“Here.” Jace holds out a thick twig. “You’re going to want something to bite down on.”
She opens her mouth and he places it inside. Moving in front of her, I cup her cheeks, earning her wide-eyed stare.
“I’m going to ask you one more time. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Please just say no.
She nods, her lavender eyes determined.
Fuck.My chest deflates and I drop my hands.Here goes nothing.
Mar squeezes between us, bumping me behind Serena as Jace comes around her other side. He brings his eyes to the fire and the wild flames are tamed into a narrow column, like they’re being contained inside some invisible tube.
“When you’re ready,” Mar says, bracing Serena’s bicep with both hands.
Without hesitating, Serena sticks her hands into the line of fire.
I cringe. It takes mere seconds for her to start whimpering. The whimpers turn into cries then into screams that will haunt my dreams until the day I die. Each one rips through me, spearing me straight through the heart.
I know, sweetheart, I know. It will be over soon.
Ihope.
I brace her hips, sending my magic through the point of contact, but her wrists are burning faster than Mar and I can heal them. Her skin is hot to the touch, crocodile tears streaming down her pink cheeks.
Come on.I fix my gaze on those damned cuffs.Fucking melt already.
“It’s taking too long,” I snarl, panic edging my tone. “The fire isn’t hot enough to do this.”
I watch as the flames eat away at Jace’s margins along with the wet towels. Sweat is beading along his forehead and not from the proximity to the flames.
“I’m healing her as we go,” Mar forces out, hands still braced on Serena’s arms.
But she’s in pain! Every fibre of my being is straining against this, begging me to intervene.
Jace is concentrating harder than I’ve ever seen, trying to contain the fire and also keep a barrier between the shackles and her wrists. Meanwhile, the cuffs don’t look like they’re even close to liquifying.
“It’s not enough,” I breathe. “It’s not enough!”
Serena’s screams intensify and her pain becomes this tangible thing, hitting me from all sides.
No, this is over. Finished.
“Take her hands out. Now,” I snap.
I can’t take it. I can’t stand the sound of her muted screams, can’t take knowing what this is doing to her. When no one moves, I drag her back, away from the fire. She collapses into me, and I take her down in the sand between my legs.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jace shouts.
“We can’t do this,” I pant as Serena’s tears soak my shirt. She’s shaking like a leaf, moaning, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Well, we’ve got to do something!”
Think, Zadyn.
“Mar, can you burn them off any faster than the fire would?”
She looks stunned by my question. “I—I can try. But I won’t be able to heal her as we go. The pain will be?—”
