “I might just keep you for myself. I like a girl who puts up a fight. It makes it sweeter when she starts begging.” His mouth twitched into something almost amused.
“Though I still wonder... what’s she doing here?
” His voice slid through the air like oil, mocking, poisoned.
Just when I thought I’d pass out again, he dropped me to the floor.
He walked over to Licia and crouched beside her. She didn’t move or cry, just stared past him with eyes blank, as if her soul had already left her body.
“Were you trying to escape?” he murmured. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife, not fast, not like a threat. Slow. Like a promise. “There is no escape. Not for you. Not for her,” he said. “You. Belong. To. Me. And that means I can do whatever I want with you.”
He pressed the blade to her chest, dragging it down, not deep, just enough to make her flinch, enough to break the skin, making blood well to the surface.
“From the looks of it, I’ve already made good use of you,” he said. “Maybe it’s time I put you down.”
“NO! NO, PLEASE, DON’T TOUCH HER!” The scream ripped out of me, raw and jagged, tearing something open on its way out. My throat felt like it split. My whole body convulsed with the force of it, and I could feel it rising, the poison inside me, thick and burning and alive.
I just had to trigger it.
The monster.
The fire.
I looked at Licia. At the man at her throat.
At Will. At Aran. I wasn’t even sure if he was still breathing.
But when I saw his face, a memory struck me like a spark catching dry wood, and his voice echoed in my head: It’s there, Kera.
It’s all in you. Maybe you just need to stop running from it. Picture it. Feel it.
Aran had told me to use the pain.
I hadn’t wanted to. I’d wanted to bury all of my memories, bury them deep and never look back. But when it mattered most, I couldn’t use my magic.
So I gave in.
I let myself feel.
And it all came back to me.
I saw Einar, bloody and lifeless in the street.
I saw my mother and father slaughtered and discarded like trash.
I thought of Arche’s smile as he defiled me, of the other soldiers taking what remained.
I remembered what it felt like to be torn apart piece by piece.
And I let it fuel me, all the grief, and the shame, and the rage.
I let it burn through my chest like acid, let it scorch my mind until there was nothing left but fire.
I pushed myself harder than I ever had, and it hurt. Mentally, physically, it was agonizing.
I thought of the robbers. The man who hurt Kalani. The man who sold Licia. I imagined them screaming, burning. I imagined killing every last one of them.
Then it came—the heat.
My fingers twitched. A flicker at first. Then more. Fiercer. Wilder. I opened my eyes and stared at him, the man in the suit. I didn’t know his name, but I didn’t need to know his name to kill him.
The ropes around my wrists caught as fire surged.
Pain ripped up my arms like lightning through bone.
I screamed as the ropes turned to ash, crumbling away in a storm of smoke and heat.
The skin beneath was blistered, raw, searing.
It felt like my nerves were peeling off.
Like my body was splitting open from the inside.
I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stop screaming.
"What the fuck?" one of the guards shouted.
I twisted my head just in time to see flames climbing the curtains behind me. The fire swallowed the fabric, casting leaping shadows across the wall. Then I lunged for the desk, my fingers closing around a golden letter opener.
Will was already struggling, trying to sit up, wrists still bound tight.
I dropped beside him and started sawing at the ropes.
My hands shook so badly the blade slipped more than once, slicing my skin, but I didn’t stop.
Every movement sent a fresh wave of pain screaming up my arms. I gritted my teeth and kept cutting until the last strand snapped.
Will slumped forward, coughing hard, sucking in a broken breath.
“You okay?” he croaked.
“Here. Take it.” I shoved the blade into his hand. “Help Aran.”
I didn’t wait for an answer.
I couldn’t.
Behind me, the fire was growing louder, the heat pressing against my back. The man in the suit looked around, like he couldn’t quite process what he was seeing. The fire had taken the walls. The ceiling. The smoke was pouring in thick and black, curling around his expensive shoes.
Then his gaze snapped to me, only for a second, before shifting to Licia. That was all it took.
He made his choice.
He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up, her feet barely held her, as her head lolled against his chest. He hauled her upright, dragging her in front of him like a shield, her body a barrier between him and me.
He started for the door, and just before vanishing into the hallway, he glanced over his shoulder.
“Take care of it,” he ordered the guards.
Then he disappeared, Licia’s feet scraping uselessly against the floor as he dragged her away.
“No! No, no, no—DON’T TAKE HER!” The scream shredded my throat. It tore straight out of me, wild and broken.
A guard lunged, and reacting on instinct, my fist cracked against his jaw. I felt the give beneath my knuckles, the crunch of something breaking. Another guard slammed into me from the side. We crashed to the floor, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.
Still, I fought. Kicking. Scratching. Thrashing.
But everything blurred—the smoke, the pain, the heat surging beneath my skin.
Then the third one caught me. His hands clamped down on my arms and flung me backward.
My body slammed into a bookshelf, blinding flash of white split my vision as pain detonated in my skull.
His forearm crushed my throat.
But I could feel his heartbeat, beating hard and fast. If I could just reach it. If I could find that part of me that knew how.
I tried to call on the anger. The rage. The fire.
All of it.
But it stayed buried beneath the fear. I couldn’t pull it to the surface.
It wasn’t just the moon drops. It wasn’t the mist clouding my mind.
It was me.
But I could feel myself running out of time.
Running out of air.
Suffocating hurts in a way nothing else does, it’s not just the lack of breath, it’s pressure behind your eyes. The way your skull feels like it’s cracking from the inside out.
Focus.
I forced myself inward. It was there, somewhere. Faint, flickering. Crawling up through the fog in my mind.
And beneath it, I felt it.
His heart. Right there. In my reach. One more second and I could—
Then something shattered.
A bottle smashed against his skull, the pressure lifting as the guard stumbled back, and glass exploded, liquid splattering across my face.