Page 205 of A Fate in Flames

I turned to Tavrik with the biggest grin on my face.“We used to climb it just to pelt rotten vegetables at people.”

Theo’s shoulders shook as he snorted.“You always blamed me when we got caught.”

He was absolutely right.I did blame him.

“Because you always made the most noise.”

I could still hear his cackling ringing in my head, could see the way he would almost fall because he was shaking so much.

Tavrik shook his head.“You two were little menaces.”

“I was a child.”Theo smirked, elbowing me in the rib.“Shewas the menace.”

No matter what we got caught doing, no matter who was to blame, Theo always took the fall.Not that he ever let me live it down.

The weight in my chest lifted.It felt easy.Effortless.Like we weren’t walking toward something terrible.

But that feeling wouldn’t last.

A part of me still wanted to go back.To the Jinn realm.To Dalkhan.

And I would.

I would get my mother, and I would claw my way back to him if I had to.

Before long, my home loomed before us, unchanged yet so different. The cracked pot that Eli had fallen onto when I’d pushed him out my window was still there.Still broken, as if she never got around to replacing it.

I brushed my palm along the weathered surface of the front door.Theo and Tavrik stood tall at my back, grounding me.

“We made it,” I whispered.

Dread curled deep inside my chest as I pushed open the door, the creak of the hinges too loud in the silence of the night.

Everything felt wrong.It was too still.Too empty.

Dust blanketed every surface, an eerie contrast to the cleanliness and order my mother had always kept.Satchels of food sat abandoned, their contents long since spoiled.The fresh herbs she’d once cherished had rotted where they hung, their scent sickly and sour.

She’d stopped caring.Stopped trying.

Stopped believing I would come back.

I moved forward, driven by the need to find her.To hear her voice once more.

I reached for her door, my fingers hovering just above the handle.The stone in my other hand burned, and a violent hum thrummed in my bones.

I grabbed the handle, the metal shockingly cold, as if winter had claimed this one spot in the house.

I turned it.

The door swung open with a groan.My mother’s name left my lips in a barely audible whisper.

“Ummi?”

The sound of snapping bones filled the room.A sharp crack that would haunt my dreams forever.

I screamed, feral and inhuman.The cry bounced off the walls, coming back to me distorted as Zaheera let my mother’s lifeless body slip from her grasp.

She hit the ground with a sickening thud.