58. Maxim
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Maxim
Thyra is no longer safe in my kingdom.
My serpent speeds through the air, the Tol-Dakri city a speck on the horizon behind us as we soar directly north toward the charcoal tower.
My truce with Stellen and Antony may be breakable, but they won’t risk Thyra’s life. Above all else, I know that to be true. If they’ve taken Thyra to the tower where I’ve allowed Stellen to stay, then they can get her swiftly out of my kingdom.
Ha. My kingdom. Soon, it won’t be mine any longer.
When Thyra’s safe, I’ll hand over my crown to Kaiba.
Then I’ll seek out Miriam and find out who and what I really am.
And then, maybe then, I’ll be able to do something about all of these fucking blood binds.
My serpent stays high as the northern border comes into view, keeping his path well above the last fae leaving the dunes below so I don’t startle them.
I guess tonight was the first night my people felt safe enough to come up to the surface, but they’ve clearly packed up earlier than normal, the final lines of fae disappearing into the underground cities.
Sudden movement on my right forces me to lean abruptly left, taking evasive measures as the wind buffets us.
My eyes widen as a flock of riderless eagles soars out from behind the charcoal cliffs in the east and cuts directly northwest toward the Ember Towers.
A monstrous blue beast leads them forward, a congregation of birds so large in number, they could be a storm upsetting the air around me.
I know that beast. A shout rises to my throat. “Azul!”
He’s headed straight for death and I’m too far behind to stop him.
Up ahead, Kaiba’s red flames burst across the sky, a warning shot before his horn sounds the alarm.
He will have seen that the eagles are riderless, but he won’t be able to give them the benefit of doubt.
These birds belong to the Iron Kingdom. There is no underestimating what Hadrian could do and Kaiba doesn’t know Azul like I do.
That eagle would sooner cut off his own talons than obey a man like Hadrian.
As soon as Kaiba’s horn sounds, the Iron Towers on the other side of the border swarm with Iron Fae. They spill out through trapdoors, onto tower tops, and across the rubble of former battles. Their saddled birds are clearly jittery, many of them lifting into the air before lowering again.
I don’t have time to question why Azul is leading an entire flock of eagles to a fiery end.
“Serpent!” I shout. “Get me there as fast as you can!”
He answers me in an instant, arcing left, away from our destination, the pressure on my body increasing as he shoots toward Kaiba’s tower, gaining on the eagles.
Not quickly enough.
Ember fire blazes through the air, intense plumes of heat blooming ahead of the birds.
The eagles fly straight toward the fire, their feathery bodies about to be engulfed. Fuck, no!
Just as they would be swallowed by flame, Azul shoots directly upward, a near vertical path.
All of the birds follow him, moving in astonishing unison, rising high enough, fast enough that they crest gracefully over the top of the billowing fire. And they do it at full speed.
Their path takes them up and over the towers, drawing the fire as Ember warriors continue to pour flames into the air, the infernos only seconds behind the eagles.
Azul ducks and rolls and every eagle does the same, weaving and dancing between plumes as the flock now plummets across the border, directly at the—
Iron Fae.
Ember fire arcs across the remaining intact Iron Towers and the rubble around them. The Iron Fae’s saddled eagles take to the air just in time to avoid being burned.
Azul’s piercing shriek cuts through the roar of flames and flapping wings, a cry so loud that his call threatens to make my ears bleed.
The Iron Fae scatter and dive for cover.
But Azul’s flock…
Well, fuck me.
Those eagles swarm across the broken catapults and wooden crates, wrapping their powerful talons around the wooden monstrosities and wrenching them up into the air.
Within seconds, the eagle swarm is fully airborne again, every one of them carrying some part of a weapon, many of the pieces large enough to weigh the eagles down, but up the birds determinedly rise, their strong wings beating hard.
I’m close enough to Kaiba now that I can make out his features as he lifts his horn and blows another command, one he initiated some time ago. This command tells our warriors to attack the fae, not their animals.
A fucking handy order right now.
The warriors immediately concentrate their fire across the ground and into the air behind the eagles, creating fiery barriers to stop any Iron Fae from giving chase, including burning a barrage of arrows a legion of Iron Fae let loose at the eagles.
Not a single eagle falls or burns.
As I leap from my serpent’s back and onto the tower top, Azul’s second shriek sounds. The saddled eagles shake off their riders, darting and ducking and soaring after Azul’s flock.
Within seconds, they’ve joined Azul, and all of them soar away into the distance.
I don’t know where Azul intends to take Hadrian’s weapons, but I’m happy to see the back of them.
“Kaiba.” I quickly rise from my crouch. Now that I’m here, I can forewarn him about my plan to hand him the throne. I won’t be able to give him much time to process this change, but at least he’ll have some notice.
He’s already hurrying toward me while the group of ten Ember warriors mobilize behind him.
