Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Maxim
Iwake with a roar, scorching flames bursting around me.
Fire beats against the walls of my underground cave, searing the rock in every direction. My body’s heat floods the air, but it’s the least of my concerns.
The Oracle’s voice cries in my mind, stunningly urgent, a near-scream demanding my attention.
Yet her elusive form is like a dream I can’t grasp, and the harder I try to hold on, the faster she escapes me.
Lurching up onto my knees, I roar into the fire, “What are you trying to tell me?”
Her voice screams, “Darkness! My heart… It hurts…”
My fire fades, and so do her words, leaving me surrounded by smoldering rock and smoke-filled air and a silence that deafens me.
I slump forward, my shoulders hunched, my hands planted on the cave floor, my body as scorching hot as the stone beneath me.
Final ripples of fire radiate through my bones before the silence becomes complete, leaving my mind to churn.
I don’t understand how I heard her just now. For that matter, I don’t know how I connected with her yesterday.
I wasn’t dreaming then, and now I ask myself: If I hadn’t been sleeping just now, would I have seen and heard her more clearly?
I always sleep during the hottest part of the day. All my people do. When the sun scorches the sand, even Ember Fae must escape to the cool caverns beneath the desert’s surface.
Well, except for me. I can roam the dunes when the sun’s heat would strip the flesh from other fae’s bones. I choose to sleep when my people sleep because it’s a connection to normalcy. An illusion to sustain the belief that I can carve out a life like theirs.
Now, I berate myself for it.
If I’d been awake, I might have heard what the Oracle was trying to tell me.
If nothing else, her cries have reinforced my greatest challenge: I don’t have a hope of wresting her from Antony’s control if I can’t keep her safe from my flames.
I spent nearly all of last night putting together a plan, starting with considering each of the Iron Kingdom’s weakest southern points I could infiltrate.
I’ll have to travel on foot because my serpent will be seen and intercepted in the air, but if I go alone and move quietly from village to village, I’m certain I can make it all the way to the Starlit City without detection. From there, I can figure out how to take the Oracle from Antony’s control.
No matter how well I plan, it’s my fire that will be my undoing.
For that, I have a solution.
I just haven’t wanted to risk it until now.
With a snarl of determination, I lurch to my feet completely naked and stumble along the narrow, meandering tunnel that leads to the cave’s entrance.
I draw a sharp breath at how molten the rock walls have become and how far my fire has extended.
This corridor stems my fire and stops it from reaching any other tunnels within the underground city, where my people spend much of their time. But the charring on the walls tells me my fire traveled much further than it has before.
My power’s getting worse. But I fucking knew that already.
It takes me a full five minutes to reach the outer cave closer to the surface, where I store my clothing and armor.
I choose my most inconspicuous options—high boots, long pants, long sleeves, along with a cowl, hood, and face mask. It’s the same garb my people wear, and, in this clothing, I can disappear into any crowd. Unrecognizable.
For that reason, I also select not one, but two spare sets of clothing, including a spare pair of boots, and stuff them into a satchel.
We spin our clothing from fire-resistant thread, even our fine silks, which makes life easier for other Ember Fae.
But it ultimately makes no difference for me.
The fire-resistant material may burn more slowly but it can’t withstand my flames.
Far better to be over-prepared than to stumble around naked.
Once dressed, I pull up the hood, tugging it low over my forehead, my fingers brushing the cut on my jaw where Cassia’s iron-tipped arrow cut and burned me yesterday. I may be able to heal broken bones in a flash, but an iron burn is not so quickly cured.
No matter. I’ll heal by tomorrow. I’m certain of it.
Quickly, I emerge into the blistering heat, my boots crunching in the sand.
I pull up short to find my sister, Zenaida, waiting at my cave’s entrance. “Zenaida?”
The dark-orange silks swathed around her body flutter in the scorching breeze as she takes a knee, her eyes lowered. “Brother.”
Only those at the top of the hierarchy call me anything but ‘my king.’ Zenaida is my only sibling and, to spare my people the threat of my presence, she takes care of day-to-day domestic matters for me.
Similarly, my cousin Kaiba has proven himself a loyal General. He and Zenaida report to me each night.
Neither of them approaches me during the day unless there’s an emergency.
I’m immediately on guard. “What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She raises her eyes to mine and gives me a shrug. “Too many bad dreams. I needed a walk.”
My eyebrows rise at the irony of her calm reply, and I can’t keep the incredulity from my voice. “So you chose the very relaxing and completely safe option of strolling in my direction?”
In the scorching sun, no less.
The silks she wears over her head and body protect her tan skin from the sun’s worst effects, but the way the material clings to her forehead tells me she’s already beginning to sweat. Not a small thing for an Ember Fae.
The golden jewelry she wears close to her skin clinks softly as she rises gracefully to her feet. She folds her hands in front of herself, the first nervous gesture she’s made, although I’m not sure if she realizes it’s a tell—or that I recognize it.
“Perhaps I miss your company,” she says, tipping her chin.
“Or perhaps there’s something on your mind.”
The tension around her eyes increases as she says, “You need to choose a successor.”
Oof. Of all the problems I thought she might bring my way…
She may as well have punched me.
