Torbin stumbles against a table, coughing as smoke engulfs him, his silhouette framed by the roaring flames.
And I see it.
The war inside Dante—the grief, the fury, the heartbreak.
Torbin is his brother. Twisted, broken, monstrous. But still his brother.
Dante’s hand trembles on the hilt of his sword.
Nadya pulls harder at me, trying to get us through the doorway. The smoke is choking now, blinding.
As I back up toward the door, I pull Dante with me. “We have to go!” I shout, my throat raw. “Dante!”
He stumbles into the hall with me, but he turns his head, and his grey eyes meet mine. There’s a heartbreak in them that shatterssomething inside me.
“I can’t let him die,” he says hoarsely.
“Dante, don’t!”
“He’s my brother, Celeste. I can’t let him go. Not like this.”
And before I can stop him, before I can scream for him to come back, Dante plunges into the fire.
Fuck!
Flames beat at the door. A layer of smoke conceals the ceiling, thick and black, writhing like a living thing. It leaks into the hallway, advancing on me and Nadya.
I cough, my lungs burning, eyes stinging. The fire is everywhere, devouring the wood, the stone, the air itself.
Dante is barely a silhouette ahead of me, his body carving a path through the inferno. He throws his arm up to shield his face, trying to reach Torbin, who stumbles, half-choking, deeper inside the collapsing room.
He won’t make it.
Oh, gods!
A raw, desperate instinct rises in me—something deeper than fear, deeper than reason.
I thrust my hand forward, feeling the power coiling inside me, reckless and volatile. I barely think. I just will it forward, shoving the flames aside, parting them with a surge of force that tears at my skull.
Pain explodes behind my eyes, bright and sharp, but I push harder, carving a clear path through the searing heat.
“Dante!” I scream through the roaring fire. “Go!”
Through the opening I’ve made, Dante lunges, grabbing Torbin’s arm and hauling him up just before a flaming beam crashes where Torbin was just standing.
Dante staggers, smoke curling around him like a shroud, but he keeps going, dragging his brother through the gap, toward us, toward freedom.
The fire snaps at their heels, furious and wild, but Dante doesn’t slow.
He bursts through the doorway, coughing, Torbin slumped half-conscious in his arms.
I let the magic fall away, leaning against Nadya, my body trembling, blood trickling from my nose.
For one glorious, aching moment, we’re free.
Until the Dulcamaran guards swarm from the shadows.
Steel flashes. Rough hands grab us. Soldiers throw water on the fire.
