Chapter 25 · The Altar Speaks

"Mara, get away from her!" Dax shouted.

His voice came from inside the ash-fire.

I barely heard him. My sister's hand was still against my cheek, cold fingers pressing into my skin. The dead woman standing in the cracked altar wore Liora's face, Liora's braid, even the tiny silver scar beneath her left eye.

But Liora had been dead for six years.

"Say it again," the corpse whispered.

Her mouth moved. Her voice did not come from her throat. It came from the altar beneath us, from the stone, from the black seams splitting through the floor.

"You promised me, Mara."

The mark on my palm flared white-hot.

I jerked away. The corpse's fingers hooked into my sleeve and tore the fabric. I stumbled backward, straight into a wall of heat.

Dax was trapped inside a ring of gray fire.

Ash spun around him in hard, whipping sheets. His coat was burning at the shoulders, but the flames never touched the cloth. They crawled over his body instead, slipping beneath his collar and across his throat. The black vow under his skin pulsed with every breath.

"Don't listen to it," he said.

He had one hand pressed against his chest.