Page 81 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
And she had no idea as she spoke those words what a prophecy she was creating.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
At first, thereis nothing but darkness.
But then, stars begin to pop up all around me, until I am floating in a massive sea of them. Beautiful, glowing lights that fill me with peace.
I realize, also with a great sense of peace, that I am dead.
Julian had killed me. I should feel shock, or anger, or sorrow, but I feel none of those things. Just wave after wave of peace as I swim among the stars.
In the distance, I see a glowing golden door. As I move toward it, the stars come together, forging a pathway toward the door. The path is solid, even though it seems made of mere light. I step onto it, and I walk toward the door. I reach it quickly, even though it seemed at first a long ways away.
As I reach for the handle, something makes me pause.
The feeling passes, and my hand brushes the cool metal of the door…
Flames rush up around me. The door is gone, the stars are gone, the sky is gone. I am burning, but it’s not the feeling of my usual magic. Flames are not coming off of me. I am made entirely of fire. I am nothingbutfire.
And that familiar feeling of home washes over me. Iamfire.
The heat reaches a peak, as if I am all the stars in the night sky burning at once, and then my eyes open.
“I willkillyou!” Daemon is screaming. “I will end you in the most excruciating way that you can imagine…I will curse your soul so that even yourafterlifeis a misery…”
Memory floods back to me. Julian killed me. He slit my throat and I bled out. Idied. I saw a golden door…
But the memories don’t stop there. They come rushing back to me. All of them.Everything.
I remember my parents. My sister. I remember playing with Cillian when we were children, arguing over toys. I remember learning to ride a horse and learning to use a sword and a dagger and learning to read.
I remember all of it.
Including that night, eight years ago.
I remember standing there, outside the house we were staying in after my parents fled House Harkyn. The flames consuming everything. Fire licking the night sky, heat blazing. Knowing that my family was inside, and there was nothing I could do about it.
That moment that’s been stuck on repeat in my head for the last eight years, over and over and over… a wall I could never see past in my mind. The moment my life had started, in a sense.
But now I see everything that led up to that moment.
We are sitting around the dinner table, me, my parents, and my sister, Ari, who is two years younger. There’s a pounding on the door, and my parents look at each other, fear in their eyes. We’d been on the run from my grandparents after fleeingHarkyn Castle. My parents hadn’t told us why we were fleeing, just that it was important.
My father tries to lead us out the back alley but there are men there. They tell my sister and I to go upstairs and hide. And we do… I remember the creak of the stairs, the small closet which smells of wool and mold. We hide. There are screams below, and my parents yelling, and then there is nothing.
Until the fire starts.
I smell the smoke first. Then there’s the heat, coming up from the floorboards. I drag my sister out of the closet and we go to the closest window. This one goes to a side alley, and I don’t see any men there. I help her climb out of the window first. There’s so much smoke… she’s already coughing. She makes it down into the alley, and then I see a rider on a horse pass by, and he sees her, and catches her…
It’s Cillian. Only a few years older than me, but it’s my cousin carrying out our grandparents’ orders. He grabs Ari and he rides away with her.
It’s at that moment that the floor gives way beneath me and I fall through into the inferno of the first floor.
For several moments I’m terrified, but then I realize that other than the pain of the fall, I’m not burning. The flames surround me, raging all around, but they do not harm me.
No sooner has this realization washed over me than a figure busts in the front door. With lightning speed, he rushes toward me, scoops me in his arms, and carries me back out into the night. He sets me down on my feet a couple blocks away from the blaze, and then, eyes wide, looking down at me as if he’s afraid of me, he turns and disappears into the night.
And I walk back slowly to the burning building, and I sink to my knees, and I mourn.
