Page 54 of Fate and Flame
“Shit.”
Limping down the hallway, Rhogan stayed beside me, carrying the majority of my weight. I tried to push the door open, but as I had asked her to do, she had moved the chest of drawers in front of it. Rhogan helped me shove on the door until we created a big enough gap for me to slide in.
Nadra lay still on the floor with shattered glass all around her.
I scooped her up and laid her on the bed.“Nadra,” I whispered.
“What’s happening?” Rhogan asked from the hall.
“She’s breathing. I’ve got this handled. Go round up the others, we have to get the hell out of here. Make sure everyone has a weapon. Especially the females.
“Got it.” He pounded down the hall. I could hear his wings brushing the walls as he moved.
“Nadra?” I gently shook her shoulders. “Please wake up.”
She groaned and cracked her eyes open. “Am I dead?”
“No.” I forced a smile. “You aren’t dead. What happened?”
“I packed both bags like you asked me and I left the glass box on the top of the dresser and waited. I heard the screaming from everyone and then everything went quiet. I was so worried something had happened. I lifted the flower, intending to put it into the smaller pack so I could carry it out, but the moment I touched the glass I got that feeling.”
“Like you needed to touch the flower?”
“Yes. And I didn’t mean to Temir, I promise, but somehow the box opened and I’m so sorry.”
I took a step back shaking my head. “What happened to the flower?”
“I think I broke it.” Tears pooled her eyes as she placed her hand on her chest, flashing a new mark on her skin.
I reached for her, examining the back of her hand for a wound I needed to heal.“Nadra, the box was charmed to only open if I willed it. But it was linked to my soul. Our soul. You didn’t break the flower.” I showed her the raised skin in the shape of an adda on the back of her hand. “I think you absorbed it somehow. How do you feel?”
“I’ve a pounding headache, but I think I hit my head.”
Traces of the flower must have been left behind. The residue on her hand was enough to regenerate my nearly depleted magic. Pressing my hand to her clammy forehead, I pulled away her discomfort, and she moved to lay back down.
“I’m afraid you can’t go to sleep just yet, love.”
She sat upright again, finally remembering the current situation. “Is everyone okay?” She clutched my arm, filling the bond with equal parts hope and fear.
I couldn’t say the words. I knew she felt the hesitation and she shook her head.“She’s fine. My mother is fine. I know it.”
“I’m sorry, Nadra.”
“No,” she cried, jumping out of the bed. “No, Temir. You can save her. Come on, you have to help me find her.” She squeezed out of the room, and I followed, feeling the devastation slam into me as she found her mother’s fallen body.“You have to do something,” she wailed. “She can’t die here. Not like this.”Her shoulders trembled as tears refilled her honey-colored eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Nadra. I tried to save her. I tried. I was too late.”
She shook her head and fell over her mother. I stood guard over her until Rhogan joined me, where he knelt beside Nadra and took her hand.The room was the embodiment of death. Piles of bodies and puddles of deep red blood covered the floor. Eyes of the fallen watched me as their deaths replayed in my mind.
“Your mother was a beautiful soul taken far too soon. I spent a lot of time with her down in the dungeons. She was the only bright light in the worst part of my life, and I’m so sorry you’ve lost her.”
She leaned her head onto Rhogan, and I tried to withhold my jealousy. I was no good at comfort. Never had been.
“Come now,” Rhogan told her. “We have to leave, or she will have died for nothing.”
Nadra stood, hugged that giant winged male, and walked back to me, taking my hand. She would never be able to properly mourn her mother, and I wished I could change that.
I went back to the rooms, grabbed the two bags and the furs from the bed, then we left the rebel compound. Rhogan and another filled the headquarters with an accelerant, and we stood together for only a moment of prayer to release the fallen souls to the Ether as the compound burst into flames. I painted a red “x” on the broken wagon so passing rebels would know not to bother.
