The final piece ricochets toward the ruby-haired girl, hitting her squarely on the chest.
She screams as her hair and clothing catch fire while Landon leaps clear of her.
I dart toward Asha, preparing to snatch her up and get her and her siblings out of here. I have Malak’s pass. The other Blacksmiths won’t touch me, not even Ayla.
But Asha’s already moving.
She launches herself toward her brother and sister, darting around her anvil, her arms and legs pumping as she navigates the other anvils, throwing herself over two of them, her ragged, silver hair flying behind her.
I skid to a stop in the middle of the chaos…
The fire burns behind me. The white stone alight with flames. The students scream as they try to put out the flames biting at their clothing.
Despite it all, I can’t help smiling as Asha shoots forward, deftly evading her mother’s grasping hands to scoop up Tamra and Gallium into her arms and run with them.
The determination on her face, the way she moves like a warrior, intent only on protecting her brother and sister…
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
And then she’s gone, sprinting through the door at the side of the courtyard while Ayla has no choice but to rush back to her students, screaming at them to get to the side of the room where it’s safe.
Landon is the first to run there while Ayla leaps through the fire to drag the redhead away from the worst of the flames.
The ruby-haired girl appears unconscious, the skin across her face and neck burned, but not so badly as I thought it might be.
I’m now the only one left standing near the flames, practically within them, the wine-red fire flickering across the stone around my feet in a vicious burn.
One of the pieces of coal rests only a few paces away from me. The ones in the bowl I’m holding seem to glow even more brightly.
Braddock said this fire has a soul. He said it seeks retribution.
Somehow, I believe him.
My deep light sparks again, the sapphire glow tinting my skin and playing around my hands in a way that feels like it’s drawn to the coal.
Maybe that’s why I don’t feel the heat even as the fire licks toward me.
Ayla Silverspun lifts herself up to her full height where she stands in front of her students, glaring at me across the flames.
She lifts her arm and points at me.
“Lord Ironmeld will hear of this!” she screams. “He will hear of the mess you made here, Boy. Spilling the coal. Causing a fire. Hurting a student.”
Ah, so I’m the scapegoat.
Better me than Asha or her little brother.
“As you like, Lady Silverspun,” I say, finally stepping away from the flames and into the clear space behind me.
I bow without taking my eyes off her.
In that moment, I wonder how much Kalith told her about what happened on the mountain.
The way she looks at me without recognition, even if it’s with anger, makes me wonder if he kept it all to himself like Malak ordered him to.
After all, the first Ayla Silverspun saw of me was in the northern field when Malak brought me and Thoren to the city. There was no obvious connection between us and her husband’s journey into the snow to retrieve Asha.
I’m just another human to live and die at her whim.
