“Marriage is a choice. A commitment.” Her fingers twisted together as we walked. “Mating is... inevitable. When it happens.”

  “And if it doesn’t happen?”

  Brynelle was quiet for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. “Some of us don’t need it.”

  The path curved around a small pond where water lilies bloomed in impossible shades of blue and silver. Brynelle paused to trail her fingers through the water, her reflection wavering in the gentle ripples.

  “Sometimes I think that’s enough,” she murmured, so quietly I almost missed it.

  Before I could ask what she meant, the world exploded into violence.

  A hand clamped over my mouth from behind, fingers digging into my jaw hard enough to bruise. My body reacted before my mind could catch up.

  I bit down hard on the fingers pressed against my lips, tasting blood as my attacker cursed. My elbow shot backward, connecting with something soft, ribs, maybe stomach. The grip on me loosened just enough for me to twist, hands already reaching for weapons that weren’t there.

  Three of them. No, four. All dressed in dark leathers, faces hidden behind masks.

  Beside me, Brynelle was fighting like fury incarnate, her wings snapping wide as wind howled around her. One of the attackers went flying, slammed into a tree with enough force to crack bark. But even as I watched, two more were on her, and gods⁠—

  Ropes. They had ropes marked with symbols that glowed with sickly light, and the moment they touched Brynelle’s skin, she screamed.

  Her magic cut off like someone had severed a lifeline. The wind died. Her wings folded, and she hit the ground hard, thrashing against bindings that seemed to burn her even as they held.

  I lunged, but hands caught me again, more of them now, too many to fight. Rough fingers dug into my arms with bruising force.

  “You sure it’s her?” one of them hissed, his voice muffled behind the mask.

  “Has to be. The scent matches the one we found at the Veil.”

  These weren’t random bandits.

  They were here for me.

  “Check for the others,” another commanded, and my heart stopped beating entirely. “There was more than one scent at the crossing point.”

  No.

  Not just me. They wanted Mireth and Eryx.

  My children.

  My babies who were laughing and playing with dragons just minutes ago, covered in soot and joy and the kind of innocence I’d fought to preserve through a year of hell.

  The panic crested into something else. Something molten and furious and absolutely fucking feral.

  “The children aren’t here,” I snarled against the hand clamped over my mouth, biting down again when the bastard didn’t let go.

  “We’ll find them,” the leader said with casual certainty that made my vision go red. “Ashterion has plans for all of you.”

  Like hell.

  The fury wasn’t mine anymore. It was something older. Something that had been sleeping in my marrow since I crossed the Veil, coiled tight and patient, waiting for exactly this moment to wake up hungry.

  The thing beneath my skin roared.

  And I erupted.

  Black flames exploded from every inch of my body.

  They poured out like I was bleeding darkness, like someone had cracked my ribs open and all the rage I’d been swallowing for a year came flooding out in a torrent of shadow and cold fire.

  They didn’t burn me. They should have. Fire was fire, and flesh was flesh, but these flames felt like an extension of my rage, my terror, my absolute refusal to let anyone touch my children.

  The flames spread across the ground in serpentine waves, climbing trees, wrapping around flowers that wilted and blackened at their touch. The air itself seemed to dim, reality bending to accommodate the fury bleeding out of me in frozen, hungry torrents.

  One of the masked bastards was screaming. The sound cut off abruptly when my fire found him.

  He didn’t get back up.

  The flames wanted more.

  They hissed it in my bones, in the spaces between heartbeats where reason used to live. More. More. More.

  Feed us the ones who’d threaten children. Feed us the ones who’d drag innocents to shadow lords with plans. Feed us everyone who thought they could take what wasn’t theirs and walk away breathing.

  The fire didn’t care about mercy.

  Neither did I.

  The hands holding me jerked away with screams that tore through the afternoon air like broken glass. I caught a glimpse of the one who’d been covering my mouth—his gloves were ash, his fingers blistered and raw where the flames had touched him.

