But I couldn’t. My fingers wouldn’t obey, wouldn’t close, wouldn’t do anything except slip uselessly across emerald scales made slick with speed and altitude.
I was falling.
Again.
The sky wheeled above me in shades of grey and black, the shadow dragons circling like carrion birds. I should have been terrified. Should have been fighting, clawing for survival, doing anything except floating through the air like a leaf torn from a tree.
But all I felt was tired.
So fucking tired.
Then something closed around my body—massive, scaled, impossibly gentle. Kaelen’s claw, wrapping around my torso like a cage of emerald and ancient strength.
“I’ve got you, wildfire. Just... stay with me.”
His voice was the last thing I heard before the grey static swallowed everything whole, and the world dissolved into merciful darkness.
19
The soldiers came in the dark.Not through doors or windows—they materialised from shadow itself, their armour drinking light like hungry mouths. I could smell them before I saw them: death and ash and something sickeningly sweet, like flowers blooming in a graveyard.
Mireth screamed.
The sound tore through me like a blade finding bone, sharp and desperate and wrong. She was pressed against the far wall of our chamber, Eryx clutched in her small arms, both trembling as the Nyxarian soldiers closed in.
“Mama!” Mireth’s voice cracked on the word, high and terrified. “Mama, help!”
I tried to move—tried to run to them, to fight, to do something—but my body was lead, my limbs refusing to obey. The harder I struggled, the heavier I became, sinking into quicksand that tasted of copper and despair.
The lead soldier reached for Mireth with gauntleted hands, and I could see his face beneath the helm. It was beautiful in that terrible fae way, with eyes like infected wounds and a smile that promised pain.
“Such lovely children,” he purred, the words silk over broken glass. “Lord Ashterion will be so pleased.”
“No!” The scream ripped from my throat, but it came out as nothing—less than a whisper, less than breath. I was drowning in my own helplessness, watching as those metal fingers closed around my daughter’s wrist.
Mireth’s amber eyes found mine across the room, wide with terror and confusion. Why wasn’t I saving them? Why wasn’t I fighting?
Why wasn’t I enough?
The soldier lifted her easily, ignoring her struggles, her small fists beating uselessly against his armour. Eryx began to wail, that heartbroken sound that meant the world was ending and nothing would ever be safe again.
They were taking them. Taking my babies. And I was frozen, useless, failing them when they needed me most.
The darkness began to eat the edges of my vision, creeping inward like smoke. The last thing I heard was Mireth calling my name, growing fainter and fainter until?—
“ISARA!”
The voice crashed through the nightmare like lightning splitting stone. My eyes snapped open to find silver fire burning above me, pale and furious and achingly familiar.
Varyth.
He was shouting my name, but the sound seemed to come from very far away. The room was chaos, black flames lashing across the walls, hungry and wild andmine. They poured from me in torrents, turning the air thick with shadow and impossible cold.
Everything they touched withered. The wooden nightstand crumbled to ash. Tapestries disintegrated. The stone walls themselves began to crack and blacken under the onslaught.
And I couldn’t stop it.
The power roared through me like a dam bursting, all the terror and helplessness from the dream transmuted into something that couldburn. It wanted to devour everything. The room, the castle, the entire fucking realm if that’s what it took to keep my children safe.
