33. Antony
Chapter Thirty-Three
Antony
I’m going to make Hadrian hurt.
For what he’s done to my family, and that includes Thyra.
I soar along the charcoal cliffs and to the Ember border.
Earlier, I caught sight of Azul heading in the same direction as me but flying farther inland. I’m certain he’ll steer clear of the border towers, where explosions indicate the Ember and Iron Fae are locked in battle.
It took me hours to reach this point even at full speed and my mind hasn’t stopped churning with everything Victor told me.
Most importantly, I’m flying into this battle with my brother’s blessing. What I’m about to do might help the Ember Fae, but I’ll also make Hadrian pay.
Behind me, artificial starlight gleams across the Iron Kingdom while ahead of me, the natural moonlight is obscured in thick plumes of black smoke quickly cut through with blasts of frost.
I don’t intend to make my presence known, keeping to the shadows as I proceed carefully toward the center of the battle where Hadrian has concentrated his weapons.
No doubt, he’s determined to cut a wedge into the Ember Kingdom, especially at nighttime when his army won’t be exposed to the heat.
So far, Stellen’s repelling the smoke, but Hadrian’s oil and iron supplies are deep.
My grin fades. Hadrian’s playing the long game. Losing for now, but the goal will be to wear Stellen down.
Judging by the waning strength of the next explosion of ice, Stellen won’t be able to fight much longer. Not that the Ember Fae aren’t working well with him. Where Stellen isn’t, the Ember warriors are.
I reach the chaos, approaching the back of the Iron Army.
In the sky up ahead, a group of Ember Fae on golden serpents have driven a legion of eagle riders back across the border into Iron airspace, near to the line of catapults.
It would make sense to try to explode the bombs before they can launch, but the waiting canisters are encased in a shield that protects them from aerial attack.
They aren’t protected from me.
I ease my pace, creeping up on the nearest sentry, whose attention is, understandably, on the battle ahead.
My vampyric speed is so quick that he doesn’t have a chance.
I ram him up against the side of the Tower, my hand around his throat, his feet kicking the air, but I don’t rip his head off just yet.
With a quick slice of my fingernails, I cut through the armor on both of his arms to expose his skin.
He wears the mark of Hadrian.
If he weren’t a follower, I would give him a chance. Oh, well. He made his choice.
Sweat pours down his face, but he attempts to spit at me. Fails. His mouth moves as he tries to speak, but I’m gripping him too tightly.
I ease up my hold, but not so much that he’ll get enough air to shout for help.
“Speak your last words,” I say.
He rasps, barely above a whisper, “Long live Hadrian, the Eternal Heir—”
Crack.
I feel it more than hear it, the man’s end drowned out by another explosion.
Without hesitation, I bite his broken neck, gulping down his dying blood. A practical move on my part, since I need the energy, but I can’t delay to take my fill.
Quietly, I make my way to the next sentry and then the next, taking them out one by one, on the lookout for Hadrian as I get closer to the catapults.
I’m not surprised when I don’t see him. Maybe he’s hiding in one of the Iron Towers, but I doubt he’d put himself in any kind of danger. Particularly when the Frost King is near. Not that I’d label Hadrian a coward, but he’s cunning. He’ll be wary of Stellen’s Lethian Voice. As he should be.
Approaching the nearest catapult, I eye the boxes of ammunition near to them, some boxes containing smaller canisters that the airborne but masked eagle riders are using to throw at their enemies. At least they have the sense to also mask their birds.
I reach the first catapult.
Now, the real fun will begin.
I draw on my vampyric speed as I silently draw my axe, leap into the air, and shoot across to the weapon.
I’m peripherally aware of the increased chaos around and ahead of me. The warriors in formations guarding the catapult while it fired are suddenly forced to defend an attack from behind, which they clearly didn’t expect.
My focus is unwavering: The small latch at the side of the shield at the catapult’s base, where Victor ensured the fastening would be weak.
It will still take enormous force to break it.
