Chapter 21 · The Name Beneath the Ash

"Get away from that door, Helen!"

Rafe slammed into me just as black fire crawled across the vault gate.

The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. Dust rained from the ceiling. Behind the iron bars, the archive burned without touching the stone walls.

Not red fire. Not gold.

Black.

It slid over shelves and swallowed papers, seals, names. A hundred years of buried secrets curled into gray ash.

I shoved the evidence case to the floor and dropped to my knees.

"The proof is in there."

"I know what's in there." Rafe grabbed the back of my coat and dragged me away from the gate. "I also know the Imperial guard is trying to cut us open. Move."

"Take your hand off me."

"When you stop trying to die."

His grip stayed locked around my arm. Heat pushed through my sleeve, steady and brutal. Blood ran from his temple, a dark line beside his eye, but his hand never loosened.

I looked past him.

The vault had become a slaughterhouse. Two of Seren's soldiers were trapped behind a broken pillar while Imperial blades tore through the smoke.