Reign of the Fallen (Reign of the Fallen #1)(46)

Yet every part of me is screaming run. Flee, and don’t look back.

A billowing cloud of flame erupts in front of the monster, but it only slows for a moment. It hisses and snaps as the fire crackles across its skin. Fighting the urge to run, I have just enough time to grab another handful of potions and throw them at the struggling Shade.

Fire eats away the stump of its missing arm, and the monster howls until my ears ache.

I reach for another potion. Hot breath on my neck makes me spin around, smacking into the grasping bony hands of another Shade. I break a glass vial on its skin, falling into the flowers to escape the blaze that follows.

Crawling backward, I realize with a shudder that the molten pain on my arm isn’t from my sword. I’m burning like the Shades.

I didn’t count on there being two of them.

Beating out the flames with my cloak, I stagger toward the edge of the field. Panic fills my head, a buzzing like a cloud of angry bees, making it hard to think. I could run for the mountains, but the part of me that wants to watch them burn to ash wins out. I freeze in my tracks and turn back toward the two smoldering figures.

Wreathed in fire, struggling for their lives, they look almost human.

Their hissing and spitting drowns out the sound of the third Shade until it’s too close. But I manage to grasp a vial and throw it at the monster whose rotten breath blows my hair back from my face. My shaking hand ruins my aim, and the potion explodes at the monster’s feet. The Shade leaps sideways, and I throw another potion that again smashes near its feet. Every time it darts sideways, I try to hit it with another potion, but my hands aren’t obeying and I continue to miss until there are no vials left.

I could surrender now, a little voice in my head whispers. I could stop fighting and join Evander. Maybe I’d see his face again.

The third Shade snarls at me, rolling on the ground to snuff out a lick of flame. I frantically gaze past it, checking for an escape route, and realize we’re trapped, this monster and I, inside a circle of flames as high as my head and leaping higher with each passing breath. It’s just a matter of which fate will come first: burning alive or being torn apart and eaten.

The Shade lunges, and I stumble backward into the flames. A strong hand yanks me through the fire, then forces me to the ground.

Dimly, like I’m underwater, I hear the Shades’ howls as someone smothers the flames that prick my skin like thousands of needles.

“Foolish girl! What in Vaia’s name possessed you?” Master Cymbre’s voice is harsher than I’ve ever heard it, but the familiar sound still floods me with relief. “When I drag you back to the palace, you’re not leaving it again until I’m dead and can’t watch you throw your life away!”

I raise my head as she finishes beating out the flames. My teacher’s fiery hair is plastered to her face, and her eyes, hard as gemstones, reflect the monsters burning nearby. Her gaze doesn’t soften, even when I mouth, “Thank you.”

She’s more than just my mentor, I realize as she hauls me to my feet. She’s more of a mother to me than the Sisters of Death ever were. More than Lyda pretended to be. Cymbre’s the one who always comes when I need someone most, the one who came just in time today.

My death would’ve been a poor repayment for all the years she put into keeping me, her replacement—the closest thing she has to a daughter—alive.

I deserve her anger.

“Those three Shades are as good as dead, but more could be coming as we speak. We have to go!” Master Cymbre puts a hand beneath one of my aching arms, supporting me.

“How’d you know where to find me?” I lean against her to stay standing.

Master Cymbre purses her lips. “Call it a guardian’s intuition.” She points to a blue glow near the foothills of the mountains. “I heard about the missing nobles and went to see you.” She begins a brisk walk, the fastest pace she can manage with me stumbling alongside her. “When you weren’t in your room and your sword was gone, I made a guess. Lucky for you, I heard your whistle, but the landscape kept changing as I tried to reach you.”

“But I did it . . .” I manage. “I killed the Shade that murdered Evander!”

The thought should make me giddy, yet all I feel is sore and tired and shaken.

“Yes, and you nearly lost your life in the process!” Master Cymbre’s voice cracks. “Does that mean nothing to you? Do I mean nothing? Did you ever stop to think about everything you risked leaving behind?”

“Of course! I—”

“Tell me this,” Master Cymbre cuts in sharply. “Now that it’s dead, do you feel any better? Do you miss him any less?”

As we hurry into the tunnel, I search past the agony of my charred skin, seeking the hole left by Evander’s absence. It’s still there, gaping like the Shades’ hungry mouths, a darkness that threatens to devour me.

“No,” I answer as the tunnel takes us home. “I don’t think I ever will.”





XV




Healing all my burns makes Danial’s entire arm and half his face go completely numb. After I’ve locked myself in Valoria’s private bath and scrubbed my new skin raw with fig soap, I head to the palace kitchens and convince the cooks to whip up an amazing lemon-and-rosemary cake that I deliver to Danial’s chambers myself.