Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
I stumbled a step as we arrived back in my chambers at the far end of the palace, my gaze moving around the space as I got my bearings and I tried to get my head around that insane use of magic.
It felt like the contents of my stomach had been left behind down in that dank room where Magdor had been up to fuck knew what, but as I drew in a deep breath, I managed to realign my thoughts to this new reality.
An almighty bellow sounded in the sky outside the open window, and I turned my head to look over the city, my stomach lurching at the sight of fires burning across it now, the drone of the city bells ringing on and on.
The clamour of men fighting filled the air too, the clang of swords and roar of battle cries adding to the cacophony of noise and making it sound like the city was at war. Which I guessed it was.
Monsters had attacked before this, stealing victims away into the night or finding their deaths on the blades of the royal guards, but never like this, in such numbers and with such fury.
Azurea had done this, brought this down upon the people of Osaria.
All because she was greedy. And maybe a little because I shouldn’t have tried to get out of a deal with a dragon. But mostly because she was a cunt.
“Where’s the fucking scale?” I demanded, looking to Cassius who had been staring through the window too, his mouth falling slack at the destruction taking place out there, but the bark of my voice broke him out of it.
“It’s here,” he growled, taking off into his room, his boots pounding across the tiles.
Kyra slipped closer to the window, the flash of flames beyond it brightening her eyes.
“I remember…” she murmured, almost to herself and I moved towards her too, my gaze drawn up onto the parapet where a lone soldier was fighting against an enormous scorpious spider, the eight-legged beast lunging at him with its stinger tail snapping out repeatedly.
I’d heard that being stung by that thing was one of the worst fates a Fae could suffer.
The poison slowly melted your insides, keeping you conscious throughout the entire thing as it worked from the least vital organs to the most. Then the creature would begin to devour your extremities while you still lived, the process taking several days to complete if it took you back to its lair. Fuck that for a fate.
“What do you remember?” I asked as I watched the soldier who continued to fight valiantly against the huge beast, though I had to wonder if he was just staring his death in the eye because that thing was fucking huge, and it looked damn hungry too.
“Fire, lies, anger,” she breathed, turning to me with the flames from outside reflected in her eyes. “The dragons belong with the gods.”
“The gods clearly forgot this one,” I muttered bitterly, and Kyra blinked, a veil seeming to lift in her gaze as she nodded.
“We should fix this,” she said.
“We will,” I agreed. “Just as soon as Cassius finds that-”
“I have it,” Cassius barked as he strode back towards us, showing us the jet-black scale in his hand before pushing it into his pocket.
The Forken scimitar he had decided to keep for himself was now strapped to his waist, and he’d changed into a fresh shirt after Magdor had destroyed the one he’d worn to dinner.
“But if you had simply heeded my warning when you first decided to ignore the promise you made to that creature then none of this-”
His words were cut off by a scream of terror which made the hairs stand up along the back of my neck.
I turned to look at the parapet where the scorpious spider had managed to back the soldier up against the tower wall, its stinger striking against the bricks repeatedly while the soldier – who I now realised was actually a woman – fought to parry the blows with a short sword.
It was definitely a losing battle. She was one wrong move away from being stung and there was no remedy in this world for that.
“The princess!” Cassius gasped, breaking into a sprint and I lunged for him, grasping his arm, and yanking him to halt before he could take another step towards the window.
“What princess?” I demanded, my brow furrowing in confusion.
“That is her fighting up there,” he snarled, wrenching his arm from my hold. “I would recognise her even in the darkest of nights by the simple beauty of her aura alone.”
He didn’t give me another moment to object before he was running again, heading towards the window I wasn’t blocking and leaping straight at it despite the shutter being closed.
Wood shattered and broke apart as he collided with it, and I scrambled after him with Kyra right beside me as we looked out to see him hit the balcony of the rooms below ours and roll before leaping to his feet and racing away towards the far wall.
He instantly began to climb a trellis covered in roses to get up to the parapet above, and as Austyn yelled another battle cry, I had to admit he had been right about the identity of the soldier fighting that beast.
