Blade of the Nightking (The Firstborn Chronicles #2)

Chapter 1

Inever burned.

And yet the pain ravaged my body, scorching, devouring, a relentless heat eating through my left side. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The agony was so complete my mind broke apart into wild, frantic pieces.

I felt my own scream more than I heard it, swallowed by the roar of the flames. Only that one thought remained—a thin and useless objection—as I was roasted alive:

I never burned.

Not a stray spark, not a wandering ember. Fire always slid past me, as if it recognized the bond I shared with its master long before I ever did. But this was different.

This was no ordinary fire.

The flames were blue. Bluer than his eyes, wrong in every possible way. And yet they billowed down from the sky, pouring from the jaws of the great scaly thing circling overhead, a wall of descending death no one could outrun.

And then they vanished.

A tremendous beating of wings pulsed through the air, displacing it in heavy rhythmic waves. Shadows rippled over the churning caldera waters. The ground trembled beneath my limp body.

If flame had finally found me, maybe it was because it had no lord left to restrain it. Maybe it meant Aedric was dead. If that was true, I prayed the Seven would take me too, and quickly. I couldn’t live without him. Judging by the state of my body, I likely wouldn’t have to.

“Fuck!”

No. Not dead.

A broken sob escaped me at the sound of his voice.

I wanted to turn my head, to reach for him, to say something—anything—but I couldn’t move. I could only lie there, staring blindly at the sky, every nerve screaming. The fire might have stopped, but the burning hadn’t.

“Fuck,” he said again, closer now. I felt him drop to his knees beside me. “Gods, El…” His voice cracked on my name, raw and terrified, and I knew he was looking at what was left of me. I couldn’t bear to look myself.

He gathered me into his arms, lifting me carefully. A fresh scream tore out of me, ripped from somewhere deep, somewhere primal.

Aedric ran, boots slapping against stone slick with steaming caldera spray.

The parapet had become a deathtrap. Water coated the walkway, turning each step treacherous.

He slipped once—hard enough that the world pitched—and slammed us against the wall to keep from going over the edge. The jolt ripped another cry from me.

He held me tighter, barreling through a splintered doorway and down a spiraling stair that wound around the inner wall. The stairwell roared with the chaos below—screams, cries, the sounds of the dying.

His body was too warm.

It always had been—solid, encompassing, a comforting heat I normally sank into without thought.

But now that same warmth was unbearable. It pressed against my skin like hot metal. I writhed weakly, instinct warring with pain, a small whimper leaving my throat. Aedric pressed onward, cradling me against his chest.

“Easy. Easy, I’ve got you.”

The entire world smelled like roasted meat.

Charred. Smoky. Sickening.

Then I realized the smell came from me.

The edges of my vision darkened, closing in like fists.

I caught a glimpse of my arm as my head lolled back: it was a blackened ruin, the flesh blistered and split. That couldn’t be me. That couldn’t be—

“Stay with me, El,” he ordered, voice vibrating through me.

I held on, fought against the merciful darkness that was creeping in to claim me. I didn’t know how much time I had left, but I would stay with him as long as I could.

Somewhere ahead, a voice shrieked:

“Aedric! AEDRIC!!”

“Here!” he shouted back, breathless.

Calantha appeared around the curve below us, her red braid singed and soot streaked across her cheek.

When Aedric reached her, she pivoted, falling in step behind him as he continued downward.

Her ember eye glowed like a lit forge as she fixed on me, the brush of her power hitting me like a lash.

I convulsed, a shuddering gasp tearing from my throat.

“Put your fucking lens on before I take your eye for good,” Aedric snarled, twisting his body to shield me from her sight as he kept moving.

Calantha jolted as though he’d struck her and quickly slid on the darkened circlet. “She’s not going to make it.”

“Like hell she isn’t,” Aedric growled.

As we reached the bottom of the stairs, Hamish burst through a broken doorway.

Tall and broad, solid as a mountain in all things, he looked shaken for the first time I could remember.

The whites of his eyes stood out starkly against the filth smeared across his skin.

His beard was singed like Calantha’s hair.

One sleeve of his tunic had burned away, leaving a charred fringe.

The skin beneath glistened, red and wet and blistered.

He stopped short when he saw what remained of me in Aedric’s arms. His mouth tightened, the quiet dismay in his eyes confirming what I already knew: I was going to die.

“We have to skeld. Now.”

The ground lurched beneath us at the same instant, a violent tremor shaking dust from the ceiling. From deep below came a low, rolling rumble, a sound like a warning drawn straight from the throat of the Cauldron itself.

Aedric braced against the wall, steadying himself. “Abandon Solmire?”

“Yes,” Hamish replied without hesitation.

“I can’t.” Aedric’s voice broke, edged with anguish.

Hamish widened his stance as another tremor rattled through the floor. It jolted up my spine and into my teeth. “If you stay…” He glanced at Calantha. She gave a single nod. “So will we.”

“But Solmire will fall either way,” she interjected.

“My wards…” Aedric began.

“Are down,” Hamish finished for him.

Aedric stared, stunned. “How?”

Hamish met his eyes with a dark, weighted look. Understanding hit me even through the fog of pain.

Ione.

The exchange of power that should have taken place during Kyndralis had never happened.

The Ritual had failed, leaving the magic fragile and unanchored.

And whatever that thing in the sky had used against Solmire, whatever magic powered those unnatural blue flames—it had struck straight through the weakened protections and torn the wards apart.

“Where are Errol and Malec?” The names of his friends came out hoarse.

“They’ve already skelded to Dheren.”

