Page 2 of Thunder's Reckoning

The guards were on me before I reached him, their hands like iron around my arms. I screamed her name—once, twice—louder. Not because she could hear me. But because I needed her name to be the last thing I gave her.

Gabrial’s gaze swept the room, the bed, the warm hearth, the cradle without Sable.

“Where is she?”

“Gone,” I said.

A lie. But maybe not for long, if he didn’t find her.

He sighed, almost regretful. “You could’ve been everything, Liora. The mother of the new flame. The bride of the flamebearer.”

“You mean your possession.”

His smile turned sharp. “You were too willful. Too defiant. But the flame still needed a vessel.”

I screamed, raw and broken. The guards tightened their grip, dragging me backward. I fought, thrashed, called her name again and again because I couldn’t touch her. Because I wouldn’t get to say goodbye.

He didn’t even look at me now. He knelt beside the window, pressing his palm to the floor, right above where she lay hidden.

“Let her burn,” he said softly. “And when she does… a new flame will rise from the ashes.”

They dragged me into the hallway, my heels skidding over the worn boards, the smoke swallowing my voice until even I could barely hear it. Somewhere below us, my daughter lay silent in the dark, too small to fight, too young to understand. And as the door slammed shut between us, I prayed to a god I no longer believed in…that she would never remember his voice.

But in the black veins of smoke curling through the ceiling, I saw it—the shape of his hands closing around her future…and the shadow of another, far off yet moving closer, carrying the kind of fire even Gabrial couldn’t control. A storm filled with Thunder.

CHAPTER TWO

GABRIAL LOPEZ ESTATE

Twenty Years Later

I was born for the fire—or so I’ve been told.

The hallway was colder than usual, colder in a way that seeped straight into my bones, carrying the bite of stone and something else I couldn’t name. After five years of walking this same path—every week since my fifteenth birthday—I noticed the smallest shifts.

Tonight, the air pressed heavier, the shadows stretched longer.

Bare feet slid across marble so immaculate it reflected me back in fractured pieces, the chill climbing through my skin with every step. The runner stretched the length of the corridor in perfect alignment, edges razor-straight, its threads woven so tight they seemed meant to cut. Even the air was scrubbed clean, faint with lemon polish and candle smoke, sterile as a hospital, sacred as a tomb.

Chandeliers burned above me, light sharp as glass, gilding the hall in brilliance that showed no mercy. There was nowhere to hide. Every polished surface, every perfect line reminded me I didn’t belong here, not as a person, only as something kept. My footsteps landed too loud, clumsy against the curated silence, like proof I was still human. The ache in my soles grounded me. Pain was the only imperfection I could still claim as mine.

Pain reminded me I was still alive.

And if I was still alive, I could still run.

The robe I wore over my sheer nightgown was white and thin, damp where sweat had soaked the fabric to my skin. Not from heat. Never from heat.

The chamber waited at the end.

When I stepped inside, the candles were already lit.

Twelve, always twelve, one for each of the Circle, one for the Flame. And the thirteenth, the one that mattered most, the black-stemmed candle set in an iron holder at the center of the altar.

The timer.

The countdown.

My hope.