The smoke rose from the pyre, mingling with the dust from the decimated temple.
I did not want to be here.
After all the time I had spent convincing myself I wanted to attend, I didn’t want to be at this funeral. But it was too late.
Elex laced his fingers with mine in the silence that always surrounded the death of a temple master.
I desperately wanted Danai back, even if my reasons were selfish. I was scared. When I was scared before, Danai would reassure me it was fine. Everything would work out. There was no reason to be scared.
Standing in front of her funeral pyre, I was terrified to my very core. Too much had happened in less than a few weeks. Too much was changing.
“You’re trembling,” Elex whispered in my ear.
I nodded. How could I not? This wasn’t what I was expecting out of life.
Someone had attacked the temple.
Someone had killed a master.
A temple was destroyed around my ears, and every single master made me run. The magic pulled me to the cave in the mountain. Despite the shaking and trembling and uncertainty in the very ground we walked on, IknewI would be safe there.
The flames danced around Danai’s body, drawing the ashes up into the air.
The sight was morbid.
The silence was disarming.
The crowds were vast and eerily distant.
S’Kir was in chaos—except for this moment.
Master Dorian stood at the head of the temple members: the masters, the teachers, the dedicants, and the acolytes.
Elex and I stood apart, backed by our friends—Jallina, Jennila, Pierce, Drez, and Arik—we were also not part of the crowds.
I hated this.
A horrid scowl slid into place on Master Dorian’s face. He was clearly disgusted and done. He snapped around on his heel and marched away from the gathering.
The tension in the air released and the crowd slipped away while the temple members did the same.
My feet were rooted in place. It wasn’t even that I didn’t want to move. I couldn’t.
I stared transfixed at the pyre as it slowed its burn. I stayed until Elex finally tugged on my arm and pulled me away.
“Come on, Kimber. We need to leave. They have to—”
“Knock down the pyre and incinerate the remains?”
He shook his head. “I know you’re upset and angry, but this is our tradition.”
Staring at him, I was shocked at his misunderstanding and yanked my hand out of his. “You think I’m angry because of a pyre? I’m angry because that pyre shouldn’t have been. Danai should not have died! Someone killed her! You shouldn’t have been trapped in the wreckage! None of this should have happened!”
“Kimber, please—”
“Do not patronize me, Elex. Do not.”
This time, I spun on my heel and marched away from him, out into the city.