Asking me to choose a successor is akin to wishing me dead.
It also means she’s under pressure from the other families, and would have been for months, since I know my sister well enough to know she doesn’t move quickly.
She never makes rash decisions. She considers all angles and strategizes thoroughly.
It’s why I’ve trusted her to run my kingdom for years.
I force myself to speak past the tightness in my throat. “Is this coming from you or from the Ember Court?”
She doesn’t shuffle. Doesn’t flinch. “Both.”
It’s lucky my fire is so recently exhausted, or flames would lick around my hands. As it is, this might be one of the few times she can risk angering me.
Perhaps she chose her ‘walk’ at this time of day for that very reason.
I focus on breathing through the heat waves wafting around us, listening to the wind as it plucks at the sand and billows our clothing.
I guess she takes my silence as permission to continue speaking. “You don’t have a child, Maxim.”
“That’s fucking obvious.” My low snarl should deter her, but it seems she’s determined.
“It’s clear your ability to produce an heir is long past—”
“No.”
My sharp response makes her flinch, but again, she perseveres. By fuck, she must have been thinking about the problem of succession for a long time to be so resolute about having this conversation now.
“You know I’m speaking the truth.”
Before yesterday, I would have agreed with her.
Then I met the Oracle.
“No,” I say. “There’s still time.”
The Oracle gave me my first taste of freedom from fire. I have hope now.
I want to tell my sister all about it, but she doesn’t know where I went yesterday. The three warriors I summoned to come with me are sworn to secrecy. I don’t trust them, but the threat I made against their families will ensure their silence.
“What time?” she challenges me. “The longer you wait to choose your successor, the more intense the political games become. Surely you see them?”
I haven’t been oblivious. I just didn’t contemplate that my people would dismiss my own lifespan so readily. I guess that’s the problem with being an absent king.
They can forget I even exist.
I bend to the sand at my feet, running my gloved hand through the granules, leaving Zenaida to tower over me for all of two seconds before she drops to her knees.
“Brother—”
“Soon,” I say.
She blinks at me, her silks whipping about her face as the wind picks up, nearly snatching her softly spoken question. “Soon?”
I let the sand run from my fingers. “I will choose a successor soon.” I pin her with my gaze. “But I won’t be hurried.”
Let the political games intensify.
If any members of the court wish to be considered, they will need to gain my favor. I’m certain the process will reveal who’s ambitious enough to cozy up to me and shake loose my true enemies.
At my response, Zenaida exhales in an audible rush, the tension fading from her shoulders. “Of course, Brother. It’s a significant decision. I’ll ensure you’re given the time you need.”
Always graceful, she glides to her feet and backs away from me. Certainly, now that she has her answer, she will want to remove herself from my presence as quickly as possible.
“As always,” she says, bowing as she retreats, “please let me know if I can assist you.”
“I will.”
Within moments, she hurries away across the sand dunes, her jewelry chiming softly as she heads for one of the several cave-like entrances to the underground city.
I’m left with a heaviness in my chest that doesn’t sit well with me.
Zenaida and I don’t have a close relationship, but I’ve trusted her. Now, I will need to be on guard. By Ember Law, women can’t ascend the throne—or fight—but Zenaida herself will surely have a favorite. I can’t ignore the possibility that she could act against me in the coming days.
Fuck. Just when I needed the eyes of my kingdom turned away from me…
If she had known where I was going now, she would have tried to stop me.
Even more determined, I quickly approach the dune within which my serpent sleeps.
He’ll sense my approach by the vibrations in the earth.
Just as I anticipated, he rises from within the sand before I’m even close to him and slides toward me, spraying sand as he carves a path through the amber granules.
“We’re traveling south,” I say to him when he draws to a stop in front of me, his head tilted expectantly. “All the way to the ocean.”
It will be a long journey, a risk for him to be in contact with me for so many hours, just as it was a risk for him yesterday to carry me to Perotia on the western coast.
Even more perilous, given my intended destination.
He hasn’t backed away from me yet, so, with a deep breath, I continue, “I’m going to the Tol-Dakri Tribe.”
A shiver runs the length of his body, and he thumps his tail against the sand, a sign of agitation.
I give a nod. “I know the danger I’m asking you to fly into.”
Again, I wait for him to back away.
I have no other way to get there, but I won’t force him to carry me. If he’s unwilling, he could become a liability.
Slowly, he angles his head closer to mine, his tail continuing to thump as he peers hard at me, his eyes bright with a wisdom that only a desert creature could acquire.
He knows this land. All its shifting sands. All its perils.
I stand my ground. “I have no choice.”
The thumping slows. Then stops.
With a soft hiss, he lowers his head, a sign he’ll carry me.
Acknowledging his courage, I press my forehead to the side of his face, a brief thanks that, ironically, only puts him in greater danger. “Thank you, friend.”
I haven’t named him. If he already had a name, I don’t know it. He slithered out of the sand two years ago and presented himself to me for reasons I don’t understand.
Quickly, I strap the satchel to his back, but I’m not unaware of the final shiver that runs the length of his body.
His concern is warranted.
I may be the Ember King, but the Tol-Dakri don’t fear my fire.
They’d rather skin me alive than help me.