Page 188 of Daughter of No Worlds

Because this building was on fuckingfire.

And it was no fire I’d ever seen before, either. One end of the hallway, the one that would eventually lead back to the ballroom, was crawling with glowingbluelicks of flame. They moved slightly too slow, skipping like light reflecting through swaying glass.

The image I’d nursed in the back of my head — the image of Ahzeen beating Tisaanah to death in the middle of that revolting party — was replaced with something even more terrifying.

The distant shouts morphed into unmistakable echoes of the ones from Sarlazai. The ones that scarred the insides of my ears.

I nearly didn’t hear Nura’s gasp beside me. “Even with the Chryxalis? That’s…remarkable.”

Remarkable?Remarkable?It washorrifying.

Dread rolled over me as I thought of the look on Tisaanah’s face when she was in Reshaye’s clutches, cold and brutal and distant. And I thought of how different it was from the face that looked up at me in that tent, demanding promises of me in the moonlight.

“What is it?” Ariadnea asked, frustrated, twisting her eyeless face in one direction and the another. “What do you see?”

“It’s not fire,” Sammerin rasped. He sagged against the doorframe, clutching his torso. I looked at my friend and silent fear passed between us.

Only for a second, before he began to keel over. I caught one arm, and Ariadnea caught the other.

He was losing so much blood.

And Tisaanah was losing herself.

And I could be losing both of them.

Everything was going to hell, and I had never —never— been so afraid in my entire sorry life. For one moment, I breathed that terror in as deep as I could.

And then I exhaled it into savage resolve.

“Find a way out. Take everyone who will come with you, and get out of here.”

Nura’s eyebrows lurched. “And what about you?”

“I’ll catch up.”

She looked at the flames, then me, then the flames. “Don’t be an idiot,” she spat. “I told you the next time you tried to kill yourself, I wouldn’t stop you.”

I almost laughed. If only it were that simple.

It is easy to die for someone,Tisaanah’s words whispered,but so much more valuable to live.

“Then don’t,” I said, and I turned towards those flames.

Sammerin’s hand caught my arm, his fingers digging into my skin.

He didn’t speak, but then, he didn’t have to. His serious stare told me that he knew what I was going to do, and why, and that he couldn’t stop me.

It took palpable effort not to let my voice tighten as I said, “I know you want to have amoment, you romantic bastard, but no time for that now. When this is all over. Sunset and all.”

His eyes only barely crinkled. Weakly, he removed his hand from my arm just enough to form a particularly vulgar gesture.

I let out a laugh that was really a sigh of relief. “That’s the spirit. Now get the hell out before you bleed to death.”

I didn’t give anyone else time to respond before I turned away, starting down the hallways in a brisk walk that quickly turned to a run. It was easier to look at those strange blue flames than it was to look at their faces. By now, the end of the hallway was consumed by it. I was running into a wall of flickering blue light.

I was running towards Tisaanah.

I do not give you permission to fail if I fail.

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