Chapter 41
Her mind reeled, shocked to see Kiran’s eyes in a massive beast cutting through the air above the palace. Mismatched—one green, one black.
No, no, no.
All her plans crumbled in her mind. Imani had never—never—been so terrified in her entire pathetic life. For one moment, she couldn’t even breathe. All she could think about was how she had no idea what to do.
Worse than her sister’s betrayal, this couldn’t be blamed on anyone but Imani herself.
Kiran looked to be in full control of the entire horde; a proud beast, destined to rule them all.
He was breathtaking. A dragon, Zadie had called the creature.
Gods, he was massive—a twenty-foot wingspan …
He didn’t need physical magic; he could make every shifter in the kingdom cower in fear. Even Saevel. Even … Magnus.
His flames blasted holes through every defense, like a knife through butter. He was so strong.
He had never been a snake, nor was he ever a Drow. He only looked like an elf. Like her, whose looks only appeared Norn, Kiran’s breed was something else entirely.
He was a half-breed, like her—a shifter and some other kind of elf. Maybe even an Eldritch elf like her with his red brand.
Magnus’s wyvern, without fire, was nothing against Kiran’s.
His destruction was total. Nothing stood a chance. The noise of his flames and destruction roared in her ears as he beat his powerful wings and tore lines of fire through the palace’s defenses, like explosions of magic she’d never seen.
He roared, and Imani screamed. The fire heated her face.
Parts of the city were in flames now. Kiran’s fire. The army below—following him to their deaths—was astounding. Massive. The whole Under flew behind him.
Parrying favors, making deals, forging relationships … he must have been planning this for years. He knew every breed and every lord in the kingdom …
Everything from the past six months clicked into place. He had been rallying them for war while she helped him gather the final pieces to make himself monarch of the Niflheim Kingdom.
And she knew he had his sights set on the Essenheim Kingdom next.
The Under realm horde beasts flew in synchrony with him—the beasts she had helped him secure.
“Kiran, no,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
She dropped to her knees as fifty beasts and dark angels flew overhead. An army of the Under.
She had given it to him.
He lifted off the tower, spotted her again in the woods and, seemingly satisfied she was safe, destroyed the entire standing guard of shifters.
He controlled several dragons and beasts, as well as the rebel armies from the territories …
all the different breeds they’d visited this past year—the sirens, Drows, dwarves, and other serpent shifters.
The power he wielded behind him was nothing short of breathtaking.
He’d already destroyed half the palace with them, and she had to wonder if he was working on finishing it off entirely.
It had been Kiran all along. He was the traitor the king had been searching for, not Respen. He had turned the king against his brother. He had positioned the king to be weak in front of his clans. He had orchestrated new loyalties and had exploited weaknesses.
The perfect plan.
Not only that, but he had also severed any possibility of a challenge to succession. Of course, it was possible someone else would inherit the throne, but that would be highly unexpected. Kiran was the most powerful witch in the Niflheim Kingdom.
Saevel.
She put her hand over her mouth. He was probably going to kill him, too, along with all his other brothers. If he hadn’t already.
While the sight of war was sickening and his lies and betrayal once again tore her in half, a proud feeling swelled in her chest. These people had done nothing but put Kiran down his entire life, and now they were paying for it.
Nothing came without a price.
If the king had known … if their other potential heirs had known, Kiran would have been gutted in his crib, either by his father or one of his brothers.
His mother had to have known. Some others knew of his plans, too—Zadie was likely one of them—but unless they were loyal to him, Kiran probably had been killing people off over the years when they had learned the truth.
Imani had a feeling Respen had known … and had been murdered months ago for it.
Gods. He’d been using flesh magic since he was little to cover his true brands—his Under magic and his serpentes shifter sigil. No wonder he was addicted to the blood-burning magic, the brutality … he had to be.
Her protectiveness lashed out on instinct, but his betrayal ran deeper than she wanted to admit. If he only knew that, until now, Imani had considered confiding in him about all her plans … Thank the gods she hadn’t.
