Chapter 34 The Fire in My Veins
“Be the killer you are, slay dragons, but don’t you dare cry again.” He sighs, breaking eye contact and gazing toward where his family castle should be as clouds roll in. “I can’t hate you like I need to if I can see your humanity.”
“You don’t need to hate me, Zaries. I—”
He cups my face, his thumb pressing my lips together and silencing me completely.
“One thing will never change. I never want to know why you did it. I don’t want to hear your reasons or listen to you validate yourself. Keep that seed of darkness deep within your own mind, lest I hurt even more for your crimes.”
I nod. It’s all I can do. The pain of a thousand deaths feels like it’s ripping me apart. If he only knew the truth, if he only knew how I really felt, maybe everything would have been different.
My skin feels hot, like fire is burning in my veins instead of blood. Anger and frustration bubble up my throat and demand to be set free, demanding to lash out and tell him everything. I want him to be as wrecked as I am so we can heal as one, but he holds me at arm's length as always. I want to combust, explode, to burn on the outside as I burn for him on the inside, but it can never be.
“You can’t hold me like this and tell me you hate me in the same breath,” I whisper, trying to pull away from his grip. “It’s not fair, Zaries. It’s cruel!”
“Good. I want to hurt. I want you to hurt. Even if I can’t deliver the sentence myself, you signed away your life to me that day.” His eyes flash with anger, his hands gripping my shoulders and fingers digging in. “Do you hear me?”
I’m on fire with shame and pain and hatred. I shove him hard. His hands slip, pushing me off balance. My back hits the bricks and the world spins as I slowly tilt over the edge of the balustrade and gravity takes hold of me.
Zaries reaches for me, his eyes going from angry to terrified.
But I’m already falling.
Wind rips past my ears so loudly that I can barely hear Zaries scream my name. I’m plummeting, falling off the tallest tower and down the sheer face of the mountain.
Is this what Calder felt? Was the ripping wind and terror the last things he knew?
I close my eyes, I have to. If I watch Zaries disappear as I fall, it will break me more than the impact against the sharp rocks below.
This is not where you die, my mind screams at me.
My eyes flare open, my arms stretch wide, and the fire I feel in my veins glow in the growing darkness. My veins are on fire, like molten lava running under my skin, and before I can form a thought, I stop falling. Wind buffets me, shoving my back hard, and my rapid descent slows dramatically. I let out a shriek as the wind rips me upright and flings me against the tower. My palms and face hit the brick wall and I scrabble for purchase. I’m still falling, sliding down the face of the tower, hands and feet clawing for a grip to stop the descent.
“Anara!” Zaries screams.
I look down, he’s hanging out a window and reaching for me.
“Anara, you can make it! I’ll catch you!”
The fire in my veins flares again, warming and instilling me with a power I’ve never felt. The rock wall seems to melt against my skin, making a handhold under my fingertips as if by magic. I grip it hard, the stones molding around my fingers and nails.
I take a shaky breath and move one hand lower. Once again the rocks mold to me, as if I’m melting it with my touch, as the wind buffets against my back and holds me upright.
There’s no time to think, Anara. Embrace your magic! It will not last!
It will not last… How does my mind know that when I don’t? I’ve only been able to wield light before this.
You will die if you question me.
Even as the voice scolds me, I can feel the fire inside me petering out. He’s not wrong. I steel myself against the wall, zoning in my hearing on Zaries as he calls me instead of the voice inside my mind. The voice inside me that isn’t me. That’s the only explanation. Someone is speaking to me mentally, telling me what to do. I didn’t have a psychotic break, I have magic. Magic, and a mentor.
I slowly lower myself down the wall toward the window. When I feel Zaries’ arms band around my waist, I exhale. And with my breath goes the fire inside me. I fall into Zaries’ arms, limp, eyes wide.
“Anara!” he cries as we hit the stone floor. He rolls me over, pressing his body against mine and wiping my hair away from my face. “Y-you caught yourself?”
“I guess I did.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. My body’s limp and drained, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. “You didn’t let me fall…”
My vision dims, and consciousness rolls away from me like a boulder down a hill.
“You didn’t let me die,” I whisper, staring into Zaries’ dark eyes.
“I told you, the only one who gets to kill you is me. That includes gravity.” He chuckles wryly, trying to add levity to the moment.
I can barely smile before my whole world goes black.