Page 7 of Prince of Blaze and Embers
Everything else was just misery.
CHAPTER 3
Hours later, Bella and I were hard at work. The smoky forge bustled all around us. Embers launched into the air from hammers hitting hot iron. The sharp clanging sounds would normally annoy eardrums, but they’d turned somewhat soothing over the last few years. Nothing was enough to erase the thought of my impending fate. It never left my mind.
Escape. That’s all I could think about.
As the oil from the cloth in my hand soaked into my skin, I wondered—could I use that same magic I had used on the beach against the dragons—again?
Bella and I both polished armor, a job we shared frequently, because our small hands fit into crevasses the men couldn’t reach. We both sat with our backs to the wall, watching the others, paying special attention to Garris’ men. I evaded more gashes and scars on my back that time, which shocked me because of my serious lack of restraint in talking back today. I took it as a small victory, but I didn’t expect many more like it anytime soon.
The forge smelled the same—char and sweat and scorchedsteel—but everything felt off-kilter, like the world had tilted slightly and no one else noticed. My hands moved automatically over the armor, polishing grooves I’d scrubbed a thousand times, but inside I was coiled tight. The spark I’d felt on the beach still flickered somewhere deep in my chest, alive and terrifying. I kept expecting the metal to heat beneath my touch, for someone to smell the change in me, for the world to crack open again. But no one looked twice. Around me, life in the forge trudged on, routine and cruel. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t belong to it anymore.
“Where do you think he is?” Bella whispered, continuing to wipe the gauntlet in her hands. “He’s been gone a long time…”
“I don’t know.” I had been curious about where Garris was too. Usually he’d be plopped down, smoking his pipe and drinking wine by the barrel. He always liked to watch his property to make sure they weren’t slacking.
“Supper’s soon, and then off to the bunkhouse.” The tone in Bella’s voice was laced with unmistakable worry. “The sun will be up before we know it.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m scared. I’m scared of never seeing you again… What if they come for you tomorrow? What if that’s the last time we… see each other?” Tears streaked down her soft cheeks, parting the soot smudged on them like a stream through dirt.
I patted her back, pressing reassurance through her. But she didn’t buy it. I could tell by the look in her wet eyes she knew what was coming.
“I have a plan,” I said, even though I didn’t. I glared down at the shackles on my ankles, and I felt their constant, aching bite. “I’m going to try to use it again. Tonight. I don’t know how, but I’m going to use it, take these chains off, and get out of here before they know anything’s up.”
“You’re going to use it? How?” Before she could get another breath in, she said the words I knew I was going to have to argue with. “I’m coming with you.”
I shook my head hard.
“No. Too dangerous.”
“It’s not up for debate.” Her voice grew harsh; forceful. “Where will we go? They’re going to send scouts out. Hunters too.”
“I was thinking the Faewood Forest, or go deep in the Harrowhorn Mountains, or hide out in one of the Emerald Crest Isles.”
Bella sighed, continuing to polish the gauntlet as she pressed harder into the strokes of the oiled cloth. “How? Even if you could use that magic again, and that golden symbol glowed on your neck again, how would we get there? And what? Are we going to hide forever?”
“Yes. That’s the plan.”
“You stopped the Blaze Prince’s dragon, and it could’ve died after that for all we know. You think they’re going to just let us go hide in the woods or the mountains?”
Honestly, I didn’t have an answer to that question. Everyone in Allovan knew the Blaze Queen, Mortriana Vissex, would never let that kind of incident go. She’d hunt me to the ends of the world to get my magic for her own, or kill me to squash any chance of further rebellion in the war.
“That’s the plan,” was all I could come up with.
We both sighed simultaneously, as if rehearsed. But the truth is we had just spent all our waking time together.
There was commotion outside the forge; men running and shouting. All within continued working, but every ear perked up. They all knew something was happening as Garris’ men poured out of the forge into the square. Many gazes drifted to me, as they all knew about what I had done at the dragon battle earlier.
Garris entered. He’d changed clothes. He was wearing his nice, unstained white shirt and his knee-high leather boots freshly shined. Shit. He’s got company.
Behind him another man entered. And I thought Garris had amean look to him. The man who entered behind my master was a tall man with thinning gray hair, age spots on his brow and temples. He was missing a nose, presumably from the flat bandage that covered it, and one pale eye stared off at the side of the room.
Garris pointed to me immediately as they walked over. Sweat soaked my palms, sliding between the folds in my hands. Bella dug her nails into my arm subconsciously. I blinked hard at the ground, knowing there was nothing I could do.
Not a single slave stopped their work, but all watched nervously. We may not have been a family in the forge, but we cared for each other. We were all stuck in the same rotten life. And as the two men walked toward me, and the tall man licked his dry lips, I got the sinking suspicion my life was about to get a whole lot more rotten.
As Garris waved the old man closer, that strange thrum stirred again in my chest—like lightning curling beneath my skin, desperate to lash out. I could feel the heat rising in my palms, the spark of something unshaped and wild. But then I glanced past the man’s hunched shoulders to the others in the forge, busy stacking scrap metal and hammering new stuff. What if I lost control? What if whatever lived inside me burst free and lit the forge sky-high? I could end them all—Bella, the others, even myself—in one fiery heartbeat. The risk wrapped around my throat like a chain, tighter than any Garris ever forced on me. I blinked hard and buried the feeling deep. No. Not here. Not with lives that weren’t mine to gamble.
“Get up,” Garris pointed at the door to the back room again.
