Chapter 50 Dragonfire
DRAGONFIRE
Kairos gathered everyone in the courtyard. The sun was already sliding west, but we couldn't afford to wait for morning.
After a tense discussion with the others, we decided to ride to Skalgard immediately.
Uther, Elwen, me, and seven warriors—including Barra, the female I’d helped with the cursed sword, and Torvin, who hadn’t looked at me the same since I healed his king.
The rest were fae who’d accompanied us to Vaelrith.
Kairos had wanted his most seasoned killers, but these warriors had shown up without being summoned.
He surveyed them as the wind howled. Red lightning flickered across his horned helm and mist curled off him like breath from a beast.
“This is not a war march.” Kairos’s black mantle swept the ground. “It’s a walk into a wolf’s jaws. Don’t expect glory.”
The warriors lifted their eyes.
Barra pressed her fist to her chest. “We know, my king.”
“Then why have you come?”
Barra glanced at me before returning her attention to him. “Every healer said the curse on my arm was permanent. She fixed it in an afternoon.”
Kairos’s gaze flicked to me.
“She didn’t hesitate,” Barra added. “Didn’t ask for payment.”
A low hum of approval rippled through the warriors.
Kairos turned to me, his eyes shining with pride. The wind tore at his mantle as he shifted his attention, fixing Torvin with a hard stare. “And you. What are you doing here?”
Torvin shifted, bowing his head. “I was wrong about her. I won’t be again.”
Others nodded, grumbling their agreement.
Kairos studied them, unreadable behind the shadows of his helm. Lightning cracked overhead, casting him in a bloody hue, and when it faded, he spoke in a low voice.
“If you ride with me, you protect her before me.”
A ripple of tension passed through the group.
“You put her on the mairen before me,” he growled, each word an iron spike driven through stone. “You shield her body with your own.”
Gods, what is he doing?
A twitch pulled at Torvin’s jaw. Barra swallowed hard.
Kairos stepped forward. “And if a choice comes between my life and hers…you choose hers.”
My throat closed, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe right. This male who’d held me through nightmares was standing in front of his warriors and telling them to let him die. For me.
I opened my mouth to argue, but Uther caught my eye. A small shake of his head. Don’t.
The warriors exchanged glances.
Torvin’s brow furrowed. “My king—”
“This is not a request.”
The warriors were motionless, the stormlight bleeding over their armor. These were fae who had followed Kairos through the centuries, across battlefields and betrayals.
Barra dropped to one knee, fist pressed to her chest. “I swear it.”
Torvin stared at Kairos, then he knelt beside Barra. “I swear it.”
One by one, the others went down—seven dark shapes kneeling in the red light, the wind tugging at their cloaks as they bent their heads.
My vision blurred, and I blinked.
“Rise,” Kairos said.
They rose.
Kairos’s gaze found mine, and warmth settled in me like an ember. I didn’t know what I saw in his eyes. I only knew I couldn’t look away.
Then we rode north.
Dusk bled into darkness as Kairos sat tall on his mairen, and I clung to the saddle horn. Uther and Elwen flanked us, and behind them were the warriors.
The deal pulsed beneath my ribs, a merciless, ticking countdown. The pain had dulled, at least.
“I still don't like this,” I said quietly. “A handful of us against an entire city?”
“The moment Vaeris sees a battalion marching north, he’ll mobilize everything he has. We’d be dragged into skirmishes for days while he sits in his palace.” Kairos glanced at the bleeding sky. “A small group moves fast and quiet.”
The landscape changed. Fields gave way to flooded lowlands, rows of barley lying broken in the mud like bodies.
Water rose past the mairens’ hooves, cold and dark, slowing our pace.
The trees grew sparser—bent at unnatural angles, branches stripped bare, reaching toward the sky.
Then we crested a ridge, and my heart dropped.
A village. Or what was left of one.
Buildings torn apart like toys. Walls collapsed into rubble. Roofs ripped away to expose the bones of homes where families had eaten breakfast and lived ordinary lives that would never come back.
Above it all, black clouds funneled into a vortex of fury, red lightning striking the earth in savage, relentless bursts.
This is what happens if I fail.
Streams of people were fleeing south. Farmers with carts piled high, their whole lives reduced to what they could carry. Families clutching children too young to understand why they were running. Merchants who’d abandoned everything for the slim hope of survival.
They were drenched and hollow-eyed, and when they saw the Sanguir warriors, they reached for us. Crying. Begging.
