Page 182 of Elemental Becoming

“Are you really okay?” he asks quietly.

I almost say yes, but the lie dies before it can leave my mouth. Instead, I rest my head against his chest and focus on breathing, waiting for the world to stop tilting beneath me.

“I will be,” I manage at last.

Garrick studies me for another second before nodding once.

“Good,” he says quietly. “We’re almost there. You need sleep more than anything right now.”

At the end of the hall, Thane’s door comes into view, and relief hits me hard enough to weaken my knees. The need for sleep is impossible to ignore now.

“Go ahead. Thane warded it so you can enter without him,” Garrick says as he gently lowers me back onto my feet, keeping an arm firm around my waist. Then his mouth curves into a smirk. “Did it right after I so graciously interrupted you two the other morning.”

Normally, I would have thrown a comment right back at him. Right now, I barely have the energy to roll my eyes.

Turning the handle, I push the door open. Garrick steadies me as we cross the threshold together before guiding me toward the bed.

“Get some sleep, Amara,” he says, stepping back toward the hall.

I hesitate. “Garrick?”

He pauses, turning back. “Yeah?”

I wet my lips, searching for the right words. “Thank you.”

Garrick’s expression softens slightly.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all sentimental on me now,” he says, the grin returning. “Just try not to light Thane’s bed on fire in your sleep, alright?”

I groan weakly as I collapse onto the blankets without bothering to remove my ruined dress. Garrick’s laughter muffles behind the heavy door as it swings shut.

After a moment, I manage to kick off my shoes, one after the other; their soft drops to the floor are swallowed by the silence stretching through the room. The quiet presses in around me.

But my mind still churns with flashes of blood, fire, and screaming people.

And the Commander.

White hair.

A pale face surrounded by shadows.

STAY

TWENTY-FOUR

The council is in pandemonium. Where it has always been composed, deliberate, and certain of its control, now the members cling to rumors, grasping for answers that no one has. The attack on the ball did more than spill blood—it shattered the illusion that the capital was untouchable. Never in the history of the Fire Clan has such a calamity struck our heartlands. I cannot stop thinking about the soldiers’ fragmented messages. Were they trying to warn us? Did we ignore the signs while there was still time? It hardly matters now. The enemy has made their move, and we are scrambling to understand it. I fear this is only the beginning.

—VALEN’S JOURNAL

AMARA

Sleep finds me quickly, but it is restless and fractured, tangled with flashes of the battle. Dark tendrils reaching for me. Magics roaring violently through my veins. Screams echoing beneath shattered chandeliers.

I toss beneath the blankets, caught somewhere between dreams and memory.

What if I hadn’t been fast enough?

What if more people had died because I lost control?