Page 69 of A Kiss of Embers
Only minutes later, Bastien returned with a half-dozen Forest Fae, now taking orders directly from him despite almost getting hanged not even thirty minutes ago. Tree roots shot out from the ground, but instead of attacking the Ember Fae like they had done plenty of times in the past, the roots cleared a straight path down the mountainside and into the empty creek below.
The water from the Glades was redirected by a dam, leading to a dry creek that ended in Ember territory. But even if the magma flowed down the empty creek, it could still take days, even weeks, to cool. Animals would get hurt. People would die. The land would suffer.
She gritted her teeth as she put all her focus into pushing the lava out of the top of the volcano and streaming it steadily down the path created by the Forest Fae.
Never in her life had she ever suspected they might one day work together. But the Glades were important to both of them.
Lava now flowed through the dry creek, kept steady by others in her clan so it didn’t seep out of the riverbed. But it was still too hot. And the toxic fumes were beginning to leak through her wall. It would destroy the land and everyone within it.
Her feet slid back again as she fought against the wall of molten red, black, and orange threatening to swallow her whole. Exhaustion crackled through her body. Her limbs shook with the effort. Her strength was depleting and fast.
And if she lost consciousness, no one could take her place. It had to be her.
She glanced around frantically for Bastien, and she found him barking out orders to the magic wielders with a cloth tied around his face to protect himself from the fumes. She hadn’t the strength to speak when they met each other’s eye, so she mouthed,Break the dam.
He didn’t question her, not for a single second, as he spun around and shouted out new orders to those not capable of magic.
A smidge of smug relief passed through her when Forest Fae rushed off to fulfill his orders, even as Cranky Cricket screamed at them to stop.
Darkness crept into her vision as her consciousness could no longer keep a steady foothold within the abyss of her magic.
She had to finish this.Now.
Magic surged out of her as she leaped into the skies, just as the volcano exploded with vicious anger. She channeled her magic around the explosion, grasping the remaining magma and pulling with all her might.
The lava cascaded down the root-lined path, both Ember and Forest Fae leaping out of the way of its untamed trajectory. There was too much of it. Someone was likely to get hurt.
The darkness pulled her farther out of her consciousness until only a speck of color remained in flashes of orange and red and white. White hair. Lots of it. Below, the Forest Fae hacked at the dam, breaking the large branches piece by piece until spurts of water squirted out between the cracks.
Where was Bastien?
Where was he?!
Finally, the last of the magma burst out of the volcano, and her magic swallowed the poisonous gasses emitted from the eruption.
But she left nothing for herself.
Midair, her wings ceased fluttering. Her world blacked out. And she started to fall.
No one had ever leaped the distance between one side of the cliff to the other without magic. At least none who had survived to tell the tale.
Bastien didn’t think. His instincts reacted as he sprinted toward the cliff’s edge as Seraphina fell through the air from above, her body limp and her magic exhausted. He knew the leap was impossible. He knew it was more likely they would both die than for him to manage it successfully.
But the knowledge didn’t stop him from taking one last sprinting step at the edge of the cliff and leaping the gap with every muscle available in his body.
Wind tore at his hair. Nearly unbearable heat consumed his body. But his focus rested solely on the Ember Queen, falling too fast for even her clan members as they dropped to catch her.
His arm connected with her waist halfway across the gap, but like he suspected, he missed the opposite side entirely and started to fall with her with his arm wrapped around her waist.
His feet slid down uneven, crumbling rocks. Dirt rained over his head and into his eyes. And with his free hand, he felt blindly along the cliffside as they fell at an alarming rate toward the magma and sharp boulders below.
Breaking rocks echoed in his ears as tree roots shot out from the cliffside as if in an attempt to catch them. He whipped his arm through a loop in one of the roots, which heaved them to a sudden stop a short distance from the lava racing through the creek.
He screamed as his shoulder and possibly even elbow were ripped from their sockets, leaving him momentarily blinded with pain while the heat from the magma wafted up from below in a sea of orange and black. He nearly dropped Seraphina in his haze of agony but barely managed to keep his grip on her.
He breathed heavily through gritted teeth, realizing he would have dropped both of them toward their deaths with the immobility of his arm if it hadn’t been for the tree roots hugging him against the cliffside. Someone in his village had caught them. However, he didn’t know who.
More tree roots wrapped around their bodies to hold them steady. He was vaguely aware of shouts from above over the din of crackling magma below him. A flit of red and green wings caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he soon found himself facing a man with black hair and piercing green eyes.
