The Girl with the Fire Heart
Chapter 43

Valentina’s hair drapes down her back in big curls, and small teardrop earrings adorn her ears. Her eyes are swiped with a shimmery brown shadow and her lashes are curled upward. Her lips have a light gloss to them, making them glitter just enough underneath the bright lights. She is wearing a light brown dress that is almost sheer material, with ruffles on the skirt. The fabric also has glitter. The dress is a strapless sweetheart neckline and she has a light brown shawl over the crease of her elbows to keep her skin protected against the breeze of the night. Her shoes are also brown, pointy and tall bringing her height to just under his chin.

Valentina reaches the bottom of the stairs and smiles brightly at Damon. She extends her hand, knowing if she tries to take another step with the way he was looking at her, she just might fall over. Damon grabs her hand, interlocking their fingers just as he did earlier today and together they walk out of the house, everyone around them watching them leave with bated breaths.

Sitting in front of the house is an open carriage with Grey hooked up to the front. Valentina looks over at Damon questioningly but he simply gives her a tight lipped smile before helping her into the open carriage. Damon climbs in after Valentina gets settled. A coachman settles behind the reins of Grey and snaps them to get the horse moving. Neither Damon nor Valentina says a word the entire drive to Damon’s surprise location.

Valentina’s thoughts are running wild. If she didn’t know any better, she would assume he was finally out to get her. Under the pretenses that he has invited her out, she could naturally assume he is going to kill her. She smiles secretly at her own ridiculous thoughts. She knows Damon. He would rather face ridicule than do her any harm.

She thinks for a moment that he is taking her out on a romantic date. This would be the perfect night too. Their kiss by the creek is still playing on a loop in her mind. She wants so desperately to have a repeat of their afternoon adventures but something in her feels as if Damon has something much bigger than a romantic date planned.

Finally, the pair pull up to an abandoned house. The door hangs off its hinges and the windows are all broken into. From where she sits in the carriage, Valentina can see that this house sits on the other side of the embankment. She tries to remember if she had seen it the other day when they had won Grey at the races but she had been so consumed by anger and frustration, a desperation to get away, she barely paid attention to where she was going, let alone her surroundings.

Damon steps down from the carriage, turning and raising his hand to help escort Valentina down. She places her hand in his, gracefully coming down from the carriage and opening her mouth to ask Damon where they are. Before she gets the chance to, Damon is pulling her out of the road and the carriage, the coachman, and Grey are riding away from them.

“Follow me,” Damon says.

He guides her down the long gravel road, passing weeds and mounds of dug up dirt. He leads her straight to the dilapidated door, pushing it open with his foot. He gives her a soft smile over his shoulder, before gesturing to the inside of the house. Valentina steps through the opening and inside are hundreds of candles, unlit, with something surrounding them that she cannot see in the darkness of the abandoned home. Valentina can just make out the dual stairs that lead to the second floor of the home and she tilts her head just enough to see that there are even more candles lining the edges of the upstairs floor that can be seen from the main floor.

Damon guides Valentina to the middle of what she assumes is the grand foyer. He steps away from her, blocking the entrance into the house.

“Do you remember the first time we stood like this?” he asks her.

Her mind wanders to the training oasis. It was the first time he had allowed her to use her element rather than train her physically by running and climbing and exercising. She smiles softly, cocking her head to the side at the memory.

Damon had asked her to light a candle. He had placed one on the ground a few feet in front of her and told her to direct her power to lighting the candle. She laughed, thanking him for the easy task. What she hadn’t been prepared for that day was for him to summon his own ability and create a water vortex. The sheer wind from the force of his water hurricane had made it almost impossible for her to light the candle and when she did, she was so tired, she almost collapsed where she stood. Thankfully, Damon caught her just in time before her body crumpled to the ground.

His lesson that day was never to assume anything is easy because the task was something that had been done a hundred times. Sometimes, the easiest tasks will require the most focus.

“Of course I remember. I was so mad at you,” Valentina says through a laugh.

Damon’s own laugh bounces off the walls of the still room, washing over her and making her feel pride that she could get him to laugh that way. She sees his arm move, the shadows from the outside illuminating enough of him for her to see the movement. He gestures to the candles all around the room and upstairs.

“Light the candles,” he tells her.

“Are you planning on making this difficult for me again?” she teases. “I believe I have proved myself capable of combating your own skill.”

He laughs again. “No, I don’t intend on making this difficult for you. Light the candles Valentina,” he tells her, his easy smile somehow visible in his tone.

Hesitantly, she raises her arms and tilts her palms upward. She allows her eyes to flutter closed, counting her breaths, tapping her fingers rhythmically, just the way Damon taught her. The familiar feeling of her element pulsing at the base of her palms gets stronger with each passing minute.

She feels Damon shift by the door, but she somehow senses that he has not moved from his spot. Valentina takes another deep breath before spreading her hands and cautiously lets the fire in her hands spread to each candle individually.

One by one, Damon watches in pure adoration as Valentina’s fire brightens the room, as each candle catches the blaze of her ability. His eyes follow the path her fire takes, lighting each candle, revealing the black roses that surround each pillar, laying on the floor. Soon enough, the once dark foyer is now a gleaming display of light and dark roses. Valentina, with her eyes still closed, stands in the center, and Damon can only think about how much of a vision she is.

Once every candle in the room is lit, Valentina’s eyes slowly open. The first thing she locks eyes on is Damon on one knee. Her element burns brighter at the sight of the man before her, somehow more aware of what’s happening than Valentina is. Valentina turns her eyes away from him to gaze upon the room. Something about what she sees makes her flames burn even brighter, until they touch at the edges of the clasp of her necklace.

She turns about the room, looking at all the roses and the candles until her eyes land on a small table resting between the dual stairs. Resting there is the steel cage. Its dented edges and broken pieces lay there as a monument to her old self. Valentina’s eyes well up with tears.

She hears Damon shift again behind her, but she stays rooted to the floor, looking solely at her contraption.

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