Bound by Fire and Ash: A Sapphic Romantasy Novel, page 11
There's a pedestal in front of me, waist-high, topped with a bowl of blue fire. The flames don't behave like they should. They twist and coil, forming patterns that hurt to look at, like they're alive. Like they're hungry.
Then I understand. This little girl is Drakena. A much younger version of her, half-starved and terrified out of her mind. Her heart pounds like a trapped bird as she takes a step forward, then another. The chanting grows louder now, one syllable repeated over and over, something I can't pronounce but that echoes in my ears.
“The fire will choose you or reject you,” one of the elders says. “If you are worthy, you will live. If not...”
He doesn't finish. He doesn't have to.
I plunge my hands into the bowl of fire.
I scream.
It's a sound that tears through everything. The pain is so intense the world goes white. My palms burn, filling with blisters that bloom like poisonous flowers. My skin bubbles and blackens. It smells like burning meat.
I scream again, scream until my throat shreds, though the sound is swallowed by the elders' chanting. It hurts. God, it hurts beyond anything I can describe. I try to pull away, but the fire won't let go. It clings to me like something living, crawls up my wrists, tries to devour me whole.
The bond on my arm—the one in the present, somewhere on a ledge hundreds of years later—explodes in agony. I hear Drakena's voice in my skull, a whisper so loud it cracks through the memory like breaking glass.
“I'm sorry.”
The world shatters.
The blue fire wraps around my entire body, but the pain doesn't stop. It only grows.
I see stars, galaxies, the birth of the whole damn universe.
I see a massive dragon breathing fire, its mouth open in a roar so vast it makes entire armies tremble. I see that same dragon die. I feel the bond break into a thousand pieces, the unbearable pain of loss, and something inside me—inside Drakena, inside both of us—dies with it.
I fall back into my own body like I've been thrown from a roof.
My eyes snap open. I'm lying on the ledge floor, my head resting on Drakena's thigh like a pillow while she runs her fingers through my hair, trying to calm me down.
“Are you back?” she asks, combing through my tangled mess of hair.
I try to nod, but my neck won't cooperate. My whole body shakes like I'm made of jelly.
“That...” I clear my throat because my voice sounds like I've been screaming for hours. “That was horrible.”
Drakena's expression barely changes, but I can feel her tense.
“Did you see it?”
“The fire. The chamber. The dragon.” I swallow hard, the taste of ash still coating my tongue. “It was you. I mean, you were...”
She looks away, and for the first time, I see something I never thought I'd see. Her eyes have gone wet. I guess even monsters cry.
“They forced us. Thousands of children died. That magic was tied to pain. The Oathbreakers said it was the only way to make the bond last long-term. That without pain, without real sacrifice, the magic wouldn't recognize our worth. The more pain you could endure, the more worthy you were to bond with a powerful creature. But most died or were deformed forever. It was ash magic.”
“How old were you?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
“Ten.”
“Jesus,” I breathe, running my hand over my face, trying to wipe away the images. “It worked though, I guess. You bonded with a dragon.”
She shrugs, and the gesture is so small I almost miss it.
“I'm alive. You're alive. Whoever lives remembers, whoever remembers exists. Maybe that's all that matters.”
I want to ask her if she still feels the pain, if it ever went away completely. If maybe she doesn't sleep because every time she closes her eyes, she sees those horrible blue flames that devoured her when she was just a kid. But our bond is quiet now, and I don't want to dig deeper into the wound.
“Why did you show me that?” I finally ask.
“I didn't show you anything,” she says, her voice flat, emotionless. “The bond does what it wants. It always has.”
“But you could've blocked it. You've been blocking everything since we bonded.”
She stays silent for so long I think she's not going to answer. When she does, her voice is so quiet the wind almost carries it away.
“Maybe I'm tired of carrying this alone.”
It's the most vulnerable thing I've ever heard her say. More than when she nearly fell off the cliff. More than when she admitted the dragon died. It's barely a whisper, but every word cuts deep.
Chapter 27
I'm dreaming. At least, I think I am.
Ice-cold water reaches my knees, so cold it feels like knives trying to carve their way to my bones.
“Cross fast and don't think,” Drakena shouts from the bank. She flashes me that smile that means, “This is going to hurt, but you'll survive.”
The small stream transforms into a raging river, a white, furious beast tumbling down from the mountains, dragging rocks the size of my head. The cold is unbearable now. My legs go from pain to nothing in less than three seconds. I try to curse, but my jaw won't stop shaking.
“Jesus, are you made of stone or what?” I snap, watching Drakena step into the water like it's a warm bath.
