Page 167 of Prince of Darkness and Deceit

Please, Velmira. Make it stop.

“What’s happening?” Juniper’s voice slices through the storm raging in my head.

“Her magic is responding to the release from Fae Fire,” Silas says grimly. “It’ll be over in a moment.”

He means I’ll be dead. There’s no other way this ends.

My muscles seize violently, joints bending at grotesque angles. Every inch of skin is aflame, searing as though I’ve been tossed into a forge. If I open my eyes, I’m sure I’ll find blistered, ruined flesh.

And then⁠—

Nothing.

The infernal magic vanishes as suddenly as it struck. One heartbeat it tears me apart; the next it blinks out like a candle snuffed in the dark.

I fall onto my hands and knees before collapsing completely, limbs useless. The rough stone scrapes my cheek. I suck in desperate, ragged breaths.

“Elara!”

Juniper drops to the ground beside me, her wrinkled hands trembling as they cup my face, then slide frantically down my arm and back up again.

Her face hovers inches from mine. “Can you hear me?”

“Y-yes,” I choke out.

“Oh, thank The Mother.” Her lips quake. “You scared a decade of life out of me.”

“S-sorry.” My eyelids flutter closed, tears pricking as the last echoes of pain ebb away.

The urge to sob nearly swallows me whole.

“Fuck me,” Anton mutters.

I blink up at him. His eyes, wide and disbelieving, drag across my body as though searching for evidence of what just happened.

His mouth opens, shuts. “Did she just⁠—”

“Yes,” Silas cuts him off, his voice flat, final.

“Does he⁠—”

“Also yes. And that’s enough questions.” Silas fixes Anton with a pointed stare. “Now, free me so we can get the hells out of here.”

Anton jerks a nod and strides across the cell. A quick twist of the key, and Silas’s shackles clatter to the ground.

The instant he’s free, shadows erupt from his shoulders in a violent rush. He curls his fists and squeezes his eyes shut against the surge.

“You all right?” Anton asks, guarded.

“It’ll pass,” Silas grinds out.

I struggle upright on shaking arms, and Juniper’s steady hand grips my shoulder. I stumble to my feet, leaning heavily against the stone wall to keep from collapsing once more.

“It suppressed your power, too,” Anton murmurs, more a statement than a question.

“Fucking Fae Fire,” Silas spits.

“It isn’t just Fae Fire,” Anton corrects with a scowl, toeing the shackles with his boot. “Only astlerium forged in Fae Fire can subdue power like that. And we didn’t forge it here.”