King of Flames

by Ana Calin

  He gets up slowly, probably understanding what I really want—some time to brace myself by the fire, and cry. I wanted so bad for him to say something that would convince me to stay by his side no matter what, I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to argue, maybe say that he’d change his ways for me.

  But then again, I realize how absurd that is.

  I try not to look at him as he rises to his full height, his perfect golden body glowing in the firelight. What I feel now as I look at his face, it’s outrageous, and I just shouldn’t.

  I turn my back on him to hide my tears as he puts his clothes back on, but I think he knows what I’m doing. I wish he’d walk over and wrap his big hands around my shoulders, whisper in my ear that he’ll do anything in his power so that we can stay together, so that we can make this bond work. But he decides to leave the tent without a word.

  I collapse to my knees as soon as I hear the canvas flap, and Xerxes’ steps fading away. I bury my face in my hands, opening my mouth in a soundless scream. But thank the high realms, I’m not alone in the world. I have Nazarean, who senses my distress and slinks into the tent, finding his way onto my lap. I curl over him, and sink my nose in his fur that smells of wet mud and grass. He brushes his wet nose against mine, mewing softly against my face.

  I curl up on the floor by the fire with him, pulling the improvised canvas cover Xerxes provided over us. Pain ravages my heart, and the feeling of loss is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. But I will pull myself back together before Xerxes returns, I promise myself that. I wipe my reddened nose, trying to stop the sniffling.

  I manage to convince myself that Xerxes is right, he and I could never be together even if nothing stood between us. He’s a villain that wants to take over the worlds, and the only way I can help the other realms, help them stay safe from Xerxes, is to use his blood oath and free myself from him as soon as we’ve gotten the Firestone. Then I can find a way to help the others against him,

  In fact, I am the realms’ only chance. Xerxes is a powerful opponent, he can do things other realm rulers can’t even dream of. I felt his might and ambitions, I’ve witnessed the things he can do, and what I haven’t witnessed I can sense. I suppose I got myself quite a bargain when I won my freedom from him, you know, considering that he wanted to have me killed before he even met me.

  Destiny is so cruel. Why did my fated mate have to be the most dangerous man in all the worlds? And why in the cursed realms did I have to catch feelings for him despite my best efforts, feelings so profound and nuanced that it would be a shame to lose them. Part of me doesn’t even want to return to the version of me that didn’t know these feelings. I’m not sure even what to call them, but I’m pretty certain ‘recklessly in love’ says it all.

  The canvas flaps again, cold night air piercing the warmth inside. He’s back.

  I wipe my nose quickly, my eyes puffy and tired. I push the cover back and get up to face him, holding Nazarean with one hand and rubbing my eyes with the other like I’m exhausted, which I am, both physically and emotionally.

  “What have you got for me?” I look at the clothes draped over his arm. I walk over, keeping my eyes on what seems to be an army camouflage outfit with natural patterns specific to the fae.

  “It will help you blend in with the environment even better than black,” he says as I inspect the outfit. There’s a thin layer of frost over it.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Drying outside the tavern in the nearest village. Belongs to soldiers from the Seelie. All looking for us, obviously.”

  The Seelie soldiers are looking for us all right, with every intention to kill Xerxes. The camouflage involves forest patterns, the fabric itself made of tree bark and leaves, very flexible and durable. As I hold it up to inspect it I see it’s going to wrap around my body as tightly as the latex suit, but it will allow me to move better, and it will change colors and patterns according to the environment I’m trying to blend into.

  “Thank you,” I breathe, and turn back to the fire. I cuddle with Nazarean, my back to Xerxes. I don’t know how to deal with the pressure between us, so I just pretend to fall asleep.

  I lay there awake for what feels like hours, completely aware of the moment when Xerxes lies down behind me, his body hot against mine. He doesn’t take me in his arms, no matter how much I pray that he would. He barely touches me, and I finally drift into a dreamless sleep, the pain still pulsing in my chest.

  Cerys

  “BREAKFAST IS READY,” Xerxes tells me, standing in the entrance of the tent before turning around and walking away.

  I get up, breathing in the scent of Nazarean’s fur and kissing him on his head right between his ears before I slip into my new Seelie camouflage suit. It molds to the shape of my body, though its arms are too long. I roll them up, and here I am, no longer in latex, but in something that showcases my body just as well.

