Page 62 of A Kiss of Embers
Nyana, she realized. His sister.Then the other woman must be his deceased mother.
The images momentarily distracted her from the immediate danger waiting outside as she turned in a slow circle to survey all of the pictures. There were plenty of Ashryn, which was to be expected at this point. But there was also an abundant amount of villagers from Attleglade from the looks of it.
She smiled at an extremely detailed picture of young Bastien with his father, mother, and older sister before Emeric’s legs were maimed. They appeared joyful, trapped in this moment of time. Immortalized by Bastien’s skilled hand.
She moved closer to the table but inhaled sharply at the masses of papers littering the surface. They weren’t villagers or family members or random strangers.
Every single one of them depictedher.
With a pulse racing through her ears, she picked up page after page, glancing over the details of her wings, of her hair, of her face. Bastien had captured an image of her when they’d snuggled after their beautifully intimate time together. Her hair was a mess, a lazy smile on her face, but he had successfully captured a level of adoration in the sketch.
Her entire heart melted into a muddle on the floor when she picked up a colored sketch of the two of them, his arms wrapped around her waist from behind and her giving him a saucy look. They looked good together, their interaction perfect and sweet and left nothing to be desired.
“You will not fight for me because you can’t,” she murmured as she lightly trailed her finger over the corner of the page. “Then I will fight for you instead.”
The acrid stench of smoke filled her nostrils, and her head snapped up when she realized it was not her own fire.
Someone had set the tree ablaze.
With heavy, panicked breaths, she began snatching piles of papers from the walls, especially those of Bastien’s family members, and stuffed them inside the bosom of her dress. When she shoved the piece of loose wood over her head aside, she coughed when smoke entered her lungs. Although she knew Bastien might mourn the loss of his weapons and his clothing, she ignored them as she harnessed her magic and parted the smoke around her.
Without a care for herself, she sprinted out of the room, down the stairs, and through the smoky fog, searching desperately for Emeric.
Fire licked its way up the walls of the tree, the smoke so heavy around her that she couldn’t see through the obstructive haze.
At long last, she spotted a shoe, and she rushed toward the figure lying prone on the ground, coughs and wheezes escaping his lungs.
“Emeric!” she shouted as she knelt by his side. With a surge of magic, she created a bubble around them to protect them from the smoke and the heat and the flames. Soot smeared the man’s cheeks and forehead. Charred wood rained over their heads.
“Bastien,” he coughed. “You need to go after Bastien.”
“Bastien can handle his own for now. We need to get you out of here.”
She glanced around the immediate vicinity for his wheelchair, but then her heart sank when she found it shattered into numerous pieces across the ground, nearly unrecognizable as the boon it had been only minutes before.
The strength ring around her finger had enough charge for her to stoop down and pick Emeric up into her arms, though the fit was far too awkward when he was larger than her.
Barely visible through the roaring fire and the gathering smoke, she heard frantic screams outside while Attleglade soldiers held civilians back from helping to douse the flames.
Too many witnesses lingered outside, blocking her path of escape.
“The cellar,” Emeric coughed. “There’s a door beneath the stairs.”
“I’m not aiming to get us trapped in a place we will not be able to breathe.”
“Trust me.”
Having no other choice, she hurried toward the stairs and found the aforementioned cellar door, pulled it open by the metal latch, and struggled to fit them both inside while descending a wooden ladder. Tree roots weaved into thick dirt among various shelves of jars and boxes filled with food and preserves, and the air became colder in spite of the fire raging above their heads.
The smoke dissipated down here, but soon it, too, would not provide the refuge they needed to survive. But then Emeric silently gestured to the far end of the cellar and pointed toward the floor.
She grunted as she stooped and brushed the dirt aside, only to discover another trap door. She awkwardly leaned Emeric against the wall as she pried it open, this one much more difficult than the last.
Dirt scattered into the darkness below, leading into the pitch-black unknown. No ladders waited for her this time as she climbed inside the hole. But surprisingly, the drop was short, and she was able to pull the trap door closed behind them.
Silence.
A chill greeted her, along with a distant wind whistling somewhere ahead of her. And for one terrifying moment, she had no idea where she was nor where to go.