He told me every piece of this catapult had to be carved following the wood’s grain and using its natural variations. An enormous feat to construct five catapults in the short time he was given, but then, when I found him, he was so exhausted, he was barely upright.
Ignoring the warriors converging on me, I crash down on the mechanism, using my acute eyesight to aim my axe’s blade perfectly.
Snap.
This time, I hear it.
The metal spring Victor hid within the latch releases and the shield flies wide, ricocheting so fast across the air that it takes out two of the warriors running toward me.
The canisters are now exposed.
Without pause, I smash the back of my axe down onto the nearest ceramic orb, spilling its oily contents.
I leap backward, evading every droplet and shooting across the boxes of ammunition, my outstretched hand flipping lids one by one.
At the corner of my eye, I’m aware of an Ember Fae who appears to be leading the Embers’ aerial formations. It’s clear he’s seen me. Saw what I did.
His fire burns more crimson than the other Ember Fae’s.
Shooting forward on his serpent, he blasts fire from both of his hands, one directly at the catapult. The other at the ammunition boxes.
Damn, but he’s brave.
By breaking formation, he’s not only exposed himself to attack, but he’s flying straight toward canisters that are about to—
Whoomph.
The explosion knocks into me, but my speed was already immense, and I absorb the impact.
Not so for the Ember Fae with the red flame.
Black smoke billows across the air and this time, it’s flowing within Iron’s borders, not southward across Ember.
The fae with the red flame is engulfed in it. Surely to perish…
A second later, he punches through the black smoke right behind me, and I’m fucking amazed at his fearlessness. I have no doubt, despite his bravery, that he will have inhaled the toxins.
He follows my path as I soar to the next catapult and deal it the same blow. With smoke now billowing around them, the legions of Iron Fae are in disarray.
The second I fly away from the catapult, the Ember Fae’s crimson fire smashes into the broken canisters I leave behind.
I’m onto the next one. And the next.
Lagging behind me for a few seconds, the Ember Fae with the crimson fire lifts a horn to his lips and blows a quick series of calls that must be a command for his men to retreat because moments later, the Ember Fae fully retreat behind their border, rushing away from the smoke.
Closer on my left now, Stellen’s frost explodes again, but not in a vicious blast, this time swirling along the border, forming a barrier of misty snowflakes.
I catch sight of Stellen on his white wolf running parallel to my position before the smoke grows dark at my back and I’m onto the next catapult.
And then the final catapult, while the Iron Army is in chaos. I guess they didn’t all have masks, because the shouting and screaming from within the onslaught is brutal.
Even those who do have masks won’t be able to see clearly in this dark pall. Not like I can.
As for the iron dust now entering my own chest, well, it fucking burns, but Thyra’s blood won’t let me die. No matter how mangled my heart has become.
I fly through the last cloud of black smoke, having reached the far side of the flat land between mountains.
Landing at the side of the nearest rocky outcrop where I cling to the stone, I wait for the Ember Fae with the red fire to punch through the smoke behind me.
No sign of him.
Across the way, still on my left, Stellen raises his hands where he sits on his wolf, frost sparkling from his palms, his shout urgent. “Kaiba!”
A second later, the man’s serpent shoots from the smoke, but his rider isn’t on his back.
It seems the man, Kaiba, must be important enough that Stellen’s leaping off his wolf and running into the smoke.
I expect Stellen’s frost power to blast from his hands, but…no.
The smallest glimmer of snowflakes mist around his body before he runs into the fumes and not a single blast of frost follows.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was all out of power.
Yet he’s racing into the darkness on behalf of his enemy.
What the actual…?
I cling to the mountainside for another moment. I shouldn’t care. But I can’t ignore Kaiba’s courage or the way he commanded his people to retreat while he took on the danger, the mark of an honorable leader.
Fuck it.
I launch myself back into the smoke.
Swirling fumes shift as I make out Stellen’s form ahead of me, twenty paces away and running deeper into the smoke.
