The world ended in smoke and flame.
For a moment, Beatrice was paralyzed, her mind a frantic scramble of Latin classifications and primal terror. The crackle of burning cedar was a monstrous, hungry sound, devouring the serene air of the canyon she had come to love.
Silas Croft’s laughter, a cruel echo against the rock walls, faded as he and his men rode away, leaving behind a funeral pyre for a living world.
They had left Wes for dead. They had trapped her to be burned alive.
Panic, cold and sharp, sank its claws into her. Her first instinct was the one that had failed her in the dust storm weeks ago: to run blindly, to scramble for any exit.
But as she took a panicked step towards the canyon wall, a voice, low and calm, cut through the roaring in her ears. Don’t fight the land, Beatrice. Listen to it.
Wes.
The thought of him, broken and captured, was a physical blow, stealing the air from her lungs more effectively than the smoke. A sob tore from her throat, hot and ragged.
He had sacrificed himself for her, for her notes, for a single, precious specimen of Lilium phantasma nestled in her satchel.
She could not let that sacrifice be for nothing. She could not let his last lesson go unheeded.
She forced herself to stop, to breathe, to quell the frantic beating of her heart. She sank to her knees behind a sandstone boulder, pressing her cheek against its cool, rough surface.
Listen. The fire was at the mouth of the canyon, a curtain of orange and black.
It was moving inward, feeding on the dry grasses along the creek bed. But wind, Wes had taught her, was the fire’s master.
She felt a slight breeze on her neck, flowing down the canyon, away from the entrance.
It was a small mercy, a temporary stay of execution, pushing the worst of the smoke and heat back towards the blaze. It bought her time.
Her scientific mind, her greatest asset and occasional crutch, finally took over. This was no longer an academic exercise; it was a problem of survival, with variables of heat, fuel, wind, and time.
She scanned the canyon walls, her gaze sweeping past the delicate ferns and columbines. She needed shelter.
Something that wouldn’t burn.
Her eyes landed on a thick cluster of yucca plants, their spiky, succulent leaves fanned out like daggers. Soapweed, Wes had called it, noting its fibrous, water-rich composition.
“Hard to burn,” he’d grunted once, pointing with his chin. “Good for nothin’ much else, but it’ll hold back a grass fire for a bit.”
It was a chance. She scrambled towards the yucca patch, her satchel clutched tight to her chest.
The heat was intensifying, the air growing thin and acrid. She burrowed into the center of the thorny cluster, ignoring the sharp points that pricked her skin.
Crouching low to the ground, she pulled her woolen shawl from her pack, soaked it with the last of the water from her canteen, and pressed it over her mouth and nose.
Through the gaps in the leaves, she watched the fire advance, a relentless, consuming beast. It licked at the edges of the creek, turning vibrant green moss to black ash in an instant.
The air shimmered with heat. For a horrifying minute, she thought the yucca would catch, that she had chosen her own tomb.
The outer leaves smoked and blackened, but they held. The fire, finding little fuel in the damp soil near the creek and repelled by the fleshy plants, swept past her hiding spot, its main fury directed up the drier slopes.
She hadn’t conquered the fire. She had simply… endured it, using the land’s own properties as a shield. It was a humbling, terrifying lesson.
When the worst of the flames had passed, leaving a smoldering, blackened landscape, she emerged, coughing, her face streaked with soot and tears.
The canyon was a ruin. But she was alive.
Escape was now the priority. The main entrance was an impassable wall of heat and collapsing, charred timber.
There had to be another way. She remembered another of Wes’s lessons, delivered on a quiet afternoon while they tracked a doe.
Animals are smart. They don’t work harder than they have to. Always look for the game trail.
Her gaze lifted from the scorched earth to the high canyon walls. She started walking along the base of the northern cliff, the one less touched by the fire.
Her eyes, now trained to see more than just botanical specimens, searched for patterns—a slight dip in the rock, a path worn smooth by generations of hooves.
And there it was. A faint, almost invisible track zigzagging its way up a steep, rocky incline, a hidden staircase used by deer and bighorn sheep.
The climb was grueling. Her hands were raw, her lungs burned with every breath.
But with each upward step, the image of Wes’s face propelled her onward. His fierce protection, the surprising gentleness in his hands, the raw passion of his kiss.
