Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
A boom sounded throughout the palace, the walls trembling as we sprinted down a stone corridor just along from the dining hall where Cassius should have been.
“Where the fuck is he?” I growled, throwing open a door at random.
A man sitting on a latrine in the room shrieked in fear and I scowled at him.
Apparently, he had literally decided to shit himself in response to the terror he felt over a dragon laying siege to the castle, and I yanked the door shut in his face before he’d even stopped shrieking to cut off the stench of him.
“It will be okay,” Kyra offered, looking up at me as I hesitated, trying to figure out where to hunt next. “I know you’re worried about your friend, Master, but-”
“My friend?” I asked with a frown, not taking the time to point out that she’d done the Master thing again, though I wanted to. Whenever she called me that, it just left me feeling cold, wrong, twisted up inside.
“Yes,” she said with such obvious belief in the fact that I didn’t have the heart to correct her. I didn’t have friends, only people I hadn’t fucked over yet. “I think I have an idea to help you find him.”
“What is it?” I demanded, turning my attention from the allure of her face. I needed to harden myself to this girl and aim my focus where it was desired instead of indulging in fantasies of something that wasn’t going to ever happen.
A smile gripped Kyra’s beautiful features and I hated how much it pleased her that I was listening to her idea. What kind of arseholes had she been forced to serve before me? “If you command me to find him, then I could create a magical compass that points to him and
you can track him down and keep your dragon deal and save the kingdom and-”
“Yeah, okay I want that,” I agreed instantly.
Kyra’s eyes lit up and I almost laughed at the pride shining in her gaze.
She seriously thought I was acting like a good person right now, and if she wanted to believe I was a better man than I was then that was okay by me.
I’d play along, but no doubt she’d be disappointed in the end.
I was doing this to save my own arse before anyone else’s.
If a few street urchins and washer women survived the day as a side effect of that then so be it, but it wasn’t my aim.
Kyra took the lead, racing away along the corridors beyond the dining hall, and I broke into a run as she used a glimmering golden arrow on her palm to guide us towards Cassius.
She set a quick pace and I was forced to hurry to keep up with her as we moved through the darkened palace, tightening my grip on my sword whenever a crash thundered through the stone around us, or the roar of one of the monsters beyond the walls reached us.
Pounding footfalls made me skid to a halt, years of running through the streets from the guards making me recognise their boots without question. I caught Kyra’s arm, propelling her to the side of the corridor just as they appeared.
“Return to your chambers, My Lord,” Captain Marik barked as he spotted us. “This is no time for a nobleman and his maid to be out and about. We will see the monsters off.”
“I’m sure you will,” I agreed, the slightly scathing tone to my voice not missed by the captain, and he narrowed his eyes on me as he thundered past with his men, heading for the exit.
A bellowing roar sounded overhead, and I threw myself towards Kyra as the sound of shattering stone ripped through the air, the wall crumbling as something struck it from outside. My palms hit the wall and I pressed her to it, using my body to shield us as the masonry began to fall apart.
“Ask me to save you,” she gasped, her eyes wide as I met her stare, and I realised my own stupidity a moment before the words escaped my lips.
“Save us,” I said just as the roof gave out and a dome of solid power blasted from Kyra, surrounding us in a cocoon of silver energy, the bricks cascading over it like rain rolling down a windowpane.
My lips parted in awe as I looked around at the insane display of her strength, the entire side of the castle ripping away from us as a huge grey fire drake used its claws to try and break inside.
“Did you just try to shield me with your body?” Kyra asked, a depth to that question which made something writhe uncomfortably in my gut.
I was saved from the truth of that accusation by the fire drake lunging at us hungrily.
I swung around with a bellow, my sword carving through the air and slicing into the scales of its front leg, spilling blue blood across the floor as it lurched after me and I danced aside.
My skin hummed with my gifts as my Affinities all came into play and I fell into the rhythm of the fight, my sword striking the creature again and again as I scrambled over broken stone and half buried floor, leading it away from Kyra.
The fire drake roared loudly, rearing back and opening its tooth-filled jaws, a whooshing sound building as it summoned the fire in its gut and prepared to blast me with it.
