Ashes Unwritten: Oblivion's Heir [Volume 1 Complete!]

Rowan paced in front of Kess's fireplace, his muscles still sore from the previous night. Those things they'd fought stuck with him, a phantom he saw when he woke and when he slept. They hadn't been human—that much he was sure of. It had made decapitating them a little easier, at least, though he wouldn't have gotten out of it without Kess.

The creatures had managed to tap him a few times, but Kess got the worst of it. Her Fulminancy had eventually returned, but she kept shaking her limbs in frustration, as if trying to fight off a phantom feeling that plagued her even now. Rowan didn't quite understand it—the creatures hadn't affected him as strongly—but watched her with concern anyway as he leaned against her chaise, arms crossed.

Kess sat on her bed, a book open, her locket in her hand. She attended the book with only half of her mind, idly opening and closing the locket, her eyes distant. Rowan knew her well enough at this point to recognize when she was nervous about something, and he found it hard not to agree with her.

"I don't want to do this anymore," he said flatly. Kess snapped the locket shut again, meeting his eyes across the room.

"We've been over this. We have to."

"We don't have to—you're just too bullheaded to back out now." Kess gave him a little smirk, but it faded quickly.

"Rowan, I've wasted too much time already. I don't know how much more I have left, with those things on the loose. This might be our last chance to learn something before the entire Uphill is lost to us."

"We still have those books."

"Yes, books that tell us how windblown we all are if we don't figure out a way to stop it. So the founders' plan to package away Fulminancy didn't work—great. Now we're left with a vague suggestion to release Fulminancy, which from what I can tell, isn't outlined in any of those books. We have to figure out something, Rowan. That storm won't wait."

"There are other ways to get information without risking yourself," Rowan said quietly. "Spies and the like."

"Do you think I haven't tried that?" Kess asked in frustration. "I have Wyatt's family planted in Council rooms, risking themselves because I'm too much of a coward to break in myself. I have Maude's people on it. The only one not risking anything right now is me." She flipped the locket open, glaring at it. "Now that we know it's safe for you, it's my risk to take," she finished quietly.

Rain crawled down the windows outside, the evening dark in spite of the early hour. Kess was right, of course, but Rowan wasn't sure that made it alright. She might feel fine with risking herself, but Rowan was not. Kess was—well, he wanted more with her, he realized as he watched her pouring over the book, hand in her hair.

Rowan would hardly send a friend to death, but something stronger than friendship churned in his gut when he thought about Kess dead or dying. Malane and Claire's warnings about Kess hadn't helped his anxiety, and he still found it hard to shake the guilt he felt over Draven's death and Kess's subsequent involvement in it. He wanted to protect the woman, not throw her out into the storm to be devoured by forces he wasn't even sure he could fight.

But their entire home was at stake. Even Rowan's faulty lights paled in comparison to the destruction outside, and though people would adapt as best they could, another season of the storm outside would mean starvation for their isolated mountain community. It was a risk they would have to take—but Rowan could at least stay by her side through it all.

Kess shut the book, letting out a deep sigh. Her dark hair fell across her shoulders, coming partially out of its tie, mussed where she'd run her fingers through it.

"Are you ready?" she asked, eyes worried.

"As much as I'll ever be." Kess got to her feet, shaking out her arm where the creature had slammed its staff into her.

"I couldn't find anything on the time limit," she said, shaking her head. "We'll just have to trust what Malane said. We'll give ourselves three hours just to be safe." Rowan checked his watch, anxiety bubbling in his stomach.

"That leaves us with almost no time," he said, watching Kess pad over to the tiled area in front of the fireplace. She pointed in front of her, and Rowan complied.

"Then I hope you're ready to go." Rowan nodded. He already wore most of his outfit for the night, though he'd left his jacket draped over a chair in the corner. Kess still stood in her casual clothes, her feet bare on the tiles. While she was beautiful in the dresses she wore to galas, Rowan found himself just as pleased with her breeches and simple shirt—the garb seemed to suit her.

She grabbed a knife from a nearby table, heating it briefly in the fire, the locket in her other hand. The flames seemed to part where she held the knife, as if shying away from its touch. She'd chosen the simplest and most barbaric method of transferring Fulminancy, it seemed.

As the knife cooled, Kess met his eyes, her own dark blue ones uncertain, but determined. She would go through with this, he knew, even if she wasn't sure of the outcome. It was the nature of her determination—the same determination that had led her to become one of the Downhill's most feared female Bloodcrawlers; it was the same determination that allowed her to face herself again, even after unspeakable tragedy.

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"Ready?" she asked. Rowan nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. He had spent his whole life waiting for these powers, yet he found himself suddenly terrified to take them, even temporarily.

