Page 68 of The Rose in the Shadows

The shelter wasn’t enough. Already, the flames were breaking through. They latched onto my ankle once more, and this time I didn’t even have the strength to cry out.

I was going to die.

The knowledge was sudden and resolute.

“Thea?”

I blinked once, twice, pulling myself haphazardly back towards consciousness. Clay? My ears were ringing. I couldn’t besure of what I was hearing. Perhaps it was only my mind playing tricks on me. In the moments before death, perhaps we hear the promise of hope when it doesn’t truly exist.

Clayton wasn’t here. I was alone. I was going to burn, alone, here in the fire. Closing my eyes again, I gasped in a last breath of oxygen.

“Theadora!”

There he was again, his voice calling out to me, closer now.

His fingers wrapped around the table’s edge above me and he threw it across the room as if it weighed nothing at all. Panic filled his golden eyes and I was in his arms within moments.

“I’m here,” he whispered to me.

And he was. He was strong, and he carried me away from that place. He held me gently even as his legs kicked the broken furniture that blocked our path.

“The fire?” I asked, concern for him breaking through the pounding in my head.

“I breathe fire,” he mumbled in explanation. “It can’t burn me.”

I laughed softly at that. Of course. Dragons don’t burn.

As I laid my head on his shoulder, everything faded away.

Chapter Twenty

The cool brush of fresh air against my tender skin was the first thing I noticed as the world came into focus again. I was lying on the grass outside, surrounded by friends, as one of the palace nurses tended to my wounds. Camilla leaned against Kent, who rubbed up and down her back. Rankor had thrown an arm around Iris, who chewed at her nails nervously while Lorelai clenched her other hand.

I tried to speak up, to tell them I was okay, but the smoke had left my throat tender and burnt. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the Dragon barking orders to close the damaged wing of the palace until repairs could be made and an investigation completed.

The nurse was stoic as she examined my injuries, giving reports to Clay. “She’s got some burns on her arms and will probably be bruised tomorrow. I’ve begun healing her broken wrist, but that will take some time.”

“Your recommendation?” Clay questioned, his voice stern and commanding.

“She should stay in the hospital wing for a few nights. Just to be sure that healing goes well.”

I coughed, desperate to find my voice once more. “No.”

Someone had just tried to blow me up. The castle’s southern wing was a shamble of blackened wood and still lingering embers. There was no way I was spending a night in an infirmary full of strangers. Not when the person responsible for all this was still a mystery.

I would sleep in my own bed.

“Thea,” Clay warned, clearly uninterested in entertaining any of my protests.

“Clay,” I echoed him. “I’m fine. It’s just a headache, and my wrist already feels much better. Iris can stay and look out for me if you’d like, but I’m going to my rooms.”

“You were just in an explosion,” he reminded me. “Let me see to it that you’re taken care of.”

Needing to prove that I was okay, I pulled myself up and stood on shaking legs. Despite my determination, though, standing sent waves of pain up my hips and back from where I had crashed against the wall. Was she sure I hadn’t injured myself worse than a few bruises?

I touched the tender skin and, as I winced against the sudden pain, I blinked and saw that room once more. I heard the voice urging me to run. I felt the wind brushing across my skin as I was blown back through the air.

“Clay,” I whimpered as he grasped my waist to catch me from falling. “I’m not going to the infirmary, and unless you want the entire court to see us engage in an argument over it, then you’ll announce that sleeping in my own bed will be good for me and help me to my rooms.”

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