Page 39 of A Storm of Fire and Ash

There was a darkness inside me, and tonight it had bloomed like a flower made of thorns. And instead of cutting it down, I welcomed it. I gave it water. I gave it blood. And now… I wasn’t afraid of it anymore.

I didn’t even hear the door open. Didn’t hear the footsteps, soft across the stone.

I only noticed him when I heard the sharp intake of his breath.

I didn’t move. My bare back was to him, pale and soaked, scars like silver rivers running across skin that he hadn’t known were there.

I’d almost forgotten what they looked like.

I felt him come closer—so close the air changed. His presence pressed into the room like a storm on the horizon.

His fingers brushed one of the scars. A thin one that curved beneath my shoulder blade. I tensed, not from pain, but from the way his touch set electricity to my nerves. Magic sparked beneath my skin—mine and his, intertwining in some unspoken call and response.

He hissed softly. An expression I haven’t seen yet washed over his face. It’s like he was struggling to breathe. “Who did this to you?”

His voice was low. Too low. That kind of quiet rage that simmers before it boils.

I didn’t turn. My voice came out steady, cold. “The King.”

Silence.

Then his voice, sharper. “I’ll kill him.”

That was when I moved.

I stood, water cascading off my body. I turned to face him, fully exposed, not flinching. Not hiding. His eyes locked on mine—but not before they darkened, dragging slowly down my form like gravity had its own hunger. His jaw clenched. His breath hitched. I could see the storm in him breaking open.

“No,” I said, voice calm, but resolute. “I will kill him. The King is mine to kill. And mine alone.”

I stepped out of the bath and felt his eyes on my naked body the entire time. I wanted to smile and face him again. A part of me liked the way he looked at me—like he was starving. I grabbed the robe from the nearby hook but waited just a moment longer to put it on.

I glanced over my shoulder with a smirk.

“You planning to stare all day?” I echoed his own words back to him, letting them drip with satisfaction. “Perhaps you should clean the drool off the floor.” And then I slowly pulled the fabric over my shoulders.

I caught the flicker of amusement in his darkened gaze, just before he turned sharply and strode out of the bathroom, the door swinging closed behind him.

I stood there for a moment, the heat still pulsing beneath my skin—not from the bath, but from him. I looked at myself in the mirror. I wondered what I’d look like with my Fae ears…

I looked at myself, my fingers hovered just above my collarbone where Zayn’s glamour pulsed faintly beneath my skin like a second heartbeat. It had been woven there so long, I hadn’t even noticed the way it dulled me. Softened me. Made me human.

Zayn said he would teach me how to glamour myself and others. But something inside me already knew how.

I closed my eyes, took a steady breath. My magic shifted. It didn’t explode or burn. It melted—like warm wax dripping down my spine, like a heavy cloak falling from my shoulders. The air changed, thickened. I could feel it before I even looked.

And then—I opened my eyes.

I gasped.

The girl—no woman—staring back at me wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. She had my bones, my shape—but everything else was more.

My mismatched eyes—one icy blue, the other a rich, embered hazel—glowed with a depth I’d never seen before.

Fire and Ice, just like Mother told me Iridessa always said.

They shimmered as if lit from within. My skin had a softness to it, but it was radiant, like moonlight filtered through honey. Not human, not anymore.

And my ears—delicately pointed, peeking through the wet waves of my hair—were elegant, not overly long, but just enough to mark me. Fae. Royal Fae. Perhaps more.

I stepped closer, my heart hammered in my chest. I felt taller, straighter, like the very air bent differently around me now. Slowly, I loosened my robe and let it fall open.

My breath caught.

Well, holy shit.

My body was stronger, every inch of me honed like a blade. My muscles, once soft, were lean and defined now, coiled with strength and power. My collarbones were sharper, my legs stronger, my waist more sculpted. I was built like someone who could both dance in moonlight and walk through fire.

I wasn’t just beautiful.

I was otherworldly.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to shrink. I didn’t want to hide. I touched the edge of the mirror, my fingers trembling. This is who I was meant to be.

Not human. Not broken.

Fae.

Whole.

Suddenly, I had a rush of emotions swirl through me. I placed my hand against the stone wall to stay upright, and electricity shot through me. It was as if my body were calling me to whatever lay on the other side.

My body pulsed, hummed with electricity like it did the first time I saw the prince… the first time I saw Zayn. Memories flashed to my first date with Fintan in the wildflower field, and I remember feeling the electric buzz then too, but then, Zayn was there.

My eyes went wide. I knew Fintan wasn’t my mate. The goddes’s words repeated in my head. “He'll wear a guise, though not as he seems, together they'll rise, fulfilling their dreams, for she is the Queen and the prophecy's light, with him by her side, they'll restore the night.”

Fintan never wore a guise… he was always the prince. But his guard…

Oh. My. Suns.

The electricity felt more powerful now. It begged me to take what I needed. What I yearned for. I had the urge to run out of the bathroom and drop my robe again and pounce on Zayn. Push him up against the wall.

But when I finally emerged, the room was empty.

He was gone.

I glamoured myself again, back into my human form, feeling disappointed—heavy. I felt my magic still, but not as intensely as I did in my Fae form. I sighed; my shoulders slumped for the first time that night and I crawled into bed.

His bed.

And for the first time in days, I slept without feeling the giant hole in my chest.

Not because I was safe.

But because I was becoming something no one could ever hurt again.