24. Like a Drunkard Toward a Bad Decision
Like a Drunkard Toward a Bad Decision
From the corner of my eye, I could see the flame of the torch nearing the kindling. The orange and gold licked the air, hungry for the fuel now only centimeters away. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out the drums, the crowd, everything except the crackle of that treacherous little flame.
Griffon rolled his shoulders back. He’d wedged his fingers under the rope circling his chest where the manacle chain was pinned. Suddenly his muscles bunched, the tendons in his neck standing out like cords of steel.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then—
A sharp, violent jerk. The rope snapped like overstretched twine.
A collective inhale of shock rang out around the room.
Griffon didn’t hesitate. He yanked his wrists apart, the manacles groaning and then snapping with a crack.
The metal links scattered like shards of glass across the kindling.
The broken cuffs dangled from his wrists.
The crowd gasped. I gasped. Even the torchbearer gasped, dropping the torch as if it had just insulted his mother.
My mind reeled at the impossibility. Those manacles were forged steel, but Griffon snapped them as if they were made of clay.
This wasn't just strength. This was his ember.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
All this time, I'd known he was fast, knew he could fight better than anyone I'd ever seen.
But this raw, impossible power was beyond anything I'd imagined. Was it possible we weren’t going to be successful executions 145 and 146?
Then something about the numbers made my breath catch.
But I was too distracted because Griffon didn’t stop. He gritted his teeth and lunged forward with one leg, snapping the rope binding his calves.
The torchbearer stumbled back, his face a mask of horror. The torch skittered across the stone floor. With swords flashing from sheaths, the soldiers were already moving, their shouts lost in the sudden uproar of the crowd.
Griffon reached behind his head, fingers locking around the post. His biceps flexed, veins standing out against his skin. The wood groaned and whined. And then with a growl, he wrenched forward, causing the post to snap at his waist. The sharp splintering sound shot through the room.
Griffon didn’t flinch. He flipped the broken post over his head as if it weighed nothing, gripped it like a weapon, and turned to face the soldiers clambering back up the platform steps.
The king jumped to his feet. “Seize him!”
Griffon swung. The splintered wood connected with the first soldier’s ribs with a sickening thud.
The man flew back, crashing into two others.
He swung it again, this time connecting with a brazier’s stand.
Soldiers scrambled as it screeched and toppled, sending glowing embers and flames across the stone.
With sword raised, another soldier lunged at him.
Griffon ducked, then drove the post upward, smashing into the man’s jaw. Bone crunched. The soldier crumpled.
The temple was in chaos. With blades glinting in the firelight, the soldiers surged forward.
The crowd’s cheers had turned to screams, bodies pushing and pressing, desperately retreating from the area in front of the platform.
The drums had stopped, but it made no difference with the deafening beat of my heart.
Another flame caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. The lit torch was rolling toward me like a drunkard toward a bad decision. Oh, come on.
I watched in slow-motion horror as the torch that had been destined for my demise made good on its promise and rolled into the edge of the kindling.
A little tongue of fire flickered to life.
My eyes went wide. I took a deep inhale and blew air in its direction as if I were blowing out a candle and not a wood fire a meter away.
Die, you little—I groaned and my shoulders slumped.
Physics is such a jerk. Maybe they’d just engrave the number “145” on my tombstone.
My breath came in ragged gasps. That ticklish feeling I get when I’m missing something crept up my spine. There was something important about the number ‘144’ on the outside of the building. Smoke curled into the air as the fire spread.
By the time I looked up again, another brazier had spewed its contents onto the platform and two soldiers were crawling out from under the broken post.
Griffon was a storm of motion and fury. With a clang, he blocked a blade arcing toward him, and parried with a sword he didn’t have a minute ago. The king’s commanding voice rang out, but it was lost beneath the roar of flames and the clash of steel.
Wait. Griffon said the woman Hermes loved hung herself from the scaffolding around the altarpiece in the fire temple. Scaffolding.
I coughed as the smoke billowed, stinging my eyes.
‘144’ was a year. The year the temple was built.
I did the math quickly in my head because now was a fantastic time for mental arithmetic.
The current year was 209 AFS—209 years ‘After the Fall of Siderum’.
Year 144 was 65 years ago. This building was under construction about the time Hermes hid the headpiece.
Another soldier came from the side. Griffon crouched low and spun, kicking his feet out from under him.
And in the same fluid movement, he got his hands under him on the stone floor and kicked out.
His boots connected with another brazier, sending it over.
This one created a blockade between him and the rest of the chaos.
She hung herself by the altarpiece.
My eyes snapped back to the second seal at the peak of the carnelian altarpiece. That seal was where the sunbeam pointed at noon during both equinoxes. Twin stars above!
Griffon spun, his green eyes wild as they locked onto mine.
