The Fire-Bringers spread along the rampart, taking positions between groups of Brotherhood warriors. Selene’s gold fire blazes to my left, pushing back a cluster of constructs. Aisling’s steadier orange flame cuts precise lines through another group. Nasyra’s shadow-touched darkness meets the enemy magic and devours it—same source recognizing same source, she explained once.
I let my fire rise.
White flame erupts from my hands, brighter than the dawn, hotter than anything the other Fire-Bringers can produce. I’ve always known my fire was different. Stronger. But I’ve never used it in true combat before—training exercises don’t count, controlled environments where the worst consequence of failure was exhaustion.
This is real.
A shadow construct lunges for a Brotherhood warrior who’s fighting two others, his back exposed. I don’t think—just react. My fire arcs across the rampart and hits the construct dead center.
It doesn’t push back. Doesn’t retreat. Doesn’t reform.
It annihilates.
Where Selene’s fire drives back the darkness, mine erases it. The construct simply ceases to exist—no fragments, no residue, nothing. Just gone, as if it never was.
The warrior I saved stares at me for a frozen moment. Then he nods once, sharp, and returns to his fight with renewed ferocity.
I don’t have time to process what just happened. More constructs are coming. More shadow dragons are diving for the walls. The battle is everywhere, chaos and fire and darkness swirling in patterns too complex to track.
So I stop trying to track it. Stop thinking. Let my body move the way Auren taught me in training—instinct over analysis, flow over rigidity.
I dance through the battle.
EIGHT
TAMSIN
Time loses meaning.
Minutes or hours—I can’t tell. My fire burns endlessly, fed by adrenaline and desperation and the fierce determination not to let these things destroy the only sanctuary I have left. Shadow constructs fall before me in waves. I burn through wards that resist the other Fire-Bringers’ flames. I carve paths for Brotherhood warriors to advance, destroy creatures that have pinned down their comrades, turn the tide in a dozen small skirmishes across the fortress walls.
The brothers fight above us, massive forms wheeling through the sky. Drayke’s bronze bulk crashes through shadow dragon formations with devastating force. Rurik’s wild flames consume everything in his path—enemy and construct alike, though he’s careful to avoid the fortress itself. Zyphon appears and disappears through shadows, killing with silent efficiency.
And Auren.
I keep finding him in the chaos. My awareness tracks him even when I’m not consciously looking—the flash of gold-white scales, the precise arc of his fire, the controlled devastation he brings to every engagement. He fights the way he trains: methodical, strategic, never a wasted motion. Where Rurik is awildfire and Zyphon is an assassin’s blade, Auren is a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting exactly where it will do the most damage.
Something about watching him fight makes my fire burn hotter.
I don’t have time to examine that. A twisted creature—one of Morrigan’s abominations—breaks through the ward line and lands on the rampart ahead of me. Up close, it’s even more horrifying. I can see what it used to be, traces of dragon features warped beyond recognition. Its mouth opens. Its wings have too many joints. And its eyes?—
Its eyes are human.
The realization nearly breaks my concentration. Someone is still in there. Someone aware, trapped in a body that’s been twisted into a nightmare.
“I’m sorry.” The words slip out as I raise my hands. “I’m so sorry.”
My fire takes it, and the creature that used to be a person ceases to exist. I tell myself it was mercy. I’m not sure I believe it.
More are coming. The assault is relentless, wave after wave of shadow magic and twisted creatures and dragons who’ve given their allegiance to darkness. I burn until my reserves ache. Burn until my arms shake. Burn until my vision starts to blur at the edges.
I’m not the only one flagging. The battle has gone on too long. Brotherhood warriors are showing fatigue, their movements slower, their flames dimmer. Selene’s gold fire is paler than it was. Aisling has retreated to a defensive position, conserving energy. Even Nasyra’s shadow-flame gutters occasionally.
But the enemy keeps coming.
This isn’t a real assault, I realize suddenly. It’s not meant to breach the fortress. The Shadow Clan doesn’t have the numbersfor that, not without committing far more forces than this. This is something else.
A test. A message.
