Page 82 of By the Flames of Her Fury

The other two approached his side. They all shared the same gray robes, the same sunfire eyes, the same otherworldly beauty. The female on his right had short-cropped, deep auburn curls framing an umber face and a familiar-looking gold locket around her neck in the shape of a sun. On her other side stood a tall man with smooth, tan skin and chestnut brown hair that was shorn on one side. His features were sharp and elegant, as if one swipe across his cheekbones could draw blood.

All three of them locked eyes on my wings. “Is it you?” the elderly man asked, his voice barely a whisper.

I looked around me in confusion. “Am I…what?”

“Are you the one who opened the portal?”

I gripped my lightning sword tighter. Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Yes. It was me.”

Their eyes widened. One by one, they lowered to the ground and bowed.

“Why does everyone keep doing that?” I mumbled. Shadows danced up my arm in defense. “Who are you?”

The elderly man in the center merely chuckled as he rose. “There’s no need for that, daughter of the flame. We are not here to hurt you.” He stepped forward, and I held my ground. “We have been waiting for this day for a very, very long time.”

“What did you just call me?”

He took another step. “Daughter of the flame.”

The female behind him touched her sun locket in reverence. “The Lightbringer.”

The third’s golden gaze sharpened on me. “The fire the Fates could not quench.”

Without warning, the elder man reached out and pressed a single finger to my forehead. “The savior of our lost kingdom.”

More phoenix fire erupted from my wings and encased my body in flames. Burning, aching, transcendent magic flooded me, filling the cracks of my soul, and something woke within me as the power swallowed me whole.

Part Three: Ignite

39

Everett

FIVE YEARS AGO

Those golden eyes swallowed me whole, every single time. We’d been talking for hours about anything and everything. It was like the last two years had been one giant strand of continuous conversation, broken up by sleep or Mortep pulling one of us to the laboratory. Her bright eyes shined back at me, the edges crinkling in a smile. We had just finished ranking our favorite animals by which ones we’d rather have as a partner in a fight. She insisted a dragon was her top contender, while I argued they didn’t even exist. I picked a shark.

I paused, sinking into the sound of her fading laughter. “You never told me, you know,” I said, facing the wall. I liked to pretend I could see her looking back at me. “Where you got your eyes from.”

“Well, I was kind of born with them.”

I heard the smirk in her voice. That smart mouth. I thought about it far too much. An onslaught of images flooded me as my fingers tightened on the small stone in my hand. I flicked it against the wall and watched it roll back to me. I usually tried not to give in to the daydreams, not when they only heightened the yearning of not being able to touch her.

But sometimes when she laughed, that breathy sound filtered through the hole and skated up my neck. I imagined soft lips skimming down my collar bone, with the scent of—actually, I wasn’t sure what she smelled like. Maybe something sweet. Or smoky.

“Swift?”

I jerked back and cleared my throat. “Sorry. Did you say something?”

She chuckled again, and I forced myself to listen this time. “I said, Mama always told me she thought something was wrong when I was born. The midwife had never seen an eye color like it. I was just different.”

“There’s nothing wrong with different.”

She let out a small laugh. “You have no idea, Swift.”

I leaned forward to get closer to the hole. There were times when I felt like I knew her better than myself, then other times when she seemed so mysterious. Whenever we got close to the subject of her past, she would go quiet. I never pushed it—Mortep already forced himself into her mind; she didn’t need me doing it, too. But I loved her. I wanted to know all of her, beyond the little inflections in her voice, the shadows of her eyes, the dry humor and fierce protectiveness. Maybe she needed help getting past those walls.

“Play a game with me, Songbird,” I said on a whim.