Ariel

  Ariel opened her eyes.

  Sensation crashed into her all at once. The hard chill of the floor beneath her knees, the stale metallic tang of old magic in the air, the suffocating weight clinging to her skin. Black ichor coated her lashes, her cheeks, her brow, sealing her vision until the world was nothing but pressure and heat held barely in check.

  She did not panic.

  Her mind moved with startling clarity, snapping pieces into place faster than her body could respond. The tower. The ritual circle. The void.

  Holly.

  Fire stirred deep within her core, compressed and coiled tight as a star on the brink of collapse.

  She inhaled slowly.

  The ichor over her eyes began to peel away, sloughing back in viscous strands as if it could sense what waited beneath it. The last veil slipped from her vision...

  ...and fire looked back out at the world.

  It burned in her eyes, brighter than it ever had before. The same living flame she had carried, curious and responsive, but this time it was denser. Sharper. A blaze shaped by grief and memory and unrelenting fury.

  Ariel’s breath came heavier.

  Anger flooded her.

  Hot. Clean. Absolute.

  Her wings trembled.

  The sound was faint. A wet, sizzling hiss as the ichor coating them reacted to the heat building beneath her skin. She shifted, testing herself, and felt the fire surge in response, racing through her veins like molten light.

  The ichor along her arms began to smoke.

  Along her chest.

  Along her thighs.

  The heat intensified, rising higher than it ever had before, burning without consuming her, as if her body had finally caught up to the truth of what she was meant to hold.

  She drew another breath.

  The chamber fell silent.

  Ariel planted her hands against the stone and pushed herself upright, moving slowly, deliberately. Every motion felt earned. The fire inside her roared against its restraints, demanding release.

  She reached her feet.

  And then she screamed.

  It tore out of her, primal and unrestrained; a sound dragged from somewhere ancient and furious. The fire inside her detonated.

  Flame exploded outward in a blinding surge.

  The black ichor vanished in an instant, incinerated so completely it left no trace behind. Heat slammed into the walls, the ceiling, the bones of the tower as Ariel stood at its center, wings flared wide, fire cascading off her in violent waves.

  When the light dimmed, she remained.

  Breathing hard.

  Alive.

  Power thrummed through her core with an intensity she had never known: steady, vast, unquestionable.

  Ariel lifted her head.

  The silence held.

  She stood within it, chest rising and falling fast as heat rolled off her in visible waves. The fire did not gutter or lash out. It waited, coiled beneath her skin, obedient in a way it had never been before.

  She became aware of the space around her.

  The chamber bore the scars of what had just happened: cracked stone radiating outward from the ritual circle, scorched runes half-melted into the floor, the air warped and trembling with residual power. Smoke curled lazily along the ceiling, carrying the bitter stink of burned corruption.

  Her eyes tracked left.

  Myrkrún lay crumpled against the far wall, robes torn and scorched, runes along their body dimmed to a lifeless gray. Unconscious. Alive.

  A flicker of satisfaction cut through Ariel’s fury.

  ... But not enough.

  She turned.

  Holly stood near the edge of the chamber, frozen mid-step. Her eyes were wide, shining, tears carving clean paths down her cheeks. She looked small against the ruined stone and impossibly bright, like the only color left in the world.

  Something in Ariel ached.

  Every instinct in her screamed to move. To cross the distance in a heartbeat, to pull Holly into her arms and feel her solid and real and safe.

  She did not.

  This was not the moment.

  Her gaze dragged away, sharp and reluctant.

  Behind a shattered pillar, half-buried beneath rubble, Fornaskr lay sprawled on the floor. Blood darkened the edge of his hairline. His chest rose shallowly.

  Ariel felt her fury spike.

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  Her wings flexed.

  With a thunderous rush of displaced air, they grew, stretching wider, longer, feathers igniting along their edges as they expanded until their tips nearly brushed the chamber walls. Stone groaned under the sudden pressure.

  She turned back to Holly.

  Her voice, when she spoke, was low and steady, burned clean of doubt.

  “Get him,” Ariel said. “And get out. As far from this tower as you can.”

  Holly took a step toward her, hand lifting instinctively.

  Ariel met her eyes.

  Whatever Holly saw there made her stop. Her jaw tightened. She nodded once, sharp and resolute.

  “Come back,” Holly whispered.

  Ariel did not answer.

  Holly turned, summoning a thread in a flash of pale light. It wrapped around Fornaskr’s torso and yanked him free of the rubble. With one last look over her shoulder, Holly launched herself through the shattered window, wind howling as she vanished into open air.

  Ariel watched until they were gone.

  Then she tilted her head upward.

  Stone dust drifted down from the ceiling in a slow, glittering fall. She could feel the tower above her—layers of weight and history stacked overhead, thick with old magic and older sins.

  Her wings beat once.

  The chamber shuddered.

  Again.

  The air screamed as pressure collapsed inward.

  Again.

  Ariel focused.

  ...And then she was gone.

  Fire roared as she accelerated upward, wings snapping down with cataclysmic force. Stone exploded beneath her as she tore through the ceiling, her body a spear of incandescent fury punching straight through layers of ancient masonry. For a fraction of a second there was no sound at all. Only pressure. Only speed.

  Then the thunder caught up.

  The tower shook as the explosion detonated outward, a concussive boom that rippled through stone and air alike. Chunks of ceiling rained down into the chamber she had left behind as she continued climbing, higher and higher, the wind screaming past her in a blistering torrent.

