Page 188 of A Fate in Flames

Back in his chamber, Azmik lifted his head from the pillow, his golden eyes alert.He uncoiled, slithering across the rumpled sheets and down onto the floor.He wound up my legs in spiralling loops, settling around my waist.

Dalkhan dropped heavily onto the edge of his bed and braced his elbows against his thighs.His hands clenched so tightly his knuckles paled.The tension in his shoulders betrayed a grief I’d never witnessed before.

“They sought help from the Wielders.”

The words fell like stones into still water.

I furrowed my brows.“The Wielders?”

“They are now known as the Veilbinders, but centuries ago, they were called Wielders.Mortals like you, but ones who had the ability to wield black magic.”His lip curled with disgust.

Dread unfurled in my stomach like poison.

Dalkhan’s fingers twitched against his knee, each digit moving independently as if fighting some internal war.

“I knew of their existence long before they revealed themselves,” he muttered, almost to himself.“I saw them.Ifeltthem, but they were nothing more than shadows on the edges of the world.So, I let them be.”

His voice darkened, rough with self-loathing.“A mistake that will follow me for eternity.”

Unable to resist the pull of his pain, I sat beside him, close enough that my thigh pressed against his.Azmik adjusted, draping across both our laps.I gently stroked Dalkhan’s forearm.

His hand covered mine, holding it against him.“We felt the change.The mortals began retreating further and further from us.I noticed it but did not question it.”His thumb brushed absently over my knuckles.

“Then, the day it happened…” His shoulders sagged under an invisible weight.“We tried.”

“Tried?”

“I led the Jinn into battle.I slaughtered every mortal in my path.Burned their homes to ash and turned rivers red with their blood.I left mountains of corpses in my wake.”He smiled, but the expression held no joy—only profound grief.“But it was not enough.”

A shiver raced down my spine.Azmik pressed in closer, offering what comfort he could.

“The Wielders had already begun their spell, and the world…” His voice dropped to no more than a breath.“The world shattered beneath us.”

Both of his hands shot up to his hair, pulling at the roots as if he could tear the memory from his mind.

I had heard the stories in fragmented myths—in whispers passed through generations.But hearing it from him, from someone who had lived it and had lost everything, was something else entirely.

Dalkhan’s brows drew together, his eyes fixed on the floor as if he could see through it to the broken world below.

“I was betrayed that day in more ways than one.”

Even Azmik had gone perfectly still.

“The Wielders didn’t just bind a spell to create the Veil.”He paused, his hands slowly unfurling from their death grip on his hair.“They stole a remnant ofmypower to forge it… to seal it.”

Something inside me fractured, splintering beneath the enormity of his truth.

“I was riding Torak when it happened.I was thrown from him and crashed to the ground.I was frozen.Helpless.In agony as it was torn from me—my very essence wrenched from my core.”

His eyes lifted to mine, flashing with vulnerability.

“I heard the screams of my kind as they were pulled away, their last desperate efforts to hold on echoing across the fields.”Each word was a dagger twisted in an old wound.“And I… I could do nothing to stop it.Nothing but lie there and watch as everything was ripped away.”

I placed my palm flat against his chest, over the steady rhythm of his heart.He covered it with his own, trapping it in place.

Neither of us spoke.We sat in a silence heavy with shared pain.

“How?”I asked.