I jolt awake, my skin slick with sweat. The air in my room is thick and heavy, the heat pressing down on me like a physical weight. Blinking away the last vestiges of sleep, my eyes widen in horror as I take in the sight before me – roaring flames licking at the walls, devouring everything in their path.
Panic seizes me, a scream lodging in my throat as I stumble from the bed, coughing and choking on the acrid smoke that fills my lungs with every gasping breath. The fire seems to have originated in the closet, the flames climbing higher and higher with each passing second. I can’t begin to fathom how this nightmare started.
I lurch towards the door, my only thought to escape, to flee the inferno that threatens to consume me. But as my fingers close around the handle, a blinding white light explodes through the room, the force of it sending me flying backward. I crash into the vanity table, the glass shattering beneath my weight as I crumple to the floor in a heap of limbs and blood-soaked silk.
Pain lances through my back and side, a searing agony that steals the breath from my lungs. I press a trembling hand to my waist, feeling the slick heat of blood coating my fingers, and a wave of dizziness washes over me. This is bad. This is really, really bad.
“Amelia! Amelia, can you hear me?” a voice shouts from the other side of the door, the words barely audible over the roar of the flames.
“Ye-ss,” I choke out, covering my nose and mouth with the back of my hand in a futile attempt to filter the smoke. I stagger to my feet, clutching at my wounded side as I survey my burning room with growing desperation.
“Do not attempt to open the door again or the windows. Do you hear me?” The voice – Ava’s voice, I realize with a jolt – is sharp with urgency, laced with an undercurrent of fear that sends a chill down my spine. If Ava is scared, then something is definitely not right.
“Okay, but why?” I rasp, stumbling away from the vanity and towards the bed. As I watch in mute horror, the flames begin to lick at the sheets, the fabric blackening and curling as the fire devours it inch by inch.
“The spell preventing foreigners from getting in has activated its fail-safe to protect you,” Ava explains rapidly, her words tumbling over each other in her haste. “But in doing so, it’s going to kill you. I’m working on undoing the spell, but I need you to stay put. Trying to escape will only make it harder.”
“Okay,” I wheeze, doubling over as another coughing fit wracks my body. The smoke is getting thicker by the second, the heat more intense, and I can feel my consciousness starting to waver at the edges. “Please hurry.”
I clamber onto the bed, huddling against the headboard as far from the encroaching flames as I can get. My dress clings to my skin, soaked through with sweat and blood, and I can’t stop the terrified whimper that escapes my lips as I watch the fire inch ever closer. Is this how it ends? Burned alive in my own bed, helpless to do anything but wait for death to claim me?
“Amelia?” a new voice calls out, barely audible over the roar of the blaze. I don’t respond, too lost in the waking nightmare to process anything beyond the terror gripping me.
“Amelia!” the voice tries again, more insistent this time. “I can hear your heartbeat, little one. You need to calm down. Everything is going to be alright.”
I whip my head towards the door at the achingly familiar timbre, tears of relief and fear streaking down my smoke-stained cheeks. “Nickolas?” I croak, my voice little more than a broken whisper.
How is this happening? One minute, I’m going to bed with a shattered heart, convinced any future with Nickolas is an impossible dream. The next, I’m staring death in the face, trapped in the hellish embrace of these all-consuming flames. I don’t understand. I can’t make sense of any of it.
“Close your eyes, Amelia,” Nickolas instructs, his tone gentle but firm. “Remember my scent. Focus on that and nothing else. Everything will be alright, I promise.”
“Okay,” I sniffle, drawing my knees up to my chest and squeezing my eyes shut. Blocking out the roar of the fire and the sting of smoke, I let my mind drift, picturing Nickolas as clearly as if he were right in front of me. The rich, forest notes of his scent wrap around me like a protective cocoon. Gradually, I feel my racing heart begin to slow, my breathing evening out as I lose myself in thoughts of him.
“That’s it, little one. Just breathe,” Nickolas murmurs, and I can hear the relief in his voice. “You’re going to be okay.” But a second later, a loud crack rends the air, followed by the sound of splintering wood. My eyes fly open just in time to see one of the ceiling beams crash to the floor, wreathed in flames. A scream tears from my throat, my momentary calm shattered as the reality of my situation comes rushing back in devastating clarity.
