Page 59 of A Reign of Roses
Heat.
Incessant heat swamped my body.
Sticky. Prickling. So hot it was flashing cold before burning up again.
Kane.Where was Kane?
My face was so hot the tears were drying on my cheeks as they shed. Not tears from pain, but from the debris in my eyes. Glass and dust and shards of stone.
Ringing filled my ears alongside shouts of horror, agony—
Androaring. A dragon’s roar.
Lazarus?
I scrambled to sit upright, but my legs…
My legs wouldn’t move. I couldn’t feel them.
Not good. I blinked and blinked and blinked until the world came back into focus.
At first, the blur before me was hot and bright and tinged red.
Then it clarified in an instant, and if I’d had any moisture in my throat I would have screamed.
Fire—all around me. Licks of it still heating my face. The entire lighte repository was gone, and in its place a gargantuan blaze of pure heat. The door had been blasted open—no, blastedoff—and outside, where the glossy walls of the atrium once were…
Scurrying bodies climbing over a mere foundation—rubble and silver armor and uniformed handmaidens. Some tending to injured guards, others running from falling scaffolding and glass. Collapsed pillars, dangling, charred chandeliers, candelabras impaling—
If this palace had been filled with life—potted plants and gardens andwoodandwickeras the fortress at Siren’s Cove had been—the entire place would be pure ash.
My eyes squeezed closed. I couldn’t hear my own breathing over the tumult. The marble beneath me was cracked in half. Smoke filled my lungs as I tried to crawl forward, dragging my immobile legs with me. I’d either suffered a spinal injury in the explosion or my legs were numb from impact, and I’d need time to regain feeling. I prayed to the Stones for the latter.
Either way, I had to get away from that heat before I was broiled alive. Had to findKane.
Outside of the receptacle was only marginally cooler. Bits offabric from the settees and rugs were still lit with low flames and incandescent cinders yet to be extinguished.
And out here, too much night—
That smoggy air and filtered moonlight slunk through my hair and along the skin I could still feel—my arms, my neck. The bare back of my ridiculous gold dress.
The entire ceiling of the atrium—that soaring arched glass dome decorated with wrought iron and filagree—justgone.The walls, too. The few left behind broken in half and charred and scorched with soot.
And Lazarus’s bedroom—blasted into oblivion. Dark, rich bedding and expensive rugs alight with flame. Books on fire, ashes swirling.
Empty. No Lazarus, and no Kane.
Heavy feet thumped toward me.
Blessed, sturdy footfalls.
Kane—
Thank the Stones. Consciousness was slipping away and my body hurt so thoroughly…
And then, like a ship’s horn in blinding fog revealed a behemoth sea creature: slow, resonanthumming…
A callous, calm sound as those boots drew nearer. Like a finger pressed on a single out-of-tune key. A dissonant, stagnant pitch.
