Page 16 of A Realm of Fire and Ash

The underworld?

A terrified shriek rips from my throat as my stomach lurches and I stumble backwards, the heavy metal manacle around my ankle clanging noisily. The fire and ash in this realm seem to come alive, closing in on me like a suffocating blanket of smoke. The heat sears my skin, singeing every inch of me where the flames brush against my body. I'm paralyzed by fear and dread, unable to escape this consuming inferno.

CHAPTER FOUR

MORTE

From far away, I hear a woman screaming. Screams in human movies are always shrieks and yells—and everyone can recognize them. But mine is different. It's deeper, hoarser, and rougher, as though my throat is being torn out of my body. It echoes around the cavern walls, bouncing off the hard surfaces. My vision becomes a blur, and I stumble forward where everything turns to night.

My stomach twists in knots of nausea, and I fall to my knees. Hands clammy, I slide on the rough stone beneath me, but then I clutch onto something soft and scented.

A flower.

Not just any flower, but one that tugs at my memory.I was given one of these before.

And suddenly, I'm standing in the middle of a meadow filled with flowers, right on the ledge of the sea as one of the sweetest sounds calls for me from below. Like pure notes flowing from a flute in an orchestra. It calms me, soothing my worry and fear like a comforting blanket. Is that a Sea Serenade? Those plants are native to Bedlam. The air in front of me ripples, and flashes of memories fill my head:Wilder and the Hydra. My Feather.

The deal.

The air turns sour then—the sweet scent of flowers becoming the coppery tang of blood.

I wake on a scream. It's the kind that forces out against your will, sends you crashing to your knees, and has your mind racing in circles, trying to make sense of why it's happening.

And I do understand.

I'm in Aggonid's Realm.

Hell.

Nausea climbs my throat, and I wretch giant heaving sobs that have me shrieking to the cavern above. The stone walls, like the color of coal, rise toward a towering ceiling. Gashes streak the rock with orange and ruby, and smoke billows from the fissures. A massive lava river carves through the center of the cave, glistering saffron where it flows over an island of broken white marble.

My wings deploy on a quiet whoosh, and they ache as though confused at their own mortality.

Mortality.

Now that's a word I understand all too well. I'm not supposed to stay dead. Phoenix fae come back from their ashes. But here, there’s no promise of resurrection, only an unknown abyss of darkness and fear.

And right now, fear wins.

The blood on my feathers is thick and sticky as my wings flutter weakly, gathering the ash of the fire below and stitching it together like a tapestry of pain and regret. Fear is a heavy weight; it takes all my strength I have to move at all.

But it’s the guilt that consumes me.

I didn’t get my prison in life, so now, I’m getting it afterwards. It’s no less than what I deserve. But Wilder is still stuck inside his because of me, so I’ll do what I can to make things right.

Slowly, I rise on unsteady feet, my body trembling with the searing pain that burns its way through my veins and the marks of death on my body. But it's not really death, is it?

It's anti-life. It's terror and nightmares and everything I knew but can never be again.

And Wilder? He's not here.

It fills me with as much sorrow as it does joy.

From that thought, tears cascade down my face in a bittersweet and desperate mix of remorse and relief. I stand here, terror-stricken, and uncertain, my wings spread wide as the darkness consumes me.

Through the haze in front of me, a figure appears, but they're too obscured by smoke to make out.

"Hello?" I call out.

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