There was no time to mourn. I wanted to cry, scream, and process the reality of what I had

  just done. There’s no more defiant, screaming girl, no more sister. No more Leonora Morn?ngstar. It broke my heart, watching her stagger and fall. Like she had finally given up her fight. I had taken that from her.

  “Leo…”

  Her name came out cracked, more air than sound. I stepped towards her, reaching out. The ground hissed where I stepped, like it was hot and alive. I collapsed to my knees, screaming in despair. I didn’t recognize the sound that came out of me. I wanted to touch her, bring her back, even though it was hopeless. I grabbed her shoulders, a desperate attempt to shake her awake, but stopped when my fingers met ash. It clung to her skin, fine and weightless.

  She was really gone. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. I’d done everything right, every step, every word, every prayer she demanded. Mother’s plan was clear. This was supposed to save us. I held her carefully in my lap, and I let the tears come. The floodgates were open, and there was no hope of closing them. The only person in this house who knew me for what I really am. The one person in this hell whom I could actually trust. Dead by my own hand. The word stuck in my throat even as I thought it. I chose their agenda over my own sister's.

  No, no, no.

  It should have been me dying. Whatever she said, whatever predetermined outcome there may have been. It should have been me in her place.

  A quiet sizzle lifted from her body when my tears fell on her face. The water evaporated as it touched her fragile, ashen skin. At first, it was only heat. A steady pulse from her wound, where blood and light met. The air shimmered around her like glass beginning to melt. Then her body arched, once, sharply, and everything broke.

  The fire didn’t rise; it erupted.

  It came from within, not like breath but like truth. The kind that had been buried too deep for too long. Golden-white flame tore through her skin, through the stone beneath, through the very bones of the tunnels. The air screamed. The force of the warm blast threw me backward, away from her and onto the rough stone of the tunnel. For a moment, I saw nothing but light. Not warmth, not glow, but the blinding rage. My light had always been careful, contained, divine. Hers was chaos. Hers was life tearing itself free of control. Light, hot and searing, tore from every vein in her body, ripping its way from her skin into the air. She kept convulsing as waves of impossibly bright light erupted from her skin.

  The world came apart in it. It filled the tunnels, not creeping or spreading like ordinary sunshine, but racing, alive, devouring the air itself. The pressure hit first, a concussive wave, the heat following close behind like a living storm. I didn’t think, couldn’t think. Instinct took over. I stumbled upright, coughing through the smoke, and started to run. The tunnels meant nothing now; every turn looked the same through the shifting fog. Walls split open as heat burned at my heels, hissing through cracks, bursting from the ceiling like veins of molten gold. Behind me, the roar of it filled the air, echoing through the stone like a thousand voices crying out at once. The heat was unbearable; it pressed against my back, searing through my clothes, biting at my skin. Every breath was a knife. I threw a glance over my shoulder, looking back in hopes of seeing Leo one last time. All I saw was white.

  I tried to summon my own light to shield myself, but it flickered and failed. Too pale, too small against hers. It wasn’t natural anymore; it was divine, unstoppable, ancient as the first dawn.

  The tunnels began to collapse. Chunks of burning rock fell in showers of sparks, sealing passages one by one. Ducking, stumbling, I caught myself on the rough wall and kept running. The ground trembled, groaning as if the whole earth was trying to shake loose the fire that now filled its veins. A split-second flash illuminated an archway ahead. The old exit, half-collapsed, half-buried in rubble. I threw myself toward it, diving as the dawn surged after me like a tidal wave.

  I threw myself onto my feet again, ignoring the pain from my leg and every other cut and bruise on my battered body. I saw my family all around me, frantically trying to escape. Hundred something people, screaming, coughing. Parents, running from their children like they meant nothing. Every man for himself. Taking advantage of the panic, I vaulted for the stairs, pushing through the crowd and using my size to my advantage. It was a strange feeling, for once I wasn’t afraid to take up space and be assertive. I suppose when it’s a matter of life and death, my anxieties don’t really matter.

  I must have pushed past Mother at some point on my way up the stairs because suddenly the Hunter’s Mantle was draping over my shoulders. Giving me proof of my horrible victory. I have no idea how she had the time to paste it to the rings on my vest, but that wasn’t important. I needed to get out. I did my best to ignore the screams of people burning behind me as the light had become fire, growing hotter and making its way up the stairs alongside us. I didn’t stop running. Up the stairs from the caverns, through the shivering halls, who knew they were dying to the flames. Up the stairs to the first floor and to my room, where I had hidden my bag. I snatched it from where it was hidden, throwing it over my shoulder and rushing to my window again, just like I had done so many times before. With one last bittersweet goodbye to my prison, I jumped, and I kept running; away from the house, away from my family, away from everything I knew and into the night. People were gathering in the streets, watching the house burn, and doing nothing to help the screaming masses fleeing the flames. It was like they all knew just how evil the building was. I didn’t stop running until I was outside the city by a decent margin. Still close enough to where I could see my home go up in flames, but far enough away to where I hoped no one would find me. If people began to uncover the tunnels and the evidence of what had been happening for the last few hundred years, I doubt they would be very happy.

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  I made my way up a hill, letting myself slow to a brisk walking pace that was gentler on my aching bones. I had visited this place many times before. It was my spot to go when hell became too hellish. Just sitting under a tree on a lonely hill is more than enough of a break from life.

