Page 226 of Wings of Ash & Flame
The sheets shifted with her movement, baring the inside of his arm. Her gaze fell to the ink there—geometric lines, sharp and unyielding, linked in a pattern she knew too well. The same sigils carved into Nebula’s Veil, where Professor Ross had given his life to free her. Source signs. Dark magic belonging to House Mortis. To the Voidshade Sovereign.
Her blood turned to ice. She stumbled back, breath catching, mind reeling. No. Not Dawson. Not the one person she’d dared to trust with her heart.
She pressed a hand to her mouth, choking back a sob as realization set in. She’dtrustedhim.
A cruel, jagged edge of betrayal cut through her. How could she have missed something this monumental?
There had to have been signs—signs she’d ignored because she was consumed by herfeelings.
Alaire backed away, vision blurring as tears filled her eyes. Dawson was tied to the one who’d stolen everything from her—her family, her hope, her future. She’d trusted him with their story, their truth. Had let him into her heart and offered him the fragile pieces that remained.
Pieces now shattered into fragments, never to be whole again.
She fled the room, steps frantic, mind a whirlwind of pain and fury. She’d been such a fool to believe in him, a fool to think she could find peace in the arms of someone who saw her darkness and didn’t flinch. The betrayal was a knife twisting in her gut, deeper and deeper until she could barely breathe.
Her chest constricted.
As she tore down the hallway, the walls seemed to close in, suffocating her beneath the weight of her mistake. She’d cared for him, trusted him, and he’d decimated her world.
“Alaire.” Solflara’s voice broke through the bond, laced with panic.
“Not now!” Alaire roared, slamming down her mental shields. She would not let anyone witness her foolishness.
Alaire ran until the pain in her chest dulled, until her legs gave out and she collapsed, sobs tearing through the silence.
Heartbroken.
Shaking hands fumbled for her breathbind reliquary as the familiar tightness seized her lungs. A few steady inhalations pried them open, just enough to drag air through. At last, the spasms eased.
Slowly, her tears dried as she brushed the last droplets from her lashes. The heartbreak still coiled around her heart, python-tight, threatening to suffocate. But she wouldn’t let it. She would turn it into fire.
Dawson had underestimated her. Forgotten who she was. What she’d survived.
The loss of her parents. Years of hunger and fear. Trials meant to break her. She had walked through Umbra’s seven hells and refused to stay there.
Now she embraced it all—the ghosts of her past, the pain, the rage—as the flames that forged her.
People depended on her, and she would not fail them.
For now, Dawson could believe he still held the upper hand. Let him think she was none the wiser.
Alaire Eloire Vallorian was no one’s pawn.
After all, light was not the absence of darkness—but the defiance of it.
Epilogue
Dawson had flown to the edge of Aeris Academy, into the depths of the Woods of Whispers, until he stood at the cliff’s edge. Wind tugged at his hair as he stared at the horizon, wishing he were anyone else.
The year had tested him in ways he’d never imagined. Twisted him into someone he barely recognized. The last few weeks had been nothing short of a dream; moments in the garden had set what was left of his soul ablaze.
That gods-damned fucking kiss. He’d fought against it for so long, done his best to keep his distance, but he’d surrendered to what he’d been fighting formonths. And now he was ruined.
He’d gotten a taste of what it felt like to hold her, to kiss her, to pretend—just for a heartbeat—that she washis.
He was doomed.
The memory of her mouth on his, the sound of his name on her lips, the way she melted against him—it would haunt him for the rest of his cursed existence.