  Good.

  The fire avoided Brynelle entirely, flowing around her like water around a stone.

  It reached for her attackers like it was hunting.

  “What the fuck—” one of them started to say.

  He didn’t get to finish. The flames found him, wrapped around his legs, and he hit the ground screaming. The others were backing away now, but there was nowhere to go. The fire had surrounded us, contained us, and it was hungry for the blood of anyone who thought they could threaten what was mine.

  The flames roared higher, and I felt a shift in the very air around us. The garden was changing, reality bending to accommodate the fury pouring out of me. Shadows deepened. Even the water in the pond turned black as ink.

  A figure slammed into the ground beside me.

  Winged. Male. Unfamiliar.

  He was tall, powerfully built in that way that suggested he could snap necks as easily as breathing. One side of his head was shaved close to the skull, while the other bore hair that shimmered between midnight blue and indigo, falling past his shoulders in a cascade broken by tight, intricate braids.

  He took one look at the carnage around us. At the bodies wreathed in my flames, at Brynelle writhing against her bindings, at me standing in the centre of it all like some nightmare queen, and smiled.

  It wasn’t a nice smile.

  A blur of white hair and fury hit the ground a heartbeat later. Shaelith, her usually perfect composure replaced by something that looked suspiciously like bloodlust.

  She didn’t pause to assess. She sprinted to Brynelle’s thrashing form, sliding to her knees beside her.

  The winged male moved like liquid death. His blade sang as it arced through the air, the steel gleaming with an oily iridescence that made the air around it shimmer.

  One of the masked bastards tried to run.

  The male caught him mid-stride, that massive blade taking his head clean off in a spray of arterial crimson that painted the burning grass like abstract art.

  I couldn’t stop it.

  The flames poured from my skin like I was bleeding starlight and shadow, each pulse stronger than the last. They reached for the remaining attackers with serpentine grace, beautiful and terrible and so fucking hungry I could taste their need on my tongue.

  One of the masked bastards was trying to crawl away, his legs charred, leaving a trail of blood and burned leather. The fire found him anyway.

  “Please,” he gasped, the word wet and broken. “Please, I have⁠—”

  The flames didn’t care what he had. They cared what he’d wanted. What he’d planned to do to my children.

  Shaelith’s hands worked quickly at Brynelle’s bindings, her fingers finding the knots and pressure points with the efficiency of someone who’d done this before. The ropes fell away like dead snakes, their sickly glow fading as they hit the ground.

  Brynelle rolled over, gasping, her dark skin marked with angry red welts where the cursed ropes had touched her. But she was breathing. Alive. That was what mattered.

  The fire disagreed. It wanted to find more enemies, more threats to burn. It pressed against my ribs like a caged animal, desperate to break free and hunt.

  “Isara.”

  The name came from behind me, low and careful, like someone trying not to spook a wounded animal.

  I didn’t turn. Couldn’t. The flames were climbing higher now, reaching for the sky like they wanted to set the very air on fire.

  “Isara, you need to stop.”

  Varyth. Of course it was Varyth. Come to watch me lose control, come to see exactly what kind of monster he’d pulled from the Veil.

  “Listen to me.” His voice was closer now, though I couldn’t hear his footsteps over the roar of flames. “The fire is yours. It obeys you, not the other way around. Draw it back.”

  I tried. Gods, I tried. But the flames had tasted blood and freedom, and they didn’t want to go back to whatever dark corner of my soul they’d crawled out of. They wanted to burn everything. Everyone. Until the world was nothing but ash and the memory of those who’d thought they could take my children from me.

  Cool mist wrapped around me like silk, threading through the flames. Not fighting the fire—claiming it. Absorbing it. Drawing it back into whatever abyss it had crawled from.

  The relief was instantaneous and devastating.

  My knees buckled. The world tilted sideways, reality reshuffling itself into something that made sense again.

