Page 54 of A Storm of Fire and Ash

I took the stairs two at a time, my hands still slick with blood.

My heart thundered, my magic roared in my veins, and the first guard who rounded the landing didn’t even have time to draw breath before I shoved my palm toward him.

Flames exploded from my hand, consuming him in an instant.

His scream echoed off the stone walls as his armor melted to his skin, the smell of charred flesh choking the air.

I kept running.

Another came at me from the side corridor, sword raised. I slammed my boot into the flagstones, and the earth responded like it had been waiting—jagged spikes erupted from the ground, punching through her chest and lifting her off her feet before the stone swallowed her whole.

Two more appeared ahead. I spread my arms, magic boiling over. The floor heaved beneath them, cracking wide as fire tore through the gap, swallowing them in molten heat. Their shrieks followed me as I tore past, my pace unbroken.

This part of the castle felt wrong. Too pristine, too quiet.

Tapestries lined the walls, gold-trimmed sconces holding flames that flickered politely instead of raging.

The royal side—I’d never been here before.

But instinct carried me, every turn sharper, every step faster, until a set of double doors burst open and the world flooded with light.

I was on a balcony high above the courtyard. The wind whipped my hair into my face, but it didn’t matter. Below, the king and queen stood on a dais, their voices carrying with all the pomp and poison they could muster.

And there—four execution blocks, each with a prisoner kneeling before it with iron cuffs around their necks. Zayn. Makar. Gavrin. Eryndor. Four guards stood behind them, swords poised.

The queen’s lips moved, speaking some empty final words to the crowd.

I didn’t hear them.

I leapt.

For one breathless moment, the wind held me, weightless, untouchable. My stolen bow was already in my hands, the string glowing as fire surged down my arms. I didn’t need arrows. My magic shaped them—shafts of flame burning so hot they hissed against the air.

Four shots. Four kills.

Everything was like it was happening in slow motion as I let my Fae instincts carry me through the air. The arrows streaked down, each one slamming into an executioner’s chest. Fire bloomed instantly, devouring them before their bodies even hit the ground. Before I even landed on the ground.

I landed hard, the stone cracking under my boots. The air rippled with the force of my magic, the heat curled from me in shimmering waves.

“ELARA!” Fintan’s voice cut through the chaos as he sprinted toward me, his blade already red with someone’s blood.

Across the square, Zayn lifted his head. That wicked smile—the one that promised trouble and delivered mayhem—spread slow and sure across his face.

And in that moment, I knew the king and queen’s world was about to burn.

“Catch her! Kill her!” the queen’s shrill voice split the air, but I was already raising my hand.

Mage Hand shimmered into being beside me, it’s dark but translucent fingers aglow with searing light. Screams and whispers flooded the courtyard—low, eerie, curling through the air like smoke. Faces turned pale and wide-eyed, and I drank in the horror that twisted Faylinn’s features.

Her voice cracked as she screamed, “How?! That is forbidden magic! Arrest her! Kill her!”

Mage Hand shot forward, an arc of shimmering power slicing through the air until its fingers closed, almost lovingly, around the queen’s throat. The crowd gasped.

“The queen is not as she seems—and neither is the king!” I shouted, my words sliced through the air.

“They plan to rule all kingdoms, to slaughter innocents until nothing remains but their power. We—” I pressed my hand to my chest, “are the same as you! The queen has lied to you all. She is a Mage practicing dark magic, and she has been controlling your king from the shadows.”

Fintan gasped at my side. “What? What are you saying, Elara?”

I didn’t take my eyes off Faylinn. “She’s lied to you all! She plotted for me to bear children with the prince, offspring that would be both Fae and Mage that she would turn into weapons! She tried to control me. But she failed.”

The queen’s lips curled into a sneer as she choked out her words. “Y-you think they’ll be-believe a filthy—”

I met her gaze, my voice steady and cold as I cut her off and repeated her own words back at her. “Magic calls to magic.”

With a single, deliberate twist, Mage Hand snapped her neck. The sound echoed, sharp as breaking bone in frost. Faylinn’s body crumpled, her crown tumbling uselessly to the stone.

People screamed.

People ran.

Fintan gasped.

But I smiled.

A choked cry tore from Fintan, and he collapsed to his knees.

Not from his mother’s death, but something I knew entirely too well.

