Page 8 of A Storm of Fire and Ash

My entire being strained with the effort, muscles screaming in protest, heart thundering in my ears.

A sound rose up from my chest—no longer a scream, but something deeper. A cry that scraped the soul. It clawed its way out of me, guttural and primal, shaking my bones with its fury.

And still… the beam didn’t budge.

Then—

“Kryndor, what in the gods is this?”

The voice cut through the inferno like a blade.

Zayn.

I whipped my head around, tears streaking down my soot-stained face. He stood in the doorway, eyes wide, aghast at the scene before him.

“Elara!” he shouted, his voice sharp with urgency, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

All I could do was stare at him with bloodied hands, the firelight dancing in my eyes, and whisper the only word that mattered anymore.

“Help.”

“Elara!” he shouted, his eyes wide with urgency as he rushed over to me.

“Please! Please help me lift these!” I pleaded as I choked on the thick smoke. As I wiped the blood that trickled from my brow, my hands started trembling as I gathered my strength to try again.

“We have to leave, NOW!” Zayn urged, reaching for my arm, but I recoiled, shaking my head vigorously. “NO! Not without Mother!” I cried, my heart pounding like a war drum as I fought against the encroaching darkness of despair.

“Fuck!” Zayn shouted, and together we heaved the beam off of her.

I wasn’t ready.

I thought I was. I thought I could be brave. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

My knees gave out beneath me. I collapsed beside her broken body, my hands flying to her face, trembling as I brushed aside the blood-matted strands of hair that clung to her skin. Her face—once so full of light—was barely recognizable. Pale. Bloodied. Beautiful even in death’s cruel embrace.

“No, no, no—Mother…” The word shattered in my mouth.

And then—“E-Elara…”

It was the faintest whisper. But it was her.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

Her voice rattled through her chest like gravel, and blood—so much blood—poured from her lips, dark and endless, staining my hands, the floor, and everything.

“Shh, shh, don’t talk,” I pleaded, cradling her head against me, my voice cracking with every word. “It’s okay… it’s okay… I can fix this. I can heal you.”

I didn’t know if I was lying to her, or to myself.

Magic surged under my skin, unstable and wild, and I reached deep, desperately clawing at the pieces of it, searching for the part of me that could heal, that could save.

But there was nothing.

Nothing but chaos.

Zayn knelt beside us, his voice thick, strained with emotion. “Elara… it’s too late. Even if you had the magic, even if you had all the power in the world—”

“No!” I screamed at him, at the gods, at everything that had brought me to this moment. “She’s not gone, she’s not gone, she’s not—!”

My arms tightened around her. Her blood smeared across my chest. My lips pressed to her temple, and all I tasted was iron and ash and loss.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, over and over, words barely forming through my tears. “I didn’t mean it—any of it—I’m so sorry. I love you, I love you, I love you—please, stay. Please stay…”

Her eyes fluttered open. Clouded. Flickering. Still full of that unbearable, unshakable love.

“Y-you are destined…” she rasped, her mouth trembling, her voice fragile. “…for g-great things, my child…”

She smiled. Or tried to. But another wave of blood spilled from her lips, and she began to choke on it. I leaned in closer, and she whispered—words only for me. Words that shook the very foundation of my soul.

Secrets. Burdens. Truths I never asked for.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, rocking her gently. Her breath hitched, slower now. Shallower. “Please, don’t leave me. I need you. Please, Mother…”

But she was slipping. I could feel it. With every faltering breath, a part of me was being ripped away.

I looked to the sky—or what little of it I could see through the flaming wreckage above—and begged. Begged anyone who might hear me. Lunara. The stars. The wind. The gods who had forsaken us.

Please… not her.

More blood poured from her mouth.

And I knew.

I knew.

I pressed my lips to her brow—tender, trembling, desperate—and spoke the cruelest lie I’ve ever told. “It’s okay, Mother. You can let go now… I promise I’ll be okay.”

The truth lodged in my throat like glass. I would never be okay again.

A sob clawed its way out of me, sharp and shattering. “I’ll find Father. I’ll free him. I swear it. I-I love you…”

Her lips moved one final time. So faint. Barely audible over the fire’s distant crackle.

Her final words—“M-my d-daughter… my Q-Queen…”—were spoken with the faintest hint of cherry wine still clinging to her lips, the sweetness of her life’s work even in death.

And then—nothing.

Her eyes lost their light. Her chest stilled.

“NO!” The scream that tore from my lungs wasn’t human. It was grief made flesh. Pain given voice. The fire within me exploded outward, igniting with impossible fury, leaving me bereft and reeling.

Flames consumed my body, roaring in response to my anguish. My skin crackled with magic gone wild—my grief so deep it bent the very forces of the world around me. Lightning split the sky, crashing through the roof in a blinding white flash.

I barely felt it.

Somewhere in the haze, Zayn’s voice reached through the noise. Gentle. Grounding.

“Elara…”

A cloak settled around me. Arms wrapped around my shaking frame. I didn’t fight him. I couldn’t.

He held me like the shattered thing I was, whispering against my hair. “I got you, Peach. I got you.”

I looked up at him through a veil of tears, the smell of blood and fire thick in my nose.

And then—

Darkness took me.