Page 1 of Ash and Feather

Chapter 1

Karys

Hello,Wildfire.

Dravyn’s voice echoed through my mind as I stared into his storm-grey eyes.

Wildfire.

I inhaled deeply, swallowing the word down, lodging it more completely into my being. It felt like more than a nickname after all that had happened. It felt like a calling. An answer to a question I’d been too afraid to ask until this moment.

I was burning, tingling inside and out, my mind restless, filled with both too many answers and too many questions. The Tower of Ascension we stood in, which had once seemed so large and imposing, suddenly felt far too small to contain all I had become—all I was on the cusp of becoming.

I led the way to the door, Dravyn following closely behind.

The two of us stepped side-by-side into the hazy, magic-filled air of the Middle-Heavens. This air had changed, too. I’d once found it oppressively heavy…but now it only made me feelstronger, more alive as I breathed it in, like a warm breeze lifting the sails of a ship.

In the polished marble surrounding the tower’s base, I caught another glimpse of my reflection—a clearer glimpse—and I gasped. The burn scars on my face and neck remained, outlines branded in place by an accidental fire I’d set years ago. But now they were…different. No longer scars. Not signs of the trouble I’d caused, but signs of magic I’d earned—for, with every step I took, they were transforming into the same sort of brilliantly glowing marks I’d seen on Dravyn’s skin when he accessed the deeper wells of his magic.

Not proof of my mistakes, but proof of my power.

Iwaspower.

I was a flame, bright and blazing a new path forward.

And I wasfast. In the blink of an eye, I climbed the sloping hill leading away from the tower, coming to a stop at the top ridge and glaring into the distance. Far away from where I stood, a group of elves was fleeing—what remained of the faction led by Andrel, who had launched an assault on this divine realm and attempted to destabilize it for reasons I was still trying to make sense of.

Fury screamed between my ears as I thought of what they’d done. A warm, needling sensation swept over my arm. I glanced down and saw more marks like the ones on my face spreading over more of my skin. Bits of glowing, molten magic snaked along my forearms and dripped like blood from my fingertips.

When I flexed my hands, attempting to contain and control the power, the liquefied fire blazed bolder for an instant before turning to smoke. Plumes of that smoke whipped around my body, weaving amongst the sparks and embers and turning me into a moving, breathing firestorm.

Within the walls of the spinning, building storm—or perhaps just in the vortex of my own raging mind—I saw everythingthat had happened in the past hours: The broken barriers. The bloody battles. The bomb planted at the base of the tower behind me, and my desperate attempts to carry it away from this realm. Attempts that had succeeded. But then Andrel…

The fire surrounding me billowed and roared as I pictured his face.

My once closest friend and ally was gone—back in the mortal realm—but the ones fleeing into the distance were his followers…

Would they have stabbed me in the heart without flinching, just as he had done? Were they all willing to destroy as much as Andrel was, no matter the cost?

If I kill them now, theywon’t have the chanceto follow him any farther.

I took a step forward, heat flaring all around me, smoke and fire engulfing me so completely I could no longer see my targets.

I didn’t care that I was blind. I was still moving. I didn’t need toseeto kill, I could—

A hand reached through the storm and closed around my arm, its grip gentle yet strong, holding me back.

Dravyn.

Even through the chaos surrounding my thoughts, I recognized his touch.

“They’re dangerous to us,” I said, not looking at him. “And what they did was wrong.”

“Yes.”

“They tried to ruin this realm, the order of the world—all of it. They won’t simply give up after this defeat.”

I tried to pull free, but he held more tightly.

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