Chapter Twenty-Nine
Idon’t move at first—my feet are still half-asleep, numb from cold or fear, I can’t tell.
So I just stand there, watching him try to yank his shirt over his head while shoving his feet into his pants at the same time.
Fingers shaking, breath too loud, he stumbles but catches himself on the windowsill where smoke has started curling through the cracks in the frame, wrapping around his wrist like a threat.
I step forward, fingers tightening at my side. How many people are out there? Trapped...
“Rhiann—” The name breaks out of me. Her boy, Charlie. If they’re stuck, if the fire’s close—there’s no way she can carry him out on her own. And she’d never leave him.
My heart kicks hard in my chest. It’s not logic. Not really. It’s instinct. I’m already dressed, slept in some old clothes I found at Bren’s, but my boots are by the door. I’m already moving. Feet shoved in, no time for laces.
Bren looks up, flashing me that quiet, furious don’t you fucking dare look—the one that says he knows exactly what’s unravelling inside my head before I do. He’s worn it a dozen times before. Back when we were kids, climbing walls, I shouldn’t have.
“Don’t,” he pleads. One leg in his pants.
“I have to help them.” I beg, voice steady, even though my skin already remembers the heat, even though I swore I’d never run into a burning house again.
His whole face shifts, just barely, but enough to make the guilt worse. Fumbling for balance—boot half-on, he shifts, reaching a hand out toward me, but I’m already turning.
I throw open the door and run.
Before he can stop me.
Before I can stop myself.
The streets are chaos. Not the kind you feel from far away—this is up-close and clawing, heat pressing in on every side, thick and suffocating.
And the sound. God, the sound. Screaming, yes, but not just people; wood groaning, stone cracking, and something deeper beneath it all, like Ashvale itself is crying out, like it knows its dying, its lungs collapsing around us, and it’s taking us with it.
The glow of fire is the only light—orange and low, throwing long shadows across the stone as I run, boots slamming against stone—fast, relentless. Left. Right. Sharp turn. Each step echoes but is quickly swallowed by smoke.
Bren’s place is on the outskirts, clear of the worst of it. But the deeper I go, the hotter it gets. Sweat starts to streak down my face, ash clings to it, gritty and rough, catching in every line of skin.
Behind me, someone screams, but I don’t look back; I just keep running. My breath’s ragged—too fast now, too shallow, scraping in and out like it hurts, as every inhale pulls in more smoke, thick and sour. But I’m not there yet, and at this rate, I don't know if I'll make it.
“Please…” I don’t know if it’s out loud. “Please be okay. Please be okay.” I need to reach Rhiann, Charlie, get them out without getting burned alive in the process.
A searing sting rips across my arm as I clip a collapsed railing, veering hard into what used to be an alley, now nothing but a funnel of smoke and motion. Beside me, buildings blur past—shops, homes—sun-bleached wood eaten by drought, perfect fuel. And shit, it’s catching too fast.
I can hardly see a metre in front of me now, but I know these turns, these corners. Even blind, even choking on ash, I know them. My feet feel half-dead beneath me. Numb toes, aching calves, but I don’t let them. I don’t fucking stop.
Whumph—The air above me buckles.
I duck instinctively, hands flying over my head as wind slams down like something massive just punched through the sky.
A shadow slices the rooftops as I glance up. Wings wide enough to block out half the world. Then a glint of black scales, slick as oil, and a tail trailing behind like a chain carving through the smoke with terrifying speed and grace.
The roar hits a heartbeat later. Deep. Violent. Like it wants to tear something out of me. My chest locks. Thoughts scatter as fire slams into the street ahead with brutal precision, lighting up the stone, devouring doorframes, swallowing wood like it’s nothing.
Hot air floods down the alley, racing towards me, embers spit and whirl—one catches in my sleeve, another in my hair. I swat them away, blinking through stinging eyes. But I can't stop now, I'm so close.
Straight ahead, left, then left again. I round the last corner fast, air tearing in and out of my lungs like it's trying to outrun the heat behind me and nearly miss the house. Rhiann’s house.
I stumble to a dead stop, chest locking tight, like my body’s rejecting what my eyes are feeding it. No, no, not this. Flames gush from the windows, violent and endless, and the front wall doesn’t just burn—it glows, lit from the inside like the whole place is already hollowed out.
The front door is gone, burned clean off its hinges, leaving the main room wide open to the blaze. Through the smoke, my gaze snags on the floor—Charlie’s medicine bag, half-buried under fallen wood. Rhiann would never leave without it, my stomach lurches, they must still be here.
