I scream.
But my voice is swallowed by the thunderous crash as the building implodes.
A shockwave tears through the air and I’m thrown backwards—lifted off my feet like a leaf in a storm. I hit the ground hard, skidding through the dirt. My palms tear open, pain knifing through my ribs.
But none of it registers.
My ears ring and I taste blood.
No, no, no—
Through a haze of sparks and swirling embers, I glimpse the house fully consumed by fire. Nothing but charred beams and a plume of black smoke remain.
Oh gods, my parents were right there.
I try to stand but my legs buckle, panic clawing at my throat.
“Amara!” Lyra’s voice pierces the roar. She’s running toward me, her face a mask of terror. “Get back!” She tries to grab my arm to hold me steady.
“No—” My voice cracks. Hot tears trail down my cheeks. “They’re still—”
But it’s futile. My heart twists in agony. The entire structure collapses inward with a thunderous groan, sending fresh flames lurching skyward.
Lyra’s arms come around me, pulling me away from the searing heat. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, voice trembling.
I want to fight her, want to tear free and rush into that inferno. But my legs give out, my will fracturing under the weight of loss.
My parents are dead.
The realization slices like a blade, cruel and final. A strangled cry rips out of me. My vision blurs, my breathing turns ragged.
I couldn’t protect them.
I’ll never feel my mother’s fingers brushing through my hair in the mornings, humming some old lullaby off-key. I’ll never hear Father’s laugh again as he cheats at cards, grinning like a child who got away with something. I’ll never smell the herbsfrom the garden clinging to their clothes when they come in from the fields. I’ll never sit between them at the table, warm and full andsafe.
My eyes are raw from smoke, tears, terror. The crackle of magics burn beneath my skin, wild and untethered. A cold emptiness hollows out my chest.
I can’t think. I can’t move. I can only watch as the last pieces of the life I knew are swallowed whole.
The magnitude of what’s happened hits me like a battering ram.
Something inside me snaps. A raw, guttural scream rips from my throat—so full of grief it feels like it’s tearing me in half. Magics explode out of me in a tidal wave of fury and despair.
It’s grief made fire, wind, and ruin.
The shockwave tears through the square—flames roaring outward, the air crackling with raw power. Shadow creatures disintegrate on contact. Fences splinter, debris spinning like leaves in a storm.
Someone screams. Someone else falls. I hear Lyra shout my name—but it’s far away, drowned in the chaos erupting from me.
And then—silence.
It comes so suddenly my ears ring, like the world inhaled—and forgot how to exhale. Where there was flame and screaming and the terrible tearing of shadow-things ripping into homes, there’s nothing now but the faint crackle of embers. Ash hangs in the air like smoke that forgot how to fall.
The surviving villagers stare, stunned, some knocked to the ground. A few clutch their arms or heads, scraped or bruised from flying debris. They’re looking at me like they don’t know what I am.
I don’t either.
I raise my head, still on my knees. My body is trembling, a sickly heat coursing through my veins—like my magics set me onfire from the inside out. Each breath is a struggle. I want to lie down, close my eyes, pretend none of this is real.
