Page 78 of By the Flames of Her Fury

Flames flashed down my arms, licking over my skin without burning. It curled around my wrists and up my shoulders in ribbons of gold and crimson. My magic drowned me. Devoured me. And it was the most euphoric thing I had ever felt. Like every nerve in my body had been set alight at once, pleasure and pain blurring until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

My arm and ankle instantly healed. Magic crackled around my torso in a violent light, and my shoulder blades were on fire. I threw my head back with a roar as my phoenix wings ripped free. Massive, radiant feathers blazed gold at the edges and deep orange at the heart. Fire cascaded from the sharp tips, scorching the stone beneath my knees as the cave shook around us.

“Vera!” Everett’s voice cut through the chaos, raw and frantic.

I lifted my head, vision swimming, and saw him braced against the ground. His jaw clenched as the same golden light wrapped around him. Ribbons traced their way to Tessa, who let out an ear-splitting scream that morphed into a growl. Her body elongated and her limbs shortened. Claws ruptured from her fingertips, and black fur emerged on her skin. Her tail swiped through the air as she fully shifted into her sleek black and tan jaguar form.

Nearby, Kieran groaned and rolled onto his side. Gold ribbons circled him and dove into his chest. He bolted upright. Gleaming white fur erupted along his body, and his hands and feet morphed into hooves. He, like Tessa, had been forced into his white stag Shifter form.

The four of us, the four Veridians, stared at each other in shock. Our magic was back.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the walls of the cave, stone splitting with deafening snaps. Chunks of the ceiling crashed down around us.

“Get clear!” Starke shouted, his face pale as a sheet as he stared at the crumbling cave walls.

There was nowhere to go. I raised my wings in a dome over our heads, squeezing my eyes shut as stone battered the outside of them. With a resounding boom, the world lurched, and the walls surrounding us were sucked into oblivion.

Water rushed in from all sides, pulling the cave apart piece by piece. The floor tore into fragments and spiraled upward as more water surged inside. Everett reached for me, but all of us were ripped from each other in the torrent. Wind whipped across my cheeks, and my body went tumbling in a vicious corkscrew.

The cave was gone. Stars flew above me in long, warped streaks. The ocean itself was dragging us farther and farther into its spiraling clutches.

We were inside another whirlpool. But this time, we had no ship to pull us out.

Water slapped my wings, the force of it bowing them back at a painful angle. I shifted them into my body with a tug of my magic. I could barely keep my head above the surface as I frantically searched for signs of the others. I spotted a black and tan feline head bobbing through the cyclone; white antlers reaching above the waves; a tricorn hat being torn apart; brown curls whipping in the wind.

And a few feet away was Everett, clawing his way toward me.

“Everett!” I screamed, and saltwater rained down my throat. I grasped for him blindly, throwing out my shadow magic to wrap around his body like a rope. It laced around his waist, and I pulled him closer.

His hand slammed into mine. “Don’t let go,” he said, eyes blazing.

My heart beat in a frenzy as the ocean sucked us deeper. I couldn’t tell which way was up, couldn’t see past the flood, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything except grip Everett’s hand tighter.

But then the water began to glow. It wrapped around us, no longer ice-cold but warm and smooth, like standing out in the sunlight. It glowed a bright gold as it spun faster and faster. The roaring in my ears grew louder, pressure pushing my chest, and for a single, terrifying heartbeat, I was completely weightless⁠—

Until it spat us out.

We burst out of the waves, crashing onto solid ground as the whirlpool kept spinning behind us. Everett and I skidded across sand. I shifted my wings out to catch the air and bring us to a halt. Nearby, Tessa rolled in her jaguar form until she shifted back to human and landed on her back. Already on his feet, Starke staggered in the soft sand. Kieran helped Odessa get to solid ground, both beaten but alive. We were the only ones here. Karye, Lenny, and the rest of the crew must not have been close enough to the whirlpool to be sucked in.

For a long moment, none of us moved.

“I hate to state the obvious,” Tessa finally said, out of breath, “but this was not here a second ago.”

We were standing on a large beach under a pitch black sky. There was no hint of the stars or moon that had been there previously. The only light came from the water lapping at the shore. The waves were no longer midnight blue, but a bright, iridescent gold, as if something was lighting them from beneath the surface.

But everywhere else…darkness.

“What just happened?” I asked on an exhale.

Beside me, Everett slowly stood to face the opposite direction. “I don’t know, but I think whatever it is, you did it.”

I swallowed hard as I turned. Before us stretched a vast city of stone and gold. Towers reached to the black sky, their spires wreathed in a halo of golden firelight and mist. Rivers of both fire and that same gold water lay beneath bridges, lighting the otherwise dark streets and buildings. Heat shimmered in the air, alive and pulsing to the very beat of my heart.

My phoenix wings expanded of their own accord, as if breathing in the life of the sunless city. I instantly knew where we were: the lost kingdom.

It felt like it had been waiting for me.

“The kingdom of the eternal flame,” Odessa murmured in a reverent tone.