Grief and a furious, defiant hope warred within her. He couldn’t be dead.
The world could not be so cruel as to show her such a man, only to snatch him away.
She would get out. She would get his grandmother.
She would see Silas Croft pay. That fire had not just been set by Croft; it had ignited one within her.
Reaching the rim of the canyon, she looked back one last time at the devastation, the ghost of an ecosystem. She clutched the satchel containing her research and the lily. It was all she had left of their shared hope. It would have to be enough.
***
Pain was the first thing to greet him. A dull, throbbing universe of it, centered in his head and radiating through his ribs with every shallow breath.
Wes drifted back to consciousness on a tide of agony. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.
He tried to move, but his hands were bound tight behind him, the rawhide biting deep into his wrists.
He cracked open an eye. He was lying in the dust, miles from the canyon, abandoned.
Croft’s parting shot, a vicious kick to the ribs, had likely been intended as the final one. Leave him for the coyotes.
For a long moment, he considered letting them have him. The thought was a dark, seductive comfort.
It was over. He had failed.
The land was burning, the woman he… the woman was gone. Trapped in the fire. Dead.
The weight of that thought was heavier than the pain, a soul-crushing certainty that threatened to extinguish the last flicker of his will. The old cynicism, the one he had nurtured for years after the Rangers betrayed him, coiled in his gut.
See? This is what happens when you care.
This is what happens when you trust.
He closed his eye, ready to let the darkness take him.
And then he saw her.
Not in the dust before him, but in his mind’s eye, as clear as if she were standing there. Beatrice. Her face tilted up in wonder as she examined a tiny, insignificant flower.
The way her brow furrowed in concentration when he explained how to read the clouds. The brilliant, unrestrained joy that had lit her features when they found the Ghost Lily.
The heat of her body against his in the dark, the fierce intelligence in her eyes that challenged and excited him in equal measure.
She wasn’t just some foolish woman from the East. She was a force of nature in her own right, one who saw the world with a clarity he had long since lost.
He had agreed to guide her to protect his land, but somewhere along the way, she had become the landscape he wanted to protect.
The image of her, trapped by the flames, twisted in his gut. But what if she wasn’t?
What if she remembered what he taught her? What if that sharp, brilliant mind of hers found a way out?
She was a survivor. He had seen it. He had helped forge it.
To give up now would be to betray her. To betray the man she was beginning to see in him.
A fire ignited in his veins, hotter than any blaze Croft could set.
It was rage. It was hope. It was love, a concept he had long ago dismissed as a fool’s game.
He began to work.
His fingers, clumsy and numb, fumbled with the knots. Rawhide.
Croft’s men were lazy. They’d used a simple hogtie.
Worse, they’d left him in the sun. He knew what that did to rawhide.
He began to strain against the bonds, pulling rhythmically, using his entire body. Every pull sent a bolt of agony through his cracked ribs, and his vision swam with black spots.
He gritted his teeth, the sound a low growl in his throat.
He focused on the memory of her touch, the scent of lavender and paper that clung to her. He channeled every ounce of his pain and fury into the task.
The rawhide, shrinking and tightening in the Texas sun, was unforgiving. His wrists were raw and bleeding, but he felt a faint give.
A fraction of an inch. It was enough.
He rolled onto his stomach, pushing himself up despite the screaming protest from his torso. Using the leverage of his own body, he twisted and pulled, the friction searing his skin.
The world narrowed to this single, excruciating effort. Time ceased to exist.
There was only the pain, the bonds, and the image of Beatrice’s face.
With a final, desperate wrench, his right hand slipped free.
A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he collapsed, gasping in the dust. Freedom was just another form of agony.
He lay there for a long time, letting his heart hammer against his broken ribs. Then, slowly, shakily, he untied his other hand and his feet.
He staggered to his feet, a ghost of a man held together by sheer will. He was battered, broken, and alone.
The canyon was lost. The lilies were likely gone.
But Beatrice might be alive. And as long as that possibility existed, he was not defeated.
He turned his face towards the distant hills, where he knew his grandmother’s camp lay. It was the only sanctuary he had left.
It was the only place Beatrice might think to go, if she had made it out. He took one step, then another, his body a symphony of pain, his mind a single, unwavering note.
Find her.