Chapter 9 Antony
Chapter Nine
Antony
She’s so fucking beautiful right now that I would cut off my arm if she commanded it.
When I first saw her, her physical appearance was that of any other lowborn.
Not right now.
At the moment that a stream of golden power coursed up her arm, pouring from the blade, her appearance transformed.
Her eyes deepened from dull blue to alluring brown, her hair darkened to inky black, and her lips became crimson, parting with a gentle sigh, an alluring exhalation that called to me like the sweetest song.
Now, her back presses against the wall; her fear is a sharp contradiction to her captivating beauty. Fear I no longer want her to have.
The Dragonstone Blade has sunk into her skin, along with the ivory cloth it was wrapped in, both now appearing like ink along and around her right arm.
For a few dangerous heartbeats, I don’t care how that happened or that the blade can no longer be seized.
I don’t fucking care what magic is at play here.
Her whisper wraps around my mind. “You must earn what you desire.”
Her. She is what I desire. More than anything in the world.
And for that very reason, I can’t allow myself to trust her right now.
Just as the stories told, her beauty at this moment is pure seduction.
Her ability to change her appearance to appeal to my most basic desires is beyond cunning.
Now I understand how the False Queen beguiled the Serulian King.
Now I comprehend how a kingdom could be shattered and its people forced to pay an endlessly cruel price.
All of her lowborn fury and openness have vanished. Her vulnerability, along with the possibility of truth in her eyes, is gone.
Whatever spell this version of her is weaving, I have to hold on to my reason. More so because this cursed magic seems to be keeping my enemies at bay, but I sense it won’t hold for much longer.
My instincts roar at me that their power is about to explode.
Worse, my back is to them. I’m exposed. And if the rumors about each of their powers are true, then Stellen’s ice will shred the meat off my bones while Maxim’s fire burns me to ash.
Of course, if they attack, they’ll kill the Oracle, too.
She is, after all, flesh and blood like the rest of us.
Maybe they won’t take that chance, but I can’t risk it.
“What I desire?” I can’t help but smile, fully conscious that it promises pain. “Why don’t we find out what that could be?”
I prepare for a sharp retort from her, but she simply closes her luminous eyes.
“To you,” she whispers. “I will submit.”
Fuck.
Her promise sends a shot of heat through my body, triggering an intense need I can’t possibly hope to quench.
Damn her.
With five short words, she threatens to slay me.
I can’t let this connection between us continue. This thread that spears from her heart to mine.
I need it to end.
Swiftly, I calculate my next moves, knowing every second will count.
With a sweep of my free hand, I snatch two iron-bladed daggers from the built-in harness at my chest, gripping both one-handed.
Then I raise my axe with a guttural roar.
The Oracle’s eyes fly wide as my axe strikes toward the thread between us, but just when it would sever all three, they retract, vanishing. Even the one at her back disappears, and it’s unclear to me if they’ll return.
I don’t have time to think about it.
Now that the threads are gone, I’m ready for the consequences, the ice and fire that are about to rage toward me.
As fast as I can, I slip my axe into the harness at my back, sweep my now-free right arm around the Oracle, wrench her up against my chest, and then I’m running.
I’ve barely taken three steps when the explosion of ice and fire erupts around us.
Ember fire and Frost ice collide in an earth-shaking blast that threatens to strip the flesh off my back, no matter how fast I run from it.
My only escape is to the north. There are no buildings there, but it’s also where the Embers landed their serpents.
As I run, the Oracle wraps her arms around my chest and her legs around my hips, risking the safety of her limbs in the process, but she doesn’t have much choice.
She clings to me as I spin and let loose the two daggers I retrieved moments ago.
My power guides them in their flight, and each one strikes true.
One at Maxim’s chest. The other at Stellen’s throat.
Their reflexes are as fast as mine, their eyes no longer glazed. They pluck the iron blades from the air, their fists closing safely around the steel handles, right before the metal would have struck them, all while their powers clash against each other, neither defusing the other.
In the next heartbeat, their ice and flames hit the surrounding buildings, and the structures explode.
Shards of wood tear in all directions.
