Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Zeru paces, vibrating with anger and impatience. “She agreed?”
Nyc, Mar, and Hallr shift and shimmer in Zeru’s realm, all of them inflated with power and ego.
Ziva clasps her hands behind her back. Even here, she burns brighter than the rest. “She agreed.”
The others hum but remain silent.
“Good.” Pleased, Zeru gives a clipped nod. “It is time. Time to broadcast the news. Time to make them fear. Time to make them pray.”
The fire goddess shoots him a pointed look. “Tirene already knows. News spreads fast.”
Zeru’s attention snaps back. He studies Ziva, suspicion narrowing his eyes. “They’re up to something.”
“Probably.” A beat passes, and Ziva’s gaze slides to the others. “They are not fools.”
As Zeru glares, his form expands. He dismisses her doubt and leaves her behind to speak to the other gods and begin their plans.
She watches their exchanges, defiance burning in her eyes. “I will not harm the dragon hatchlings.”
Zeru inclines his head. “Lark has agreed. You most likely won’t need to hurt them.”
Ziva glances at Nyc, who stays silent. “Still, I see no reason the mortal queen needs to be involved. It is—”
“It is necessary!” Zeru spins back around to face her, incandescent with rage. “She is required. Do you know how compromised Knox will be with Lark as his opponent? Theirs is a true love, not an infatuation or lust. That will make him incapable of fighting. It will leave him weak. He will die.”
No one dares to move. Even Ziva’s flames hold still.
His anger dissipates, losing focus. “And with him, our opposition. Lark is the perfect shield and spear in one. He will not harm her. But with her protective nature, she will have to attack in order to protect her dragons and the rest of her family. Her kingdom. It’s the perfect match.”
“Do you really think everything will play out this way?” The cool, soothing voice drifts from the darkness that surrounds Nyc. “Is winning all you care about?”
“What I care about is power.” Zeru straightens, towering over them. Looking down on them. “Maintaining what is mine. What is ours by right. And they cannot stop us.”
For a second, he pauses, as if doubting his own words.
Nyc opens her mouth to speak again but stops herself when Zeru waves a dismissive arm.
“Knox must die. As for Lark…?” He shrugs. “It makes no difference what happens to her after that.”
Agnar adopts a loose stance with his shoulders thrown back, mocking me. “Come on, Sterling. Move faster. You’ve got fire magic to dodge too!”
He claps, and the world collapses. Lava jettisons upward, a red-hot fury that fizzles into steam and cooled stone when I push back with my own magic.
“This fast enough for you?” A laugh bubbles up from my throat as I launch into the sky, riding the steam thermals away from the danger of the training field we set up in the mountains that ring the Impassable Desert.
Agnar snorts. “I’ve seen better.”
“Remember,” Bastian ignores our bickering, “even merging with Agnar, we’re still not as strong as Lark. You need to move faster and expect the unexpected. My sister is a tricky fighter.”
Tricky fighter doesn’t begin to do Lark justice. My queen is fucking magnificent.
Bastian dives from the sky with speed and grace. A flaming boulder appears behind him.
Dismissing my wings, I let myself plummet like a rock. Ten additional fire elementals follow my descent while launching flames at me.
Only, they can’t hit what they can’t see.
Shrouding myself in mist, I stretch the haze to the ground, solidifying it just enough near the bottom to provide a landing spot. Then I create steps that allow me to run across the sky, still hidden from view.
I pop out of the fog behind and a little below Bastian.
He hovers with the flaming boulder near the place where I initially dropped, waiting for a chance to strike.
With a single thought, I encase that smoldering chunk of rock in ice. The whole thing explodes from thermal shock, knocking Bastian out of the air.
One down.
Out of nowhere, Agnar appears behind me, jamming his heels hard on the backs of my knees.
Sneaky bastard found me.
His blows take me down, and I collapse on the floating steps. “If you pay attention, you can tell where the ice starts to form. I just used that to track you.”
Good catch.
But I’m not going to let that dickhead best me just because he’s helpful.
Grabbing my friend’s hand, I jerk and bend at the waist to throw him. At the same time, I soak his wings with water.
He doesn’t notice my next move until it’s too late.
Sand scorches beneath my feet, the ocean a useless ally to the ten men and women attacking me. The heat, indifferent as the tide, licks my heels.
“Show me what you’ve got, Rafe!” I scream to be heard over the shrieks of wind coming off the Southern Sea. We chose this location to make it easier for my opponents and harder on me.
Overhead, a tornado and typhoon whirl and bounce off each other. Rafe, merged with a water elemental, hovers between the two.
Steam, ice, and water lash out at me, though not a drop penetrates the heat barrier I’ve built around me.
Their magic has created a pelting rain and rising river. They attack from all angles, fierce and relentless, but my flames burn bright and my heart even brighter.
We all refuse to surrender.
Sterling taught me well. I may be new to this way of channeling power, but the method feels natural. The sand beneath my feet transforms to glass, which will soon become too slick if I’m not careful.
The very air begins to waver.
Their magic slams into the solid mass of my own, and Rafe yells for them to take another angle.
I’m more than ready as my fire expands.
Without warning, the ground buckles under my feet. The glass shatters. A hole forms, and for a hot second, I’m falling.
But not for long.
With a snap, my wings extend. The air buffets them, threatening to send me spiraling until I balance the surrounding heat to stop the air current.
As soon as I conquer that challenge, a sheet of solid soil races toward me.
I melt the ice, only to find a wall of hard-packed earth still barreling my way. My heart stops, then beats triple-time.
I succumb to a moment of panic before regaining control. Forget the magic…I’ll stop the wielder instead.
I fly upward to gain a better view while the earth elemental pursues me.
There! I spy a strange lump in the land a good distance away from the water users and the beach.
With a sharp flex of my mind, smoke pours out of that hump in the ground. A woman quickly follows, slapping at her clothes as she rolls in the dirt.
There’s more than one way to win a battle.
I get a few moments to bask in my success before another assault forces me back to work.