Page 41 of Chasing the Flame (The Sacred Flames Of Ruin #1)

Darkness.

That’s the first thing I feel. Not pain. Not heat. Just… nothing.

Then a gasp tears from my throat—sharp and ragged.

Air floods my lungs like poison.

I jolt upright, coughing, my whole body screaming as sensation returns. Every nerve is raw. Every breath tastes like ash and rot. I drag myself out of a pile of shattered stone and soot, my skin screaming with every bit of movement.

I should be dead—was dead.

But something wouldn’t let me go.

My hands shake as I look down at them. The skin is scorched away in places, the bone exposed, the runes still burned into me—glowing. Faint, but steady. Like they never stopped pulsing. Like they remember.

“She should’ve killed me.” I mutter, my voice like broken glass.

The cavern is nearly gone, my covenant long gone, and the altar obliterated. But beneath the rubble, I feel it. The gate I opened—the thing I called—it’s still humming.

Not fully closed. Not fully done.

A chill brushes the back of my neck.

It isn’t wind.

I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. I feel it inside me now—coiled like smoke, ancient and patient.

The Ashbraith.

It doesn’t speak with words. It never has. But I hear it all the same.

Whispers behind my ribs. Heat curling through my veins. Promises, power, purpose.

She awakened you, it breathes. Now, you are mine.

I smile, even as my lip splits open. “Then, what are we waiting for? Let’s burn it all down.”