“Isara!” Varyth’s hands were on my shoulders now, his fingers burning against my skin. Mist flowed from him, trying to quell the inferno raging from my skin. “Look at me.Look at me.”
I tried to focus on his face, on those silver eyes that reflected my flames like mirrors. But the power kept pulling at me, begging to be unleashed, whispering promises of what it could do to anyone who dared threaten what was mine.
Burn them all. Turn them to ash and memory. Make them pay for even thinking?—
“They’re safe.” Varyth’s words cut through the whispers. “Your children are safe, Isara. They’re sleeping down the hall. Lira is with them. No one has touched them.”
The flames faltered, just for a moment.
“It was a dream,” he continued, his grip on my shoulders steady and sure. “A nightmare. But it wasn’t real.”
The black fire began to recede, pulling back from the walls like a tide in reverse. The room looked like a battlefield. Furniture reduced to charcoal, scorch marks carved deep into stone, the air thick with the scent of destruction.
I was shaking. Violent tremors that I couldn’t control, my body trying to process the aftermath of that much power flowing through it. Sweat slicked my skin despite the cold fire, and I could taste copper in my mouth.
“I—” My voice came out as a croak. “The children—I need to see?—”
“They’re safe,” Varyth repeated, but he was already moving, his hands sliding from my shoulders to help me sit up. “But yes. We’ll go see them.”
I tried to stand and nearly collapsed. Whatever the shadow fire had taken from me, it had left me hollow, wrung out. Varyth caught me before I could hit the floor.
“Easy,” he murmured, his tone almost gentle. “The power took a lot from you. You need to?—”
“Now.” The word came out sharper than I’d intended. “I need to see them now.”
He studied my face for a moment, searching. Whatever he found there must have convinced him, because he nodded once.
“Alright. But you’re leaning on me whether you like it or not.”
I wanted to argue, to insist I could walk on my own, but my legs had other ideas. They shook like a newborn foal’s, barely able to support my weight. So I swallowed my pride and let Varyth guide me from the ruined chamber into the hallway beyond.
The corridor was chaos. Guards ran back and forth, their faces tight with panic. Servants pressed themselves against the walls as we passed, their eyes wide as they took in the destruction that followed in our wake.
Because it wasn’t just my room. Black scorch marks traced along the walls wherever we walked, as if the shadow fire was still bleeding from me in thin streams. The very air seemed to darken in my presence, reality bending slightly at the edges like heat shimmer.
“How far did it spread?” I asked, leaning heavily against Varyth’s solid warmth.
“Three floors.” His voice was neutral. “Most of the east wing. We’re assessing the damage.”
Three floors. Gods.
“Anyone hurt?”
“Minor injuries. Some of the guards closest to your room were knocked unconscious by the initial surge, but they’ll recover. For whatever reason, it didn’t harm anyone.” Heglanced down at me, something unreadable flickering across his features. “But if I hadn’t reached you when I did?—”
“But you did.” I didn’t want to think about what might have happened. Couldn’t bear the thought of my uncontrolled power hurting innocent people. “How did you know?”
“The wards.” Varyth’s grip tightened slightly around my waist as we turned a corner. “They reacted when your power spiked. Felt like the world was tearing itself apart from the inside out.”
We reached the children’s chambers, and I practically tore myself from Varyth’s arms in my desperation to get to the door. My hands shook as I pushed it open, my heart hammering against my ribs as I stepped inside.
Relief crashed over me so hard it nearly knocked me to my knees.
They were there. Both of them. Mireth curled up in her bed with Eryx tucked against her side, his tiny fist tangled in her dark hair. Eryx’s own bed lay empty, abandoned whenever he’d climb in to join her. They were breathing deep and even, faces soft with sleep, completely unaware of the chaos their mother had just unleashed.
Lira sat in a chair beside the bed, her kind eyes reflecting the lamplight. She looked tired but alert, clearly having been woken by whatever alarms my power had triggered.
“They never stirred,” she said, rising from her chair to meet me halfway across the room. “Whatever happened, the wards around this room held. They felt nothing.”