  Tonight, when I collapsed under that tree, it didn’t feel like a break. It felt like heartbreak and the start of something new. I had just lost everything. My sister, my home, my family. All gone; yet it felt like everything wasn’t lost. I sat there, watching the flames from the city rise high into the night sky, licking the stars with their gentle, flaming tongues.

  Out here, away from everyone and everything, the night was quiet and cold. As much as I hated the cloak my mother had wrapped around me as we ran, at least it was keeping me warm when I didn’t have the flames licking at my heels.

  When I was finally catching my breath, the pain flooded back to me. The reopened cut on my leg, the burns covering my back, the singed skin already bubbling and adding to my already rancid smell. I groaned, releasing some of the built-up tension in my body, though the pain didn’t leave.

  The manor groaned as part of the western wall gave in. Sparks rose, scattered like stars torn from the sky. I wanted to look away. I couldn’t. They were all gone. And somehow, I wasn’t. The wind changed, carrying the smell of burning velvet, candle wax, and something sweet, perfume. Mother’s perfume. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the tree trunk, letting the smoke sting my eyes until they watered. I told myself it was the smoke, but even through the haze, I thought I could still hear her voice, not screaming, not panicked, but singing. The same hymn she used to hum before every ritual, the one Leo hated so much. It wove through the crackle of the fire like a thread of silk, fading in and out with the flames.

  Sitting up straighter, I removed my bag from over my shoulder. It was then that I realized that I was still holding the knife coated in a slick layer of Leo’s blood. No one was here to tell me to drink it. I didn’t have to complete the ritual anymore. I was free to make my own choice.

  The possibility stumped me; I’d never been in a situation quite like this before. Not having to think of the thousands of consequences a choice like this would have on me and everyone around me. There was no one left. Not even my friends. I couldn’t return to the city. Better to let them think I died alongside the poor souls who didn’t manage to escape the stairwell from the caverns.

  I stared at the blade, the curved edge taunting me. I couldn’t remember if I had pressed the button while it was inside Leo or not. There might not even be blood inside the little vial in the hilt. I really didn’t want to drink it. I’d tasted blood many times before, and even the thought of willingly drinking it made me sick. In a twisted way, it still felt disrespectful to both Leo and my family not to drink it. With everything she had sacrificed for me to be sitting here. Watching life as we knew it burn to the ground, this was the last thing I had left of her; drinking it meant she would be a part of me forever. I had to do it.

  I pressed the tip of the blade against my tongue. The sharp edge carving a small hole in the sensitive flesh. Another point of pain for my already shot body. I held it between my taste buds for a long moment, staring at the button like it was going to hurt me. I must have looked ridiculous, sitting there with my mouth open, sticking my tongue out like a panting dog.

  Nothing to lose.

  I thought to myself as I pressed the button and, to my surprise, let Leo’s blood flow freely into my mouth. I expected what it would taste like. Blood has that distinct, metallic, sweet taste; so when the thick, half-coagulated liquid touched my tongue, it erupted in a flare of hot, white pain. I panicked. The air suddenly reeked of sulphur, and my body grew warmed by the second. I felt like the blood was boiling me alive from the inside out as it mingled with my own inside my veins. Something’s very wrong.

  The world tilted. My heartbeat stuttered, then surged, echoing in my ears like orcish war drums. I tried to breathe, but my breath came out as smoke that burned my throat. Sulphur, salt, something sharp like burnt metal filled my lungs. I coughed and clawed at my throat, desperate for breath.

  The tree, the stars, the cold wind, all of it bled away until there was only black. For a heartbeat, I thought I’d gone blind. Then, faintly, I saw her.

  Leo.

  She was standing in the ritual chamber, though the flames hadn’t reached it yet. The torches flickered low, painting her in copper and shadow. Her skin looked pale, too pale, almost translucent, as if she were carved from the same wax dripping down the altar’s candles. The rune carved into her still glowed faintly, pulsing with a light that didn’t belong to this world. She was breathing. Shallow, but breathing. Someone or something had pulled her upright. Her head lolled forward, curls falling over her face, and for a moment, I thought I was seeing her corpse being propped up by invisible strings. But then her hand moved.

  Trembled. Clenched.

  The air around her shimmered like heat. Shadows rippled across the stone, crawling up the walls, pooling around her feet like black water. The symbols on the floor began to burn again, brighter than before, as though her blood had reignited them. I tried to call out, to reach her, but the moment I moved, the vision deepened, pulled me in. Her eyes snapped open. Not violet anymore. Gold. The same fire that had filled the room now lived behind her gaze. Her lips parted, and for a second, I thought she was going to say my name, see me, but what came out wasn’t a word. It was a sound that cracked the air, sharp and wrong, echoing in every bone in my body.

  The scene shifted.

  She wasn’t in the ritual chamber anymore. She was somewhere deep, beneath it, a tunnel I didn’t recognize, its walls pulsing faintly with veins of red light. She was dragging herself forward, barefoot, blood smearing the floor. Her breath came in gasps. Her hands shook, but she didn’t stop. Something waited for her. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it.

  It wasn’t human. Leo stopped, pressing a hand to her side. The rune under her skin flared once, bright enough to blind me. And then, as quickly as it began, the light died. She looked up, right at me. And smiled. It wasn’t kind. The vision shattered. I was back under the tree, gasping, my tongue still copper-stained. My whole body trembled, cold and fever-hot all at once. The world spun, and through the roar in my ears, one thought rose sharp and clear: She’s not dead. Not yet.