Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Maxim
My mortal enemy is within my sight.
Fire bursts from my outstretched hand as I launch myself up from beneath the low-hanging outcrop where I was concealed, swinging myself in an arc onto the mountaintop.
A stream of flame pours from my palm, cutting a circular path through the air, burning the nearby rocks on its way to my target.
Antony crashes back across the rocks, every exposed inch of his skin splitting and peeling in the scorching heat.
His eagle tumbles alongside him, the billowing air catching its wings before the bird snaps them shut and digs its talons into the ground.
I land on the stone at a crouch, the rock I burned melting to lava that pours down the side of the mountain behind me.
Antony regains his balance quickly, twisting midair, dropping his weight and scraping his fingernails along the heat-softened stone, slowing his slide and finally halting his backward spiral.
In that split second of stillness, his head is directly in the path of my fire.
I could kill him.
I snap my right arm in the other direction, casting my fire away from him and his bird before I close my fist. Flames simmer around my right hand, pushing also at my left hand, barely constrained as I rise to my feet and give the Iron King a solemn nod. “Antony.”
Now at a stop, hunched to the ground, Antony glares up at me across the ten paces between us.
“Maxim,” he snarls, his teeth sharp in the light.
Fangs. Fucking fangs.
“Vampyr,” I reply.
Well, that’s a surprise. But I won’t allow it to throw me off-balance.
“I didn’t have to stop,” I say. “I could have burned you to ash already.”
“Then why the fuck haven’t you?”
“Because I always look my enemy in the eye when I kill them.” Withering heat waves beat the air around me. “I’m not my father.”
My father was a coward who sent an Ember Fae assassin to burn the young Iron Prince to death. Except the assassin got it wrong. He mistook his target and badly injured Antony’s younger brother Victor instead.
Lips drawn back from his teeth and muscles tense, Antony rises back to his feet. “I swore to my brother I’d kill you, Maxim. As payment for your father’s crime.”
“As you should.” I incline my head. “Now is your chance to try.”
Without taking his eyes off me, Antony casts a command at his eagle. “Azul, leave us.”
The bird’s feathers are already smoldering in the heat, threatening to catch alight, much like the ragged remains of my pants. Antony’s black pants aren’t faring much better.
For the last three hours, I scaled these dark mountains, climbing sharp cliffs and racing down into valleys flowing with black blood.
At the first opportunity, I coated my body in the foul, black liquid to ensure I was camouflaged.
Even so, I kept to the shadows as I pushed myself to move faster and faster, determined to reach Thyra as quickly as I could.
Then Antony came into view, exposed where he crouched at the edge of this mountain ridge on the bloodlands’ eastern side.
This ridge appears to be one side of a deep ravine.
The side I was already traveling on. Without his armor, I wouldn’t have been certain to recognize Antony except that I’ve seen his uncovered face before.
I stashed the dragon’s hide and its contents in a small alcove within this cliff to free up my hands and quietly renewed my vow to kill Antony if I could.
Now fate is finally on my side.
Despite Antony’s command to the eagle, the bird edges toward me instead of away.
Brave bird.
“I won’t burn you,” I say to the eagle, then I qualify my statement because if the creature remains near me, its death is assured. “Not deliberately. It’s your king I want to kill.”
Antony sneers. “If you want to kill the Iron King, you should find my brother Hadrian.”
“So I heard,” I reply, keeping the eagle in my sights. “I made a promise to one of your dying warriors—a man named Evron—that I would speak to you of his loyalty in the face of Hadrian’s betrayal.”
“Evron’s dead?” Antony jolts, his focus flashing past me, seeking the direction of the Iron Tower where Evron was stationed. Then back to me. “Who killed him?”
If what I’ve heard in the past is correct, Antony dedicated himself to personally training his soldiers. He didn’t abide by the reckless losses his father caused to their army. Because of that, it doesn’t surprise me that he seems to recognize the young man’s name.
“A captain killed him,” I say. “Someone he trusted. Don’t worry; I ended the murderer’s life. I don’t tolerate traitors.”
Antony is like stone, his fingernails as sharp as claws.
Stiffly, he inclines his head but wisely doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Azul,” he says, addressing the bird. “I’ve lost enough already today. I will not ask again. Go. Now.”
The eagle gnashes its beak at Antony, its feathers ruffling, dark blue and shimmering in the gleaming light of the fiery air.
But it finally seems to give in, backing away slowly and carefully. Smart to move gradually. If it were to rise rapidly into the air, it would only fan the smoldering heat building across its body.
I’m intrigued when the animal heads not northward, where the air and mountains are clear, but around behind Antony, moving along the mountain ridge and angling toward the cliff face that blocks the end of the ravine.
My eyes are extremely strained in the dark, a weakness I’m certain Antony will recognize by how large my pupils must be.
The pain is alleviated by the amber light radiating from my body, but when I take the chance to glance at the apparently impenetrable wall of rock toward which the bird is headed, the strain lifts even more.
It only takes me a second to realize a faint light gleams from within that wall of rock.
A light source in a place where light isn’t supposed to exist.
Now clear of my immediate flames, the eagle moves toward the light as quickly as it can.
I can’t pay any more attention to either the bird or the mysterious glow because Antony has begun to pace opposite me.
I stand my ground, watching for his attack.
He will have speed on his side. Along with the power of flight—a trait of vampyrs.
I can’t underestimate him.
As I brace for our battle to begin, he startles me with a quieter-than-expected statement.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation before now.”
It’s true.
Until three days ago, we had never stood in each other’s presence, and even at that time, we spoke with Thyra, not with each other. She was the pivot around which we circled.
More predictably, Antony follows up with, “Do you have any final words before I end you?”
I scoff. “Do you?”
He stops pacing. But it seems he’s taking my question seriously. Maybe he even set me up to ask it.
“I have a request,” he says. “Two, actually.”
I narrow my eyes and adjust my balance, wary of the distraction now. He grew up in the Starlit Court, a cesspool of intrigue where fae lives are playthings for bored highborn. He will have learned manipulation like an artform.
If this is a game, I don’t intend to play.
“Tell me,” I say. “So I can burn whatever you hope to achieve.”
For the first time since I arrived, he closes his eyes.
Shakes his head.
“Fucking hope.” With a grimace, he squares his shoulders and looks me in the eye again. “My sister, Cassia, and my brother Victor. You will not kill them.”
He loves his family more than his life. When I fought Cassia three days ago, she confirmed it.
I’m wary of the apparent sincerity in his request.
I begin a slow back and forth pace of my own. “And the second request, assuming that wasn’t both?”
“Thyra,” Antony says. “She—”
He stops. His shoulders hunch and his voice becomes softer. “If she ever stands at your side, you will protect her with your life.”
He takes a step toward me, and as much as I suspect he’s been distracting me, it’s impossible to ignore the savage intent in his promise.
“If you ever hurt her, I will come back from whatever ash you’ve turned me into, and I will tear you to pieces.”
With that, he leaps at me.
His speed is astounding, his body a blur.
But I’m ready, my feet planted and my fire hot.
My right fist crashes into his oncoming chest, using his momentum against him.
His bones crack, his ribcage collapses, and fire explodes between us.