Page 39 of Severed Heir

“And then?”

“Smell the cinders of your home,” he said, voice low. “To portal, something must burn on the other side. Feel the candlelight. Let it pull you through.”

The air smelled of citrine, cinnamon, and vanilla—the scents we lit for Klaus. There was always a fire, even when the wind howled through the windows. But Mother rarely lit vanilla. She believed grief shouldn’t be softened. It should sting.

Rok raised his hand and drew the fire straight from me. Two flickering halves spun in the air, then folded inward, forming a vortex of ash.

I jerked back. “Shit.”

“Don’t fear your power. Step into it.”

My body pitched forward. And the pain hit instantly, like flames were crawling across my skin. “I can feel it burning me,” I gasped.

“Portaling through flame isn’t meant to be enjoyable,” Rok said coolly. “It feels like your skin’s being stripped away—until it doesn’t. That’s the cost of antecedent quells. You wield flame, but your body still burns.”

I winced. “What about portaling with someone else?” My voice cracked. “Couldn’t I travel through Myla’s snow?”

“That’s not just advanced. It’s fatal,” Rok said. “Some quells are safer to portal through. Ice and flame aren’t one of them.”

As if I didn’t already carry the weight of Damien’s death, his words pressed it deeper, like guilt had found new ways to bury itself in my spine.

I lifted my hand. “Then teach me to use my shadow,” I said, voice steady despite the ache. “I want to travel through that instead.”

Rok’s boots crunched closer. “Tell me again,” he said, almost gently, “how you gained a shadow quell.”

“My dragon is from the Night realm.”

He sniffed the air, like he could taste the forbidden magic clinging to my skin. “I can sense that the power is old.” His eyes locked on mine. “But I’m curious... what’s your natural quell?”

I lowered my gaze just enough to fake exhaustion. “My mother was born a Scavenger. Maybe I inherited her weaker blood.”

Rok’s brow lifted in blatant disbelief. “Doubtful. Didn’t she once wield the death quell?”

“She was stripped of her power, but you should know that.”

“And your brother?” His gaze slid to Cully. “I hear he’s a dead Seeker. Is this one, too? He’s a writer, it would make sense.”

I stiffened. “Cully is not—”

“Can we get on with this before I grow gray hair?” Myla cut in.

Rok grabbed my hand, nails biting into the relic. “Feel for your flame,” he growled. “Build it.”

And something answered.

Fire erupted at my feet, wild and ravenous, snapping at the air like it had been starved for years. The heat climbed up my throat. Every instinct screamed to turn back. But through the blaze, I caught a glimpse of a snow-streaked village scattered with stars. It wasn’t North Colindale.

It was Demetria.

I lifted a hand and braced. The flame hissed against my skin, dragging me closer, like something was trying to pull me into the fire.

Then Rok shoved me, and the portal swallowed me whole. The world tilted sideways. Color bled at the edges. For a heartbeat, I wasn’t in the fire. I was somewhere else.

Then I saw two figures standing before a dragon egg. A woman with a single white strand of hair that curled down her jaw. A dark-haired man towering over her, their silhouettes sharp against the moon’s glow.

They were arguing.

“I claim the egg,” the woman hissed.

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