I go to take a step forward, but my body locks up.
What the fuck am I doing?
I ran all the way here. No plan, no backup. Just boots and panic. Now I’m here, and I can’t go in. I can’t.
It’s too familiar. The way the heat licks at my skin, pulsing off the burning house like a warning, the way the smoke drags like sand through my throat, thick and sour.
I know it too well. Different house. Same fire. Same feeling in my gut.
My Threads twitch, fingers locking tight. If I go in, I might not come out.... If I turn away, I live—but I leave a kid to burn. One choice could kill me. The other kills who I am.
The scar on my hand sears hot—like the doorknob that night. I squeeze my eyes shut and for a heartbeat I’m there again, my mother’s scream swallowed by fire. The cry I couldn’t answer. The one that still claws me awake.
I blink hard, drag myself back. Not this time. Not again. They’re still inside now.
Choose.
“Fuck it, I can do this.” I breathe. Louder, forcing steel into my throat: “I do this.”
“Rhiann!” I scream as I step through into the main room, but the fire devours the sound instantly.
The main room’s empty—or looks it, it’s barely visible—just shapes in motion, flickers of orange light jumping off surfaces that might be furniture, might be walls. I can’t tell. Above me, something creaks, a long, low groan that makes the hairs on my neck stand up.
My Threads stir in response, hot and impatient under my skin, aching for release.
And yeah—this is exactly when knowing how to use them properly would actually mean something.
Maybe I could shove the fire back, carve myself a path through the smoke.
But I don’t have that kind of control. And in here—walls trembling, roof ready to cave—one wrong push could bring the whole place down on top of us.
“Rhiann? Charlie?” I yell again.
Still nothing. Just the roar of the fire as it climbs the walls, racing toward the ceiling, reaching into the room like it’s caught my scent and wants me burned.
I drop low, yanking my shirt over my mouth as the smoke curls thick around my face. It clings to my skin, stinging my eyes, slick with sweat.
I can barely see a metre in front of me—just the smear of motion, the flicker of firelight through the haze, but I keep moving. Feet heavy, every step dragging deeper into the heat, stinging my skin raw.
A picture frame crashes beside me, glass exploding across scorched floorboards as I push through into the hallway.
Up ahead, the kitchen door sags on half-burned hinges, frame blackened and buckling.
I edge closer and brace myself, lifting one arm to shield my face as I push the door open.
A blast of scorching air punches out the second it gives, sharp and biting.
Dropping my arm, I expect to see them, pray to see them, but it’s just smoke and flame.
Above me, a heavy snap—wood straining, loud enough to split through the fire’s roar. But underneath it, buried in the crackle—faint.
“Help.” A kid’s voice. Charlie.
I freeze, straining to catch it again—there, behind me, off to the side. A muffled scrape, the bathroom, it has to be.
My heart hammers harder as I spin, shoving back into the hall, blinking through smoke until the door comes into view—half open, edges scorched.
Through the dark haze, I spot her, Rhiann, on the floor, still. Too still. And crouched beside her is a small figure, face streaked with soot, eyes wide. Charlie.
He shifts to stand, the floor dips. It looks ready to give.
“Don’t.” The word rips out of me. “Stay there.”
“Mum won’t wake,” he cries, not moving.
I take one step toward them—Crack.
The ceiling groans—low, dragging—like the house itself is giving up.
My head jerks up. Too late. The beam tears free, crashing down in a spray of splinters and flame, slamming into the floor between us.
The blast knocks me back hard—I hit the floor shoulder first, elbow cracking, lungs seizing.
Heat blasts out from the impact, rushing across my skin in warning.
Scrambling backwards, I push myself into the kitchen, boots slipping on ash-slick tile.
In front of me, the hallway’s gone, swallowed whole by flame.
“Charlie!” I shout, coughing through the name, eyes scanning through the haze. “Charlie!”
But the only thing that answers is the sirens outside and the sound of wood screaming as it burns. Smoke thickens with it, wrapping around my ribs like a fist—cinching tighter with every inhale.
I reach for my Threads, dig down hard, and for a heartbeat they answer—Air pulses out of me in a jagged burst, causing the smoke near my face to shudder, dragged back just enough to carve a window through the gloom.
Just enough to see Charlie. No breath. No blink.
A vice clamps around my chest. No, no, no. It can’t be too late. It can't be. I have to get to him, to her, get us out.