  The gray daylight hits my eyes, making me squint as I emerge from the tent. I shield my eyes with my hand as I head over to Xerxes, who’s laid bagels on a blanket on the still frosted morning ground. I brace myself, steam leaving my mouth.

  “The mornings are cold here in the hills, but it will get better,” he grumbles without looking at me.

  “Listen, Xerxes, there’s no way either of us will be able to focus on this properly if we feel so awkward around each other.” I get over myself and grab a bagel. Luckily I have Nazarean, so I can direct my attention to stroking him with my free hand, and not look at Xerxes at all as we eat.

  In fact, I don’t know if he eats at all. I haven’t seen him do it ever since he took me away from the shelter.

  “We’ll use the morning to get inside,” he begins, looking over his shoulder at the shimmering magical barrier that separates the Cemetery of Doom from us. “We’ll be careful, and you’ll have to keep behind me no matter what. We must explore first.”

  My palms sweat instantly. I’m not sure I’m ready for this, but I wouldn’t admit it no matter what.

  “What if someone sees us? We’ve been doing our best to keep out of people’s sight, and the nearest village isn’t that far away.”

  “No, but no one ever ventures to the Hill of Doom. Despite the circle of protective magic, there’s too much superstition surrounding it.”

  A slow tremble starts in my body from the adrenaline, excitement mixing with fear in my belly.

  “All right.” I wipe my mouth and stand, squaring my shoulders. Nazarean leaps expertly into my arms and from there onto my shoulder, slipping under my hair. With my braided ponytail draped over my familiar, I’m ready.

  I want to help Xerxes with the tent, but he doesn’t let me. He makes it look so easy one would think anybody could set up that kind of camp just as easily, which couldn’t be further from the truth. As much as I resent it, I have to make do with the girly work, gathering the food, the water bottles and our few belongings into a ragbag that Xerxes straps to his shoulders.

  His years of military training and experience show. I feel safe with him, despite the hostile surroundings. Even though we’re only at the foot of the Hill of Doom, a thick forest separates it from the nearest village, and not many people dare come into it.

  We stop only inches away from the magical circle of protection. The closer we come to the field the better I can sense it, I can even hear its vibrations. It’s a low, almost imperceptible hum.

  “Once we’ve crossed this line,” Xerxes says, the tips of his boots only inches away from the barrier, “there will be nothing else standing between us and those creatures. When we encounter them, they will try to tear us apart. Or you, because they’ll probably sense my power, and they’ll need to be more cunning to take me down.”

  But his power is draining from him, I can feel it. Having helped me heal Nazarean, and then giving me his blood last night, even our love-making took away from him. With us, it’s not a mutual process, as it is with other fated mates, and we both know it. I channel energy, I don�
�t connect to it personally, I can basically only distribute it. Which means that last night, his power was channeling out of him, even though the process gave him pleasure.

  My skin pebbles as flashes of last night run through my head, how much pleasure he took from being with me, how shamelessly I enjoyed him owning my body the way he did.

  “I’m ready,” I say between my teeth, drawing closer to him. “But be careful. You’re losing strength, and if these creatures are intelligent, as you say they are, they might feel it, and try to exploit it.”

  “That’s why we’re starting now, during the day. It’s our opportunity to explore and test without encountering too many of them.”

  With that, he steps over the barrier. The magic protection hums as we cross over, its vibrations resonating inside our bodies. As we emerge on the other side of the line, I need to catch my breath.

  “Wow, I swear that thing went through every cell of my body,” I say, drawing so close to Xerxes that my breasts touch his back. I want to step back, but he grabs my hands and guides my arms around his waist.

  “Better stay so close that we seem to be one.”

  Leaves and twigs crack under his boots as he walks into the chilly, obscure forest spreading up the hill like a dark blanket. Here the trees are even thicker than in the forest where we spent the night, the magic shimmering between them seeming to be rising from the very moss covering the ground. It fills the air, imbuing it with a sense of death.

  My stomach knots, and my arms tighten around Xerxes. I press myself to him, into his warmth and the feeling of safety he gives me.

  “Xerxes, this place is crawling with dark magic.”

  “Yes, and it feeds on fear. So relax, and leave it to me, I can deal with dark magic. The more scared you are, the more you’ll draw it to you and give it power to attack.”

