“They were already coming,” he said.
I didn’t need explanation.
The man they sent after me hadn’t been meant to succeed. He’d been a distraction. A blade thrown ahead of an army to fix my position while Ember forces moved into place.
They just hadn’t expected the bond to seal first.
Neither had I.
Across the field, flame gathered without advancing, coiling impatient, controlled spirals. At its center stood the Ember Court king, unmoving, heat radiating from him in waves that made the air whisper.
I felt Atlas’s focus narrow, harden.
I felt my own answer rise to meet it.
The storm did not answer the Ember king.
It held.
Wind steadied. Rain thinned. Magic locked into place around us like the final arrangement of a board that could no longer be reset.
For one long, terrible moment, everything was still.
Then fire drew breath.
Chapter 45
The Silence After Fire
ATLAS
The fire tightened.
Across the field, flame drew inward, compacting instead of spreading, the air around it bending under the pressure. The stillness stretched too long. Rain hissed where it touched heat and vanished.
I didn’t wait to see where it would land.
I pulled Caelira to me, my hand tightening around her waist.
The storm took us.
The first trike landed before we did.
Space snapped tight and released, rain and win tearing sideways as the field rushed up to meet us. Mud splashed hard against my boots, grass flattening beneath the impact as sound crashed in all at once.
Steel rang close.
Shouts tore through the rain.
Fire ripped low across the ground, hissing where it met water.
We were in it.
Joren’s line was already breaking shape, bodies slipping in the churned mud, shields flaring unevenly as Ember pressuredrove forward. Smoke dragged low across the fired, turning movement into shadow and heat.
I pivoted into it, sword ready.
An Ember Court soldier came at me from the left, blade glowing dull red, heat rolling off him in waves. I met him halfway, blocking his strike, the impact jarring my shoulder. My shoulder drove into his chest. We went down together.
