The pool shrieked beneath them, golden light splintering into black before vanishing altogether, leaving only the calm surface and the sound of their ragged breaths. The crowd’s roar rose behind it, swelling like a tide.
They had emerged alive. They had emerged together.
And as Jakobav staggered up the steps with Ella in his arms, the world saw what neither of them could deny… His was no ordinary Claiming. It had taken them both.
33
SHIELDING THE FIRE
Aplume of vapor surged from the spring’s surface and into the cool morning air. The roar of the crowd faltered, caught in the throats of thousands, until an unnatural hush fell over the Grand Arena.
She was on fire.
Not metaphorically.
Flames curled from her hair, danced over her shoulders, wound down her arms to lick the water still dripping from her skin. They burned white-gold, the color of lightning behind closed eyes, shimmering through the rising steam. Her skin was unmarked, her breath steady. This was not the wild, uncontrolled blaze she’d feared for years.
This was all her. Ella’s Orchid magic was wholly her own again.
Realization hit all at once. She was naked before them—bare to thousands—the fire crowning every inch of her. A jolt of vulnerability shot through her, instinct sending her toward Jakobav’s arms, toward shelter, the flames exposing her in ways nakedness never could.
He caught her without hesitation, hauling her tight against him. The wet heat of her body met the slick coolness of his skin, steadying, comforting, and she forgot about the arena’s crowd.
Jakobav had risen from the final phase alive, power singing against hers like steel meeting steel.
The flames answered her need, flaring higher, and she pressed closer without meaning to. The answering pressure of his body met hers, sensual and slow enough to make her breath catch. His arm tightened around her, a low sound catching in his throat that was part growl and part claim, holding her as though clinging to a victory the entire kingdom now witnessed.
She realized he wasn’t burning.
The flames spilled over his shoulders, curling down his arms, but left no mark. An unseen power shimmered in the air around him, bending the heat away from his flesh without breaking their hold on each other.
Her breath caught as the flames climbed higher across her bare skin, bright and wild. “My fire,” she whispered, hardly daring to believe it, though she could still feel the ghost-touch of the golden strands that had tried to drag her underwater. She’d evaded their grasp, but she couldn’t shake the thought that there’d be a cost for her power restored outside Orchid soil.
She said none of it aloud. Instead, she lifted her gaze to him and confessed, quiet and certain, “The sacred water brought it back. It Claimed me.”
She watched her flames roll against his skin but leave him untouched, unease sparking in her chest with a fleeting thought. Was her fire broken?
The look on her face must’ve told him what she didn’t say.
He spoke low and steady, his voice carrying the weight of absolute truth. “You will not burn me,” he said. “Not anymore.”
Ella blinked at him in disbelief. “What do you mean, not anymore? And—” Her eyes narrowed as she whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to announce who I am?”
His jaw flexed. “It wasn’t exactly planned.”
“Nothing with you ever is,” she countered, though her voice trembled with the shifting weight of the moment. “So what happens now? Jakobav, what?—”
“I’ll explain everything,” he said, low but urgent, leaning in until she could feel the warning in his voice. “But your safety hinges on what happens next. Do exactly as I say.”
High above, the High Vexari had started to draw the crowd’s gaze, staff in hand, her inked face darkening. Her eyes followed every ember unfurling from Ella’s skin to Jakobav’s, and in their black depths, calculation gleamed with something deeper than ritual.
Movement at the edge of the spring pulled Ella’s focus. Attendants surged forward with arms full of heavy ceremonial robes, hurrying toward the steps, reaching out as if to drape the fabric over both of them.
But the flames hadn’t dimmed.
They swept down Ella’s arms in a sudden, eager flare, spilling outward.
Maeren stepped closer, her expression etched with something that twisted in Ella’s chest—concern and maybe shock. Gods. It had to have been triggering, watching them struggle beneath the water, unsure if they were drowning. Had she been reliving the nightmare of her brother’s Claiming?
