Page 47 of Echoes of Fire

Nyx’s tail snapped out, pinning me against the wall. “You’d abandon thousands for one?”

“Yes.” The word left no room for debate. “For her. Absolutely.”

Darrokar’s nostrils flared, the scent of my conviction thickening the air. For a heartbeat, I saw it—the same recklessness that once made him charge a lava serpent bare-handed. Then it vanished beneath the Warrior Lord’s mask.

“Dawn approaches swiftly,” he said coldly. “Prepare for your human.”

I laughed—a broken, sulfurous sound. “Or what? You’ll lock me in a cell too?”

Nyx’s tail withdrew. I shoved past him, my claws leaving fresh gouges in the council chamber’s doorframe. Darrokar’s voice haunted me as I walked away—a growl laced with something that might’ve been regret. I didn’t look back.

The city blurred around me. Drakarn fled into side tunnels as I stormed toward the training grounds, my wings scraping the floor.

The caverns loomed ahead, their arched entrance carved with reliefs of ancient warriors. I remembered the first time I’d walked these halls as a fledgling—pride swelling as my mother’s claws rested on my shoulder. Now, the stone faces seemed to sneer.

I seized the nearest combat dummy, its straw guts spilling as I hurled it into a rack of lava-forged spears. Metal clattered like bones. My tail lashed out, shearing through a target post. Splinters rained down, mixing with the acrid stench of my overheating scales.

“False mate!” The dummy’s head came off in my hands, its painted eyes mocking. I crushed it to pulp.

A rack of training swords collapsed under a wing strike, blades scattering like teeth. One skittered toward the arena’s edge, its hilt catching the faint glow of heat crystals. I stomped it into the gravel, the snap of volcanic steel echoing through the cavern.

“Weakling!” Another dummy met my claws, its torso ribbons fluttering to the bloodstained sand.

Memories surged—Orla’s kiss after I’d wiped the floor with thekervashI now couldn’t kill. I could still taste her on my tongue. Human. Fragile.

Mine.

The last dummy exploded in a shower of splinters. I stood heaving in the wreckage, sulfurous breath fogging the air. Across the arena, my reflection warped in a polished obsidian shield—a crimson-scaled monster haloed by destruction.

I ripped the shield from the wall and hurled it. The crash reverberated around me.

“Had enough?”

Darrokar’s voice.

I didn’t turn. “Walk away before I do something we’ll both regret.”

Silence. Then retreating footsteps.

Alone, I sank to my knees, claws buried in sand still damp from yesterday’s training bouts. The vents above hissed, their steam carrying the distant roar of the sacred river. Somewhere beneath that sound, Orla waited.

I pressed my forehead to the ground, inhaling the mineral tang of Scalvaris’s heart. Her face burned behind my eyelids—not afraid. Never afraid. Defiant. Clever.Alive.

When I rose, the training ground’s eastern wall bore fresh scars.

“If the city wants a challenge, I’ll give them a war.”

SEVENTEEN

ORLA

I barely had time to lurch upright before the guards’ claws closed around my arms, dragging me into an opening so violently orange it seared my retinas. My boots skidded across sand still steaming from whatever butchery had occurred here last, and with each step, the heat rose in waves that curled the edges of my vision.

The arena hit me in layers—acrid sweat thick enough to coat my tongue, sulfurous vents belching toxic fumes, the metallic tang of old blood baked into volcanic stone until it reeked like rust and rot.

Cheers erupted from tiered seating writhing with Drakarn spectators, each pair of eyes reflecting a savage hunger. My knees nearly buckled at the sight of them, but the guards jerked me upright, their laughter vibrating through my bones, a cruel counterpoint to the crowd’s thunderous roars.

And there, in one tiny section, were my fellow humans. Selene, Eden, Kaiya, Vega, Kira, Lexa, Hawk, Rachel, and on the end was Terra, standing next to her hulking Drakarn mate, Darrokar. None of them were cheering. They looked like they were watching a funeral.

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