His arm is flung over his eyes and his head is tilted sharply while he runs at an angle. He might not be able to see in this darkness, but he appears confident about his target.
I race in the same direction, and a moment later, the Ember Fae’s fallen body becomes visible. Three Iron Fae lie dead around him, but I guess Kaiba didn’t have the chance to steal their masks before he succumbed to the smoke.
With a burst of speed, I reach him at the same time Stellen does.
Stellen pulls up sharply, his gray robes covered in soot, his white hair nearly blackened as he darts between me and Kaiba.
“Iron King,” he snaps, the power of his Voice cracking over me. “You will not hurt this fae.”
“Get the fuck out of your own way, Stellen.” Quickly, I shake off the compulsion of his Voice. Not difficult because my intentions aren’t malicious. “I’ll carry him out, but if you want him to live, you’ll have to do something about his state of health.”
Stellen narrows his eyes at me, distrusting, as he should be, but he steps aside.
Scooping up Kaiba and hoisting him across my shoulder, I run westward, keeping to the Iron side of the border, aiming for the shadows at the base of the mountain where I was clinging to the outcrop before.
I won’t cross into Ember if I can help it. Too many enemies.
We make it to the edge of the swelling smoke before a thump behind me makes me spin.
Stellen is on his knees, sliding to the rocky ground.
Fucking fuck.
I grab his shoulder before he can fall on his face, dragging him along beside me into the clear air.
And then farther still, heading closer to the Ember border than I’d like, since the mist Stellen created has remained sparkling in the air and can only help him and Kaiba.
Stellen’s magic may look fragile, but it seems to have formed an impenetrable shield across the air against any smoke drifting south.
The Ember Army is now located safely behind it.
I let Stellen slide to the rocky ground and lower Kaiba from my shoulder, laying him out.
With a groan, Stellen hauls himself across the gap between him and Kaiba and thumps his fist against Kaiba’s chest.
The Ember man takes a sharp breath, heaving coughs as he stares up at us both.
“Iron King,” he says. “I—”
I cut him off. “I did this for the Oracle.” And then to Stellen, I add, “I would have left you in there, but I doubt she would have forgiven me.”
I’ve already done enough to hurt her.
Stellen hacks out black smoke as he drags himself into a sitting position, but it doesn’t seem to be the toxins that are hurting him.
His right fist is clenched and pressed to his heart.
Glaring up at me, he rasps, “You destroyed her when you chose to leave her.”
I did choose to leave her. Back in Frost. She asked me to stay and I left her in Stellen’s arms while her mind was consumed in a blade vision and she couldn’t stop me.
The clear anger in Stellen’s voice unsettles me. An emotion I wasn’t expecting.
He’s heartless… Isn’t he?
Stellen drags himself to his feet, his height enabling him to look down on me. Not by much. Just enough to annoy me.
Kaiba wisely moves himself backward, crouching and rising to his feet. He gives Stellen a formal nod.
For me, he has a stern stare. Even braver on his part.
“I need to get back to my warriors,” he says. “Whatever business you two need to settle, keep it away from my men. We still have a border to defend.”
Without waiting for our agreement, he turns and races toward Ember.
Right now, my greatest care is Thyra. “Where is she?”
“With Maxim.” Watching me carefully, Stellen tilts his head. “They went into the dark channel in the west.” His brow suddenly furrows and his fist presses harder to his chest, his voice lowering. “I can’t hear them anymore. I should be able to—”
His eyes suddenly fly wide.
I’m only a heartbeat behind, a sudden horror flooding my mind, even though I have no reason for the sensation.
My fist also flies to my heart. “What the fuck?”
What is this dread?
“Burning,” Stellen says.
“Darkness.” I snarl. “We have to get to her.”
Stellen launches into a run, emitting a shrill whistle, at which his wolf races toward us. He leaps onto her back and they speed up the side of the mountain, heading northwest.
I’m in quick pursuit, flying through the air, a nameless panic tugging at my heart.