Page 42 of Heart of the Summer Queen

It has been so many years since I heard my sister’s voice.

“You killed him,” she snarls, her beautiful face twisting with the ugly expression. “You killed him and destroyed the only chance I had to break free.”

“I...” I swallow, struggling to find any excuse for what I’ve done. It wasn’t as if I didn’t mean to kill Elaric. I planned it for years. I just didn’t know what it would mean for my sister’s fate, and that Elaric himself was innocent.

She pushes herself upright, limbs stiff like a puppet’s. “Now I’m stuck like this forever. All because you were too stupid to realize what was really going on. How dare you call yourself my sister?”

“Dalia,” I plead. Even though her words, her expression, are nothing like the Dalia of my memories.

I reach for her, but my fingers close around embers.

Then I’m no longer surrounded by ice, but fire.

An inferno rages around me, sweeping from roof to roof, devouring everything in its wake. The flames gnaw through wood like paper, through stone like sand.

Thick smoke fills my nostrils, suffocating me. I cough and splutter, struggling for air. Heat stings my eyes.

Steel clangs like the drums of death.

I’m standing amid a battle, though I do not know who the opponents are. Which side will see me as a friend or foe.

A horse rears. It gallops toward me, charging through ash.

I jump aside just in time and am thrown to cobblestones, grazing my hands.

When I push myself up, the horse disappears into the flames. The knight on its back swings his sword at an enemy beyond.

I stagger back, glancing around to gain my bearings.

I’m standing in a street.

Mystreet.

The entrance to our manor lies just paces away, marked by gates which normally stand tall and proud. Now they’re torn apart, sitting crooked from their hinges.

All the trees and bushes in the garden are alight, branches blackened by flame. And beyond, fire engulfs our manor.

Though I’ve just arrived, I know with unfathomable certainty that Father lies within our burning home.

I race through our gardens, the battle behind growing distant. I dodge falling branches and narrowly avoid being incinerated.

When I reach the steps leading to the doors, I take two at a time, almost tripping over my own feet.

I shove aside the doors. Since they’re mostly worn down by flames, they offer little resistance.

There are no servants inside, but that’s unsurprising. With how furiously the fire rages through our manor, only a fool would enter. Flames wreathe the curtains. Paintings are smeared from the heat radiating through the building, oil trickling down the canvases like sweat.

I charge up the staircase, not stopping until I reach Father’s study on the top floor.

The fire burns fiercer up here and has already devoured most of the ceiling, leaving gaping holes. Through them lies the night sky, stars shrouded in smoke. Even the moon is obscured, and the little I can see of it is stained red.

“Father!” I cry, bursting into his study.

Smoke billows out as I open the door. I have to waft it away before I can see anything.

Shelves lie uselessly on their sides. Heaps of books blaze like bonfires.

I find Father in the corner and leap over the fallen desk as I pick my way through the ruins of his study.

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