Page 156 of Stone Temptation

“They work for me, yes. Sworn to defend me, to free me. I…I mourn their losses, even the traitor.”

“What traitor? The guy who got nibbled on?”

“Indeed.”

One mystery solved.

I held up my hand, the ring on my left index finger. The rubies and the diamond glinted in the fiery space. “Is this how you get free?”

She took a slow step closer. “I see you’ve become the key. You really have dodged death again. It won’t come off until you are brought here.”

I stepped back. “Forget ever getting your hands on it or me.”

“Not here, not in this space,” she countered. “But my warriors will have you. The order has already changed. You will set me free. Then you will die.”

My hatred flared hotter than the lava. “You’ll die first.”

She ambled to the edge of the lava lake, turning her back on me. “I’m your undoing.”

“Is that your official name?”

She faced me again. “You can call me Ember. My real name is mine to keep.”

Okay, so we were playing games. “Then you can call me Ocean—the water to put you out.”

She chuckled. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“It would be if I understood what the hell was going on.”

Ember returned from the lake’s edge to her original position, her fiery fissures pulsating with every step. “We’re designed to be enemies.”

“Because of the motes?”

She folded her brittle, charcoaled hands over her chest as if she were a corpse in a coffin. “My plan was to destroy you before you discovered who you were. But that’s too late now.”

A great sense of rivalry crackled between us. “What happens next?”

“I’m not giving you any more insights into my plans, Luke. That’s not how it works.”

“You know my real name?”

Her laugh seemed to disturb the lava. Bubbles of magma popped along with her chortle.

“I’ve been watching you since you came to my attention. I will continue to do so. I have a sense of who you are, although I underestimated your strength. You don’t die easily, do you?”

“I can’t take all the credit. How about you?” I tried calling to the water, but there was a lid firmly on all my powers.

Because I’m only here in spirit…

Ember didn’t answer my last question. So, I tried another. “How are you so badly burned and alive?”

“Because I fell in love.”

“With King Declan?” I tried.

No reaction.

Hmmm. “We’re made to destroy each other. Why? What are our endgames?”

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