“There was an open window right there,” I pointed out, bobbing my chin at the one beside the broken shutter which Cassius had just leapt through like a possessed maniac.
“Are we going after him?” she asked, and I grunted an agreement as I took a running jump out of the open window. I could hardly become emperor without a princess to marry, and Cassius had taken the fucking dragon scale with him too.
I rolled as I hit the balcony below, leaping to my feet and yelling out for Cassius to wait as I craned my neck to see him scaling the wall high above us.
“I could fly us up there?” Kyra suggested as she landed at my side, falling into a crouch instead of rolling.
She looked like one of the legendary Ageishan assassins in her dark clothing and that deadly look in her eyes.
I had no doubt that she could kill better and more ruthlessly than any of the cutthroats I’d known in The Den if the notion took her, and for some reason that only made me like her more.
I glanced around before shaking my head at her offer. “We can’t use magic like that out here – too many witnesses about to see. But if you want to make me immune to the sting of a scorpious spider then I’m up for that.”
“You’ve got it,” she agreed, and I felt the brush of her magic coating my skin as I broke into a sprint and tore away across the balcony.
I leapt up onto the trellis and began to climb after Cassius who was shouting something about smiting all beasts in his path while a fire drake swooped towards him, and he was forced to stop his ascent in favour of swinging his sword at it.
I continued to climb as the fire drake swooped around him, slashing its talons and catching his shoulder, causing blood to splatter down onto my cheek as he cursed at the wound, the sound of the beast’s pain following a moment later as Cassius struck it with his sword.
The fire drake launched itself away from him and he instantly continued to climb, crying out for the princess even though I had to doubt she could hear him over all the noise the scorpious spider was making.
But the fire drake wasn’t done with him yet, and as I climbed after him, I yelled out a warning as the flying lizard came for him again.
Cassius turned his head, swinging his sword just as the drake belched fire at him and I swore as the brightness of the flames forced my eyes from them. My heart raced with panic as I saw his end in that fire and I found myself hating the idea of that far more than I should have.
“Not today, you scaly bastard!” Cassius roared and an ungodly shriek followed just before the fire drake plummeted from the sky, blue blood spilling from the stab wound to its heart and its huge body damn near knocking me free of the wall as it passed.
I looked back up to find Cassius climbing again, despite the fact the back of his shirt was on fire and the flames were licking their way up his spine.
I pushed myself harder, the fire drake’s attack having let me close the distance between us, and I made it to his side as we got nearer to the roof of the building.
“Does he know he’s on fire?” Kyra asked from beside me and I wasn’t certain if her words were for me or herself.
“A glass of water, please, Kyra,” I asked, holding my hand out just in time for one to appear and I tossed the contents over Cassius’s back, dousing the flames while he just ignored me and kept climbing.
The back of his shirt was almost entirely destroyed, and a patch of charred and blistered skin showed through the ruined fabric, marring his flesh. By the Fallen.
Cassius didn’t so much as glance at me in thanks for me stopping him from burning to death, and he heaved himself up over the balustrade with a battle cry while I tossed the empty glass away from me to shatter on the cobbles far below.
I hauled myself up next, drawing my sword as I made it onto the roof with Kyra right beside me, and we chased after him as he raced towards the scorpious spider who still had Austyn trapped against the tower wall.
The princess was parrying blows from the creature’s enormous stinger as it struck at her repeatedly, the force of the strikes knocking chunks of masonry from the tower walls every time it missed.
“For Osaria!” Cassius roared as he sprinted for them, swinging his scimitar with all his strength and severing one of the creature’s eight legs before it even reacted to our presence on the roof.
Blue blood sprayed from the severed limb, coating him from head to toe as the monster shrieked in agony and twisted around to seek out its new prey, two of its legs slamming into Cassius and sending him tumbling away across the roof where his head cracked against the brickwork so hard, I swear I almost felt it myself.
“Oh, that looks like fun, can I fight too?” Kyra asked, drawing a pair of stunning daggers out of thin air and giving the creature a look so monstrous that I wasn’t even certain which of them was more beastly.