Looking over my shoulder at Fiametta as she wielded the whip, I saw something I didn’t expect. Her face was a mask of sorrow, and even . . . grief. As if she didn’t want to hurt me.

“Enough, you’ll kill her!” a voice cut through the pain, and the whip didn’t make contact with me, but fell to the ground, twisting and writhing with the flame that licked along its length.

Cactus stepped between me and Fiametta, his hands in front of him, lines of power running up his arms in green and red; he was ready to fight for me against his own queen and the thought stunned me. I could count on one hand the number of people who’d stood for me in my life, placing my life above theirs.

My body burned, every breath I drew into my lungs stretched the skin over my back and I wished I didn’t have to breathe at all. Yet I stayed where I was, swaying, but upright.

Fiametta’s blue eyes held mine. “The punishment is done.”

The anger didn’t leave me, but my strength finally did and I slid to the floor, flat on my belly.

My cheek pressed into the cold stone below me and a shiver coursed through me, which cracked open the burns on my back, the crispy skin cracking. Belladonna dropped beside me, her hands on my face.

I didn’t know what she said, the words blurred by the waves of pain rippling through me, wiping out anything that made sense. I closed my eyes and held tightly to the only thing I knew would get me through.

Rage.

CHAPTER 19

Gactus knelt beside me, his words breaking through the buzzing in my ears. “You can’t Travel with her like this. She has to heal first.” His hands were gentle, touching me only where the lash hadn’t fallen. My face, front of my neck and palms were the only safe zones I could feel.

Peta pushed him away and dropped her face to mine. “Lark, draw from me.”

I knew the pain would transfer to her, and I wasn’t willing to do that. I couldn’t manage much more than the one word.

“No.”

She let out a soft cry and lowered herself to the ground beside me, but spoke over her shoulder. “I will carry her.”

Hands lifted me, cracking the skin on my back yet again, the warm blood oozing down my sides and into Peta’s fur as they laid me on her back, still face down. In my head, I knew she couldn’t possibly move smoother than a stretcher held by two people, yet I didn’t feel her steps. She dropped into a stalking crouch and crept forward, her paws barely rising from the ground. I rolled in and out of consciousness, my nerve endings driving the pain deeper into my body. I couldn’t stop the twitching of my muscles as I fought the agony that wanted to break me. In that moment, I understood that was the full purpose of the lashing—not just to wound me, or kill me, but ultimately break my spirit—to bring me to my knees and make me pliable to Fiametta’s will.

“Bring her in.”

I lifted my eyes. We were back at Brand’s home, and Smoke directed Peta to take me to my room.

“No, not here.”

Peta gave a low growl. “You have no choice. The healers are still sleeping.” I doubted that. More likely that Fiametta refused to allow them to help me. For just a moment my anger overwhelmed the pain, giving me a brief second of relief.

The relief evaporated like my sweat as Cactus tucked his hands under my shoulders and Brand took hold of my feet.

As careful as they were when they moved me from Peta’s back to the bed, I couldn’t stop the sharp cry from my lips. I blacked out, the fiery pain driving straight through my consciousness, cutting me off from the world in a fogged haze.

A soft hand on my brow brought me around and I turned my head, pressing my cheek into the silken sheet below me. “Smoke.”

“Shh. You must rest. I have something for your back. It will draw the heat out but . . . it will be very painful.”

I tried to turn so I could see her face but she pressed her hand against my head. “Lark, you must not move. You will be scarred as it is, but every time you move, you make it worse.”

My entire view consisted of: the pale blue sheets, Peta’s green eyes as she sat in her housecat form beside me with her tail wrapped around my neck, and the grey stone of the far wall. I kept my breathing shallow and my voice low. “Do it, Smoke. If it means I will heal faster, then do it.”

“The wrap will take an hour to prepare. Rest and whatever you do, don’t move,” she said and walked away, her footsteps fading. The sounds of the household were dim, humming in my ears with the drone of a beehive. Peta stiffened. “Lark, he’s coming.”

“Who?” I mumbled the question, the pain causing a weird drowsy state I couldn’t seem to fight. Peta’s head dropped forward and she let out a long, low hiss as her eyes closed.

Footsteps, the sound of the door opening and then the flash of a black cloak along the edges of my vision. “Dear Larkspur, that bitch really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

He dropped into a crouch so he could look me in the eye, except that his cloak hid his facial features from me. I knew nothing except he was a man, and part of the reason I had the lashing. If he hadn’t taken the papers from me I could have made a case that the Enders were not fatally injured. That they’d been wounded, but that was all.

The pain made my tongue loosen. “What did you do to my cat?”

“She’s sleeping, like everyone else here. You know, the Salamanders are a foolishly proud group. They think they are safe here in their little mountain. But I’ll tell you a secret. . . they aren’t. They have enemies. The firewyrms hate them with a passion.”