As she speaks, the blood drains from her face, and her lips begin turning blue. A second later, renewed shivers rack her body, and a harsh cough leaves her lips.
Her beauty starts to fade, her hair returning to its former dullness, her eyes once again an unremarkable blue, and yet, somehow, I find this form of her so much more fearsome than the other.
In this form, she is vulnerable, determined.
In this form, she will fight to survive.
In this form… I want to warm her, wrap her in my heat, find all her sensitive places, and make her burn in the best of ways. Ways that I can only dream about until I control my power.
Even so, I reach for her, needing to make contact, to know what it’s like to brush my palm against her arm, stroke my thumb across her skin, tofeelher fury.
But again, she speaks, and I can’t tolerate what she’s saying.
“Come for me when the sun turns bitterly cold, and the sand bleeds iron,” she commands. “Come for me only then. Not before. You must earn what you desire, Maxim, King of Ember.”
Already, I’m shaking my head. “I won’t wait.”
I can’t.
Every day, my fire grows stronger. Every minute, I’m fighting harder to restrain it. Every damn heartbeat is a battle I’m losing.
My brows draw down, and against my will, my heat surges again, defying what calm she brings me, shimmering waves beating against her.
Despite the threatening fire, her breath is frosting. A shocking sight.
It’s clear she’s freezing, her cheeks horribly pale, and her teeth chattering. “You m-must wait, Maxim. P-please. Wait?—”
I leap toward her, preparing to claim her once and for all, telling myself I will prevail.
I can snatch her from my enemies and take her away from here. She will do whatever I need.
She will break this curse for me.
My outstretched fingers have barely brushed her arm when a blast of icy magic smashes into my body.
It knocks me sideways, directly into the path of an iron dagger flying at my heart.
Chapter Seven
Stellen
The Oracle’s accusation hits me harder than I thought possible. Her voice filled with loathing.“You stand idly by while your ice could douse the flames.”
She speaks with a furious indignation and a compassion I’m incapable of experiencing. Emotions, I would give anything to feel, even if they brought self-loathing. Eventhat, I would welcome, because it would be real.
For a few powerful heartbeats back on the beach, I felt sensations of love and happiness, sorrow and pain, hope and soul-crushing desire.
All of it pouring from her.
All of it within my reach.
But now, despite the shortened distance between us, she is like a crystal rose set within a glass case, fully visible but caged, her presence taunting me. Her enraged gaze taunting me. Her defiant body taunting me, daring me to step closer and lay my hands on her.
She stands with her back to the wall, gripping the blade sotightly that her knuckles turn white. Her eyes burn with conviction, her posture thrumming with purpose.
Nothing about her is plain. Nothing is simple.
She may look like any other lowborn, such unremarkable features that if she weren’t holding the blade, I wouldn’t believe she was the Oracle, but her heart?