I roared right back at it, hurling my sword with all my strength, and watching as it flew end over end before flying straight into the fire drake’s open mouth, burying itself in the back of its throat.
The fire drake reared away, a bellow of pain escaping it as it toppled back out of the hole it had torn into the palace wall, tumbling down to the courtyard far below.
The fire it had been summoning exploded in its chest as it hit the ground and I gripped the edge of the broken wall, watching as the beast died, a victim of my sword and its own flames.
I raised my eyes to the sky, spotting more of the creatures as they flew across the city beyond us, hurling fire and chaos down upon anyone unlucky enough to end up in their paths.
“Bring me the oath breakers!” the dragon’s voice echoed in our minds once more, and I shifted back out of sight again despite knowing Kyra’s magic still kept the beast from locating me.
“I’m going to need another sword,” I muttered, one appearing in my hand before I’d even finished the request and I thanked Kyra before turning my mind to what we needed to do.
“Let’s go,” I barked, and she nodded, summoning the golden compass needle again and pointing to the far end of the corridor.
“I’m worried about Cassius,” Kyra breathed as we made it beyond the rubble of the broken wall and started running down another corridor. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Why are you so convinced something is wrong with him?” I asked her as she began muttering to herself about time running short.
“I can just feel it,” she murmured. “He’s my friend. I’m connected to him, almost as I am to you, though nowhere near as strongly. But ever since I realised I cared about him, my link to him grew into something tangible, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, Kyra,” I replied with a frown. “That’s obviously a Blessing thing.”
“Is it?” she asked in surprise, stopping so suddenly that I collided with her.
She almost fell to the floor, and I grabbed her hand to catch her. Her power slammed into me so hard that I was nearly knocked from my feet too until somehow, she was the one holding me up and not the other way around.
“Sorry,” she said, releasing me as my veins crackled from the force of her power. “I’m still not used to the touching thing.”
I shook my head as the cloud of her energy withdrew and I was able to think clearly again.
“It’s alright,” I said, trying to make sense of the scrambled thoughts I’d been left with.
“Come on, we need to find him,” she insisted and the concern in her gaze made my eyes narrow as I tried to figure out why she cared so fucking much.
Not that long ago, Cassius had been all about destroying her and the coin which held her, so why was I just now learning about them being secret little friends? What had I missed?
“To be honest, I didn’t get the impression the two of you were all that close,” I said, cutting my eyes down the dimly lit corridor as I took in the tapestries lining the white walls and wondered where the fuck she was even leading me.
I certainly hadn’t been this deep into the palace before, and I was pretty sure we were coming up on areas we weren’t supposed to trespass into.
Though with the palace currently under attack, I wasn’t sure how much resistance we might find waiting for us anyway.
“I was alone for a long, long time, Drake,” she whispered, making me look to her again as her golden eyes seemed to glimmer in the dark. “The two of you were there when I was finally released. You’re all I have.”
I bit my tongue on the rest of the questions I had about her and Cassius as I took in the truth of her words, swallowing down my irritation and making a mental note to question him on it further when we found his wandering arse.
“Alright,” I grunted. “Let’s find the arsehole then.”
Kyra beamed at me, then held her hand out between us and the golden arrow on her palm pointed down a corridor to our right.
We quickly headed in that direction but came up short as we found our way on barred by six royal guards in full armour, weapons raised and ready to fight.
“The royal family is sequestered inside until the threat is alleviated,” one of them said. “I’m sorry, My Lord, but I cannot let anyone pass this way.”
“Understood,” I said, turning around and giving Kyra a firm look even as she gave me an imploring one.
We rounded a corner so we were out of sight and Kyra instantly shifted closer to me.
“He’s that way,” she insisted, holding the compass up as proof.
“That’s the royal quarters,” I said firmly, knowing that those rooms were going to be heavily guarded in every direction, and there was no way we’d be able to get into them without causing one hell of a stir. At least not directly.
“So, what do we do?” she asked desperately which seemed kind of crazy for an all-powerful entity, but I had a plan. I always had a fucking plan.