Page 77 of By the Flames of Her Fury

She was right. I started back down the tunnel, toward the room with the phoenix, but Starke grabbed my arm. “What are you doing? You can’t go back there.”

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, I extricated myself from his grasp. “I’ll be fine. This might be our only way out. We need to get help for Odessa and Kieran.” I gestured to the two of them. Kieran was still slumped on his back, and blood was seeping through the shirt wrapped around Odessa’s arm.

Starke’s jaw ticked. “These things could try to kill you any second. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. And Mortep, he⁠—”

A hard, husky voice cut him off. “I think she can take care of herself, Captain.” Everett glared at Starke’s hand on my elbow, and he hastily dropped it.

Everett drew closer to me. His bare-chested shadow fell across the cave floor, and his scent, like aged leather and pine, washed over me.

I closed my eyes, unable to stop myself from breathing him in. “Are you going to try and stop me, too?”

“You’re far too stubborn for that,” he murmured. “I’ve never been able to stop you from running straight into the fire.”

I opened my eyes and met his stare. “I am the fire.”

His eyes dragged from mine down to my lips, skating over my shoulder until it reached my hand. Slowly, he bent to retrieve the sword he’d dropped. His callused fingers found mine as he pushed the hilt into my hand.

My fingers curved around the weapon, and I forced myself away. When the humming of the cave found me again, I focused on that instead. This force inside of me, this tugging, pulling, yearning to follow. My feet moved of their own accord, and the skeletal creatures didn’t stop me when I passed. But when footsteps tried to follow, the guardians’ spears clanged in the air. I whirled around to find them blocking my friends.

“You cannot enter,” they rasped.

Tessa huffed. “What, does Vera have the magic touch?”

“I’ll be right back,” I assured them. I didn’t know why the guardians only let me pass, but I needed to hurry before they changed their minds.

That same phoenix sigil loomed ahead as I rounded the corner into the smaller cave. My stomach twisted. I drew in ragged breaths as the humming grew to an incessant drumroll, beating at my chest.

Rise.

I took a step closer. The musty scent of old dirt clogged my senses. A drop of blood dripped from my arm to the floor. I turned my arm over, brow furrowed as I took in the small gash. It was bright and gleaming, blood pooling to the surface of the jagged skin. This was what the skeletons had reacted to.

Rise.

Another step. The beady black eye of the phoenix stared at me, drawing me in. Calling to me.

Rise.

I sensed the others somewhere behind me, could hear their worried voices saying my name.

Rise.

The drumbeat grew louder. One more step, and I was at the phoenix’s feet. I slid my fingers along its feathers, and the movement caused another trickle of blood to fall to the stone.

Rise.

I dipped my finger in the cut on my arm, tilting my head at the blood glistening on my fingertip. With one last breath, I raised it to the wall.

“Vera, no!” Starke yelled.

Rise.

The second my blood touched the phoenix, the world exploded.

I was thrown backward, through the tunnel and into the larger cave as golden light flooded everything, obliterating the guardians. Molten sunlight seared the backs of my eyes. Power burst over the space, thick and choking and alive.

I hit the wall with a gasp. My spine arched as heat blossomed in my chest, white-hot and starving, as if my heart was trying to burn its way out. I cried out, fingers digging into the rock. My blood sang to the power rolling through the cave.

Something sparked in that dormant well inside of me. It wasn’t my normal magic—not quite. This was something older. Something that had been buried.