Chapter 222

*Elora*

The fire didn’t burn me.

I knew it should have—the edges of it crackled too close to my skin, heat licking at my ankles, rising up my legs like a living thing. But it didn’t scorch. It didn’t sear. It bloomed.

Beneath my bare feet, the stone shifted and shimmered, softening into something that wasn’t entirely earth. Flame moved like water, folding in on itself as flowered shapes grew from