I pause, but not because her threat has frightened me. “I’m already dying in my fire.”
At my response, tears of what can only be anger release from her eyes and cut glistening trails down her cheeks.
She’s as savagely beautiful as every other member of her family, her green eyes an anomaly from her mother’sside. But from the whispers I’ve heard, that alliance has gone horribly wrong.
I resume my pace, now only ten steps away from her. “Will it hurt your brother to lose you?”
Her hand trembles, but I don’t take it as a sign of fear. Her grip on her dagger is even firmer than it was before.
It looks like her death will hurt Antony very much.
From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t love anything except for his siblings. His bond with his brothers and his sister is a far cry from the relationship I have with my relatives. We barely speak. But then, that’s self-preservation on their part. Only the foolhardy or the bravest of the brave spend more time with me than strictly necessary.
I’m the first Ember King to burst into flames when I don’t intend to, which makes me an ever-present threat in my people’s midst.
“I won’t die easily,” Cassia cries, but now I detect despair in her voice, the desperate crease in her forehead all too clear.
I give her a nod. She hasn’t tried to run, and that deserves respect. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”
Without another word, I lunge for her. Her blade swipes across the air between us, perfectly aimed for my neck, a neat way to slit my throat.
I anticipate it.
I catch her arm with one hand, knocking her blade wide so fast that the fear shooting through her eyes would be stomach-churning if I cared for her.
My other hand closes around her neck, wrenching her up off the ground, leaving her feet to dangle.
She gasps for breath, but damn, I admire the way she fights. She claws at me, trying to reach me to gouge my eyes, to rip at my face, but I’m holding her too far away from my body for herfingernails to do any damage.
One of her boots connects with my chest, a hard thump that cracks my upper ribs, sickening crunches that draw hope to her eyes.
Only for her hope to fade, the brief light draining away as fire sizzles across my stomach, lighting up my insides. I can’t see it without looking down—which I’m not about to do—but I know exactly what’s happening.
My power is lighting up my insides, illuminating the broken bones and melding them back together. I do not suffer broken bones like other fae do. Even Antony and Stellen face them, but not me.
The blood has completely drained from Cassia’s face, and her next kick is futile, telling me that her body is now mortally air-deprived.
Tears flow freely down her cheeks, the liquid meeting my fist as I continue to hold her aloft, the muscles in my arm not even straining with effort.
She is nothing more than a feather in my grasp.
Somehow she manages to rasp, “Why…didn’t you…burn me?”
My grip doesn’t loosen. The control I’m exerting over my fire right now is bittersweet. “A warrior such as yourself should not become ash in the wind, Cassia of the Starlit Court. It is an honor to end you.”
Her eyes widen, but they’re glazed now. She only has seconds left before her life will pass, and she will go to whatever Goddess she worships.
She bears her teeth at me, a mangled scream vibrating through her neck and against my hand even as the sound barely makes it to her mouth.
I prepare for her final moments, knowing I could quicken them, but she is far braver even than some of my own people in the face of her death.
I will give her these last, slow heartbeats…
At the moment that her eyes roll back, golden light glints sharply across my vision, a sudden, explosive flash that blinds me completely, making me jolt.
What?
I blink, and Cassia’s gone?—
