I stumbled forward, and flames surrounded me, roaring in my ears. The entire warehouse was engulfed, tongues of flame curling around the iron beams and snapping hungrily at the aisles of crates and boxes. Everywhere I looked, there was fire, screaming and crackling, tinting everything in a hellish glow, but I wasn’t afraid. A nearby tower of pallets collapsed with a deafening roar, and a cloud of embers billowed into the air, swirling around me, but there was no discomfort or pain. I could feel the heat, smell the smoke and ashes settling in my lungs, but it didn’t bother me at all.

Firebrand?

That same voice, low and husky, drifted from one of the aisles. Ember, it said again, its tone laced with worry. You’ve been sitting here for eight hours. Go to sleep. Let me or Wes take watch—he’s not going anywhere.

No, said the voice that made my heart leap in my chest. I want to be here. When he wakes up, I should be here. He was almost lucid a little while ago. I think... I think he was calling for me.

I started toward the voice, ducking a burning beam, feeling the heat against my back and neck as I hurried forward. The voices continued, but they were fainter now, swallowed by the roar of the inferno. Overhead, a skylight exploded into shards of razor glass and rained down, pinging off the cement. Impatient, I shielded my face with a hand and jogged forward.

The Patriarch emerged from the darkness of the aisle, dressed in white and red, a sword hanging loosely at his side. Flames engulfed him, burning his uniform, clawing at his beard and leaping from his hair. His face was blackened, the skin cracked and oozing, but his blue eyes glowed in the haze and smoke, and he pointed a fire-wreathed hand in my direction.

“Traitor,” he whispered. “Dragonlover. Like your parents before you. You are damned, Sebastian. Your soul has been tainted beyond all redemption, and you must be put down like the demon you are.”

He took a step toward me. I raised my gun and fired point-blank at his center, and the Patriarch exploded into a cloud of swirling ashes and scattered into the smoke. But his voice continued to echo through the warehouse.

You cannot escape your destiny. Evil is in your blood, Sebastian. You will fall, and you will burn in the flames of your own making, as your parents did before you.

Lowering my arm, I strode through the ash cloud into the blackness beyond.

* * *