Page 115 of Tin God

She snapped her fingers and brought a glowing yellow flame to her palm, holding it just over her skin. “You might break the world for me, Carwyn ap Bryn, but if anyone tried to hurt you, I’d turn this forest into ash, and I don’t think I’d care who I hurt.”

“No, you’re wrong.” He reached out, warming his fingers over the yellow-gold flame in her hand. “Your heart is bigger than the ocean out there, Brigid. You do what needs to be done, my girl, but you’re never thoughtless about it.”

“I wondered.” She turned her face to his. “After Zasha seemed to become so… infatuated with me. I wondered why. I wondered if there was somethin’ about me that they recognized. Somethin’ I wasn’t seein’ in myself. Some weakness or cruelty.”

“There’s nothing about you that’s the same as Zasha.”

“No.” She put a hand on his cheek. “That’s not true. I think Zasha’s life was quite horrible as a human. I’m certain of it. They’ve been powerless. They know what that feels like.”

“Lots of people—human and immortal—suffer in life, Brigid. And the vast majority never hurt other people. At least not intentionally.”

“I know.” She nodded. “Mika Arakas told me once that Zasha is fascinated with me because they see my fear but I live with it and haven’t allowed hate to consume me.”

Carwyn never expected to find wisdom in the words of an Estonian assassin, but there you go. Life still held surprises. “Mika isn’t wrong. You know fear, but you don’t allow it to control you.”

“I was workin’ with Oleg when I realized somethin’ else.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, working with Oleg?”

She turned the fire in the palm of her hand. “On my fire. On controllin’ it. I only ever trained with Kathy, and that was right after I turned.”

“I’m surprised he helped you.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s not that bad.”

“He’d like to restore the empire his sire allowed to fracture, and he’ll do it in such an underhanded fashion people won’t even realize he’s consolidating power.”

Brigid opened her mouth, then closed it.

Carwyn raised his eyebrows. “You know I’m right.”

“But is that necessarily a bad thing? Not for humans, but for our kind?”

She had a point, but Carwyn hated to admit it.

“He’ll run into problems in Central Asia if he keeps going.” Carwyn pulled her back. “What did you realize when you were working with Oleg on your fire?”

“I didn’t realize it really. It was him.”

That damn Russian. If he wasn’t dead certain that his wife would incinerate Oleg if she spent too much time with the Russian, he might actually be jealous. “Fine, what did Oleg say?”

“He said: your fire cannot serve you if it is always protecting you.” She looked at Carwyn. “Do ya think he’s right?”

Carwyn let out a soft breath. “I know he’s right.”

Elemental energy was a curious thing. Carwyn’s element was earth, but his relationship to that element was entirely different to Brigid’s connection to fire.

The earth was a nurturing mother. It grew life and held all of nature and human civilization on its sturdy back. While Carwyn commanded the earth, he did so as a supplicant.

Any request he made of his element was a gesture of humility because he would never be more powerful than the whole of earthly matter. But the whole of earthly matter was also designed to nurture life.

Fire wasn’t a mother or a foundation. It was a feral lion that had to be mastered. It could be protective. It could be territorial, and it was ferocious in battle.

But it was still a lion.

Carwyn said, “Old fire vampires are dominant personalities for a reason.”

Brigid lifted her chin. “Like me.”

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