I’d missed my landing.
Chapter 26
THE FIRE BELONGS WITHIN
There was barely time to register the ice slicing at my face before I was wrapped in a warm embrace. I caught the flash of C’ael’s green eyes before the world fractured.
It coalesced a moment later, but I was safe, my cheek pressed to C’ael’s chest and his arms tight around me.
The wind whined as if mourning the loss of its kill.
Fate, it seemed, was determined to kill me with a fall. But not this time.
C’ael’s heart thundered against my cheek. “That was too close.”
“You teleported me. I didn’t think you could do that.”
He let out an uncertain laugh. “Neither did I.”
But he had, and we were safe. I peeled away from him to look up at his face. Into bright eyes filled with relief.
“Thank you.” I pushed up on impulse and kissed his cheek.
He leaned into me, his body relaxing then tightening as he pulled me flush against him into a hug. It lasted a moment, but I felt it in my bones, and when he released me, I ached to hold him again.
“We should go back and get Jasha,” he said.
I glanced around properly for the first time. We were on a wider path. The temple was visible up ahead.
“Get inside,” C’ael said. “I’ll be right back with Jasha.” He kissed my forehead and hurried off down the path.
I turned to the temple, pulse quickening. “I’m coming, Araz.”
Warmth envelopedme as I stepped through into the temple. A sense of peace washed over me, pebbling my skin despite the heat. Sweet incense mingled with my breath, the otherness of this place wrapping itself around me just as it had the first time I’d visited.
I crossed the white marble floors into a chamber with walls inlaid with gold and slipped past thick stone pillars holding up the arched framework to a ceiling intricately carved with swirling patterns hiding stars, moons, and flames. And there it was…Iblees’s flame. It burned steadily in a pit, set in the center of a golden spiral that was etched into the floor.
I stepped closer, past the first of the eleven rings leading to it, and the blue flame flickered a little, expanding as if on a breath.
“Araz?” Could he hear me? Was he in the room with us somehow?
The flame breathed once more, then settled. Disappointment and doubt burned in my chest.
“Leela.” C’ael joined me, bringing the fresh, cold scent of the outside with him. Jasha was behind him but stopped at the pillars, his gaze reverent and watchful.
He was a drohi, but he was also djinn, and this was a holy place for the djinn. A place where Iblees had set down a flame. And if we’d deciphered Araz’s message correctly, then the storieswere true. This flame was an aspect of Iblees himself. It was a part of Araz.
C’ael stepped onto the spiral, coming abreast of me, and the flame flared upward, undeniably in greeting. My pulse leapt. I remembered this reaction. The way the flame had flared for me when I’d stepped onto the spiral months ago. But…hadit flared for me? I cast my mind back to that memory. To the way the flame had roared and saw it clearly…Araz had been behind me on the spiral. Oh gods…the flame hadn’t flared for me. It had flared for him.
It had recognized him just as it was recognizing C’ael now. But…C’ael was Iblees’s creation, not a part of him like Araz was.
C’ael walked forward, his eyes glassy as if in a daze, and the icy grip of comprehension curled around my heart.
“Yes, I’m coming,” C’ael said.
The fist around my heart squeezed. “Wait!” I rushed forward—too late.
C’ael shoved his hand into the flame. His body jerked, and his head fell back, mouth parting, eyes wide and blazing gold.
