Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Timur
The wind screamed across the cliff face like a living thing, tearing at my wings as I banked a hard left. There was at least an hour or two left before the daybreak, but the storm didn’t wait for the sun this morning.
Below, the city of Ashgate clung to the rock like mold—tier upon tier of chipped stone patios, knotted rope bridges swaying over the abyss, and dark cave mouths smoking with shadows drifting in and out of them.
Every level teemed with the city dwellers going about their dark, shady business, making deals and trading favors.
I tried not to think about how many of them had bought or traded the joy of the humans held captive in the caves and shacks of this rotten city.
Rage had been simmering deep inside me. The cliff itself was a vertical battlefield, and tonight it would either fall or devour us all.
Prince Rha’s army caught up with me from the mouth of the shadow tunnel that had brought us all here.
With our combined magic, the shadow tunnel turned out far greater and much longer than I could’ve ever conjured on my own, stretching almost the entire way to Teneris.
It made our journey here faster, making up for the time spent planning.
Like a tide of menace, the shadowy wave of royal warriors flooded the desert, then flowed over the edge. The royal army was the best at dispersing into shadows. They practiced daily, with the aim to improve speed and distance of travel as well as the ability to orientate and fight right after.
Prince Rha and his army descended upon Ashgate like clouds of shadow magic, silent and deadly.
Taking their solid form before their feet hit the ground, they ambushed the beach.
Metal rang on metal like ice cracked by thunder, while the red of Nerifir iron sparked like bolts of lightning in the pre-dawn darkness.
The crash of weapons and the gurgled curses of the dying echoed off the rock cliff and blended with the crushing of the waves.
Under the cloak of the attack, I glided over the cliff edge on my wings. Since Elaine was taken, there was no use searching for her in our cave. Yet the flash of warm beige, like the skirt she often wore, caught my attention.
Could she still be in there? Were her captors stupid enough to keep her in our home?
With a sharp turn in the air, I changed course, flying straight toward the cave where I’d spent by far the happiest days of my life.
The doors were wide open, not something I hoped Elaine would do in my absence, but also not something Mazra would do when planning an ambush.
Still, I approached cautiously, holding back the wild hope that all might be as I’d left it inside, that Elaine was well and free, going about her business inside our small home, perfectly safe by some miracle.
The moment I crossed the threshold, however, I knew my hope was baseless. Every item inside the cave had been moved or upturned, the baskets emptied, the trunks opened, even the bed was ripped open, as if a band of thieves had scoured this place for some hidden riches.
Two thugs were still looting inside. One shook out Elaine’s beige skirt that I had glimpsed from the outside. The other squinted at something by the bed on the floor.
“Hey, what’s this? Gold?” He lifted Elaine’s eyeglasses for inspection.
My rage exploded.
How dare they? How could they ever fathom that they were fit to touch any of her things with their filthy hands?
They weren’t worthy of words. I didn’t yell. I roared at them.
Rising up to the ceiling, I roared like the dragon that failed to kill me. I wished them gone. Ceased to exist in an instant.
Annihilated.
Conjured from my rage, fire erupted, engulfing the looters and burning them to ashes.
Flames spread on to the things scattered around.
The clothes, the baskets, the destroyed bed where I’d learned what happiness was with Elaine sleeping peacefully in my arms—all of it went up in flames before I could even comprehend where the fire had come from.
Thick and viscous like molten lava, flames churned around me in a twister, scorching the black walls of the cave. Heat rushed me, licking up my wings and blowing out my hair. But the fire didn’t burn me. I felt no pain. Even my skirt remained untouched.
I dove down to the sparkle of gold on the ground—Elaine’s eyeglasses dropped by the looter just before the fire consumed him. She wouldn’t have left without her glasses, not by her own will.
Rage flared anew, bursting out of me with another roar and a blast of flames.
My flames.
Just like the wings, the tail, and the claws, the flames were another sign of the poison still taking over my body. Another part of me had been lost, turned into the beast that was slowly killing me. Only this time, I felt no loss because I’d gained a weapon better than any sword.
Elaine had been taken, and whoever took her was going to burn.
I emerged from the flames that had fully engulfed the cave now. Black smoke clung to my wings, trailing behind me like a mantle.