  It tore at her hair, her wings, her clothes.

  She did not slow.

  The sky opened around her, vast and cold and brilliantly alive. Ariel spun once, twice, letting momentum roll through her as power buzzed through her core like a living current. Fire streamed behind her in a blazing tail, painting the air in violent strokes of red and gold.

  She climbed until the tower below looked small.

  Then she stopped.

  Hovering effortlessly, Ariel turned in the air and looked down.

  The roof of the tower was gone, obliterated; a jagged wound of broken stone and smoke yawning open to the sky. Fire still licked at the edges of her exit, embers drifting upward like dying stars.

  Ariel’s lips curled.

  “There’s no hiding anymore, Gloymr,” she muttered, voice carried away by the wind. “I’m going to bury you in a memory.”

  She tipped forward.

  And dove.

  Gravity tried to seize her, but she was faster. Speed built with terrifying ease as the wind howled louder and louder, pressure crushing in around her. Fire flared brighter along her wings and limbs, wrapping her in a blazing sheath as she screamed in pure, unrestrained wrath.

  She hit the tower like a falling star.

  Stone shattered.

  The impact detonated through the upper floors in a chain of explosions, each level collapsing in violent succession as Ariel blasted straight down the center of the structure. Walls disintegrated. Pillars snapped. Ancient magic screamed as it failed, one ward after another collapsing under the force of her descent.

  She did not stop.

  At the base, Ariel wrenched herself sideways, wings snapping hard as she cut a brutal turn. She tore through the tower’s outer wall in a storm of fire and rubble, erupting into open air in a violent bloom of debris.

  She pulled up short.

  Hung there... and watched.

  The tower groaned once, deep and terrible, then gave way. Floors collapsed inward. Walls folded. The entire structure collapsed into itself in a roaring avalanche of stone and dust, the ground shuddering beneath the violence of it.

  Ariel remained suspended in the air as the dust cloud billowed outward, blotting out the ruins below.

  She breathed.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Slowly, deliberately, forcing her heart to steady as the fire within her settled back into a controlled burn.

  Her gaze swept the ground.

  She spotted them through the thinning haze: Holly and Fornaskr, distant but unmistakable. Relief hit her like a physical blow.

  Ariel surged forward.

  She crossed the distance in seconds, dropping altitude just long enough to scoop Holly up into her arms without ever touching the ground. Momentum carried them into a gentle arc as Ariel pulled Holly close, wings beating to keep them aloft.

  Holly gasped and then clung to her.

  Arms locked tight around Ariel’s shoulders. Face buried against her neck. A sound tore from her that was half-laugh, half-sob.

  Ariel held her there, midair, pressing her forehead to Holly’s hair as they hovered together, the world falling away beneath them.

  When they finally landed, Ariel barely loosened her grip.

  She pulled back just enough to see Holly’s face.

  Tears streamed freely down both of them now.

  “You came…” Ariel whispered.

  Holly hugged her tighter.

  “Of course I did,” she said, voice breaking. “I couldn’t lose you again.”

  They stayed like that, clinging to each other, until a low groan cut through the air.

  Ariel looked up.

  Fornaskr was stirring, pushing himself upright with a pained grunt. He blinked, took in the devastation around them... then his gaze found Ariel.

  A smile spread slowly across his face, eyes shining.

  Ariel was at his side in an instant.

  She wrapped him in a fierce embrace, wings folding protectively around them both. Fornaskr hissed in pain, then laughed despite himself as he returned the hug.

  “You’re alive,” he rasped.

  “Because of you,” Ariel said fiercely. “Thank you.”

  He squeezed her once more. “I’d do it a hundred times over.”

  “Minnithrall!”

  The shout snapped all three of them around.

  They turned.

  Through the settling dust, a figure stood before the ruins of the tower.

  Myrkrún.

  Ariel moved first, reaching back to steady Fornaskr as he pushed himself fully upright. She kept a firm hand at his arm until he found his footing, grounding him before guiding him forward until the three of them stood together, shoulder to shoulder.

  For a moment, none of them moved.

  Ariel could feel Holly at her side, steady, blazing, threads humming with restrained tension. She could feel Fornaskr’s breath hitch once, then even out as he squared his shoulders.

  “You should’ve stayed down,” Ariel said quietly, without looking at him.

  Fornaskr snorted weakly. “You don’t get to die and come back like that and expect me to lie still.”

  Despite herself, something fierce and grateful twisted in Ariel’s chest.

  Holly’s voice came next, tight but unshaking. “That thing called you Minnithrall.”

  Ariel’s jaw clenched. “It won’t again.”

  Fornaskr rolled his shoulders, wincing. “Myrkrún doesn’t stand alone. Gloymr’s attention is closer than we want it to be.”

  Ariel finally stepped forward, fire blooming in her hands.

  “Good,” she said sharply. “Let him see.”

  Holly glanced at her then, searching her face. “Ariel… you don’t have to do this alone.”

  Ariel met her eyes, fire reflected in tears she refused to let fall. “I know. That’s why I’m still standing here.”

  Holly’s threads flare fully into existence at her side, luminous and precise. Fornaskr drew his daggers last, teeth bared as he settled into a familiar stance, placing himself half a step behind them both.

  Understanding passed between them with steel resolve.

  This wasn’t over.