  Strong arms caught me before I could hit the ground.

  Varyth’s chest was solid against my back, his heartbeat steady and sure beneath the fine fabric of his shirt. The mist poured from him, cool and soothing, wrapping around us both like a cocoon.

  “Easy,” he murmured against my hair, his voice rough. “I’ve got you.”

  My vision swam, black spots dancing like burned moths behind my eyelids. But through the haze, I could see Shaelith kneeling beside Brynelle, her white hair a stark contrast against the charred grass.

  “Get her to the healers,” Varyth snapped, cutting through the ringing in my ears. “Now.”

  Shaelith didn’t argue. She slipped her arms under Brynelle’s shoulders, hauling her upright with surprising strength for someone so slight. Brynelle was conscious but shaky, her iridescent wings dragging behind her as they moved toward the castle.

  The winged male was crouched over one of the bodies, the one whose head was attached, at least. His massive hands moved with surprising delicacy as he searched through charred leather and ash.

  “No insignia,” he called out, his words carrying across the ruined garden. “No marks. No identifying features.”

  “Find out how they got onto the grounds,” Varyth ordered, his tone arctic with controlled fury. “Someone had to let them in.”

  “My children,” I gasped, struggling against Varyth’s hold. “Where are⁠—”

  “Safe.” His arms tightened around me, steady and unbreakable. “They’re safe, Isara. Still playing with Dariandralis’ boy. They don’t even know anything happened.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” His voice was gentler now, some of that glacial control melting away. “Dariandralis has them. They’re protected.”

  The relief hit me harder than the exhaustion. My children were safe. Laughing, playing, innocent of the nightmare that had just tried to tear our world apart.

  The garden spun around me, reality tilting and swaying like I was standing on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. Varyth’s mist clung to my skin, cool and soothing, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the tide of blackness creeping in from the edges of my vision.

  The last thing I heard was Varyth’s rumble of my name and the sound of my own heartbeat slowing to match the rhythm of something ancient and terrible that had finally awakened inside me.

  Then, nothing.

  11

  Iwoke to silk. Not the rough-spun linen I’d grown used to. Not the threadbare blankets we’d huddled under in caves. Silk. The kind that whispered against skin like water, like wealth, like safety I hadn’t earned.

  Wrong. All wrong.

  Panic slammed through my chest like a fist.

  Where are my children?

  I lunged upright, muscles screaming in protest. The room tilted. My hand shot out, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there, fingers closing around empty air⁠—

  “Whoa, easy—” A male voice. Close. Too close.

  I twisted, body moving on pure instinct. My elbow connected with something solid. A grunt. Movement behind me.

  More than one.

  The mattress dipped as I scrambled backward, my spine hitting an ornate headboard carved from what looked like bone and moonlight. Three figures.

  My breath came in short, sharp bursts. The room, gods, where was I? High ceilings. Tall windows.

  Three men. All too close. All watching me like I was a wild creature they weren’t sure how to contain.

  “Where are they?” The question tore out of me. “Where are my children?”

  “Safe.” The voice was familiar now, cutting through the panic with infuriating calm. Varyth. Of course it was Varyth. He stood nearest to the windows, silver hair catching the light like he’d been carved from the moon itself. “They’re with Lira. Playing. They don’t know anything happened.”

  “Happened.” I repeated the word like it might make sense if I said it. “What⁠—”

  And then it hit me.

  The garden. The attack. The fire.

  Oh gods, the fire.

  I looked down at my hands, half-expecting to see them wreathed in those impossible black flames. But there was only skin, pale and unmarked. No burns. No blood. Nothing to suggest I’d just set four people on fire and enjoyed it.

  “You collapsed.” Darian stepped forward from where he’d been leaning against the wall, sandy hair falling across his brow. “Used too much power too fast. Your body shut down to protect itself.”

  “How long?” My throat felt like I’d swallowed glass.