As the early dawn bled gold across the tide, Prince Rha’s army fought the mob of city dwellers in a well-coordinated effort.
With the prince himself on one end of the beach and General Oskura leading the charge on the other, they moved ahead, forcing the thugs to retreat to the Wall or pushed them out into the ocean.
The prince would get his wish with sunrise. The City of Ashgate would finally be his.
And I had yet to find my woman.
According to the letter Tobis had received, Mazra was the one who had Elaine. Or at least, she was the one whom Tobis had to find in Ashgate if he wished to see Elaine. Except that Mazra wasn’t easy to find if she didn’t want to be found.
Ray on the other hand… Ray’s cave was right here, on the very top level of the Wall, with the best view of the city and the beach. If he didn’t have Elaine, he would surely know enough to tell me where she was, even if I had to claw that information out of him.
The doors to Ray’s cave were closed, and I didn’t knock.
With a blast of fire, I set them aflame, then shoved against them, bursting them open.
Inside, no one ran to fight me. The front room was empty.
Ray’s guards weren’t there, either trying to fight Prince Rha’s invasion on the beach below or more likely running deeper into the labyrinth of caves inside the cliff to save their hides.
With no one to stop me, I flew to Ray’s bedroom.
Inside, the bedding and dishes were strewn over the floor, as if this place had also been ransacked by looters.
Ray wasn’t here either, and neither was the female Joy Vessel.
The human man snored under the blankets on the bed, asleep.
The Joy Vessel was completely alone, and I couldn’t leave him here.
Grabbing the man along with the blankets, I shoved him under my arm.
Jerking awake, the human panicked.
“No!” he screamed, fighting my grip.
“Keep still,” I told him. “I’m saving you from the fire.”
“What fire?” He looked around wildly.
“This one.” I blew out a breath, and the flames appeared as if summoned by magic, my magic.
My dragon magic.
For once, I embraced what I was. A man, a fae, a dragon—I felt them all.
I was them all.
With every new blast of fire, a cathartic relief flooded my limbs. I felt the aching need to burn this city to the ground, and now I had the means to make it happen.
The flames engulfed the messy bed, the rugs, the blankets scattered on the floor, and the rotten food that had been left lying around. Fire clung to the stone walls, in hunger for more to consume. It found the wooden doors to the bedroom and burst out, spreading beyond the bedroom cave.
I reveled in the heat of the flames I’d created.
But the human screamed under my arm, struggling to get away.
I heaved him higher up under my armpit and flew out of the bedroom.
I found the inner doors to Ray’s cave and kicked them open.
A draft pulled past me, sucking the flames deeper into the tunnels like a chimney.
Tossing my head up I exhaled a long, hot stream of fire up to the ceiling. It curled and churned, cloaked into a cloud of black thick smoke, then slinked down the corridor, sucked deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of the caves.
“Burn Ashgate!” I roared.
The human coughed. No longer fighting me, he hung limply over my arm.
It was time to leave here.
I flew outside again. My fire was traveling through the caves, chasing their dwellers out like rats from a burning building.
Stalks of smoke rose from the blackened gaping mouths of the caves.
Patches of what appeared like smoke clouds dropped down before solidifying into escaping fae, only to be caught by Prince Rha’s warriors on the beach.
With a deafening roar, I sent more fire along the face of the Wall, burning the rope bridges. My flames climbed up the rock, then were sucked into the caves by the draft, incinerating Ashgate from the inside.
I descended to the base of the Wall and handed the human to one of the royal warriors.
“Take him to General Oskura,” I said. “The Joy Vessel belongs to Prince Rha now.”
A familiar bald head caught my attention by one of the caves on the lower level of the Wall, and I soared that way.
“Zayr!” I hovered in front of the man.
He shrank back on bent legs, his features distorted with shock.
“Fuck. Is that you, General?”
“Who else could I be?” I scoffed and demanded, “Where is Ray?”
All I wished to know was Elaine’s whereabouts. But if Ray had something to do with her disappearance, finding him would lead me to her too.
I whipped my tail around Zayr's neck, squeezing his throat. “Take me to him, and I’ll let you live.”