Kess took a deep breath, set her jaw, and drew the knife across her palm. She handed the knife to Rowan, and he did the same, flinching at the searing heat that bit into his hand. That done, Kess put the locket in her bleeding hand and joined hands with Rowan, her gaze focused. Their blood mingled together against the locket for one breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

A single combined droplet hit the tiles in front of the fireplace, and the world dissolved around them. Wind whipped at their clothes as Fulminancy shot through Kess's arm and into Rowan's, the dark blue tendrils a beam of searing light that illuminated Kess's pale face in front of him as the scent of rain and something acrid hit his nose, mingled with the copper of blood. Kess gritted her teeth, her arm shaking.

He squeezed his eyes shut as power coursed into him, white-hot and painful—worse than anything he'd ever felt before. Her Fulminancy was a living, breathing, snarling thing, its tendrils questing for his own power and meeting it in a terrifying dance within, sending pain through his limbs as his heart thudded against his chest unnaturally.

Finally, those warring powers twined together, some sort of harmony reached. Rowan marveled at the change he felt in his veins—that power coursing through him, so similar and yet so different from what he already possessed.

Those powers remade and reforged him, a song in his blood and his very soul. He had lacked something his entire life—another half to his soul. He finally found it. There was a feeling of completion deep in his chest—like the end of a song, or the bliss of settling into a hot bath after a long day in the frigid rain.

From far away, outside of the storm of his own soul, he heard a gasp, and something tugged from his grip. His eyes fluttered open as the stream of power snapped off.

Kess stood in front of him, but something was wrong. Storm clouds erupted from her body, like puffs of smoke. Her eyes were unfocused, and her Fulminancy crackled around her, reaching to the ceiling in the now dark room.

Rowan didn't think—he flung himself at her, shaking her shoulders, yelling her name. Her Fulminancy cracked at him, but the portion she'd given him snapped back, keeping the searing heat at bay.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the focus returned to her eyes, the clouds retreated, and her Fulminancy snaked back into her body. She blinked, exhausted and shaking under Rowan's grip. The fireplace roared back to life behind him, and the braziers relit. They stood there together for a moment, breathing harsh and mingled.

"It wanted everything," Kess finally said, her voice cracking. "I almost couldn't stop it."

Rowan's heart still thudded too quickly against his chest, his pulse in his ears. He didn't think about what was right, or what was proper. He didn't think about what Kess meant to him or where their relationship stood. He wrapped his arms around Kess's small frame, pulling her close, holding her against him tightly, his own body shaking with panic. I should never have let her do it, he thought. What good would any of this do if I lost her instead?

Eventually, Kess wrapped her own slender arms around him, leaning into his embrace, her head against his chest. He could smell her perfume and the soap from her hair as she melted against him. He had assumed that holding her would make him feel safer, but instead, his heart continued to beat too erratically for his own taste. He held her until they both stopped shaking, and he heard her voice again, calmer now.

"Rowan," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "I'm fine. Really." Her voice was small and uncertain. Rowan wasn't sure he believed her. "I have to get ready if we're going to make this count." That drew Rowan back. He wouldn't let this chance to go waste, especially not with the effect it seemed to have on Kess.

She gave him a tiny smile, then retreated to her changing room, her walk steady again. As he watched her shut the door, Rowan only hoped she was telling the truth.

Kess closed the door on her main room and sunk to the ground with a thud, her legs shaking.

She'd lied to Rowan.

She was not okay.

As the locket had demanded more and more, down to the very core of her soul, she heard a terrible voice in the storm. It called to her, booming in her head, a grating and powerful voice not meant for her ears. She'd lost her sense of time and place, watching herself from a distance as she clung to the locket with Rowan, unable to let go.

She remembered finally yanking herself free, a monumental action that seemed to take every ounce of strength and willpower she had left. She'd snapped back into her body again, but it seemed there was no room left for her inside of it. The storm twisted around her, dark and thick, and no matter what she did, she couldn't shove it aside to return.

Only Rowan had brought her back to her senses as she'd floated in that horrible space. As she battled against the storm, the voice had only repeated two words, over and over again, rhythmic and enchanting in its delivery, yet forceful all the same.

Release it.

Was it Fanas or Mariel, demanding what she'd failed to do so far? I've been trying, she thought. She didn't know how to release Fulminancy, but hadn't she been trying to figure it out, at least? The books had held no answers, but perhaps the Council would. There had to be answers somewhere, but what if Kess was too late?

She'd finally yielded to her Fulminancy out of a desperate desire to fight back. The fear was still there, raw and unrelenting—that she might become someone she wasn't, like Draven had warned about so long ago. That she might lose control, though she fought for it with every bead of sweat she produced in the warehouse. She had saved people with these powers, and could protect Rowan with them, but how many people had she killed along the way? Did protecting others justify murder?

Kess wasn't sure anymore. She had thought she understood these powers—that they were a tool to be harnessed and used. But as she sat there, shivering and empty in her closet, her hand still stinging and bloody from the transfer, she wondered if she was playing with a force that she didn't fully understand.

And worse, she wondered if that same force was actually playing with her.