Chapter Fourteen
GAbrIAL
THE FIRE spoke louder than the men around me. It spat and hissed like it knew what I’d lost.
Like it dared to grieve her too.
I stood still, hands clasped behind my back, watching the flames claw their way up the stone fireplace.
I didn’t look at the others. I didn’t need to. I could smell their fear, stale sweat, cheap cologne, and that sharp tang of panic men try and fail to hide. Brother Eli shifted once, stiff as a statue, and swallowed hard, as if the silence itself might catch in his throat.
“Do you know what I’m feeling right now?” I asked, quiet as a blade sliding free.
No one answered.
Smart.
“My flame has disappeared,” I continued, forcing the rage back down where it boiled. My eyes closed, but that only made her voice clearer—Sable’s voice, those whispered prayers at midnight, the breathless surrender in our ceremonies. So soft. So beautiful. So obedient.
Until she wasn’t.
“She was made for me,” I murmured.
Born of Liora’s fire and Brother Eli’s seed, yes, but by my hand. My design. My devotion. From my pocket I drew the ribbon. Pressed it to my face. It still smelled of her hair. Vanilla. Sunlight. Stolen breath.
“I anointed her twelve times beneath the Circle’s gaze. Took her in ash and flame. She is my wife before the faithful. Mine before she bled. Mine after.”
The ribbon slipped from my fingers, falling soft and useless against the tiled floor.
“Are you sure she ran—alone?” My voice tightened, poisoned by the thought she might’ve fled with another man. With the children. With lies in her eyes. I turned, fixing Eli with my stare. “And you—you believe she had help?”
He nodded, slight and trembling. “Yes. One of the lower brothers. We believe it was… Tallis.”
Tallis.
Of course.
Liora’s pet.
My hand slammed into the wall. The crack of it rolled like thunder through the office. The windows rattled. So did Eli.
“That doesn’t explain how she and the children slipped past the guards outside their door!” I roared, fists curling with the hunger to break bone.
Color drained from several faces. Eli swallowed again before forcing words out. “They weren’t there.”
“Oh?” My voice dropped low, deadly.
“I was told they were… visiting with some of the women kept below,” he whispered. His shame was plain. He knew I didn’t tolerate lust within my walls. The women kept below were merchandise—currency. Off limits.
“I want them dragged to the steel room,” I said, each word deliberate. “Their screams will remind the others what happens when temptation outweighs duty.”
“Consider it done,” Eli replied quickly, relief in his eyes that it wasn’t his blood I wanted first.
“Where is Tallis?”
“Locked downstairs.”
“Bring him. And give me the names of every servant, every guard, every shadow that touched her path these last weeks.” My voice deepened, growling like a storm. “If one of them so much as looked at her without permission, string them up in the garden. No hands. No tongues. No legacy.”
I bent, retrieved the ribbon again. Dust clung to the satin now, staining what had been pure.
“She is not like the others,” I whispered. “The children, they belong to the Circle. They’re tools. Tokens. Alliances waiting to be forged.”
“But Sable…” I pressed the ribbon to my lips, inhaling what was left of her. “She is flame made flesh. My bride. My design. My vessel. And fire—” I smiled then, slow, cold, inevitable, “—fire always returns to flame.”
Tucking the ribbon away, I lifted my gaze to Eli’s.
“She will come back,” I said. “And when she does… she will kneel.”