Page 30 of Crown of Flame

“I will get us back. Nothing will happen.”

I do not fly, but I hover back smoothly and slowly through the forest, aware that every movement I make could hurt her.

I expect her to fall asleep against my chest. But her breathing remains slightly uneven and I hear her breath hitch every few seconds.

“Do not worry,” I find myself saying over and over again. “No harm will come to you again. No harm will come to you.”

11

SERENA

“Why did you wander off? You knew it wasn’t safe.”

He carries me through the frozen plains, and not even with his mind. I feel his fiery hands, jets of flame coated in volcanic rock, upon my body. Pain shoots through many parts of my body, but it seems like something about the monster cauterized my wounds.

And I’m too embarrassed to show the full extent of my suffering.

“Again, I ask. How aren’t you burning me?”

I look down at the swinging amulet my mother gave me, gripping it as a source of comfort. But I notice that in all the battles, the gold might have gotten scuffed up slightly.

I’ll need to see if I can polish that later.

I might not understand him. But maybe I need him after all.

I grab the amulet from around my neck, breathing on it. But the air is cold and icy, and if anything, I only make it worse. Fire fills my lungs, as even the mere act of breathing is challenging.

“Are all humans impervious to fire?” he asks me as he ducks under a tree. The whole thing still catches on fire anyway, just from him touching the one branch.

I laugh as much as my body will allow, then realize he might be serious.

“Why would you think a thing like that?”

He looks down at me, and I look upon the bulging muscles he’s built himself. I know they’re all synthetic and rocky, but they still affect me in a strange and powerful way.

And I’m not sure I can deny that anymore.

“I’ve never burned a human before,” he says. “Those dark elves were extremely flammable. But your kind? Not so much.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never tried to burn a human,” I remark.

I think I see something like a smirk in his features, but it’s difficult to tell.

“How do you know I’m not trying right now?” he asks.

I can see that this isn’t going anywhere, so I just shake my head and chuckle.

Perhaps I’ll never know.

“Maybe I’ll just have to try burning another human sometime,” he muses. “Of course, I think you’d be pretty bothered by that, but I guess you never know.”

“You came back for me.”

I look admiringly into his fiery eyes, staring deep into them as my peripheral vision glimpses the passing tundra.

A smile curls up into my lips. In spite of the horrors I’ve witnessed and the betrayals I’ve felt, Cinis has been there for me, as a constant.

“Yeah, well. Until you get me home, I can’t exactly leave your side, can I?”