Don’t touch. Don’t feel. Don’t be here.
She tried to pull away, but her body wouldn’t listen. Her limbs felt numb, her skin too tight. Her mind screamed at her to shift, to run, tofight, but the ring was gone, and she was just… Elora. Just the girl he’d pinned to the dirt. Just the girl Thorn had twisted and corrupted.
He dropped her wrist and held her close against his chest. She could hardly see the executioner sharpening his blade, or hear the crowd cheering. She could only feel. Feel his hand as he caressed the smooth skin of her cheek.
“The show doesn’t end with Tehvan. No. You will be punished for your disobedience. Here. In front of everyone.” He leaned in, words like poison. “Then you’re coming home.” The panic was a living thing, clawing up her throat. She couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t stop it. It took everything she had to keep herself from screaming.
Rell’s voice whispered in her ear through the tether. “Show them they don’t own you. Rain fire on them.”
Something inside her cracked. Not loudly—not a scream or a burst of rage. Just a quiet, splintering sound. The sound of a boundary breaking inside her own head. The line between fear and fury. Between Elora andthe thing Thorn made her.
And through that crack, the fire slipped in. The heat didn’t burn. Itrecognized her. Welcomed her rage. She didn’t speak. She didn’t gesture. She onlythoughtit—and the fire listened.
Flames erupted from the brazier and screamed across the air in wild arcs. They rained down in jagged spheres, striking the stage like falling stars. But not over her. Not over Tehvan. Every plume she guided slammed into the guards, knocking them back, setting hair and fabric alight. Two went down screaming. Another staggered, trying to smother the blaze licking at his armor.
She turned her focus.
Thorn.
A fireball aimed squarely at him burst against the air—inchesfrom his face. He didn’t flinch. A shimmer around him rippled like heatoff stone.
Gerard snarled, his coat scorched and one arm singed—but no burns. No blood. Just a blackened outline across his chest, glowing faintly. Enchantments. Expensive ones.Coward’s armor.
Didn’t matter.
Elorarippedherself from Gerard’s grip just as the next fireball surged, catching him off balance. His hand missed her, grazing only the edge of her cloak.
She stumbled toward Tehvan, his head finally lifting—bleary-eyed, confused, but breathing. She didn’t give him time to think.
“Up,” she barked, grabbing his arm and yanking him to his feet.
He moved slowly. Too slowly.
Another fireball streaked past overhead, bursting against the far wall of the arena. More guards were spilling in now, shouting orders, weapons raised. She couldn’t think about them. She had to move.Theyhad to move.
The cuffs at Tehvan’s ankles clinked, metal still chaining his feet together.
She yanked a corrosive shard from her belt, smashed it against the lock. The acid hissed and frothed like it was alive, eating through the metal in seconds. The chain snapped, dropping uselessly to the ground.
He swayed.
She grabbed his shoulder, grounding him. “Come on.”
The surrounding air shimmered with heat and chaos, smoke twisting upward as her fire scorched through the stage.
“Do you see that gate?” she whispered to Tehvan, barely able to hear her own voice over the chaos. "We need to get there, now.”
Tehvan stumbled, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “We won’t make it…” he managed.
“Yes we will.”We have to.
Smoke stung her eyes, tears blurring her vision, but she could still make out the gate ahead. It felt miles away, but she pushed herself forward, dragging Tehvan with her.
Guards' heavy footsteps pounding against the sand, their shouts growing louder with each step. Then, glass shattered around her and Tehvan. Elora barely had time to register the bottles smashing to the ground before enchanted roots erupted from the earth. They twisted and writhed like living serpents, wrapping around her ankles.
She stumbled, her balance giving way as the roots tightened, pulling her down.
"Tehvan!" she cried. He too was caught in the roots, his movements sluggish and labored, each step a battle against the tightening grip of the earth itself.