  “A few hours,” a third voice rumbled. I turned to find the male from the garden, the one with the split-dye hair and battle leathers that looked like they’d survived apocalypses.

  His skin was the colour of cedar, warm and rich against the stark contrast of his midnight-blue hair. A brutal scar carved diagonally across his face, from temple to jaw, catching the corner of his mouth and twisting it into a permanent scowl that made even his neutral expression look vaguely threatening. Like the universe had decided to make smiling a combat manoeuvre.

  His battle leathers were well-worn but masterfully crafted, deep charcoal-black, fastened with burgundy leather straps and reinforced with metal plates over his shoulders that caught the firelight.

  He watched me with dark teal eyes that saw too much. “Your children have been asking for you. We told them you were resting.”

  “They believed that?” I choked out a laugh. “Mireth knows better. She always knows.”

  “Perhaps,” Varyth said quietly. “But for now, she’s choosing to believe it. Let her have that.”

  The words should have comforted me. Instead, they made everything worse, because he was right. Mireth was six years old and already learning to pretend, to protect herself with comfortable lies.

  I’d done that to her. A year of running had taught my daughter how to lie to herself.

  “I need to see them.” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, ignoring how the room swayed. “I need to⁠—”

  “You need to sit down before you fall down,” the male said, his voice a deep thunder that carried the weight of someone used to being obeyed.

  “Fuck off.” I didn’t even look at him. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

  “Lincatheron.” He didn’t seem offended by my hostility. If anything, something that might have been approval flickered across his brutal features. “Master of Arms. And you’re about two seconds from passing out again, so how about you stop being stubborn and⁠—”

  The door crashed open.

  I flinched, my body coiling to fight or flee or whatever the fuck would keep me alive for the next five seconds.

  But it wasn’t attackers.

  It was two women, and they looked pissed.

  “Out.” Shaelith stood in the doorway, white hair falling in waves over one shoulder, cocoa skin almost glowing with fury. “All of you. Out. Now.”

  “We need to debrief—” Lincatheron tried.

  “And you can do that after she’s had five minutes without a wall of masculinity suffocating her.” Shaelith made a shooing motion. “Go. Find something productive to do. Break things. Brood. Whatever it is you people do.”

  Behind her, another woman appeared in the doorway. The one from the training field, Darian’s mate. Eilrys. Though she’d seemed softer then, less like she was considering multiple forms of violence. “She means it. Out.”

  “We were just—” Darian started.

  “Looming,” Eilrys finished. “You were looming. All of you. Like a murder of very stupid, very well-intentioned crows.”

  Varyth opened his mouth.

  “Don’t,” Shaelith warned.

  For a heartbeat, I thought Varyth might argue. His jaw tightened, silver eyes flashing.

  Then he inclined his head. “Of course.”

  The three males filed out like chastised children. Darian shot Eilrys an apologetic look as he passed. She blew him a kiss that somehow managed to be both affectionate and threatening.

  The silence that followed felt like oxygen after drowning.

  “Sit.” Shaelith gestured to one of the plush chairs. Not a suggestion. “Before you actually do pass out and make this my problem.”

  I barely made it to the chair before collapsing into it, the cushions catching me like they’d been waiting. My hands were shaking. When had they started shaking?

  Eilrys moved with quiet efficiency, pouring amber-coloured liquid from a crystal decanter on the side table. She pressed the glass into my hands. “Drink. It’ll help.”

  The first sip burned. The second one less so. By the third, warmth was spreading through my chest, unknotting something tight and vicious that had been coiled there since I’d woken.

  “Better?” Eilrys asked, settling into the chair across from me with the kind of grace that suggested she’d been raised in courts and ballrooms.

  “Define better.”

  Shaelith snorted, claiming the third chair with considerably less grace. She sprawled in it like a cat claiming territory, one leg thrown over the armrest. “Fair point. You did just discover you can spontaneously combust people. That’s got to be a bit of an adjustment.”