My forehead creases when fire flares around the men’s hands and they rapidly fan out around the tower top, their sights set firmly on me.
“Maxim.” Kaiba’s voice is low and urgent as he reaches me, his gaze flickering to my serpent, who circles the air behind me. “You can’t be here.”
I register my name as a warning. Maxim. Incredibly rare for Kaiba to call me that. “What are you—?”
“Go,” he says beneath his breath, his hands gripping my shoulders as he pushes me backward. “You have to go.”
What the fuck?
The fact that Kaiba would risk touching me stuns me. He’s lucky I didn’t burn his hands off just now.
The men prowling behind him weave plumes of fire across the air as they stalk toward me, a hostile approach like no Ember warrior has made toward me before.
Do they wish for death?
I’m about to rebuke them when one of them snarls. “Fucking Blood Fae.”
A sickening rush of blood fills my ears and my vision blurs.
Fuck…
The warriors’ spoken threats increase as they loom behind Kaiba, their words a blur, and I make out only one, who says, “I’d rather become ash in the sand than breathe the same air as a Blood Fae.”
How did they find out? How? When even I don’t fully believe it yet?
Kaiba’s face is pale, his fists hovering inches from my chest. “I can’t fucking stop them, but I’ll look after Zenaida and your Mothers. Go, Maxim.”
If it weren’t for Kaiba standing in their way, I’m certain these men would have attacked me already. And killed themselves in the process. That they haven’t turned on Kaiba gives me a shred of hope.
As I prepare to leap off the tower’s edge, I raise my voice. “My mother was a Blood Fae. She abandoned me when I was a baby. She was not Zenaida’s mother and she is not among the women who were forced to raise me and suffered the insult of being called my ‘Mothers.’”
I don’t know if these men will believe me. Maybe I’ve made things worse, but I had to try.
I leap from the tower’s edge and onto my serpent’s back.
My world is crashing down.
Below me, on the ground, I catch sight of Boaz…fucking Boaz…standing at the southern side of this tower, clear of the battle and surrounded by ten other fae.
He smirks up at me.
Dread opens a dark pit in my heart, deep enough that I have to clamp down hard on my rising power. The last thing I want is to hurt my serpent again.
As the golden beast carries me away across dunes that are now empty of Ember Fae, I try to focus through the shock.
What I do next will matter.
I can’t go directly to Thyra because that will draw attention to her. I can’t leave her vulnerable because she doesn’t know that Ortansia and the Tol-Dakri will be coming for her. Let alone whatever Boaz has planned.
But getting to Thyra, along with Stellen and Antony, is still my best bet. Stellen can help Kaiba, and Antony won’t let any danger come to Aeliana, which by extension will mean protecting my Mothers and Zenaida too.
I shudder at the realization that protecting the fae I care about means asking my enemies for help. Antony once trusted me to protect Aeliana and now I must trust him.
A harsh laugh rises into my throat at the fact that I would rather entrust my family’s safety to a vampyr than to my own people right now.
“Fly to the far side of the southernmost point of the charcoal cliffs,” I call to my serpent. “We can stay out of sight and reach the tower that way.”
As I speak, I grip only with my legs, avoiding touching his horns with my increasingly hot hands, concerned now by how fast my fire is getting out of my control.
Damn. Too soon, I realize I’ll be lucky if I make it within half a mile of the cliffs before I burst into flames. I’ve constrained my power all night, and now fear is making me volatile.
My serpent shivers, a sign of his wariness, a second before heat bursts along my arms, threatening to turn the remains of my sleeves to ash.
That’s it. I can’t take chances for another second.
We’re above the dunes and the cliffs are still a mile away, but the black scales across my serpent’s left side are a glaring reminder of what happens if let my fire burn near living things.
Throwing myself off his back, I land on the dunes below, half-expecting to burst into a ball of flame on contact. When I don’t, I break into a run.
Across the sky, the stars are fading. Sunrise is an hour away. Behind me, the border flares with continuing fire. Ahead of me, the cliffs are dark except for…
A running figure, nearly too far away to make out, but the white wolf keeping pace with that figure is a quickly moving blob.
The wolf must be Nara, but the figure is proportionately too small to be Stellen.
Thyra? She’s moving damn fast, sprinting along the very edge of the mountain ridge.
Her cry reaches me, quickly drowned out by the hum of battle behind me.
But…what is she doing?
Fuck!
She launches herself off the side of the cliff, throwing herself into the air, a slip of a figure camouflaging too well against the rock behind her for me to follow her fall.
At the same moment, vibrations in the dunes suddenly hit me. Vibrations I missed because my feet are on fire and the sand turns to lava where I run.
On both sides of me, the dunes shift in rivers, creatures beneath the surface striking toward me.
A heartbeat later, a legion of golden serpents shoots out from the sand, bashing their horns against me and knocking me down.