13. Serak

SERAK

I ’d known it was too good to be true. One instant, we were kissing, and the next, the flame I’d called had decided to kill us both.

You can have me, but you can’t have her, I thought, and sucked the flame into my mouth, swallowing it. It felt like swallowing obsidian shards, but I forced it down. Agony took hold of me like a hound shaking a rabbit, each tremor that rocked my body punishing and brutal.

The voice of the Alldyns Vug filled my mind, shredding my thoughts as it spoke without words. You dared to try and keep my bride from me? You dared?!

Rage dripped like molten steel into my mouth, filling me. Fury lit my very blood on fire as the flame began to eat its way through me, slowly. Punishing me as it killed me, trying to get out, to its true goal. Her.

Ratter. I forced my eyes open, though blood spilled from them down my cheeks—blood and fire together, in a glowing river that illuminated her face. Our mouths were still melded together, neither of us moving, though she seemed to be frozen. Not in pain, not yet at least. But I was not strong enough to move away.

Nothing was stronger than the force that animated this fire. The God of Fire was here, present in this cellar. I had brought Him here. I had allowed the flame to see her, to recognize her…

Damn me to the lowest of His hells. I’d called her name. Rada. I’d spoken it while holding the dagger, and her, and in the presence of the god’s magical fire. Not some mere candle that might whisper of her presence, hint at her identity. But a portion of His true fire, that I’d called to me. I was a fucking idiot and deserved to die.

But she did not. She’d trusted me enough to kiss me. I would protect her with my death.

You dared? Insolent servant!

I screamed silently, my vocal chords immolated, my skin bubbling, my body turning to fire. Fear pounded through me. I was changing, becoming something other. I had been a servant, but now, I was being molded into a vessel. A broken, weak container for His power. He would fill me, then use me. If I would not take her to Him, to the Alldyns Vug, then He would use me to carry her down into the darkness of death, where He ruled.

Ratter. Rada. What have I done?

I forced myself to watch her, to witness my crime. Her face was glowing red and gold. Her eyes opening…

You cannot take my daughter, Edan. Ratter’s lips didn’t move, but the sound of a woman speaking chimed like bells. She is not yours. Her words felt like rain on hot stone, and the cellar filled with steam.

His reply came from somewhere near what had been my chest. She was born mine. I have already taken her.

You know your fire cannot overcome mine. She is not in your domain.

She will be… now. A surge of heat was growing in my core, and I saw my arm rising. The dagger was in my hand, the black stones in the hilt liquid with heat. I raised it, though my body was not my own. I lifted the blade, knowing what would happen next.

What happened to all the Omegas that were born and bred on Pict, to be fed to the God of Fire. This blade had been made for this exact, horrifying purpose, the obsidian almost alive in this moment. Alive and thirsty for blood.

I could not let it happen.

I would not. My defiant thought was like a feather blowing in a gale. A sparrow flying into the eye of a hurricane.

My arm shook as it rose, even as I fought to keep it from moving. Ratter’s eyes, glowing with a bright golden fire fixed with sadness on the blade, shot to mine.

So much sorrow. So much pain. And a hint of resignation, as if this had happened before.

I will not let this happen, I thought, resolve filling the few parts of me that were not already burned away.

The dagger was already descending, the blade angled to pierce her heart, when the gale lessened by the smallest amount. A cool breath of mint and rain moving into my lungs, gave me the sliver of time I needed.

I shifted the angle of the blade, letting it sweep down in a violent crescent.

I was used to pain, and the dagger’s razor-sharp edge in my gut, slicing through most of my scorched inner organs, wasn’t even close to the worst of what I would bear to save this girl.

The flame was inside me, and I fed it to the blade. The fire snapped out of existence as suddenly as it had appeared, and all that remained was agony, and silence.

I slumped to one side, my face on the mud of the cellar, the dagger jutting out from my torso. You , I thought as I stared at the glowing golden figure who wore Ratter’s body, kneeling beside me. You’re... her… Goddess.

That was good. That meant she was safe. A burble of liquid spilled from my mouth as I smiled.

Golden fire coursed down Ratter’s face as she stared into mine, her eyes bright with love and curiosity. You are very young to be so strong, Serak Zellum. A long, soundless chime filled the room, my ears ringing as I felt my soul being scoured. Do you think you are strong enough for my daughter?

Ratter? No man’s strong enough for her, I thought, before the world became a sunrise.

The voice hesitated, then whispered. No one man.