The Reckless Reign (Book 3, The Culled Crown Series)

Chapter 73

One second I was pain, an ache of heat so excruciating, the claws and teeth of it gnawing against the inside of my chest with such rapid aggression that I feared it would eat me alive—and then it was gone. I shoved it outward, marking those three targets, flinging out more small nets of safety, general places, unknown spaces where I knew my friends and allies must be. I had time do that much. To try to shield them.

I tried.

After that, there was only blood and fire.

I brought hell to our world. To our lands. Fire was my crown. Brimstone the throne on which I sat. I had the honeyed words of dead girls in my ear and an army of flame at my back. At my sides. It ate at my flesh, dug talons into my skull, ripped me open from the inside. The world was mine.

It was ours.

And we took it.

The thing that bubbled up in me, that black, roiling heat, was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Cleansing and yet utterly toxic in the way only flame can be. I withered under its pressure, the soul of who I was, the shred of soul that still clung to the shadows of my heart was fragile. So very fragile in the wake of that heat, that oppressive power.

Some tiny part of me, the part of me that was only mine and not ours, knew that if I didn't pull back, didn't stop there would be no stopping. No end to this. And we wanted that. No. No, that wasn't right. They wanted that. The voices, so loud now. Arguing. Fighting. Each louder than the next, volleying for control. Volleying for power. Volleying to win, to burn, to rule, to take me.

It was so loud I couldn't understand what they were saying anymore, couldn't make sense of the words. But I knew. Some intrinsic part of me knew that I was dying, falling to pieces on the floor of the ballroom.

I tasted ash on my tongue. Felt my throat constrict. I think I was screaming.

There was so much noise, chaos in my mind, in my body. Hands made of fire, made of black smoke, of dark roiling power, scratched at my insides, clawed up my throat, constricted my lungs. They blinded me.

And I clung tight to three pieces of straw in my hand.

Fire licked at my clothes, threaded through my hair. Wood was snapping, firing spitting and popping. I felt it licking against stone, marble, glass. Flesh. Hair. Bone. There was no time for them to scream. No time for them to fight back. There was only fire and heat and hell.

All ten levels of it.

Here.

Now.

Devouring everything.

And we didn't care.

We had no comprehension of where we were in the room anymore. There was only fire and the need to burn everything. Every last person in this damn place. Everyone who would stand between us and our throne. Us and our crown. We were a blaze. We existed to hold that force steady. To command it. To rule over it. And this, this mortal made of flesh and bone. This skin we wore, she would do well enough. It would serve its purpose for now.

But she did not yield completely.

The fingers of that mortal body refused to loosened around something—a wall, a shield. Each blood coated finger unfurled slowly, the child still resisting us even after we'd taken control. She fought. Tried. A valiant effort.

A tremor rocked her body, bowing her frame as a raw, broken sound escaped her lips. She fought our urging to let go of that last bit of her power. Her humanity. Her soul. Whatever she was holding back, whatever dregs of her fire, her flame that she kept hidden within herself—it was ours.