Chapter 7 My Hands Caught Fire
819 Words
Elara POV
“Excuse me?”
That was my response to the threat, warning, promise whatever insane sentence Kael had just thrown over his shoulder.
Then the monster smashed through the alley wall.
Bricks exploded past my face. I ducked with a scream as stone rained down around us.
Kael met the creature head-on.
His black blade carved through one clawed arm in a burst of sparks and shadow. The severed limb hit the pavement, still twitching.
I gagged.
Seraphina stood on a dumpster like an offended queen, both hands raised. Ice spears formed around her in glittering circles before launching into the beast’s neck.
It roared so hard the alley windows shattered.
“Can everyone stop breaking the city?” I shouted.
No one listened.
The symbols burning up my wrists reached my elbows.
Pain ripped through me like molten needles under my skin.
I dropped to my knees.
“The crown!” I gasped.
Kael looked back for half a second, and the distraction cost him. The creature’s tail slammed into his ribs and hurled him into a brick wall.
My chest seized.
He fell hard and did not move.
Seraphina’s face changed instantly.
“Kael!”
The beast turned toward me.
Of course it did.
It limped forward, blood dripping from wounds that were already closing. Its ruined eyes still tracked me perfectly.
The crown pulsed in my hands.
Heat surged higher.
I scrambled backward on shaking palms.
“Stay away from me.”
It opened its jaws.
Smoke rolled from inside.
That felt ominous.
The queen’s voice whispered inside my mind.
Burn it.
“No!”
Burn it.
“I don’t know how!”
The beast inhaled.
Fire gathered in its throat.
I panicked and thrust my hands forward.
My palms exploded.
Real flames burst from my skin black at the center, gold at the edges. They hit the creature like a wave.
The monster screamed.
Its flesh blistered instantly. It stumbled back, thrashing against the alley walls as the unnatural fire consumed it from within.
I stared at my hands.
They were burning.
Actually burning.
“MY HANDS ARE ON FIRE!”
Seraphina looked down at me from the dumpster.
“Yes. Try not to wave them wildly.”
Helpful.
I flailed anyway.
Nothing around me burned. The flames clung only to my skin, hot but somehow not harming me.
The monster collapsed into ash.
Silence filled the alley.
Then Kael rose from the rubble.
He rolled one shoulder like being smashed through a wall was mildly inconvenient. Blood stained his shirt, but the wounds beneath were already closing.
He walked toward me slowly, gaze fixed on my burning hands.
“You manifested infernal flame.”
“I manifested panic!”
He crouched in front of me.
Rain hissed into steam where it touched my palms.
“Look at me,” he said.
I did, breathing too fast.
“Can you stop it?”
“No!”
“Good honesty.”
“Kael!”
He placed one hand over mine.
I jerked. “You’ll burn”
He didn’t.
The fire curled around his fingers like it knew him.
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Breathe with me.”
“I hate when you say that.”
“Yet it keeps being necessary.”
He inhaled slowly.
Against my better judgment, I copied him.
In.
Out.
Again.
The flames flickered lower.
Again.
They shrank to glowing embers beneath my skin.
Again.
They vanished.
I nearly collapsed with relief.
Kael caught my wrists before I could fall.
For one strange second, neither of us moved.
Rain ran down his face.
His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, where the burning symbols still glowed faintly.
Then Seraphina cleared her throat sharply.
Right.
Reality.
Kael released me and stood.
“She cannot stay here,” Seraphina said. “Every faction in the realms will feel that power.”
“I know.”
“Then why are we still talking in an alley?”
Fair point.
I rose unsteadily. “I’m still here, by the way.”
Seraphina’s cool eyes moved over me. “Unfortunate for everyone.”
I smiled sweetly. “You seem lonely.”
Her nostrils flared.
Kael hid what might have been amusement.
Might have.
A deep horn sounded somewhere across the city low, ancient, terrifying.
Kael’s expression turned to stone.
“No.”
Seraphina looked suddenly pale.
“They opened the Gate.”
“What gate?” I asked.
Neither answered.
Of course.
The ground trembled beneath our feet. Far beyond the rooftops, something massive rose into the storm clouds a tower of bone and shadow tearing upward from the earth.
People screamed in the streets beyond the alley.
The horn sounded again.
Kael grabbed my hand.
This time I let him.
“We leave now.”
“To where?”
He looked toward the monstrous shape on the skyline.
“My kingdom.”
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