Of Flame, Sand, and Gold

Chapter 41

“Kaelen!” Sahrak leapt up so fast his heel scraped sparks off the clay floor.

But it was already too late.

The air was thick with heat and smoke. The training chamber was burning—blue fire licked at the cracked clay walls, splitting the clay ground in seams that glowed like molten veins. But Kaelen wasn’t even looking at it. He stood still, rigid, with widened eyes—not at the flames, not even at Sahrak—but at her. That lady. The one whose name danced on the edge of his memory like a half-remembered tune. She was gone. But her pain was still there, clinging to his chest like a second skin.

His breathing hitched, short and shallow. He pressed his palm hard against his heart like he could force the panic down. But it didn’t stop. The fire spread instead—faster, fiercer—bleeding his bright blue flames out from his body, crawling across the floor in streaks of light and scorching the clay like it owed him something.

“Kaelen!” Sahrak yelled, shielding his face as the sheer force of the hea