31. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

E laine was not alone.

Aurora was with her.

She didn't know what it meant or how it was possible. The voice had become a shimmering specter that it seemed only she could see. But there was no time to think about what it meant. There was a fire to stop and a necromancer to return to.

The flames raged around her, but she felt none of the heat, none of the smoke. It was as though she was untouchable, a kind of ghost passing through the inferno. The forest blurred around her as she moved, step after step. Time fell away as she walked on, not afraid. A strange calm claimed her very soul, as if this was simply a part of her destiny. A path she was always meant to walk.

A future that was hers to claim.

And suddenly she was so deep into the woods and the very crack in the sky was above her. The fire continued to fall, every blast shaking the very ground on which she stood. She did not fall. Elaine tipped her face to the crack, unafraid, focused on what she had to do.

Embrace the fire. Arcan is not here, so this fire will answer the call if you only dare, Aurora whispered to her. Now, let go!

Elaine ripped down every wall inside of her.

Arcan's fire exploded outwards.

Suddenly, she was not in the forest but rising above it. Her body became the fire, a blazing form lifting toward the crack. She beheld all of Purgatory, burning before her. Screams of wolves and vampires and humans alike, and Syrens and banshees, and those not represented in the council—thousands of voices, crying out. All of them running for their lives, calling out prayers to the very gods who had forsaken them. Who cast fire down upon them, wanting them dead.

Elaine looked to the crack, and she swore she felt Arcan's eyes on her. Full of wrath that would burn every soul in Purgatory to ash. She felt his hatred sear right through her soul and his voice whispered through, still too weak to be a scream. He was out of reach, this fire was all he could do, and she knew he wouldn't stop until they were dead, and the barrier fell.

Now, Elaine!

The voice of the goddess boomed through her like a clap of thunder. Elaine threw her hands wide and screamed. She called upon the flames devouring her home, and felt their answer, yielding not to the god who summoned them but her.

A witch, a mortal not bound by godly rules—unbound, and fucking angry.

Her scream deepened to a guttural roar, tearing across the sky and by her command, the fire lifted from the forest. It surged from the trees, slowly at first, then lifted as a growing wave. It raced toward her, faster than she could control. There was no time to stop it or even slow it as it slammed into her. The flames encircled her, raging in a dizzying storm of wrath and heat. She felt no pain, no fear, as she lifted her hands.

Part of the fire brushed her feet. It was gentle, like the caress of a lover. She watched as the flames reached up, consuming her skin inch by inch. She was one with it, embracing the heat as it coursed through her veins and limbs. She tipped her palms to the sky and a single word rose to her lips, carrying with it not only her power, but Aurora's. Voices became one, an answer to the gods determined to destroy them.

Leave!

The flames answered her command and surged upward, a single wave of fire, as wide as the crack in the sky. A roaring tempest, unbridled and vicious, tearing away from her. Onward and upward until the world fell silent, and the last scrap of fire vanished through the crack in the sky.

Elaine's mind faded into darkness.