An object hits my back, piercing my right shoulder. I sense the impact through my armor and the instant flow of blood, but I can’t stop to discover what the object is or assess the extent of the damage. My arm still works, and that’s what matters.
Ahead of me, the golden serpents scatter, clearly panicked by the collision of power. Three of them shoot into the air, their riders’ shouts unintelligible as they’re wrenched upward.
One serpent remains on the ground, larger than the others, its scales a dark amber, its body crouched low to the ground, its tail thumping the rocks, and its focus on a point behind me.
It must be Maxim’s beast.
Several burned patches mar its scales. They aren’t fresh burns, appearing old and scarred over, the creature’s scales attempting regrowth. More evidence of the rumors that Maxim’s power burns anything.
I lift my eyes to the sky as I continue to run.
All I care about right now is the red-eyed eagle swooping down to me through the chaos.
My roar when I wanted to cut through the Oracle’s threads wasn’t only a shout of anger.
It was also my call to him.
I’m conscious of three other eagles taking to the sky at the far corner of my vision. My sister’s bird is among them. A moment of fear rockets down my spine when spears of ice shoot into the air behind her and flames billow into her path.
I don’t have time to check if she’s okay.
My eagle is right above me.
Timing my movements, I use all of my strength to leap upward, lightly catch hold of his wing joint to guide my path above his wing, and land on his back, all while the Oracle clings to me, her head tucked against my neck, her body tense.
Maybe she fears I’ll throw her to the ground.
If there’s anything she shouldn’t fear, it’s that I would let her go.
I would die first.
But I’m not alone in my desperation. Maxim and Stellen won’t let me escape without a fight. They need the Oracle as badly as I do.
Risking a glance behind me, I make out Maxim racing toward his serpent and leaping onto its back. It’s already rising into the air when his feet leave the ground, and within seconds, he’s soaring after me.
Across the way and to my right, I make out the white bodies of four giant wolves racing past the edge of the village and into the open, heading toward the mountains.
It’s the only way out of here.
I once made the mistake of believing Frost wolves could never match my eagle’s speed. After all, a flying creature will always beat a beast running on the ground.
Not those fucking wolves.
They run faster than any other land animal and can reach immense heights when they leap into the air.
Stellen has split up from his people, his wolf faster and stronger, already scaling the side of the mountain I’m approaching.
Icy spears strike past me, shooting up from beneath my eagle and to my right, driving me further into Stellen’s path.
No doubt he’ll plan his attack for the nearest mountain peak. His people will use their icy spears to force my eagle low enough for his wolf to leap into the air and take us down.
What’s more, Maxim will let it happen.
His serpent soars after my eagle, turning when my eagle turns, rising when my eagle rises, keeping a short distance between us while mirroring my path.
He can’t use his power, or he’ll risk burning the Oracle, so he’ll stay on us, let us go down when Stellen’s wolf grabs us, and then he’ll come after us. He won’t be afraid of the fight that will inevitably follow.
Fuck that.
Banking slightly right and soaring dangerously low, I watch carefully as Lilis and her men rally for another barrage of icy projectiles. I can practically see Lilis’s cruel smile. She must think I’m getting desperate, or that I don’t see their plan.
A flurry of ice rages toward me.
At the last moment, I lean left, and my eagle responds instantly, wrenching us up and into the clear air.
Maxim’s serpent flies directly into the path of the ice. His reflexes are as fast as mine. Flames ignite behind us, and, at the corner of my eye, the icy spears evaporate into nothing.
A firebolt forms in Maxim’s hand.
It shrieks through the air, directly at Lilis and her men.
They scatter before it hits the ground, sending rivers of lava chasing after them.
I can’t help my smile. Maxim must be fucking fed up right now if his fire is that hot.
My grin vanishes as my eagle soars up the side of the mountain. We’re dangerously low, and I’ve lost sight of Stellen’s wolf. We’re no longer in his original path, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t change course…
The white beast appears out of nowhere, leaping from the edge of the mountain, its claws raking the air and its teeth gnashing at my eagle’s exposed right side.
My bird screeches and jolts to the left, wildly beating his wings as the wolf flies past. But the white beast isn’t my greatest concern.
