Chapter 8 · The Princess in the Ashes

"You're bleeding."

Kael's voice cut through the smoke before I saw him. I was still on my knees in the rubble, hands pressed into ash that used to be Ashveil's outer wall. The convoy had arrived an hour ago. The corpses opened their eyes thirty minutes after that. Lya called me the true princess in front of everyone, and then the fire came.

"I'm fine," I said. My palms were scorched black, skin peeling at the edges. The phoenix mark on my wrist glowed through the char like a brand that wouldn't stop burning.

"You're not." He crouched beside me, close enough I could feel the cold rolling off his armor. "What did you do?"

"Saved your men." I kept my eyes on the ground. If I looked at him now, he'd see it. The thing I'd been holding back for twelve loops. "The revenants would've torn through the convoy. I stopped them."

"By setting your own city on fire."

"It was already dead."

His gauntlet closed around my wrist, lifted my hand into the light. The phoenix mark pulsed, red and gold, eating through the ash on my skin. He didn't let go.

"This isn't exile bloodline," he said.