Fire crackled between us, the flames expanding across the kindling.
The heat seared my skin. I coughed again, my vision blurring.
With blood streaking his temple, his knuckles split and his hair wild, Griffon leapt over a collapsed column and in three strides, was at my side.
“Hold still,” he ordered as he raised his sword.
I braced as the sword bit into the wood of my post. Once. Twice. The ropes gave way, and I stumbled forward, my wrists still in manacles.
Griffon grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the pyre and onto the platform. “Move!” he barked.
“Stop!”
His fierce eyes snapped to mine.
“I know where the headpiece is hidden!”
He yanked me forward. “Wren, we don’t have time for this.”
“No!” I grabbed for his arm, my fingers digging into the skin. “Stop. You have to get it!”
Griffon’s grip on my arm tightened.
“Wren! Not now!” he snarled as he spun around.
His free hand swung in a brutal arc, forcing the soldier lunging for us off balance before he slammed the butt of his sword into the man’s temple. “We’re getting out of here.” He lunged low, sweeping the curved blade into the kindling, sending the burning pieces across the platform.
My pulse hammered in my throat as I clung to him. “We will die today if you don’t.”
That made him pause. Just for a second.
“We don’t stand a chance,” I continued. “It’s behind the gold seal at the top of the altar.”
His eyes swung in that direction and then back to me. “That’s crazy!”
“No, it’s not.” My voice was steady despite the tremor in my hands. “It’s our only chance.”
His eyes darted to the altar again. “I can’t leave you here.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.” His jaw clenched. “We’re going to get out of this. I’m not leaving you to die here because of a hunch.”
“Griffon, you have to trust me. Please.”
He stopped then, breathing hard, his eyes boring into mine.
“Please,” I repeated.
The firelight flickered across his face, casting shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. He looked like a vengeful god. A very attractive, bloody, vengeful god. For a heartbeat, we just stood there, the world collapsing around us.
Then his expression hardened. “Damn it.”
Flames erupted from the resin-soaked logs stacked around the base of the post I had just been tied to.
He pulled me further from the pyre, positioning me near the edge of the platform where the smoke was thinner, and thrust the sword into my hand.
The weight was awkward and unfamiliar. Just wonderful.
Now I’m armed. And also completely incompetent.
“Don’t let anyone near you,” he ordered. With one last look at me, he was gone.
Faster than I’ve seen anyone move, he leapt over the debris, took out three soldiers and knocked over another brazier. The crowd’s screams rose and fell around me, but I barely heard them. My eyes were locked on Griffon as he crossed the platform and leapt onto the raised basalt altar.
The king bellowed for archers.
He grabbed a tall gold candlestick from the altar and swung it at the soldier approaching, making contact with the man’s jaw.
The soldier fell back as the candle flew from its holder across the platform, wax spraying like blood.
Then, without hesitating, Griffon stepped onto the altarpiece.
His boots scraped against the precious stone.
He leapt to avoid a blade swung at his legs and kicked out, knocking the soldier back.
Then he was climbing, one-handed, the tall gold candlestick clenched in his other fist.
It was like the cliff face all over again. His fingers found purchase in the carved flames as he moved with terrifying grace. The guards below shouted, scrambling onto the altar, but they were too late.
Griffon—stupid, brilliant Griffon—reached the seal, pulled back his arm and slammed the candlestick into the gold plaster. Chunks flew, raining down on the soldiers below. There was a collective gasp from the crowd.
Three archers stepped out onto the balcony above the arched entryway.
Then, a soldier with a long scar down his cheek suddenly lunged toward me through the smoke.
With an embarrassing squeak, I swung the sword wildly, but the blade's weight pulled me off-balance.
The soldier dodged easily, and I stumbled.
The sword clattered from my grip, skittered across the stone, and disappeared into the flames.
Well.
That was humiliating.
The soldier smirked. I put my hands up and took two steps back. He took two steps forward.
Over the soldier’s head, high on the altarpiece, Griffon struck again. And again. The seal shattered.
My feet paused as my breath caught.
The soldier in front of me gritted his teeth and raised his sword.
Griffon dropped the candlestick and reached inside, his fingers fumbling for a second. The archers on the balcony pulled back their bows. A soldier climbing the altarpiece grew closer, curved blade raised, aiming for Griffon’s leg.
But then—
Griffon turned, his hand shooting out toward the crowd.
The chamber burst into a mosaic of shifting light. Not firelight. Not torchlight. Captured sunlight.
It spilled from the fire opal in dappled, shimmering patches, scattering across the people and the walls like waves of living, liquid flames. Every surface seemed to breathe with flecks of gold.
Soldiers halted mid-swing. Archers let their bows drop. The king froze, his hand half-raised in a command that died on his lips. The crowd fell silent.
Even the flames seemed to still.