Page 29 of Crown of Flame

But nothing is deadlier than fire.

I do not leap backward or parry the attack. Instead, I exhale a cloud of fire towards the creature.

It howls with pain and fury and while it is distracted, I push Serena’s body out of the way.

I cannot afford for her to get more hurt.

The hole in my chest sings with happiness when she lets out a groan, but the creature leaps at me again before I can even look at her.

The creature’s claws scrape against the rock that my body is made of. The creature’s face is misshapen and vaguely human-like, now seared from my assault, but it attacks on all fours, claws unnaturally protruding from hooves.

The dark elves must have cut the fear right out of this thing because any other beast would have run off by now.

I think this to myself as we fight, tumbling through the undergrowth. I am stronger and faster of course, but the creature also has a lot of brute strength and seems to be functioning off madness alone.

This must end now. For her sake.

Part of me wanted to spare the beast and save her. I’m unsure why. Maybe the thought that somewhere in that beast, there might be another Serena, capable of helping this realm.

But its soul is perverted beyond recognition.

I lift the creature through the air, gathering what little strength I have left, and I rip the experiment apart, its innards bursting free and coloring the pure white snow.

I collect myself, exhaling smoke as I try to gather my strength.

When I stand up and look over at Serena, I am happy to see that she is conscious and sitting up, although she looks dazed.

And again, the intensity of my feelings confuses me.

Why am I so happy that this human, who should be of no importance to me, is alive? Why am I so happy that she is breathing?

I push the unanswerable questions from my head and walk over to her, where I examine the bruise on her head and the cuts all over her body.

It is clear that she is quite hurt and will need to be healed.

I am not sure how humans heal, but I know that I will find a way to do it. Even if it extinguishes the last of my fire.

“Are you…” I do not know how to ask the question. I have never had to ask it before. I have always been surrounded by indestructible beings.

“Are you well?” The phrasing of the question is awkward, and I feel awkward. Serena’s eyes are bloodshot and misty.

“Thank you for saving me.” She does not answer my question.

“Of course,” I tell her, the words coming from me so naturally.

As if I would have let you die, is what I actually want to say.

Water falls from the sky far more heavily and insistently now. I gather her up in my arms, and her body goes limp against mine.

“We need to find our way back now,” I say as I turn in the direction I came from.

Serena does not say anything. Instead, I reach out through our mental link and try to figure out how she is feeling.

All I can sense from her is overwhelming fear and exhaustion. And she is in a lot of pain.

“It is okay.”

My words are still strange to me. I have never had to comfort someone before.