Page 78 of The Ember and the Emerald

Jasher double-blinked.

This compulsion gripped me with greater force. I fought it. Fought so hard.

“We might not have another life,” I spewed at him, digging in my heels as my body attempted to force me to the threshold of the nest.

“You’re wrong. Jump,” he repeated, but a tinge of fear leaked into his expression.

Still I fought, but within seconds, I was walking forward. Dread unraveled knots in my throat.

One last chance to win Jasher. Desperate words spewed from me. “What if this is our last life?”

A vein throbbed at the side of his neck.

Almost at the edge… “Jagged ash seeks heart’s enduring rest!” Understand, understand, understand. “Please,” I cried. “Don’t let me die.”

His hands fisted, but he didn’t budge from his spot. Didn’t look at me.

Numerous monstra had returned, flying new circles overhead, blowing fire and smoke to obscure the sky and the world below until everything turned orange and black. Frigid wind whipped my hair against my cheeks.

A mere two steps from certain death.

Every cell in my body joined the battle. One step. “Please,” I repeated, reaching for him.

His gaze shot to me, irises haunted and fierce. Wild. But he didn’t reach back.

Hope waned. I’d reached the edge.

I jumped.

24

WHAT IS THIS LIFE?

Suddenly I was falling. My heart and stomach traded places. The hum of power pricking my skin quieted as a scream rose in my throat⁠—

“I’ve got you.” Strong arms snaked around me, yanking me against a white-hot form.

Jasher. With a wing broken once again—courtesy of a fight with Ian?—he struggled to halt our free fall. I didn’t know how I felt about him right now, but still I clung to his lean, muscular body. My lifeline.

Our momentum slowed but not enough. A floor of jagged black rocks approached at rapid speed. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he arched his back and flapped those massive wings, broken bits and all.

We jerked with brutal, punishing force before hitting the ground. My breath, gone. We rolled, Jasher wrapping his wings around me. A kindness he paid for. The appendages snapped in other places, too, his grunts coinciding with each crack, crack, crack.

Above us, monstra shrieked. Others gave chase, streaming down the sky, heading our way with fury and determination, their neon red eyes promising pain.

“Come on,” I shouted, ignoring aches and pains to lumber upright and pull Jasher to his feet. No time to catch our breath or chat about why or how he’d done what he’d done. He grimaced but didn’t flinch back or object.

We dashed forward. We’d fallen from the nest’s rim into an old settlement fused to the mountainside. Splintered beams jutted like broken bones from crumbling walls, revealing scorched clay homes half-swallowed by earth. The acrid stench of ash hung thick, turning every breath into a trial. An unnatural silence surrounded the place, a scream held in far too long.

Streams of fire sprayed. We dodged, darting through a collapsed doorway that opened into the mountain’s interior. Bone-melting heat kissed my back, driving me onward.

In the center of my chest, a magnetic tug flickered to life, leading me to the right. “Over there,” I said between panting breaths.

The tug led us through a long, narrow corridor made of black boulders. I needed to open a waterway. Needed it more than air. Here, now, I’d never needed anything more.

I searched the air for greater pockets of moisture.

“They follow,” Jasher growled, keeping step behind me.