I squeeze my eyes shut again, trying desperately to block out the sight of the burning room and the sound of Ava’s frantic chanting from beyond the door. I don’t know how much longer I can last like this, trapped and helpless, waiting for a rescue that might never come.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the chanting stops. The silence that follows is deafening, broken only by the crackle of the flames and the pounding of my own heart. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, I open my eyes – only to find myself staring into the triumphant face of my worst nightmare.
“Hello, princess,” Ember purrs, her hand clamping down on my wrist in a bruising grip. I whip my head towards the sound of her voice to find her standing at the foot of my bed, flanked by two hooded figures – witches if their scents are any indication. But it’s the shimmering portal of water hovering behind them that makes my blood run cold, a yawning vortex that fills me with a primal terror.
The door to my room explodes inward with a deafening crash of splintering wood. Nickolas and Ava spill into the room with matching expressions of horror. But before either of them can react, Ember is barking out orders, her voice laced with dark glee as she urges the witches into action.
I don’t try to make sense of how they breached the wards. My only thought is to get away, to put as much distance between myself and that portal as possible. Wrenching my arm free of Ember’s grasp, I turn and run, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood as I make a desperate bid for Nickolas’s side. But I’ve only taken a single step when something coils around my wrists, biting deep with razor-sharp fangs.
I stumble, my forward momentum arrested as I’m jerked back violently. A scream tears from my throat as I take in the wicked chains now wrapped around my arms, each link studded with vicious metal spikes that have punched through flesh and bone alike.
“Come here, you bitch,” Ember snarls, giving the chains a vicious yank.
White-hot agony lances through me as the barbs dig deeper, scoring my bones and shredding muscle. But I grit my teeth, refusing to give her the satisfaction of hearing me scream again as I brace my feet and pull back with everything I have.
We grapple for control, my blood quickly soaking the floor as I’m driven inexorably backward, inch by agonizing inch. The pain is a living thing, a sentient force that steals my breath and clouds my vision until all I can perceive is the relentless ache radiating from my mangled wrists.
Then, a new torment joins the fray as another chain, thicker and more wicked than the first, bursts through the wound in my side. I can’t stifle the scream that rips from my ravaged throat this time, a guttural sound of pure, unadulterated anguish as the barbs sink into the torn flesh of my abdomen.
Ember cackles, her face alight with sadistic glee as she uses my moment of weakness to haul me closer to the portal’s hungry maw. I can feel its pull now, an inexorable force trying to drag me into that watery abyss. But I can’t go, I won’t. Not while I still have breath in my lungs and fight left in my battered body, but it’s a losing battle. Inch by inch, she pulls me forward until only my head and shoulders remain on this side of the shimmering veil.
Through the haze of agony, I catch a glimpse of Nickolas in the midst of the chaos. He’s engaged in a vicious duel with one of the witches, her hands wreathed in flame as she hurls gouts of fire at him. But Nickolas is inexorable, shrugging off the scorching blasts as if they’re little more than a mild annoyance.
I can only watch, frozen in horror, as he closes in on the witch with terrifying speed. His claws are out, glinting like razors in the flickering light, and then they’re sinking into the soft flesh of her chest with sickening ease. The witch’s eyes bulge, her mouth opening in a soundless scream as Nickolas rips out her still-beating heart, his arm instantly engulfed in roaring flames.
“Nickolas!” I shriek, my voice cracking with terror and anguish as I watch him burn.
Ember takes advantage of my distraction, her grip tightening like a vise as she wrenches me fully through the portal. I catch one last glimpse of Nickolas, his eyes wide and wild as he rushes toward the closing vortex.
“I will come for you, Amelia!” he roars, the words ringing in my ears like an oath. “Even if I have to burn the whole world, I promise I’ll find you!”
Then the portal winks out of existence, and I’m swallowed by darkness so complete, so absolute, that I wonder if I’ve finally slipped into the endless embrace of death itself.