Page 11 of A Realm of Fire and Ash

I fight my way to the surface, lungs burning, straining towards him. Bleeding from the gash in my abdomen, my pain leaves me, and only the knowledge that Wilder is caught in the hydra's crushing maw keeps me company.

I scream, trying to surface but choke with water and blood. If I can just make it a little further, I can try to save him. I'm wailing, calling out through the water as he's dragged away. Grief and fear smother me, sawing me in two as I kick through the water blindly. It’s so murky with blood, I can't see.

My only thought as darkness creeps along the edges of my vision is thank the gods I gave him my feather. Because a world without Wilder isn't a world I want to live in.

CHAPTER THREE

MORTE

The heat.

It overwhelms me. For millennia, fire had been my constant companion, but now I feel the lick of its kiss, the scald of its power against my skin. I can hear the crackle of it, smell the sickening stink of burning flesh and bone.

For the first time in my life, smoke chokes me, and my cry comes out as more of a bark and less of a plea. Tears roll down my cheeks as I fight for air, for life, for something so foreign to me.

Here I am on all fours, gasping in the dark, with no idea where I am or how I got here. The acrid haze burns my nose and throat and causes my eyes to water. Sucking in a deep breath causes me to cough. Hard.

This place that smells of sulfur and ash and slowly building rot—a death smell that builds as I struggle to rake in another breath. My hands claw at the rough stone beneath me, seeking help for something, anything that will get me out of this dark place.

Through the acrid haze, I drag myself forward, calling out Wilder's name. The clang of metal-on-metal jars me, and that's when I notice that someone—something—has caught me. I kick out, trying to free myself, but they cleave tight to my flesh, their touch blistering.

Reaching down to pry them off me, my nails meet steel.

A manacle?!

"Wilder!" I croak, ending on a cough.

The darkness presses closer, further consuming every inch of me. There's no answer. No late-arriving hero to save me from where I am. No respite from the burning, blistering heat and smoke.

"Will you shut up already?" A voice like iced honey slips into the space. Despite his poisoned words, they wrap around me, as though tasting the fear from my cries. The air displaces as though someone’s approaching. "My, my. This is a first. He's going to love this. A noisy goose!"

Oh, my gods. The hydra is keeping me prisoner.

Slowly, I twist my gaze up. In the haze, a figure crouches before me, pale and muscled and nude but for a pair of heavy, leathery wings tipped with blood red talons.

"No one's coming for you, pigeon, so accept it, and move on."

I still. This isn't the hydra. Who the fuck is this? Another inmate? Maybe the seer? The creature who spoke draws me closer, though I can't make out any more of his details.

His laugh, cold and cruel, echoes through the chamber.

"Who are you?" I croak. "What have you done with Wilder?"

"Oh, he was a fine specimen of a male, but alas, it was not meant to be." My captor pouts. "Pity that."

A vice squeezes my chest, cutting off my air supply. "Was?" Tears prick at my eyes. "No. No. No. Where is he?!" I lunge for him, catching a brief flash of iced irises in a face illuminated by the fires behind us.

He ducks out of the way as though he expected it.

"Tsk tsk," he runs a talon down the side of my face. "If you want me, you've got to earn it, little goose."

The cold of his nail sears into my bare skin, granting me a tiny reprieve from the miserable heat.

Unbidden, I chase his touch, desperate for more cooling relief. "Please," I breathe. "Where is Wilder?"

"He died."

I fully expected this but suspecting it and hearing it confirmed are two very different experiences. Tears brim in my eyes, a soundless sob the only other indication of my grief. "My feather." I reach for the male's ankle. "He has a feather."

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