Chapter Five #2
A moment later, three giant eagles sweep across the air overhead and land on nearby rooftops, causing the Frost Fae to flinch and pause.
The eagles’ riders, including the female rider I saw earlier, leap from their backs, land lithely on the nearest pathway, and prowl toward me, their figures no clearer in the haze than the Frost Fae.
A heartbeat behind the eagles fly three golden serpents, soaring to the back of the workshop, landing in the open space on the other side of it, each of their riders quickly becoming visible again as they hurry toward me on my right, blocking my escape once and for all.
The highborn fae come at me from all three sides: the Frosts from my left, the Irons nearly directly ahead, and the Embers from my right.
I lift my arms away from my body. I can’t put down the Dragonstone Blade, so I’m effectively, unwillingly armed, but at least I can hold it out from my body, indicating that I don’t intend to use it.
As I move, the barest glint of golden light flashes across my palm, making me freeze. An unwanted thread of magic shoots up my arm, filling my heart with terror.
No, no, no. Not another vision from the blade. Not now!—
This time, my mind fills with a cold, silent darkness.
I might be standing, but I can’t be sure. I can’t even be certain I’m breathing, although the taste of dust fills my mouth. It’s ashy, scorched, but not like burning iron, not like flames or even the cold searing of ice.
This scent reeks of decay.
A voice whispers through the darkness.
The three kings seek your destruction, but they crave the Dragonstone Blade even more desperately. You will use it against them.
I can’t tell if my eyes have widened. I can’t control my body at all. I try to speak, but I’m voiceless, a powerlessness I fight against with every fiber of my being.
The more I struggle to move, the harsher the whispering voice becomes.
Summon the kings, it hisses. Force them to earn what they desire. If they desire power, make them earn it. If they desire subjugation, make them earn it. If they wish to dominate you, make them earn it.
You will fight them. Rip and tear at their hearts.
You must destroy them before they can destroy you.
A scream builds within my chest as I struggle against the weight of darkness bearing down on me.
Destroy them, comes the command, and in the next moment, the shadows lift—
I return to myself, my heart in my throat, fearful that the highborn fae might have seized me while my mind was elsewhere, but it seems the vision only lasted a few seconds, because the fae prowling toward me haven’t progressed further than another few steps.
A cold terror settles at the base of my spine, more acute than the fear of being captured.
The whispers spoke of destruction and urged me to fight.
I have no doubt I’ll need to. I’m certain I’m about to face the terrible power, subjugation, and domination the whispers spoke of. I’m determined to fight for my survival with everything I can, but the rage I sensed in the whispers, the fury beating at me from the blade…
It isn’t my own.
It doesn’t belong to me.
My choices must remain mine.
I will decide when it’s time to fight.
I risk a glance at my father. The first lesson he ever taught me was that I’m a danger to anyone who loves me.
He loved me. Now he’s dead. The kings may not have killed him, but we’re here in this village because of them. Exposed to whatever villager stabbed my father because of them.
I’ve run from the three kings my entire life, and I was preparing to hand myself over to their warriors, but now I know I must do more than that.
New resolve settles within my heart as I face the oncoming fae and raise my voice again. “Summon your kings!”
The highborn freeze at my cry, all of them glancing at each other. The tension between them is overwhelming. Each kingdom is an enemy of the other two. If they want to capture or kill me, they will also have to fight each other.
It’s clear they’re willing to do whatever it takes when they resume stalking towards me from all three sides, but none of them does what I asked.
I suppose they think I’m weak.
After all, I appear as nothing more than a lowborn to them, my clothing dripping from the ocean’s water, my hair bedraggled, and, as much as I hate to admit it, shivers now wracking me. I’m cold, exhausted, and riddled with grief.
But I’m determined to make them listen.
I hold the Dragonstone Blade aloft, its cloth covering clamped between my palm and its hilt.
Lowering my voice, I speak quietly this time, soft with deadly intent. “Summon your kings. Or I will kill you with the Dragonstone Blade and summon them myself.”
Each of the warriors stops, stiffens, and then, startlingly, they obey me, stepping back into the shadows, their outlines disappearing into the shroud.
I’m surprised by their immediate retreat, but too soon, I realize it had nothing to do with me.
Three new figures move within the smoke.
“There’s no need to summon us,” comes a deep rumble from the first figure, an intimidating masculine voice, as he steps through the haze directly ahead of me. He brings darkness and the scent of burning iron with him, stopping before he would emerge into the light.
The second man, who approaches on my left, is even taller than the first, his presence sending a wash of icy air across my bare arms. I catch only the unforgiving press of his lips in a beam of sunlight before he, too, stops in the shadows.
His cold whisper reaches me across the suddenly frozen air, ice mingling with iron. “We’re already here.”
The third figure prowls toward me from my right, cloaked in smoke. His features are concealed while heat radiates from him—heat that warms my skin, turning the icy air to summer. The dry scent of desert dunes mingles with burning iron and frozen snow.
“Your screams of pain called us,” this man says, his voice an alluring baritone, as seductive and hypnotic as a deadly serpent before it strikes. “It seems we’ve all answered.”
Each man stops, right at the edge of the thickest smoke, half in shadow and half in light, the friction between them seething with hatred and malice.
The three kings.
Each of them, dark and cruel.
Each of them slowly rips me apart with their shadowed eyes.