Page 1 of Thunder's Reckoning

CHAPTER ONE

PROLOGUE

LIORA

CHILDRENof the Flame Compound

The walls were bleeding smoke again.It slipped from the cracks in the ceiling like black veins, curling upward before coiling back down into my lungs. Once, I believed it was holy. Now I knew better. It was rot—thick, choking rot—the kind thatsettled in when something died and no one had the courage to bury it.

She didn’t cry.

Even swaddled in linen that still smelled of bloodroot and oil, my daughter was silent. Watchful. Like she already understood.

I knelt beside the window and pried up the floorboards I’d spent weeks loosening with a knife stolen from the kitchen. My hands shook as I lowered her into the hollow space, wrapped in my shawl, her gold-flecked eyes wide and impossibly calm.

“My sweet Sable,” I whispered, my voice breaking, “someone’s coming to save you.”

Beside her, I tucked the silver box. The ribbon. The torn photograph. The letter. My rebellion in pieces.

I heard him before I saw him.

The door opened without sound, only a breath of stale incense and cold air slipping through. My skin crawled before his voice even touched me.

“You’re not at the ceremony, Liora,” Gabrial said, stepping into the room like he owned it. Like he owned me.

No robe. No veil. No mask tonight. He never wore them when he came for me. Only when he played god for the others.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter,” he replied, calm and smiling. “All the faithful attend the Circle of Flame. No exceptions.”

I rose slowly, my body trembling but my spine locked straight. I would not kneel. Not again.

“I won’t stand for this, Gabrial. Why Sable? Why not another?”

“I made her from you,” he breathed. “Your fire. Your defiance. But shaped in loyalty. In purity. She will be everything you refused to become.”

“I know what you have planned, and you can’t possibly think—” My voice caught. I swallowed hard. “She’s your daughter. It’s forbidden.”

He stepped closer, and I smelled the clove oil he always wore—the same scent he used to anoint the altar before his nights with me. Before I learned the truth. Before I saw the monster behind the god.

“You were my special flame, Liora, but your fire was wild. Uncontrolled. So I created one better. Purer.”

A chill went through me. “What do you mean?”

He smiled, slow and poisonous. “You wouldn’t bow. So I had Brother Eli seed you during one of our rituals, with the mask you never knew. He is loyal. Faithful. Silent.” His grin widened. “Your rebellion, your fire, your womb… all of it was mine to command. You just didn’t understand yet.”

My knees buckled. I pressed back against the wall, bile rising as I understood exactly what he intended for Sable.

“How can you even think—?”

“I crafted her,” he said with reverence. “The perfect vessel. A flame untouched by rebellion. One day, she will come to me willingly.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m divine,” he whispered. “When she kneels in white silk, when I place the ash over her heart and tell her what she was made for… she’ll burn for me.And she’ll thank me.”

I lunged.