Free Storm Clouds: Dragon's Fate, Book 3 by Lacy Danes Page A

avenged those words.”
    “What do you mean?” she screamed into the smoke. Her lungs burned, and a fit of coughs racked her chest. She bent over at the waist and coughed up black mucus and blood. She glanced back up at the ceiling as another section fell, completely blocking the door.
    Panic seized her muscles, and she darted for the small sliver of the door that still stood open. She pushed herself through, snagging her arm on a jagged piece wood.
    Once outside, the smoke eased, but chaos surrounded her. The well-dressed ladies and gentlemen whom she had watched from the box screamed and punched, trying to get into carriages that were not their own. A hand wrapped about her elbow, gripping into the cut she’d just received. “Ouch.” She spun about.
    “Where is Madoc?” Fina stood before her, her eyes huge with panic. She did not let up on her arm as she stared back at the fire. “He went in. Fire does not harm us, but he wouldn’t let me… Did you see him?”
    “No. If I could find Jordan or Celeste… The theater needs water. I could create rain if I had water.”
    “You would need the sea to put that out.” Celeste’s voice came from the other side of her.
    “Oh, you are here. I need water. I need to put this out. My power started this, I cannot…”
    “I cannot create water, Astrid. I can control it but not create it. “
    “What about the river? Could you bring the river here?”
    “No.” She shook her head. “Think of the flooding and damage, the other possible deaths that would happen from that. We need to leave. Grandmum is in our coach three streets down. The men will be fine. We must think of our own safety.” Celeste pulled on Astrid’s other arm. “Come. Come.”
    Fina’s grip tightened on her arm. “Madoc will be fine… Madoc will be fine.” She moved forward but continued to stare back at the building engulfed in flames.
    They made their way back to the city house, where they all collapsed in the library. The butler brought tea and water, and herbs for the cuts and scrapes that each of them had.
    Grandmum sat quietly, not saying a word.
    Fina paced from the fireplace to the table. “If we had not gone out for air, we would have been trapped inside. Madoc will be fine.”
    Astrid wished she would stop saying that, but the same wish filled her, that all of them would come home well.
    Celeste finished bandaging the cut on Astrid’s arm. “What actually happened?”
    “You left, and Marcus suggested we try to help with the heat in the space by creating a breeze. I-I thought nothing of it. I wanted to try to help.” Her throat dried, and she swallowed hard. Tears threatened, but she would not let them fall. “He gripped my elbows and took control of the elements. We created a breeze, but below Hudson carried a torch, and the breeze blew embers onto people in the seats. And then… Then my lightning came forth and jumped up through to the ceiling. All those people…” She gulped for air that her lungs would not take. She coughed and spit up more black and red.
    “It was a blessing that this happened at the intermission. Others had decided to go out for air as we had, but there were still people inside. We won’t know how many did not make their way out.”
    The library room door burst open, and Madoc staggered into the room, carrying someone. The clothes of the person cradled in Madoc’s arms were charred, and blood shown from gashes on their body. Madoc dropped to his knees. They all rushed to his side. The person in his hands was a barely recognizable…Ilmir.
    Astrid’s throat closed off on a sob. He was burned over his entire body. “What happened to him?”
    Jordan entered next, carrying another. He gently placed Hudson on the floor. Madoc cleared his throat. “Ilmir is alive, but he was in air form when the fire rushed through the theater. Fire needs air. Fire eats air.”
    “He needs blood,” Astrid stated to no one and everyone.
    “What do you mean?” Grandmum