crown of flames

Chapter 26

---Dravens pov

The rink smelled like blood and scorched metal. My blood boiled—not from heat, but from fury.

Damian's last words still hung in the frozen air.

A threat. A curse. Kill her now.

The sound of him breathing lit a fuse in my chest. Every instinct screamed to end him.

I stepped forward. The frost followed.

Each stride cracked the ground in veins of ice, crawling like hungry roots toward him. The temperature plummeted, mist curling at my boots. My shadow stretched long and sharp across the floor, bleeding into the white haze.

Damian didn't flinch. He stood in the ruin of his own flames, chest heaving, blood dripping down his lip like molten punctuation. Fire crawled across his arms, his shoulders, wreathing him in a violent halo.

"Back off, Draven," he said, voice low, dangerous. "You saw her. You know what she is."

"I know enough," I said, and my voice cracked the silence like breaking glass.

Then I moved.

The ice under me shattered as I lunged, claws slicing the air. He met me head-on, heat detonating against cold, a clash so violent the wards on the walls screamed.

Steel sang as it warped under the temperature shift.

Flame roared, wrapping my torso, biting into my skin. Pain bloomed like wildfire. I didn't care. I let it burn—and froze the fire off my own flesh in the same breath, shards of ice spraying like shrapnel.

My fist slammed into his jaw with a crunch that echoed. He spat blood, grinning like a madman, and drove his knee into my ribs.

The sound it made was ugly. I didn't stop.

We hit the ground, rolling in a storm of teeth and fury. Fire kissed my throat. I answered with an ice spike so sharp it carved sparks when it hit the steel behind his head.

"Enough!" Devon's voice tore through the chaos, but it barely reached me. He was a shadow on the edge of my vision, crouched in a pool of blood with Scarlet in his arms, hands glowing faint gold as magic spilled from his palms.

Her blood. Everywhere.

The sight of it—

I nearly tore Damian's throat out right there.

"She's not your responsibility!" Damian roared, flame exploding from his fists as he slammed them against the ice shield I threw up in time. Heat cracked the surface like glass, but it didn't break. "She's a bomb waiting to blow, and you're acting like she's—"

"She's under my protection." My voice hit like a blade, deep and deadly.

"Your protection won't stop prophecy!" He surged forward again, fire whips snapping the air, searing the frost from the walls. "You think you can tame that? You think you can control something made to burn worlds?"

"I don't need to control her." I caught his wrist mid-strike, twisted until bones screamed under my grip. My claws split his skin, hot blood steaming against my ice. I slammed him into the wall so hard the runes flickered. My breath came in white plumes. My voice dropped to a whisper colder than death.

"I just need to keep her alive. And if you ever touch her again, Damian—" My claws pressed against his throat, ice blooming under his skin in lethal flowers. "—I will rip the fire out of your bones and watch you choke on the smoke."

Silence fell. Heavy. Suffocating. The frost creeping up the wall behind him crackled, a chorus of breaking glass.

Damian bared his teeth, eyes blazing—but he didn't move. His fire dimmed, licking his arms like dying serpents.

"Try me," he spat blood at my boots. "But don't cry when she kills you first."

"Draven!" Devon's voice broke again, sharper this time. "Stop trying to murder each other and listen!"

Something in his tone—raw, stunned—made me glance over.

Devon knelt in Scarlet's blood, light pouring from his hands like liquid dawn. But it wasn't enough—not because his power was weak. Because her body was already healing faster than he could keep up.

Skin knitting together. Muscles threading like silver wire. Bones realigning with sick cracks and snaps—but without his magic.

His hands hovered uselessly now, trembling. "I'm not doing this," he whispered. His eyes flicked up, wide and shaken. "She is."

I stared.

The gashes on her arms closed as if invisible threads stitched them from the inside. Her claws—still black and wet—curled tight, twitching even in unconsciousness. A low growl rippled from her throat, not human, not wolf. Something older.

Damian saw it too. His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing into fire-tipped slits.

"What did I tell you?" he said softly, almost smiling—but it wasn't humor. It was dread wrapped in arrogance. "You can't leash a storm."

I didn't answer. Because for the first time, I wasn't sure if I wanted to.

Scarlet stirred weakly against the floor, her blood steaming in the cold. And when her lips parted, one word slid out—ragged, broken, but clear:

"Zaldrizi edruta"

The silence after that was louder than the fight.