Page 205 of The Incendiary

“I tried to save them both, Elias. I⁠—”

“It’s not your fault,” he assured me.

“We can’t leave him.” I wept as the world began to fade around me. The burst of adrenaline keeping me awake was dissipating. “And Mavic⁠—”

“We won’t leave either of them. I promise.”

I promise.

When Elias spoke, I heard Gavin’s voice as if he were there with me. For a moment, I felt him.

As quickly as he came, he was gone.

“I want to go home,” I whispered, growing numb to my tears. At this point, Elias was supporting all my weight. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Okay.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me up. “Let’s go home.”

“No!” I shook my head, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to push him away. “No, wait.” Not his home. I couldn’t explain what I needed. All I could confess was, “I want… my home.”

But Elias scooped me into his arms, oblivious to my meaning. He didn’t know that home wasn’t a place.

Home was ten feet under.

SIXTY

ARYELLA

I stared down at Ezra’s blood on my hands. It had been mostly washed off, but it felt stained on.

On. Off, on, off, on.

Red, clean, red, skin.

Voices were everywhere. Was I finally broken?

“The interment for those we lost will be tomorrow,” announced Alistair Winterton.

“Is that enough time for Nestor to embalm the bodies?” “It will have to be. We don’t have time to waste.”

Interment? When did we get back to the Winterton Caves? Had Elias carried me? I remembered passing out in his arms and then waking up shortly before entering this meeting room.

Everything was happening so fast. Time, voices, and the world around me felt fragmented. I needed to see Mavic. And Gemma and Finn. I needed them to be okay.

Elias sat beside me with his arm curled protectively around the back of my chair. It wasn’t enough to anchor me, but it was something.

“What does the queen wish for us to do?”

“Your Highness?” someone else pressed.

They addressed me, but I had no answers.

“We await orders.”

“Your Highness⁠—”

“Give her a fucking minute!” Elias shouted, and the grating noise around me hushed.

As the shock wore off, I started to remember it all. The middle of the night. Shera, Eli, and two other soldiers had escaped the attack unscathed. Once Molochai had me, Mavic, and Ezra, he’d left the others alive.