He swallows.
He nods.
The words form, heavy in my mind, sinking through me as I release the incantation. Fire bursts to life at their feet, engulfing all three fae. With a roar that tears the air apart, the flames converge into a blazing inferno.
Their screams shudder through me, carrying the stench of hair and flesh burning as a sweltering heat overtakes us. Emlyn drops his dagger, clinging to me as he crumbles to his knees.
“Stop it, Reid!” His voice is strained, full of agony.
The blaze flickers out in seconds, and I collapse to the ground.
Ancients.
My breath dances out of my lungs.
We’re alive.
“Reid?” Emlyn rolls me onto my back. His face goes white. “Shit.”
He rips off my blood-soaked shirt, then scrambles to his pack, rummaging through it.
“I’m fine, Em,” I breathe out. “Just… exhausted.”
“Shut up and let me bandage you.”
He cleans the wound, which stings like fuck, then breathes a sigh of relief when he confirms it’s just a shallow slice against my ribs. As he wraps a bandage around my chest, my gaze snags on these weird, glowing orbs floating amid the branches above, until they drift out of sight. He digs out his extra shirt to replace my bloody one.
His sweet vanilla scent fills my nostrils as I pull it on. “I guess I will smell like you now.”
He flicks my nose, then his face turns somber as he takes in the scorched ground before us.
The fire had been roughly ten feet across. Where it burned, an ink-black scar mars the earth. A weight sinks through me as I follow the dark veins spreading at least another ten feet in every direction like a disease, withering the nearby plant life to dust.
“I felt the Land’s pain,” Emlyn says, his voice thick. “It tore through me. So much pain. So much anger.”
My stomach cramps. “I’ve never seen this happen before. If people saw this every time they incanted… they wouldn’t do it. I’m sure of it.”
“Even if their lives depended on it?”
My eyes trace the blackness across the earth. I let out a heavy exhale. “I don’t know.”
But deep down, I do, the shame gnawing at my intestines.
Emlyn rubs my arm, his touch tender. Comforting. “It’s not just on you. I gave you permission.”
I take his hand. “Neither of us knew it would be this bad.”
He squeezes my fingers. “I won’t tell Taran,” he says, his voice low.
“I wasn’t really worried about that.”
“You should be. This is his realm. He could kill you for it.”
Great.I close my eyes and rub my brow, sighing. Then I push myself to my feet so I can investigate the damage I’ve done.
Frigid air hits me. Pure, unadulterated rage rises through my feet as I step onto the raw, blackened ground. Not mine—the Land’s. It doesn’t crush me like it did in the border fog. It simmers, my bones throbbing wherever it spreads.
I kneel at the epicenter of the scar, the charred dirt brittle between my fingers.
