0. The Fire
The Fire Part 0 She can’t breathe. The smoke, tinged a sickly yellow with the Surya family’s magic, coils around her trembling body like a hungry snake. Despite its incorporeal form, it renders her limbs completely immobile, so hot that it feels like she’s been stuck in a furnace. Her tongue tastes of ash, and she can’t tell if the burn in her throat is from her own bile or that man’s foul magic. “Mother!” she cries hoarsely. She needs her voice to be heard over the sounds of raging fire and thundering footsteps, so she screams louder, even when it feels like swallowing a million little needles. “Mother! Father!” “Arané!” Mother screams back. “It’s okay, my moon, just—” “Shut it, you blasphemous bitch!” A crackle of magic, then searing heat, and suddenly Mother is howling in agony, a sound so chilling that she never, ever wants to hear it again. She can’t see. She can’t move. She wishes she could. Why is this smoke so thick? “Now, I’d set you barbarians free, let you behold the destr...