Page 93 of Burning Heir

Damien knew how to break me. I tried to push away every memory he ripped out, but his brute force always found the cracks. In a few rare moments, I had managed to kick him out entirely, but he always returned, and any shield I built up melted the moment he crept back inside.

“Use your quell, Sev,” Damien said, his voice low but commanding. “If your shield isn’t metal, make it cindering flames. Burn me out.”

Flame sparked in my palms, but I contained it. I siphoned it inward, as I’d done with the lanterns in the hall. I whirled that flame around my mind, and when Damien crept inside, I scorched him out with a whip of snapping fire.

Damien hissed, flinching back. “Shit, that one hurt.”

“How was that?” I asked, my voice tight.

He leaned on the dock, nodding slowly. “This whole time, I was going about it the wrong way. My shield is glass—thickglass, might I add. You needed something familiar to build yours.”

I crept closer, building up that fortress of smoldered ash until my mind pulsed. The pressure was so intense I thought I might burst a blood vessel and spew liquid flames from my parted lips if I moved too quickly.

“Again,” I hissed, repeating it three times over.

He nodded. “Let’s try something different.”

It became a warzone within my skull—sharp glass penetrating the perimeter, finding my weaknesses. He burrowed a hole within, dust and debris contaminating my thoughts, planting an image in my mind.

And… suddenly I was trapped.

I was bare, bowing to him as he wore a crown. It was a world where I lived under his reign. My lips were on his in the next frame, his hands on my body. Frozen inside his mind existed a reality where he was a Serpent, and I was beneath him.

Bowing to him. Married to him.

“Damien, stop!” I shouted, my voice cracking.

I reached for the dagger hidden beneath my skirt, but the trance he’d trapped me in withered away as he pinned me down. My blade clanged against the wood below.

“Once you’re stripped, you’ll have nothing,” Damien said. “But you can stay with me, Sev. We could be happy together.”

He thought I’d enjoy that fantasy—even thank him for the possibility of his savior complex. “No,” I said firmly, my voice cold.

Damien stifled a laugh. “You think the king will let you live because you’re bonded to a Serpent?”

I exhaled sharply. “No.”

He grabbed the dagger from the dock and slid it back into the sheath along my thigh. His hands gripped my waist, his bodypressing firmly against my cracking ribs. “Did you think I’d hurt you?”

His pounding chest weighed against me. My fingers skimmed along his ribs, where I felt the hidden sheath of his blades. “I will never live under your reign.” I tried to grab it, to yank it out, and place it between us.

“Your enemies should be your friends, Sev. You learned this on day one.”

I swallowed bile, choking on the weight of my own words. “And what do they say about lovers?”

His thumb traced a fallen tear along my cheek. “That two should not feast with only one fork. You are not my lover. That kiss between us was a mistake.”

I stared up, willing the tears to stop. If that fantasy came true, I’d become my mother—a woman who had lived beneath the power she once held. Beneath the reign she could have claimed and the followers she could have led with her unstoppable wrath.

And for once, I saw us clearly.

Rivals.

Naraic’s wings were scabbing over, and I’d finally taken my first full breath in over a week. With Ciaran resting beside him, I sat with them after myeventful shield training with Damien.

Gods, I needed to clear my mind.

It was two weeks until the Serpent Bid, and every day seemed to blur into the next. I had a sword, nearly onto my second. I’d won the Skyfall race, but was that kind of power feared? Would they see through the metal and ash and decide I wasn’t worth the risk? Would Father allow them to kill me right then and there?We had four days off for the annual Harvest Festival, and most students with flying enigmas had already left for home.

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