His eyes widened as magic poured into him, flooding his veins now that the queen’s leash was gone.

I was at his side in an instant, steadying him as his body trembled with raw, unbound power.

Mage Hand spun away from the queen’s lifeless body, flying toward the execution blocks. One by one, the iron-silver cuffs clamped around Zayn, Makar, Eryn, and Gavrin’s necks snapped open and clattered to the ground.

“Makar! Help Fintan!” I shouted.

The courtyard erupted in chaos.

“Bring me my son’s head!” King Aymon roared, his voice thundering above the screams.

Guards swarmed, weapons drawn. I shifted, my magic burning hot, throwing up walls of air and bursts of flame to shield Fintan. Blades clanged against my barriers, arrows splintered midair. Nothing would touch him.

“I’m coming, Peach!” Zayn’s voice soothed me.

I turned, planting my feet, and slammed my palms into the ground. The earth groaned and obeyed—stone tendrils erupted from the flagstones, coiling around the king’s arms and legs. He roared, struggling as the bindings tightened, holding him fast.

I rose, tall and unshaken, my voice carrying across the square.

“If you stand with Aymon, you will die a coward’s death and live in a world choked by hatred and prejudice!

” My words cut through the chaos, and heads turned toward me.

“But if you stand with the new King—King Fintan, first of his name—you will live in a realm of unity, of strength, of magic unchained!”

The crowd stirred, a murmur swelling like a tide.

And for the first time, the people began to choose.

Those who sided with Aymon moved quickly, clustering behind him in a tight, bristling line.

I felt the ground beneath their boots shiver at my command.

Thorned vines, thick as my arm, erupted from the stone and coiled upward, forming a jagged wall between them and the king.

The thorns glistened with fresh poison, and every time one of his loyalists tried to push forward, the vines snapped like striking serpents, forcing them back.

The majority of the guards fell in behind him, along with a large portion of the crowd. My jaw tightened. Numbers were on his side.

One guard stepped out from Aymon’s ranks.

He was young, his armor dented, eyes locked on me instead of the king.

He crossed the space slowly, warily, but he crossed.

Another followed. Then two more. A woman in the crowd—her hands inked with the sigils of a healer—shoved past the men beside her and moved behind Fintan.

Then a merchant. Then a boy no older than fifteen.

One by one, they broke away from the king’s shadow, each defection tearing a hole in his ranks.

Aymon’s face purpled with rage, his voice cracking as he bellowed, “Traitors! You’ll hang for this!”

But his words didn’t land the way they once would have. The tide was shifting. And he knew it.

Zayn, Eryn, Gavrin, and Makar were now all at my side. Makar helped Fintan up, and I could sense he was using his Magic to help stabilize Fintan from blowing everything up.

The queen’s body still lay crumpled on the stone, her crown glinting dully beside her. Mage Hand hovered near me, still pulsing faintly with the whispers of forbidden magic, a reminder to all of what had just happened—and what could happen again.

The tension snapped like a bowstring. Both sides began to draw weapons, voices rising into a chorus of fury.

Gavrin and Zayn growled, as they held their swords out, ready to fight.

Only a scattering of people—outsiders, rebels, and a small handful of guards—crossed the space to stand behind us. It wasn’t many. But, those who moved did so without hesitation, and their eyes burned with the same fire I felt in my chest.

I could sense he was near.

The air shifted.

The breeze picked up.

I turned back to the square, letting my magic hum through the ground, the air, the very stone beneath us. My voice rang out, steady and fierce, carrying over the murmurs and the distant clamor of steel.

“You call him king, but Aymon rules through fear and chains. You’ve been taught to hate what you don’t understand, to burn what you cannot control. That is not strength—it’s cowardice.” I swept my gaze over the faces watching me. “Today, you choose. Not just your ruler. Your legacy.”

I let the silence stretch for a heartbeat, then spoke the words that had been building in my chest like a storm.

“Stand with him, and you’ll die. Stand with us, and we will tear down every chain, every wall, every lie.

We will build a kingdom not of kings and subjects—but of people who stand as equals.

Magic and mortal, side by side. This is not just rebellion.

This is the beginning of a world worth fighting for. ”

People scattered.

“Choose wisely,” I called, my voice cutting through the chaos. “Because once you take a step, there will be no turning back.”

And then the square erupted into motion.