Chapter 9: The Black Fire Out of Control

Elora's POV

The bit of black bread and painkiller herb only got me through the first half of that night.

By the second half, I started running a high fever.

The burn on my left shoulder had swollen grotesquely, and once the numbing effect of the herbs wore off, that bone-deep, searing pain came roaring back. But I had no strength left to scream—I could only curl up on the moss-covered stone slab, biting my lips until they were shredded and raw.

I don't know how much time passed before the iron door was violently kicked open.

It wasn't Rowan who entered.

It was two apprentices from the enforcement squad, dressed in dark blue robes. They didn't even glance at me—one on each side, they grabbed my arms and hauled me up from the floor.

"Move. Interrogation room."

My toes dragged across the ground as they pulled me along. The high fever made my vision swim in and out of darkness, and cold sweat stung my eyes as it dripped into them.

I was dragged into a blindingly white stone chamber. In the center sat an iron chair covered in carved runes. They threw me onto it and locked iron restraints around my wrists and ankles, the metal biting into my skin.

A gaunt, middle-aged mage stood before me. In his hand was a short staff topped with a black stone, his eyes cold and shadowed. An Arcanum disciplinary mage—the kind who specialized in dealing with errant apprentices and infiltrators.

"A powerless commoner who broke a noble's nose," the disciplinary mage sneered, stepping closer to me. "Not only that, but you also destroyed a high-grade testing crystal in the courtyard. The Grand Magister says you're a research subject, but to me, you look more like a heretic hiding secrets."

He raised his staff, pressing the black stone against the center of my forehead.

"Let me see what filth you're hiding in that head of yours."

BOOM—!

A viciously sharp, violent surge of magic, like a red-hot iron spike, drove straight through my forehead and into my brain!

"AAAGH—!" I jerked my head back, my skull slamming hard against the iron backrest.

It hurt so much. This wasn't physical pain—this was someone scraping my brain matter with razor blades. He was forcibly searching my memories. He wanted to see the basement, the hatchling, the ancient family memories I'd glimpsed the night I awakened.

No.

I absolutely could not let him see. If Arcanum discovered that the fire inside me was bound by a pact with a dragon god, I'd be thrown onto a dissection table immediately.

I clenched my teeth until my mouth filled with the taste of blood. I desperately mustered what little strength I had left to fight back against the magic drilling into my mind. I tried to grasp the dark crimson embers sleeping deep within my meridians.

"Still resisting?" The disciplinary mage snorted coldly and increased the magical output from his staff. "Foolish peasant—you don't know when you're beaten!"

The pain instantly multiplied tenfold. My vision turned blood-red. The last thread of my sanity snapped under the extreme agony.

I'm going to burn him. Burn everyone here.

"GET OUT—!!"

I let out a scream like a dying beast. I forcibly tore through the final barrier in my meridians that protected mortal flesh, and I yanked out every last bit of power—all of it at once!

But this time, what emerged wasn't the dark red flame.

My heart contracted violently, and my organs felt as though they'd been instantly drained of all moisture. A thick, cold, nauseating black fire—reeking of decay—suddenly exploded from my palms!

CRACK!

The iron restraints around my wrists corroded instantly into rust and crumbled to the floor.

"What is that?!" The disciplinary mage stumbled backward in shock.

This wasn't power I could control. It was too violent. The black fire didn't burn the mage—instead, it began rampaging through my meridians, consuming me from within. I could feel my internal organs melting piece by piece.

A thick, sickly-sweet metallic taste surged up my throat. I doubled over sharply.

"Gah—" A massive mouthful of pitch-black blood, mixed with burning black sparks, spewed from my mouth.

The black fire hit the white stone floor and immediately burned deep pits into it, hissing sharply.

I collapsed to the ground, coughing violently. Every cough brought up clumps of blood mixed with black flames. My lungs felt stuffed with shards of red-hot glass.

I'm dying.

My body couldn't contain the runaway divine power. I was burning myself to ash from the inside out.

"Quickly! Guards! Restrain her!" the disciplinary mage shouted in panic, not even daring to touch me with magic.

Just as my consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness—

The temperature in the entire interrogation chamber plummeted to freezing. Frost spread visibly across the walls. The acrid sulfur stench was instantly suppressed by an overwhelmingly pure scent of ice and snow.

A silver-white figure appeared.

It was Silas.

He didn't look at the panicking guards, nor did he acknowledge the disciplinary mage's respectful bow. He simply lowered his gaze, his ice-lake eyes coldly fixed on me as I convulsed and coughed blood on the floor.

"Ignorant. And foolish." His voice held no emotion whatsoever—as if he were evaluating a failed experiment.

He didn't reach out to help me. He raised the silver-white staff in his hand, its tip radiating bone-chilling cold, and pressed it mercilessly and heavily against my windpipe!

"Urk!" He pinned me to the ground with his staff. The icy tip crushed my airway, making even breathing unbearably difficult.

"Open your eyes. Look at me." Silas's voice was utterly ruthless.

I forced open my eyelids, which were crusted with blood, and stared at him.

From the tip of his staff, a magic as cold as absolute zero poured brutally down my throat.

So cold.

That cold was like an ice blade, violently severing the black fire rampaging through my body. Ice and fire collided savagely within my organs, and I convulsed from the pain, my hands clawing desperately at the frozen stone floor until my nails broke and left ten bloody scratches.

But Silas showed no mercy whatsoever. He pressed the staff down even harder, nearly crushing my windpipe.

"Swallow it. Force that fire back into your bones." He stared down at me from above, his silver hair falling across my face. "If you can't even control your own power, you don't deserve to live in Arcanum. Die here, or swallow it back."

I stared into those emotionless eyes of his. The air in my lungs grew thinner and thinner, and the two opposing forces inside me threatened to tear me in half.

I can't die.

I didn't want to die in this cold white room. I didn't want to be swept into a morgue like trash.

I bit down hard on my teeth and forced the blood surging up my throat back down. I used the last shred of willpower I had to guide the freezing magic Silas had poured into me, using it to extinguish the black fire running wild through my meridians.

Pain.

Pain so extreme it eventually turned numb.

A minute—or maybe a century.

The black sparks spewing from my mouth finally died out. All that remained was the dark red blood trickling from the corners of my lips.

Silas sensed the magic inside me stabilizing. He coldly withdrew his staff.

The moment the pressure lifted, I gasped like a fish out of water, gulping down the icy air greedily. Every breath tore through my chest like knives.

"Grand Magister..." the disciplinary mage beside him stammered, wiping cold sweat from his brow. "The power she just used..."

"Shut up." Silas didn't even glance at him. He used a clean white handkerchief to carefully wipe the blood from the base of his staff, then casually tossed the cloth onto my face.

"Clean her up and throw her back to Greystone." Silas turned away, his silver robes untouched by a single speck of dust.

"If there's a next time, I'll slit her throat myself."