Mirela’s blood ran cold.
“No,” she breathed.
He didn’t look at her as he hurled the oil across the room, across the walls, across what little of her life remained. The fire roared louder, surging higher and faster.
“You see?” he rasped, backing toward the door. “It was always meant to end this way.”
Claire wrenched the door open, coughing as smoke poured into the corridor. “Mirela—now!”
Claire wrapped both arms around her, dragging her backward as the flames roared behind them. Mirela stumbled, her feet heavy, her gaze locked on the fire.
Ferron slipped past them. As he fled, Mirela heard glass breaking elsewhere, oil sloshing, the unmistakable sound of more fire being fed.
He was lighting the cathedral as he ran. He was purposely trapping them both inside.
The bells above them groaned, and Mirela’s heart sank at the thought of them being consumed by the fire as well.
Not her bells… God, please, not the bells.
Smoke thickened, rolling down thestairwell.
Claire hauled her forward, step by step, her voice steady even as panic clawed at it. “You’re with me. You’re here. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Mirela moved only because Claire dragged her.
They burst into the stairwell as smoke poured downward in waves. It was thick, black and swallowing the stone steps ahead of them. The heat pressed in from every side, the air burning her lungs with every breath she tried to steal. Above them, wood splintered as beams groaned under the weight of fire.
“Mirela—stay with me,” Claire gasped, her voice already ragged, each word tearing at her throat.
She coughed hard, stumbling, and Mirela caught her instinctively, wrapping an arm around her waist, feeling how light she suddenly seemed.
The bells began to toll. Not rhythmically. Not properly.
They screamed.
The ropes burned above them snapping loose, the bells swinging wildly, shaking the tower to its bones.
A beam crashed down ahead of them, splintering stone, sending sparks skittering across the floor. Mirela flinched, panic clawing up her spine. Her vision tunneled as the flames surged closer, licking along the walls as it devoured tapestries, and saints’ statues.
Claire’s grip tightened painfully. “Look at me,” she wheezed. “Just me. Don’t stop. We need to run.”
Mirela’s eyes focused on Claire, on her wild hair, on her narrowed, half-open eyes. They needed to escape. She needed to push this fear away and save her. If she lost Claire, all her suffering would’ve been for nothing, and Mirela would not tolerate that.
Grabbing Claire’s hand tightly, they ran through falling ash and choking smoke and corridors collapsing in on themselves.
Mirela shielded Claire with her body when embers rained down. It wouldn’t be the first time her body had been in contact with fire. Back then, she was a child; now she was a woman, and if she had to burn once more, she would gladly do so to protect Claire.
As burning wood fell too close, she ignored the burning splinters on her back as the air itself seemed to turn against them. Her scars screamed, her breath stuttered, the past clawing at her mind, but still she moved.
She would not stop.
Not now.
Not for this.
The great doors loomed ahead, barely visible through the smoke. Claire sobbed, half relief, half terror as they stumbled forward, coughing, choking, dragging themselves the final distance.
Mirela slammed her shoulder against the grand doors. They burst out into the square and collapsedonto the stone, sucking in breath after breath, the night sky spinning above them. The fire was deafening now.
