Page 64 of Our Radiant Embers

Without Liam, I couldn’t see the cloud of orange light that swirled around me. I sensed it, though—like a lioness inspecting her claws, keenly intelligent and ready for a hunt.

I set her free.

At first, nothing happened. Then the office building closest to me began glowing, an eerie, unnatural red creeping over its surface. Like an infection, it jumped over to the next building, and the next. I watched, feeling the fire’s pull as temperatures soared. Obey.

The concrete didn’t ignite like wood or paper. Instead, tiny explosions erupted across the buildings as trapped moisture turned to steam and sought an escape. Next came the groaning. Steel rebars within the concrete twisted and warped, softened by the heat. Failing. Then the concrete itself began to disintegrate—walls crumbled in a cascade of ash and dust, as fragile as sandcastles. My magic roared in triumph.

No. You answer to me.

Where the heat was fiercest, buildings seemed to almost melt, oozing and sagging into themselves. The air around them shimmered like a mirage, distorting reality as smoke thickened under the translucent dome of the air mages’ barrier. Then the earth started swallowing it up—slowly at first, then ever faster, a swirling dance of ash and debris and embers.

Obey.

I stood alone among the inferno. When I wiped my face with the back of my hand, it came back wet. Sweat or tears? I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the gradual ebb of my magic, still greedy where it licked at the smouldering remains of buildings that had stood several storeys tall, now hardly more than piles of rubble. How long ago? I didn’t know. My vision swam, and I blinked to clear it.

When I called the fire back to me, it resisted at first. It was weakened though, had exhausted itself tearing through what would have taken months to build. But I was tired too.

I closed my eyes and recalled the gentle weight of Liam’s touch, how it revealed the bright, calm glow of my magic where it wrapped around me. Right now, it must be sparkling with red-hot agitation.

It?

She.

Other times I’d done this had taught me that this moment marked the start of a fight, my will against hers until eventually, I wrestled her into submission. This time, I simply called her to me—not like one would call a dog but sweetly coaxing, come on, that’s quite enough for today.

She heeded my call.

Like an affectionate cat rubbing up against me, she returned. Gentle warmth brushed my skin as she settled down, weakened yet sated. I sat where I stood. Around me, the earth mages finished their work of sealing away the pollutants, the air barrier dissipating slowly. God, I was tired.

One down, two to go.

13

LIAM

I’d never seen anything like it.

It was…

Magnificent. Awe-inspiring. At once the most terrifying and beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Watching Adam erase a whole cluster of buildings, his magic sweeping out to flatten everything in its wake…Good God. It was like something straight out of those dreams that woke me up some nights. A dull headache burst at the base of my skull and radiated out, sending bright spots flitting through my vision. I blinked them away, refused to miss even a second of this.

Adam’s magic raged across the site while he watched on, all alone among the debris, keen focus in every line of his body. The buildings collapsed like cardhouses—disintegrated right in front of my eyes. Next to me, Benedict Harrington and his sister stood straight like statues, radiating stoic silence. I dug my thumbs into the space between my brows to ease the throbbing behind my forehead.

The storm slowed as the blaze of Adam’s magic faded to a bright shimmer—gentler than before, lighter. When he called, it returned to twine around him.

Beautiful.

The earth mages finished their work before the barrier came down. I lagged behind as Benedict and Eleanor Harrington made their way to Adam—I’d limited my interactions with them to the bare necessities and intended to keep it that way. They seemed similarly inclined.

Adam rose when his father and aunt approached, dusting off his trousers. I was just close enough to hear Harrington’s detached, “Well, that was efficient.”

“Thank you.” Adam dipped his head, and bloody hell. He’d just done something few mages in the entire London area could have accomplished, and that was all his father had to say? ‘You had a job and you did it’? Wow.

I squinted to assess Benedict Harrington’s magic, clear to read in the muted light resulting from the material that veiled the site. Was Harrington more powerful than his son? Possibly. But his control was vastly inferior, tendrils of his magic snaking around him like playful children.

“Get some rest, Adam.” Eleanor sounded equally unimpressed. “We need you ready again tomorrow.”

---