Chapter 33
I was not just any elemental. Not just any soldier. Not just any person.
I was Fallon Fitzroy.
And I was meant for more.
I kicked open the war -room door with my heel. It slammed against the stone wall, echoing like thunder. The hinges rattled. Silence dropped like a curtain. Every head snapped toward me.
My elements boiled in my veins, begging to be unleashed, but I reined them in.
Chest heaving, I let the silence stretch. I met every pair of eyes—one by one—until they dropped away. Until only his remained. Everyone else sat, wordless. Everyone but him. His knuckles whitened around the two tomes we had fought to retrieve.
River padded in behind me and growled as I rounded the table and stepped toward my father.
“I am the soldier who found the runaway men from the Watch,” I said, voice low and tight.
“I risked my life to gather the objects now in your hands.” My voice rose.
“Scarlet Thorne and I stood before the Mareki Gem in the Eternal Tomb. We activated the first tome. We found the second. We have done what no one else has.”
I took another step forward, grounding myself like the elements I command. “I will go on this mission to Tyria’s stronghold, General Fitzroy. And I will complete it.” I raised my chin, unblinking. “Because I am more than capable—whether or not you acknowledge it. You made sure of it.”
River edged closer, her wet nose brushing my arm as she settled at my side. Around the table, chairs scraped across stone—soldiers shifting to make room for her. No one dared stop her.
Arrow’s hazel eyes burned, hard and unreadable, but I held his gaze. I refused to flinch. His finger tapped the table three times before he finally turned and laid the tomes down.
He surveyed the room. “Leave,” he commanded, voice rough and low.
One by one, the soldiers filed out. Silence thickened as the last of them pulled the heavy door shut, the latch clicking firmly into place.
Now only the three of us remained—my father, River, and me.
Arrow’s shoulders stayed squared, his breath slow and measured. He was composed—more so than I could claim for myself. My chest rose and fell too fast, breaths shallow. I forced myself to stand tall, matching his cold steadiness.
He stepped forward, looming. “You want to lead the mission to Tyria’s stronghold?” Softer now, but no less commanding.
“Yes, sir,” I answered, chin high.
He glanced at the tomes, then back at me. “We don’t know if there is a third. And if there is, there’s no telling it’ll be at this drop. You understand the risks?”
“I do,” I said. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded once, then held the tomes out. I took them carefully, feeling their weight settle into my arms. My fingers traced their spines before I looked up again. “Thank you, sir. We won’t let you—”
“You will complete this mission alone, soldier.”
The words struck like a blow to the gut. “Alone?” I echoed, stunned. “Sir, with all due respect—it’s a long and perilous journey. We’re short on time before the drop. It would be safer, smarter, with a crew. The four of us worked well—”
He cut me off, voice like stone. “You want to prove yourself? Here’s your chance.” He stepped closer. “Either come back with the third tome, another piece of vital intelligence… or die trying. Scarlet will study the current tome while you’re gone. Understood?”
My hands shook as I clutched the tomes tighter to my chest, trying to ground myself. I was about to respond when the door burst open with a violent crack, tearing off its top hinge.
I flinched and spun around.
Scarlet and Rhodes stormed in. Scarlet’s crimson eyes blazed like embers ready to ignite, fists clenched at her sides. Wylder’s gaze flared like a brewing storm.
“Absolutely not!” she shouted. “She cannot go alone. That would be sending her to her death!”
“Scar!” I snapped through the marekem. “You told me to fight for this!”
Her eyes flicked to mine—but only for a second. “Not like this.”
With a sweep of her arm, wind crackled through the room, shoving the massive oak table aside as if it weighed nothing. She stepped forward and drove her fist into our father’s chest with elemental force, pushing him back a step.
Father surged forward, ready to shove her back, but Rhodes stepped between them.
“This doesn’t concern you, Wylder,” Arrow snarled.
“I’d love to see you try to rip me away from her,” Rhodes snapped, voice sharp as a drawn blade.
Before either could move, I stepped in. “Scarlet,” I said firmly, “he’s right. You need to examine the tome. You need to go back to the Glade. Find Ailis. Get answers.”
Scarlet turned to me, mouth parting as if to argue—but then her gaze flicked back to Arrow.
“I’m going with her,” she snapped. “You can’t stop me. You don’t command me.”
Arrow didn’t flinch. “No, I don’t. But I do report to War Chief Kalluri.” He stepped closer, voice low and deadly. “How will you live with yourself when I tell him a handful of his cadets are now here in the Hollow, defying his orders?”
Scarlet froze, as if he’d struck her clean across the face.
“You would send her alone?” Her voice cracked. “And you’re fine with that? With the possibility of her dying out there?!”
Arrow’s tone stayed calm. “She said it herself. She’s more than capable. I did not train her to fail.”
Scarlet barked a humorless laugh. “You didn’t train her at all,” she spat. “You handed that job off to others while you stood back and watched her become a new version of you.”
