Chapter 41 Elena Heart's POV
But a few minutes later?
The realization didn’t hit me like a thunderbolt; it seeped in like the rising tide of cold that always followed a sunset in the Forbidden Forest.
I looked down at the flickering orange glow of the torches far below. The "vultures" were already unrolling barrels of pitch, the heavy, chemical scent of oil beginning to drift upward, tainting the ancient, mossy air.
They were going to burn the forest. They were going to burn the very trees that were currently hiding the "lizard-husk" of a King and his neon-yellow shadow.
Reality sank in with a sickening, heavy thud.
I am trapped.
I was a warrior. I was a girl in a ripped nightdress with a concussion and two reptiles for a family. My "super-vision" showed me exactly how many knights were circling the base of the tree, forty, maybe fifty. And behind them, the mages were already weaving the fire-spells, their hands glowing with a heat that made the air shimmer even from this distance.
I reached into the bodice of my gown and gently cupped the tiny, obsidian form of Xavier. He was so small. His chest was rising and falling in shallow, frantic beats. If Leo was right, and the bastard usually was, Xavier wasn't just resting. He was dying. He was a vessel that had been emptied of its soul to save mine.
"You idiot," I whispered, my voice breaking into a jagged sob. "You absolute, selfless, stupid Drake."
A tiny, glowing head popped out of my hair. James was no longer snoring. He crawled down my forehead, his neon-yellow limbs moving with a stiffness that confirmed Leo’s words. If Xavier’s magic was fading, James was fading too. He looked down at the fires below, then up at me. His usual "I don't care" expression was gone. He looked... tired.
"Don't you dare," I hissed at the gecko. "Don't you dare turn into ash on my head. I have enough split ends as it is."
James didn't chirp. He simply pressed his tiny, cold snout against my temple, a final gesture of loyalty, before turning his gaze back to the woods.
Below us, a torch hit a patch of dry bracken.
Whoosh.
The sound was a predatory roar. The orange light flared, licking at the silver bark of the Elder Oak. The monsters, the massive, bowing beasts, began to howl and retreated deeper into the darkness, unable to face the man-made fire. They wouldn't help me. They were creatures of the shadow, and the shadow was being eaten by Grace's ambition.
"Find them!" Grace’s voice echoed, distorted by the crackle of the flames. "Look for the glow! The Drake magic leaves a trail!"
I looked at James. He was practically a lighthouse.
"James, you have to dim the lights," I whispered, panic finally clawing at my throat. "You're a neon sign in a coal mine."
He looked at his own glowing tail, then at me, and let out a long, pathetic trill. He couldn't. He didn't have the mana left to hide.
The heat began to rise. The smoke, thick and oily, started to coil around the branches like a snake. I looked at the dark canopy above, then at the fire below. There was no way down, and no way further up that wouldn't end in a fall.
I was the Last Heart. I was the girl trained to be a blade. But as the first branch beneath me caught fire, I realized a blade is useless when the whole world is a furnace.
I clutched Xavier closer to my heart, the violet pulse in my veins thrumming in a panicked, erratic rhythm. I had no magic. I had no dagger. I had only my own stubborn, terrified soul.
"If we're going to die, Xavier," I whispered into the scales of the tiny lizard, "I'm going to make sure they remember the smell of the smoke."
But as the flames turned the silver bark to black, I felt something shift inside me. It wasn't the panic. It was a cold, sharp spark, something buried deep under the "Heart" training, something that had been waiting for the dragon's blood to wake it up.
I didn't have a core stone. But I was still breathing. And as long as I was breathing, the fire wasn't just outside of me.
The world below turned into a roaring furnace of orange and black, but inside the crook of the Elder Oak, the air grew unnaturally still.
It started as a hum in the marrow of my bones, a low, rhythmic vibration that echoed the many nights I had spent in Xavier’s arms. Every touch we had shared, every time our souls had tangled in the heat of his royal chambers, he hadn't just been loving me; he had been pouring himself into me. He had been anchoring his essence into the only vessel he trusted.
The magic didn't feel like a spell. It felt like a memory waking up.
A shimmering, translucent veil began to bleed out from my skin, a pale violet light that smelled of rain and old parchment. It wrapped around the branch, around my tattered nightdress, and most importantly, around the two tiny, fragile lives clinging to me.
Xavier, tucked against my heart, let out a long, shuddering breath and went still, his tiny obsidian body finally relaxing as my warmth became his own. James, the neon-yellow shadow in my hair, stopped his frantic pacing. He curled his tail around a lock of my gold hair, his glow dimming until he was nothing more than a faint, comforting ember.
The shield was a silent, ancient thing. It didn't fight the fire; it simply told the fire that we weren't there.
Down below, the destruction was absolute. I watched through the shimmering distortion of my own barrier as the oil-soaked bracken exploded into towers of flame.
I heard the crackle of ancient wood screaming as it succumbed to Grace and Leo's madness. I heard the shouts of the knights as they circled the burning trunk, their faces masked by iron and soot.