Stellen leaps from the wolf’s back right into the air, one of his white-bladed swords striking neatly toward the exposed side of my face where my armor was burned off.
It’s a perfect killing strike.
His long blade will slice right through my head, right through my skull, killing me without harming the Oracle. He will catch her before my dead body falls…
At that exact moment, the Oracle changes her position.
Her left hand slips up to cover my exposed cheek, cupping my face, a startling touch that makes me freeze.
The top of her head presses harder against the bottom of my chin, and her whole body tenses.
My mind spins so fucking hard at her touch.
How long has it been since another fae willingly touched me?
Within the sudden mess of sensation, I’m certain of only one thing: If Stellen wants to kill me, he’ll have to cut up the Oracle’s hand.
I catch his widening eyes before he pulls the strike, wrenching his sword away from her.
He sails past us without drawing blood and drops to the ground far below.
Landing as lightly as a feather, he rights himself, his sword swinging down by his side, before he tips his head back to watch us go.
The Oracle’s callused palm feathering my cheek is a distraction I can’t afford because the danger isn’t over.
Maxim has stayed on our tail.
I grit my teeth in frustration.
There’s only one way he’ll stop following me.
I urge my eagle to the right, and he obeys me. He wouldn’t, if he knew where I planned to take us.
We shoot across the wide coastal mountains, our speed picking up now that we can fly on a straighter path. Even so, he follows the best currents, creating slipstreams that buffet our pursuer.
It won’t be long before Maxim resorts to using his flame. He must be desperate now to find a way to take me down.
He won’t have a chance much longer.
The bloodlands loom up ahead, the shadowed mountains sheltering even darker valleys. Black clouds boil across the sky, blocking out even a single ray of light, covering the bloodlands in constant, starless night.
To travel through, or even fly across, that cursed land is to invite death.
Maxim won’t follow me there. Stellen wouldn’t either. I’m certain of this, at least in Stellen’s case, because he’s never tried a stealth attack along the edge of my kingdom that borders the bloodlands.
Now, Maxim will need to decide if the Oracle is worth the very real risk to his life. After all, he’d have a greater chance of fighting his way into my kingdom from the south, assuming he’s willing to let her go for even a day.
Leaning left this time, I force my eagle to turn toward the shadowed lands.
The bird fights me, pulling in the other direction, at which I give a guttural roar, “Turn!”
A shiver runs through his body before he obeys.
I don’t trick myself into believing it’s because of loyalty.
There’s a reason no other eagle will carry me.
His response is pure fear.
I can fucking smell it on him.
He’s more afraid of me than he is of the monsters lurking in the bloodlands. At least he has a chance of escaping them.
The shadows rise ahead of us. Only moments away.
I take a deep breath of sunlit air, and with it comes the scent of the Oracle’s hair. A powerful mix of fragrances that even the rushing wind can’t snatch away.
Salty sea water. Melted ice. Ashen flame. Bloodied iron.
She’s remarkably still, nestled tightly against me, her left palm remaining against my cheek while the air beats at my arm across her back.
I risk a glance at her face. Her eyes are closed. Her head is tipped back a little, her lips near my exposed neck, an intoxicating nearness. The rise and fall of her chest reflects deep, slow breaths. I imagine I can feel her soft exhalations against the base of my chin.
Even with her eyes closed, it’s clear that her features have returned to the way they were when I first saw her.
She appears, once again, as a lowborn fae.
In fact, if I think back, she resumed her faded hair and eyes the moment I severed the connective threads between us.
Her skin is no longer luminous. Her hair is once again dull black. And yet, she is more powerful like this.
When she submitted to me, she was physically beautiful, mesmerizing, but after that, when she slid her hand to my face and saved my life, she was as she is now. No guile. No allure. Simply determined. Ready to put her body on the line.
I don’t know how to feel about that.
I’m so focused on her, so perplexed by her complexities, that I miss the final rays of light.
I’m suddenly aware that Maxim has fallen back.
His roar of frustration strikes across the increasing distance between us.
In the next heartbeat, darkness swallows us.