Somewhere between me and that inferno, Aurelia was still fighting.
I took one step?—
A shout cut through the chaos.
“Rydian!”
Keres.
I snapped my head toward the sound.
She stood halfway down the slope to my left, one arm bloody, daggers coated black with Obsidian ichor. A cluster of Withered held the line beside her, blades up, magic flickering. Behind them, a gap in the flames opened for the span of a breath, revealing movement just across the river at the camp’s edge.
An explosion ripped through the tents.
A ball of orange flames swallowed a cluster of canvas, blooming up like a poisonous flower. The force of the explosion hit a moment later, a hot wind that knocked several soldiers to their knees. For an instant, I saw silhouettes framed in the fire—Slade dragging someone away, Thorne’s broad shoulders turning as he hurled a knife that glowed white-hot.
Then the smoke swallowed them.
My heart stuttered at what they’d managed to do. But it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t get themselves clear of the blast.
“Aurelia!” Keres’ scream tore through the din, raw and furious. I couldn’t see what she saw from this angle.
All I could see was a wall of furyfire, and I ran toward it.
Black flame curled up the slope, faster than it should have. It clung to the ground like liquid, licking at rock and frost alike. Furyfire, but unleashed now, not contained to Aurelia’s will.
Spreading fast up the dry hillside. Straight toward Keres.
“Keres,” I shouted, breaking into a run.
Her figure vanished in the wall of flame.
Heat slammed into me hard enough to throw me back. I hit the ground, rolled, threw my shadows up in a desperate shield. For a second, the fire hit the darkness and held there, pressing, testing.
Once, back in Grey Oak, Aurelia had used her dark flame on me. It had been such a small thing then, a kernel of what she had now. Back then, I’d withstood it easily. Now? It would consume me.
My power buckled.
I gritted my teeth, bearing down on my own strength as I shoved at it. If that wave reached the cave, everyone inside would burn. Withered. Lesha. Daegel.
I shoved my power forward, shadows stacking on shadows, a wall of smothering smoke against flame. The fire snarled back, hungry, ancient, as if it remembered its true master: a god of Hel itself. As if it remembered nothing in Menryth could stop it.
I poured everything I had into the shield, feeling my magic strain and tear at the edges. Shadows screamed as the furyfire clawed through them, burning away layers of dark, inch by inch.
“Rydian,” someone called.
I didn’t look. Couldn’t look.
If I let go now, that wave would hit the mouth of the cave like a hammer.
Flame licked around the edges of my shield. My skin burned, the heat searing exposed flesh. My lungs felt like I was inhaling knives.
Still, the fire climbed.
My knees buckled. I dropped to one hand, gritting my teeth as the slope rolled under me. The river roared somewhere to my right—a dim, distant sound under the thunder of blood in my ears.
I thought, for a moment, that this might be it. The way I would die. Not on some glorious battlefield. Not on the day we vanquished Heliconia. Not protecting Aurelia from another’s cutting blade. Just here, on a hillside, holding back the fire of the woman I loved long enough for her to live and fight without me.