She slammed her fists into his chest again, but he didn’t flinch.
“But you failed,” she hissed. “She’s better than you’ll ever be.”
She spun away, pacing to the center of the room, fists clenched, fury rippling through her like a storm about to break. When she turned back, her eyes blazed.
“One daughter you abandon to die,” she said with a mocking bow. “The other? You send off alone to do the same. And you call yourself a leader.”
Then she spat at his feet.
Holy fucking elements.
“Scarlet, stop,” I begged through our marekem. “You don’t want to feel his wrath.”
She threw her hands up and whirled on me. “I’m not afraid of him!” she screamed. “There’s nothing he could do to me worse than that fucking shed he left me to die in!”
She stalked back toward Arrow. “I figured it out,” she said, laughter bitter and sharp. “I pieced the marekem together enough to know—you knew. You knew I was in there. Tortured. Starving. Wasting away, thinking no one gave a damn if I lived or died.”
Her voice trembled with rage. “You just didn’t care enough to save me.”
That was when our father’s mask cracked.
“I fought myself every day to stay away from you!” he roared, louder than I’d ever heard him. “But you and your sister are part of something bigger than this family. I had to do what was best for the safety of our world! I had to keep you two apart before Tyria got their hands on you!”
Scarlet’s fists clenched at her sides. “I was already in Tyria’s hands! You chose the easy way out,” she spat. “You chose everyone else over me. Your daughter.”
And for the first time in my life, I watched my father break.
His shoulders sagged, the weight of everything finally pulling him down. His mouth parted, words stumbling, as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough. He reached a tentative hand toward Scarlet, as if to pull her into his arms.
“You don’t understand,” his voice cracked. “I can barely live with myself, knowing what you were left to endure. It broke me to leave you there.”
Suddenly, the marekem exploded.
A surge of raw emotion crashed over me like a tidal wave. My knees buckled, but Rhodes caught me, steadying me with firm hands as I sagged against him.
My chest burned; breathing became a desperate struggle.
Then the visions flooded in—flashes of Scarlet’s memories.
The cold. The hunger. The crushing loneliness.
The silence. The moment she slashed her own skin with that rusty nail.
But it wasn’t physical pain. It ran deeper, rooted somewhere unreachable—a sorrow beating like a second heartbeat in her chest, slow and aching.
It wasn’t just pain.
It was heartbreak.
It was the moment she gave up.
My hands flew to my temples, desperate to hold it all back. Too much. Too fast. Too raw.
When I finally cracked my eyes open, Scarlet had stepped back, her face unreadable.
“It broke you?” Her voice was raspy, eyes glassing over—not with sadness, but something darker, more volatile. She held the silence a beat too long. The room seemed suspended between heartbeats. Arrow’s swallow sounded loud in the stillness. I could almost hear the thunder of his heart.
“Broke,” she repeated, flat and sharp. “You.”
“Yes, my daughter,” he said quietly. “You were one of the few things in this world to break me.”
Raindrops began to patter on the ceiling. Soft at first, then faster, heavier. My water element stirred in response, but it wasn’t mine. It was being drawn through me, channeled without thought.
Scarlet was doing it again—pulling at my water, just like the time she collapsed at the sight of Delaney Salvitto’s lifeless body.
“I may have broken you,” she said with eerie calm, “but you don’t get to hurt.” A tremor rippled through her limbs. “You don’t get to hurt—because you broke me first.”
The sky gave way, and rain crashed down like grief.
No one moved or spoke. We stood frozen in the storm, watching father and daughter face the ruins of their past. Rhodes’s hand found my shoulder in a silent question. I nodded. He stepped forward to stand just behind Scarlet.
My heart ached to join them—to stand at her other side, three against one—but my feet remained rooted, legs locked.
“I will not risk the lives of my friends,” Scarlet said, voice cutting sharp as flint.
“But if you send Fallon to Tyria alone, I will show you—through every element—exactly how I’ve felt my entire life because of you.
” She took a deliberate step forward, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl.
“Send at least one other soldier with her… or I will tear you, and anyone who stands in my way, to shreds.”
Arrow said nothing. The rain outside softened, as if holding its breath for his answer.
“I’ll go with her,” came a sudden voice from the doorway.
All eyes snapped to Shayde Wylder, shirtless and soot-streaked, freshly pulled from the forge. His breeches were smeared with ash, rainwater dripping from dark waves clinging to his forehead. The obsidian collar gleamed stark against his skin.
Rhodes moved forward, voice tense. “Shayde? No.”
Shayde raised a hand. “I felt your worry for her through the marekem.”
Worry? For me? Rhodes could barely stand to look at me.
Crossing the room with steady steps, Shayde stopped before Arrow. “You said I needed to prove my loyalty to Arya. Let this be my test. I’ll protect her—put her life before mine if it comes to that. Leave the obsidian on. Drithan can stay here.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Arrow’s voice cut through the charged silence.
“Done. You leave at first light.”