Halfway across, I step on a moss-covered rock. I slip. The world spins. Now I'm horizontal, the current dragging me down the mountain. I windmill my arms, searching for something to grab onto, anything.
Somehow, Drakena appears and catches me by the wrist.
She smiles.
And then the world breaks.
It's not a vision. It's a fall. Like part of my skull just gave way.
I'm in a massive hall, ceilings so high it hurts to look up. Windows covered with gray silk that turns the light into something dead. At the far end, a semicircle of Magisters on thrones of black basalt watch me like crows waiting for carrion. The protection runes on the floor glow with that cold blue of the Steel Council that means “there is no mercy here.”
I'm small. Smaller than I remember ever being. Round-faced, someone who hasn't known real hunger yet. I'm wearing a uniform that's too big, the sleeves rolled up, showing arms without scars, without marks, without history.
“Begin,” Chancellor Voren orders.
I step into the center of the circle, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
“She's a Velmara,” Voren explains to the Magister on his left.
The other students watch me with amusement. Their faces blur in the dream, but I can feel their contempt. I concentrate. I search for that spiral of energy everyone says appears instinctively. I search and search, but I find nothing. Just an emptiness where there should be power, like a room where someone died and nobody wants to enter.
Someone coughs. Then muffled laughter.
I want to cry, but I don't. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste my own blood.
“You may withdraw,” one of the Magisters announces, like someone scraping shit off their shoe.
I walk toward the door, counting each step. One. Two. Three. I don't look at anyone. I don't give them that satisfaction.
The scene shifts. We're in front of a fire. Drakena crouches beside the flames, shoves her sword into the embers, and stares at it like it's going to reveal some secret.
Then it happens again—a pulse through the bond. But now I think I understand it. Or I think I do. This isn't me entering her head like before. It's her falling into mine.
I'm back at the Academy, first week. The dorm smells like dirty socks and boiled cabbage. Ten beds, ten girls, zero privacy. The walls covered in banners with the Academy symbol—spirals and more spirals until you want to claw your eyes out.
Then I'm at a cafeteria table, alone, like always. By the second week, most people stopped talking to me. Nobody wanted to hang around the weirdo who couldn't even do the simplest spells. Now I'm older, maybe fifteen, but the being alone part hasn't changed. A first-year student hugs her knees to her chest, face hidden behind her hair. She's new. Probably her first day. I don't remember her name, but I recognize the look—fear. She's terrified, like a cat someone tried to drown and only half succeeded.
“Hey,” I whisper, sliding my food toward her. “You need this more than I do.”
She stares at me, not with gratitude, but with that desperate look of someone who's never been given anything for free.
The memory is a warm ache, not a wound.
“Why did you do it?” I hear suddenly.
I open my eyes slowly. I shrug, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Because it sucks to be hungry and scared at the same time,” I admit.
She just smiles and curls up next to me, our bodies touching, our lips too close for my heart not to race.
We don't speak. We just look at each other and listen to the wind.
I turn carefully, not wanting to break the contact, and Drakena presses against my back, wrapping her arm around my waist, and I forget all the reasons I should hate her.
“Hate is just another way of needing someone,” she whispers against my ear, like she heard my thoughts.
I take her hand, lace my fingers through hers over my stomach, and smile.
“You know what's really messed up?” I murmur. “After everything—the Academy, Voren, this shit suicide mission—I'm starting to feel safe with you. As safe as you can feel with someone the Steel Council calls a psychopathic killer, anyway.”
I feel her smile, even though I can't see it.
“The world is broken, Aeris. We're just two pieces that don't fit right in their plan.”
“Well, I think right now my body fits pretty damn well with yours,” I joke.
She kisses my head, and I swear she purrs as she curls against my back. It's such a tender gesture it almost hurts.
“Sleep,” she breathes. “Tomorrow will be another shit day, and you need to rest.”
I close my eyes, and sleep takes me. The last thing I remember is the way Drakena brushes my hair aside to kiss my neck.
Chapter 28
Dawn in these mountains is a lie—there's light, sure, but it's a different kind of light, the kind that turns every shadow into a threat, every chunk of ice into a mirror that warps your reflection until you don't recognize yourself anymore.
When I fully wake up, Drakena's already up, sitting near the cave entrance. Meditating, or keeping watch, or whatever it is she does during all those hours she doesn't sleep. Maybe just remembering. Maybe just enjoying freedom.
“Did you get any sleep, or have you been up all night practicing that 'watch out, I might murder someone any second' look?” I joke, rubbing my arms to warm up, but I don't think she finds it funny because she doesn't smile. Not even a little.
We eat breakfast faster than I'd like, though I'm not sure whether it counts as breakfast since our supplies are running low again and Drakena says there's no game in this area. The water in the canteen has tiny ice crystals floating in it.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, though part of me would rather not know.
