Page 179 of Enchanted Heir
The orphanage was still standing.
Turning back to the bakery, I saw it wasn’t just burning, it wasgone. While the end of the street looked thus far untouched, the entire row of businesses east of the bakery were ablaze, as if eight or nine stores were in a race to see which would turn to ash first. The bakery looked like it was winning as it was consumed in hot orange flames reaching into the sky.
Praying to any gods still listening, I immediately thought of the old stool I had grown up on behind the counter. Or my favorite bowl. The wooden spoons we separated into good and bad. All of it was in flames before my eyes. No piece of it would be surviving this.
Krew brought the horse to a stop and immediately got down, reaching for me.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, I was sobbing. “No!” I shook my head and screamed louder, “NO!”
I walked forward, trying to get to the bakery. The building which I had spent just as much time, if not more, than my home. If I had magic, I’d figure out a way to move it entirely, getting it out of the flames. I hated the king. Loathed him in this moment. I wouldn’t have even put it past him to target our bakery specifically.
“Jorah, stop,” Krew said gently. “It’s too hot.”
“Our bakery!” I coughed as the smoke and fire burned my nostrils.
Krew stepped in front of me and took my cheeks in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Please stay right here, I’m going to let go of you to put out the fire, okay, love? Can I trust you to stay away from the fire for a moment?”
A nod was all that I could manage.
He let go of me and in a burst of navy, Krew held his palms up and poured magic into the bakery. It seemed to take almost a full minute, and then in a wave of magic, the entire street went dark at once, the fire all gone. Charred wooden remnants were all that remained of the vibrant businesses they had been before. Granted they’d not been portrait-worthy before, but they also hadn’t been blackened to a crisp.
I slumped to my knees and sobbed.
Krew was there, wrapping his arms around me. “How can I help, love?”
“Go,” I offered as I gripped his shirt and kissed him hard. “Get to the orphanage and make sure they’re all accounted for. Please.”
“You sure you don’t want to come with me?”
I shook my head. “I can’t.” I clung to the hope my mother was one of the people scurrying about the merchant street. That I’d find her healthy and alive tonight. There was no other alternative.
He gave me a nod. “I’ll leave Owen with you.”
Owen was already there, sending magic into the smoldering businesses, I assumed making sure the fire stayed out. As I kept watching, I realized he might have been helping the smoke to clear too, sending it upward and away.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said from where he stood sending out more magic here and there. “I’m so sorry.”
“Jorah?”
I turned to find a familiar face as they dropped to the ground and hugged me. I didn’t remember their name, but I did know it was someone I’d seen before. “Thank the gods you guys got here. We’d been trying and trying for hours to get the fires out to no avail.”
“The king had the fires protected with magic so they are harder to put out,” I offered, voice hoarse as more tears consumed me. “The Enchanted with me can easily put them out, but that’s why you guys could not.”
They said they needed to tell someone about what I had just said, and then they were gone.
So there I sat, helpless. I didn’t have magic yet to help put out the fires. And I didn’t know where my mother was, but I knew with as many people as were in the streets, word would travel fast that Owen and I were camped out in front of the bakery.
I only hoped and prayed when the bakery cooled off enough to walk on the ashes of where it once stood, my mother’s bones wouldn’t also be found in the wreckage.
Seeing a flutter of pink, I gasped and began walking for it.
“Hey,” Owen said, putting an arm out across me to stop me. “It’s still hot, remember?”
“I know.” I pointed. “I just want that.”
He gave me a nod. “Okay. Be careful.”
I bent over and grabbed my mother’s favorite pink scarf. Half of it was gone, not even there, lost somewhere or burnt up into ash that was now fluttering through the air like snow. This scarf was likely the only thing I had left of this building that had helped raise me.