He hadn’t confided in her like she had thought.
And she had to stop him. For Essenheim.
Deep sadness permeated her bones. This betrayal of lies would not be forgotten by her, however much she respected this massive chess move that must have taken years for him to execute.
The whole city trembled when he roared.
Another screech and rush of air sounded above her, and she ducked. Rocks tumbled down and barely missed her. She coughed, trying to breathe. The fire burned so hot she felt her skin heating a mile down from the palace, the walk even treacherous for her, despite the safe route she knew by heart.
A loud blast above startled the air into an eerie silence before everything was raining down on her.
Rocks, dust, shingles, pieces of wood … and then a body slammed into the rocks above.
It fell in front of her then tumbled lower.
She ducked, covering her head as Kiran’s dragon banked left and roared again with his horde behind him.
The ground shook with another blast. A wall of fire from the dragon—Kiran—erupted. More debris hit her.
Gasping, she pushed a hand and a leg off her and screamed. Swiping her wand through the air, she created a protective wall of shadow around her, watching everything blast away from her.
She turned to head back up to the castle, to confront him.
A rush of heat stung her back. Imani whipped around, facing the clearing, taking in the dancing flames of several massive fires just beginning to rage in the courtyard.
Prowling forward, no longer afraid—just furious he would keep this truth from her—she moved everything out of her path and looked up. Now most of the right side of the palace was on fire. Dark, black smoke billowed, so hot and thick, and getting hotter as it burned.
People trapped inside waved white clothes, their clothes, and threw shoes. The Niflheim Kingdom’s people were begging for mercy.
Kiran didn’t have any mercy. He was unstoppable. A weapon of mass destruction, there was nothing that could stop an actual dragon, let alone the horde.
She watched them die. Burning alive in a heat she could only imagine. So hot it must have been true hell, like the deepest parts of the Under.
Some decided to end their misery and jump, and she heard the bodies smashing into the ground.
Smash.
Smash.
Scream. Smash.
Bodies literally piled up around her.
Imani clenched her fists, trying to ignore the sight.
While her heart was hardened, she wasn’t heartless—this amount of violence and destruction was something she’d never witnessed or had even imagined.
Magnus needed to be stopped from taking over Essenheim—his work camps were an abomination to magic users—and when Imani learned of the witches he’d enslaved, she believed any means justified the ends.
Now she wasn’t so sure.
She kept moving, unable to think too long about how hot it must be on those top floors.
Imani made good time back up to the castle, but she could hear rumblings of something happening above.
The ground shook some more, and she lifted her chin as another blast of fire from the dragons circling overhead blew through the lower level.
A few breaths, and she watched more of the right side crumble.
Almost everything was on fire now. It was so hot. Hotter than anything she’d ever felt.
Another screech from the dragon above motivated her forward faster.
She was back in the gardens now. She was so close.
A loud rumbling sound came from the castle.
Imani gasped, blasting her wand above her head in a makeshift shadow shield while covering her head as half the palace collapsed, the structure unable to withstand the heat.
Some debris knocked her back, covering half her body in a dust cloud of poisonous air.
Her shadows blasted everything away, clearing her body of the dirt and rocks.
A darkness like she’d never seen surrounded her—protection from her magic. The heat was so hot she felt her skin might melt as she tried to catch her breath.
Another rumble, and she was powerless to stop the second wave of debris exploding down over her crouched body.
Then everything went still.
She lifted her chin to the mountain and saw the palace on fire, but most of the left side was standing still. A calm fell as she heard the fire blazing above. A screech in the distance alerted her to Kiran. She needed to move before he attacked again and she was crushed.
Was she nothing to the prince if he was willing to risk her safety with this attack? Or did his faith in her magic give him the confidence? She didn’t know. As with everything with Kiran, he was duplicitous.
Another blast sent her stumbling, and she tried to stay upright as an explosion of fire raged above her.
Terror like she had never known filled her chest as a cloud smothered everything.
It covered her entirely, and the air was sucked from her lungs in a powerful swoosh as the cloud smothered her.