“Nothing,” she grunts.
“Drakena, you've been staring at that rock for five minutes like it personally offended you,” I press, nodding toward an outcropping on the mountain.
“Let's go,” she orders, and that's the only explanation I get.
In less than twenty minutes, the trail transforms from suicidal to absurd. The stone ledge narrows so much my boots only fit sideways, and we walk pressed against the wall, feeling with our fingertips for something to grab onto in case we need it.
I try not to think about falling, though the fierce wind reminds me constantly.
And then, out of nowhere, a yellow bolt cuts through the air.
It's not like the dueling lessons at the Academy. There's no warning, no honor in this. No “ready, set, go” or “I'm going to count to three.” Someone just fires a bolt of magic at us. I duck, slip, and nearly plunge into the void.
Drakena grabs me by the collar of my coat so hard she could break a vertebra.
“Fuck!” I gasp, trying to focus on the potential threat, though I can't see anything.
“Steel Council hunters,” she announces.
“Seriously? Up here?” I protest. “Don't these people have anything better to do?”
The next barrage comes from above, three bolts at once. Drakena dodges two and deflects the third with her sword blade, striking a chunk of ice.
It's not exactly an avalanche, but it's close—rocks the size of fists rain down on us along with fine dust that blinds and chokes. Also two Council hunters, who fall to certain death with screams of terror.
I cough and try to crawl forward, but I can't see anything. I hear boots, maybe six pairs, behind us. The bond on my arm explodes in flames. Not the usual pulse, but pain.
Drakena pulls me up and positions herself in front of the threat. Several figures appear through the mist, armor from the Steel Council's elite forces, the kind that's supposed to protect them from everything. They carry experimental anti-bond weapons, the ones they swear to the public don't exist.
One says something inside his mask, a code or maybe a curse the wind distorts. Then he fires.
Drakena doesn't dodge. She steps toward the bolt and strikes it with the edge of her sword before cutting off the soldier's head. Guess they lied about those armors protecting them from everything.
There's no time to process anything. Another soldier, a woman this time, fires and hits her shoulder. The one behind her aims at me. Drakena screams for me to move. I think it's the first time I've heard her really scream. She lunges forward, but she's too far away, and the soldier pulls the trigger.
The shot is perfect. Right in the center of my chest. There's an explosion of heat, a hammer blow, and then... nothing. I expect to die, or at least pass out, but instead I'm just numb.
I shake from head to toe. I look down, expecting to see a fist-sized hole in my flesh, but there's only a scorched stain on my shirt.
“What the hell...?” I murmur in shock.
The soldier is worse off than me. I guess that wasn't the intended effect of their experimental weapons. He hesitates. Maybe a second, but it's all Drakena needs.
She sweeps his legs, slams him against the wall, and uses his own weight to grind his helmet against the granite.
“Move, there are more,” she growls, gesturing for me to follow.
“How many do you think there are?” I ask.
“Enough.”
“You're great at pep talks,” I complain. “Do you at least have a plan?”
“Survive,” she grunts again.
Then the Council team rounds the corner.
Four this time. Two with weapons, two with nets. Not normal nets—magical ones, white-blue, the kind that paralyze you when they touch you. I've seen them in the Academy's forbidden archives. They're supposed to be illegal, but the Council has never been strict about its own rules.
“Drop the sword,” one of them shouts, “and maybe we'll let you live.”
Drakena shrugs with an indifference that makes me want to slap her and slowly places her sword on the ground. She lowers her head, her eyes fixed on the path.
I want to protest, but I don't even know what to say. I feel more rage than fear. Is this how it all ends? Is this the finale? Are we going to die here, on this shitty ledge, frozen and forgotten? Without even fighting?
The Steel Council hunters ready their nets, and everything goes to hell.
Drakena launches herself at the guy on the left, driving her knee into his ribs with a crack that echoes off the cliffs. Then she grabs him by the arm and throws him into one of his companions.
Since the experimental weapons didn't have the desired effect, the ones still standing load their crossbows with surprising speed and fire. She dodges the first one, but the second arrow buries itself in her thigh, staining her pants with blood. She crashes into the soldiers, and all three fall into the void.
“DRAKENA!”
I scream her name, but the wind swallows it. The bond on my arm goes cold. She's not dead, but it flickers weakly.
I crawl to the edge, careful not to lose my grip. My fingers are so numb I barely feel the stone beneath them. Below, maybe fifteen feet down, Drakena and the two soldiers are sprawled across a protruding rock. She's on top, bloody but alive. The Council soldiers aren't moving.