A mother hurried toward us with two small children—one on each hip. The smallest one lifted her head and looked at me with huge eyes. She couldn’t have been older than five.
That could have been Rheya and me once.
“Please,” she gasped. “We need help.”
Kairos’s jaw tightened. “Enid.”
A warrior dismounted, lifting an elderly male onto a cart. He wrapped his cloak over the shoulders of a shivering girl and pressed a waterskin into the mother’s hands.
Kairos pulled his mount beside the warrior. “Gather everybody and escort them to the keep.”
“Yes, sire.” He turned to go.
More villagers shuffled by, their faces gaunt. Someone shouted that storms were ripping through Skaldir. Another begged for news of a son.
As we rode closer to the mountain range, the air changed. A sulfurous smell, thick and acrid, coating my tongue with a taste like burnt metal. Then the earth rumbled. Low at first, in my chest and spreading to my teeth. I clutched at Kairos’s arm, nails digging into his forearm.
“Something’s wrong,” I hissed.
The mairen shied from the path, tossing their heads. Even battle-trained Morvaen danced sideways, fighting Kairos’s grip on the reins, every muscle coiled to bolt.
The rumble became a roar, and the ground split.
A fissure tore through the road, a wound wrenched open by massive hands. Steam erupted from the gash, scalding, and heat blasted my cheeks. The mairen shrieked with a sound I’d never heard them make, and then a deep growl rose from the bowels of the world.
Aelithra.
Pain slammed into my skull like a hammer, white-hot and blinding. I doubled over, crying as it forced its way into my mind.
The voice was volcanic, immense, and I was falling. The ground hit my back, winding me.
I told you what needed to be done.
I gasped, pressing my palms against my temples.
I showed you the path, and you defied me.
Kairos’s wide-eyed face swam above me, shouting. Around us, steel sang free of scabbards.
You will be punished for such insolence.
Kairos’s grip tightened on my face. His voice broke through in shattered fragments, but the dragon drowned him out.
You will learn to obey.
“I’m not your servant,” I snarled. “I don’t answer to you!”
Silence.
No?
A shadow rose from the crevasse, a limb of darkness as vast as a ship’s hull, wreathed in heat that made the air shimmer. It swept through our formation like a scythe through wheat.
Barra didn’t even have time to raise her sword.
Orange flames engulfed her, and she screamed. The sound ripped through me, along with her mairen’s shrieking, and I watched them both thrash as fire consumed them.
I couldn’t do anything but stare.
Then another warrior lit like kindling, the blond male whose rune I’d destroyed. Another warrior threw a spear at the limb, and seconds later he turned into a living torch.
Watch, Aelithra. Tazurel’s soft purr curled through my mind. Watch what happens to those who challenge a god.
“Enough!” The scream burst from my throat. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Just stop killing them!”
The shadow limb froze, hovering over Torvin. He stood beneath it, his sword raised.
Better. You learn slowly, but you do learn.
I pressed my forehead into the dirt, gasping.
Let the smell of their burning flesh be seared into your memory.
Tears streaked through the ash on my face and the presence squeezed harder, crushing me.
Listen carefully. You must hasten your journey. The shadow-wielder plays with forces he does not understand, and what he’s attempting will not free us.
I sat upright, wiping my eyes. “What is Vaeris doing?”
Dark claws twisted around my skull and I cried out, curling into myself.
Go to the seal. The limb withdrew, sinking back toward the fissure. Break it.
The pressure over my head lifted, and the ground shuddered once, then went still. Kairos pulled me against his chest. The smell of char hung thick in the air. I gagged, and Kairos held me tighter.
“Don't look,” he murmured.
But I had to see what my hesitation had cost.
I pulled back and turned.
The ground where Barra had stood was black. Three shapes lay scattered across the scorched earth. Not bodies, ash in the vague suggestion of limbs. A sword, half-melted, still clutched in skeletal fingers.
Three warriors dead.
Uther approached us, his face carved from granite. “That was dragonfire. What the fuck just happened?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t listen—I should have—”
“Aelie.” Kairos's hand found my face, tilting it toward him. “Tell us what happened.”
I swallowed. “Tazurel. The dragon from my visions. He’s...he’s furious. I didn’t go to Vaeris when he told me to. He said Vaeris is doing something to the seal.”
Elwen dismounted, leading her mairen closer. “What?”
“I don’t know.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to stop the tears. “He didn’t explain. He said to hurry.”
Uther ran a hand over his face.
I looked at the scorched earth where Barra had stood.