“And Torvek?”

Hamish and Calantha traded a brief, heavy glance. “Dead,” Hamish said.

“No…”

The floor heaved beneath us. Something in the next chamber collapsed with a violent crash, and more dust rained down from above.

Aedric folded himself over me, shielding my body with his own until the quaking eased.

When I turned my head weakly toward him, his golden hair was chalk-white with plaster and grit.

I lifted my good hand and cupped his cheek. His eyes met mine, and the despair in them nearly broke me.

“Don’t,” he whispered, pleading. “Don’t even say it.”

“Go,” I rasped. My throat felt flayed, every word scraping over burned vocal cords. “Leave me.”

Something flared in his gaze, a hard, rekindled resolve. “Never.”

The floor split beneath us, a jagged crack racing across the marble. Heat gusted upward. Aedric straightened despite the shuddering earth and held me tighter in his arms.

“Alright,” he said, looking over my head toward his cousins. “Let’s go.”

The Cauldron’s rumble deepened, swelling into a low roar as they stepped to Aedric’s side. Calantha lifted her hand. Flame leapt from her palm and spun outward, widening into a suspended ring of fire. Aedric shifted me carefully, extending one arm to conjure a second circle beside hers.

“As soon as we reach Dheren,” he tightened his grip around me, “run for the healers.”

For a heartbeat, pity softened Calantha’s features, as if he were a child who couldn’t grasp the reality before him. “It’s Firstborn magic, Aedric. Nothing can be done for her now.”

“Obey your orders!” Aedric bellowed, rage tearing through him. His circle flickered violently before steadying again.

Calantha’s jaw clamped shut. Her expression reset into its cool, unreadable mask. Without a word, she seized Hamish’s hand and stepped through the circle. It vanished behind them.

A heartbeat later, the Cauldron roared. The walls lit in a sudden wash of orange, and heat slammed into us. The volcano was erupting.

Aedric didn’t spare it a glance. His blue eyes locked on mine, fierce and unyielding.

“Hold on.”

“Aedric, I—”

I love you I love you I love you.

“No,” he cut me off firmly. “If you say it now, I’ll know you’re saying goodbye. And I won’t let you say goodbye.”

He lifted me higher and stepped through the ring of fire. Over his shoulder, I saw the first surge of lava spill into the chamber, just as the circle sealed—and then we were gone.

The flames swallowed us whole.

Last time, they’d been gentle, licking at my skin with playful, harmless heat as Aedric carried me through the world-between. But this time the fire hit like a storm.

It slammed into my burned flesh, blistering agony flaring through every nerve. The flames coiled tighter, hotter, growing vicious the deeper we went. They didn’t stroke; they struck, snapping at my skin as if the magic itself wanted to tear us apart.

I tried to breathe, and ash seared up my nose. It stung my eyes, burning under my lids until everything blurred. The sound roared in my ears, a wind of fire so loud it drowned my own thoughts. And still Aedric held me, his arms locked around me like a vise.

I felt him shaking with effort as he fought to control the magic that transported us. Something was wrong. Terribly, impossibly wrong.

My vision tunneled. The pain—gods, the pain.

Aedric snarled in my ear as if fighting an invisible current. “Hold on—just hold on until Dheren—”

And then, without warning, the fire yanked us forward. The world of flames vanished, snuffed out like a candle.

We fell.

Aedric twisted midair, pulling me onto his chest so he hit the ground first. The impact slammed the breath from his lungs in a single hard grunt. Darkness rushed up to meet me, closing over me at last.

I wanted it to.

I wanted the blackness.

I wanted the quiet.

“—Elowen!” His hands were on my face, trembling, tapping. “No. No, no, don’t—you don’t get to leave me, El! Not again!”

I fought upward through the dark, through the shroud of pain, dragging myself back into a body I no longer wanted to occupy.

I pulled in a ragged breath and forced my heavy eyes open.

Aedric leaned in immediately, his face lined with worry and relief, and brushed his lips softly against mine. His hand stroked my hair.

We lay on coarse, frost-bitten moss atop a ridge.

Tall, skeletal trees rose around us, their gnarled branches reaching toward a low, iron-gray sky.

The ground was broken rock and patches of hardened earth, the air cold enough to sting my lungs.

Far below us, fog hung in silver sheets over a barren expanse of black volcanic stone. No city. No walls. No welcoming guard.

Definitely not Dheren.

Aedric stared around us, chest heaving, ash streaked across his face in dark smears. “This… this isn’t right.” His voice was hoarse, shaken in a way I’d never heard from him.

Skelding never failed.

His magic never failed.

“Gods, no…” he choked as his gaze snagged on something in the distance. He lurched suddenly to his feet, raking both hands through his hair until it stood in uneven spikes as he fixed on whatever horror lay before him.

With every ounce of strength I had left, I turned my head.

Beyond the valley of volcanic rock, across the plains of black basalt and wind-carved ridges, the Cauldron rose in the distance.

Lava spilled over its brim in brilliant cascades, flowing down the mountainside while ash belched skyward in thick, roiling plumes that smothered the sunlight into a haunted coppery half-glow.

Above, the winged beast cut through the spreading cloudbank that unfurled from the eruption like dark, reaching arms. It banked once and hurled another blast of blue fire into the shattered summit, its roar carrying across the land with terrible clarity despite the distance.

Aedric crumpled to his knees beside me, tears carving stark tracks through the filth on his face. He watched helplessly as the molten blanket oozed down the slopes toward his city.

A moment later, Solmire vanished beneath the fire and was no more.