Page 191 of Fires of the Forsaken
Cheriour opened one eye when I touched his cheek.
“You get a pass this time. Because I like you,” I murmured. “And because you were trying to protect me. But no more secrets, ‘kay? I won’t forgive you next time.”
His lips twitched, and he nuzzled my hand before he breathed out a long sigh and drifted back to his fever dreams.
My heart clenched.
“You and I are gonna have a long talk once you’re better,” I whispered, tracing the scar over his eye.
Although, to be honest, the prospect of that conversation terrified me.
It was gonna hurt. Secrets usually did when they surfaced.
I hoped I was strong enough to bear the pain. And to meet whatever other nightmares this shithole world had to offer.
51
Seruf
The vague childhood memories I had of Seruf were faded and distorted. I’d long envisioned her as a winged Wraith: warped and inhuman. A horrifying sight to behold.
But Seruf was merely a winged woman. She seemed unthreatening. Especially as she stared at me, her dark eyes gleaming with joy and relief.
I did not fear her. Truthfully, I did not seem capable of feelinganything.My heart churned away inside my chest, but it had turned into something resembling a clockwork mechanism, like in Terrick’s fiction books. A device that mimicked life but was incapable of truly living.
“My child.” Seruf folded her knees into a crouch as she surveyed me. “What have they done to you?”
I stared at her but said nothing.
Around us, the smoke continued to clear, revealing rows upon rows of debris-covered streets. Burnt remnants of humans and beasts crisscrossed along the road. This had been a rather large town, once, if the ruins were any indication. Easily twice the size of Swindon, and likely housing twice the number of humans.
Those humans were all dead.
I wanted to pity them. But I didn’t.
“I heard you had returned to Sakar,” I said to Seruf.
She beamed at me. “For you,” she said. “I returned foryou.”
“So it’s true.” My stomach turned hollow. “The accusations—"
“Accusations?”
“That I was created by your hand.”
“Ah,” Seruf’s smile stretched, if possible, even wider. She looked rather comical, with her too-white teeth glinting in the dying fire. “Of course it’s true.” She raised her hand. The tips of her fingers (the nails, to be more accurate) were painted a dark shade of red.
It looked as though she’d dipped them in blood.
She shifted her fingers and summoned a tongue of fire. It hovered, still and quiet, above her palm.
She closed her fist, extinguishing the flame.
I envied how easily she accomplished that.How many times had I fought to banish the fire from my skin? How many times had I lost control over it? And yet, she made controlling it seem as simple as…well, as closing her fist.
“I am the last fire elemental to live in this wretched place. My brethren sided with Raphael,” Seruf said. “Imagine that. We were bonded; closer than—well, there isn’t a human equivalent to describe what we were to each other. Closer than kin, certainly. And yet theyleftme.”
“So you killed them.”
