Page 307 of Scarlet Wars
Her energy carved through them like molten glass, stripping skin from muscle in ribbons. One dropped to his knees, shrieking as his face peeled away. The other was thrown back into a pillar, his back cracking on impact, and when he hit the floor, half his body was twitching. The other half was gone.
She didn’t stop.
There was no hesitation, no rest between attacks. She kept moving like she’d been waiting to be unchained. As if this had been the excuse to unleash her all.
And gods, she wasstunningin the way wildfires are—beautiful and consuming, leaving nothing but ashes once they start to burn.
As I studied the last remaining Chiefs, I realized none of them were looking at me.
They weren’t looking at any of us.
They were all staring ather.
And for the first time since they burst through that corridor, they lookedafraid.
One of them stumbled backward, a haze half-formed in his hand, but she was already there.
Her hand wrapped around his wrist, burning bright enough to light the entire chamber.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice calm.
Then she let her magic loose again.
He screamed.
Until there was nothing left but ash.
The last one standing dropped to his knees, hands raised, chest heaving.
Emma looked at him. Onlylooked.
He passed out. Just like that.
A heavy silence crashed down on us. Smoke drifted through the shattered room, curling around the wreckage. My skin still buzzed with leftover haze—hers, not mine—and it crawled over me like static.
And Emma…
Emma stood at the center of the destruction like she’d been born there: chest heaving, fingers curled, that blazing scarlet light still flickering across her skin like it hadn’t decided whether to leave or flare again.
She wasglowing. Fierce and untouchable.
Like a godsdamn war deity dropped into our world only to remind us of who we answer to.
Andfuck, it was, without question, the hottest thing I had ever seen in my entire life.
For a moment, no one moved, no one spoke.
Maybe we were all a little stunned. Maybe we were still trying to catch up to what she’d just done, because in the span of barely a minute, she hadendedit.
Or so we thought.
I didn’t hear him enter, didn’t see him either.
There was no grand announcement, no warning.
Out of nowhere, a slow, gathering hum crept across the floor like a storm rolling in too fast to outrun.
Then: light.
