Page 42 of Ashfall
With a final glance, I turn toward Malek and let everything else fall away—Ember, the firestorm, the noise of the world. All of it drops into silence. My focus narrows until it’s just him and me, two forces spiraling toward collision. My wings snap tighter, my heartbeat syncing with the beat of flame in my chest.
Rage surges forward, sharp and hungry, but it’s clean now—refined. No hesitation. No fear. Just the righteous fury of knowing exactly who I am, exactly what I fight for. I lock onto him like a falling star with a single purpose: destroy the dark and end this.
I circle high, wings aching from the climb, the wind shrieking past my scales like a warning. I hold it for one perfect moment—the stillness before the storm—and then I dive.
The roar that tears from my chest isn’t just fury. It’s history. It’s vengeance. It’s every scar, every betrayal, every memory of what Malek destroyed. My descent is a missile of flame and fury.
I slam into him with bone-breaking force, my talons driving into his throat, tearing through scale and sinew. His blood is dark, wrong, reeking of ruin. He shrieks, not just in pain, but in panic. For the first time, I hear it—fear in his voice.
And I’m not done.
My fire pours into him, not just heat but judgment, ripping into the twisted void that pretends to be his heart. It fights back—shadows curling against the blaze—but I don’t let up. I give it everything. Every drop of power, every shred of will. I burn through him, burn into him, until the shadows scream and rupture, until the darkness finally breaks.
And still, I don’t stop. Not until he’s nothing but ash scattered on the wind.
Below, Ember redirects the blaze, her wings cutting deliberate paths through the choking heat. The fire doesn’t just move—it alters its course, answering her will like a living thing. She pushes it away from the green valleys with precise, brutal authority, forcing it into dead rock where it can burn itself out harmlessly. Every gust of wind she rides, every pulse of flame she bends—it’s all instinct and mastery.
Her wings tremble, but not from weakness. From the sheer magnitude of what she’s channeling—wild, molten power drawn from the heart of the blaze itself. The strain is written in every line of her body, in the pulsing glow that bleeds from the tips of her wings, in the way the very air distorts around her from the heat.
Flame coils beneath her like a throne rising from ruin. She hovers there, sovereign and relentless, and every fiber of her being says: this fire is mine. She doesn’t just resist the storm—she owns it. Commands it like it’s an extension of her breath, her will, her rage wrapped in beauty.
I hover for a beat, stunned—not by the fire, but by her. By the way she floats there in the blaze like it’s her birthright, every wingbeat a statement, every flick of flame a vow. She isn’t just surviving. She’s owning this moment like it was carved into fate for her alone. Holding back disaster with nothing but will, instinct, and power that pulses from her like a second heartbeat.
There’s grace in her control, yes, but there’s also ferocity—regal and raw and utterly hers. She’s not just radiant. She’s sovereign. And the fire knows it.
When she lands, I follow, pressing my snout to hers.
“You good?” I ask.
“Ask me after I can feel my legs again.”
We shift back to human form, sweat slick and breath heavy. Ember groans as she tugs on her pants.
“Next time, can we fight evil someplace that has air conditioning?”
Rafe’s voice crackles over the comm. “We turned the front. Firefighters are moving in. We’ve got it.”
Relief hits me like a wave, sudden and staggering, crashing through the high of adrenaline and the ache of battle. My limbs feel heavier, my breath finally reaching the bottom of my lungs. I look at Ember—smudged with soot, eyes still blazing—and something deeper roots itself in my chest. Gratitude, sharp and clear. Pride, fierce and blinding. And beneath it, a quiet, undeniable awe. Not just for what we survived. For what we became in the fire.
“Copy. We’re heading back.”
Together, we climb to the canyon’s rim, our bodies aching, clothes torn, skin singed, but every step forward feels earned. Below, the fire still smolders, licking at scorched earth, trying to pretend it still has power—but the worst of it is broken, its fury drained. I wrap my arm around Ember’s waist as we reach the top, drawing her close not just because I need to, but because I can. Because we’re still standing.
Just ahead, a spiral symbol is burned into the obsidian, etched deep into the volcanic glass like it’s always been there, just waiting for this moment to reveal itself. Not jagged, not chaotic, not corrupted like Malek’s scorched runes. This mark is clean. Intentional. Balanced. It radiates calm in the middle of ruin, like the canyon itself witnessed what happened and chose to remember it this way—not with fear, but with meaning.
The canyon itself has marked the moment—not with violence, but with memory. It doesn’t scream or burn. It simply remembers, carving the spiral into black glass like a signature on the end of war. Not an ending. Not even a victory. A declaration.A vow. A beginning. The kind that’s written in fire and sealed in ash, where nothing stays the same and everything worth keeping has been forged anew.
I turn her toward me. Her face is streaked with soot, her hair wild and wind-whipped, tangled with ash and battle. Her eyes—those fierce, firelit eyes—lock onto mine, and everything else falls away. The wreckage, the smoke, the blood on our hands—it all fades beneath the weight of what she is to me. She’s chaos and calm, destruction and salvation. And still, she’s everything. Not despite the fire. Because of it.
“You’re everything, Ember,” I say, cupping her face.
Then I kiss her. Hard. Desperate. Claiming. It’s not gentle—it’s everything I’ve held back, everything I almost lost. My hands are in her hair, pulling her closer like I could fuse us back into the fire we came from. And in that heat, I feel it—the pulse of our bond thrumming between us, ancient and electric. Magic hums at the base of my spine, that tether we forged in blood and fire sparking alive again with every breath we share. This isn’t just a kiss. It’s a promise. A reclamation. A memory and a future crashing together in a single heartbeat. I taste soot, salt, the echo of fear and the fire still fading around us—but beneath it all, her.
When we pull apart, her eyes search mine, something fierce and steady burning there. Then she smiles—not wide, not giddy, but full. A slow, unshakable thing that settles deep. It isn’t just happiness—it’s peace. The kind you only find on the other side of chaos. The kind we bled to earn.
“Guess I’m firebound now.”
I pull her in tighter. “Damn right you are.”