  But now that all my pores are open to sense the magic around us, I can sense Xerxes’ just as well. Xerxes’ magic is not only leaving him, but it’s also changed. It’s no longer as tenebrous and brutal as it used to be. Now there’s a touch of defense-like strength in him, not just the sharp, violent destroyer feel. Seems like our connection is a two-way street after all. His desire to protect me made him less of a villain, which the magic in this place may exploit.

  “Didn’t think there would come a day when I’d wish your general Marayke were with us. Not her brother, though, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself alive, let alone help get the Firestone.”

  “Marayke’s powers are iron and fire, and neither would have helped here. She’s better placed back in Edinburgh, gathering more of my allies and my armies.”

  “And nothing can dissuade you from those plans, absolutely nothing?”

  “I told you, Cerys. They have never changed, and never will,” he says forbiddingly, but the words don’t fit with the shift in his energy that I’ve sensed. He’s not as convinced as he sounds.

  Xerxes turns around, suddenly facing me. I look up at his brutish but beautiful face, feeling all sorts of things that hurt.

  “Cerys, there’s no point in clinging to the hope that this might change, because it won’t. I’m ready to resume all my plans of taking over the worlds as soon as I’ve got my power back. I’ll continue pursuing my goals, and I’ll be relentless about it. I will not change my ways, but I will set you free, as I promised.”

  We stare at each other as the world around us seems to fade. But then something moves in the bushes, and Xerxes spins around, shielding me behind him. My eyes dart wildly around until a strange breeze blows down on us, coming from the tree crown above. Like all trees here on the hillside, this tree has thick boughs and a canopy so thick that it blocks out the daylight. Something glittery moves along a bough, but it could be just an illusion from the light filtering through the leaves.

  “There,” I whisper, pointing up, squinting in an attempt to zero in on whatever it is that’s moving in a wave-like pattern along the bough.

  “Watch out,” Xerxes calls, pushing me back. I slam into the tree trunk behind me, but I look up just in time to see a huge glittery snake launching down on Xerxes, hissing so sharply that my ears ring.

  “Xerxes,” I yell as the snake hits his back, coiling around him in a second. It’s a muscular beast, a long thick creature that wraps Xerxes from throat to ankles, the patterns on its body glittering in silver and golden hues as it coils around him.

  I can see the profiles of both Xerxes and the snake, both hissing, the snake’s tongue fluttering in Xerxes’ face, while the King of Flames bares his fangs, his sharp features twisting in a brutal grimace. No words could describe the violence I see in his face at this moment.

  My heart pumps with adrenaline, my eyes trained on the scene in front of me, until Nazarean stirs under my hair, and draws my attention. I can feel his body tense against my neck as he gets ready to leap into the fight and help Xerxes. But he won’t stand a chance. The snake will swallow him whole.

  Nazearean’s paws harden against my shoulder, and he pushes himself off of me right into the fight in front of us. But the snake hears him, and turns his head toward us, catching my familiar in the air. It opens its jaws and snaps them shut over him.

  I scream so loud that the pitch deafens me, my ears buzzing. I start towards them, my hands outstretched and curled like claws. The pain and desperation inside is too much for me to bear.

  I grab the snake, its skin smooth and hard like fine silver mail. My fingers bleed as I claw at the creature, its eyes like silver slits emitting light that stings mine. It hisses, its tongue whipping cold air in my face. It’s not done swallowing Nazarean, so it can’t open its jaws at me, but I know it wants me to be next.

  Xerxes must see it as well, because he slips his fingers with his black claws between the snake’s jaws, parting them. I watch dumbfounded as he pushes his claws into the creature’s mouth, and my heart goes wild with fear the snake is going to bite his hand off, but what happens is the exact opposite.

  Xerxes oozes rage and violence, his perfectly white fangs elongating from under his upper lip that’s as dark red as thick blood. He seems a monster himself, even if a compellingly beautiful one that I wouldn’t be able to look away from if I weren’t so desperate to get Nazarean back.

  I keep inspecting the snake’s body as it hisses, its loops loosening from around Xerxes. I step back as the creature starts to thrash, its powerful tail striking the tree it fell from, cracking the bark, opalescent sap swelling out from the cracks. A milky scent strikes me the more liquid emerges from the tree.

  The snake lets out a deafening, piping sound as Xerxes parts its jaws so far that they begin to split across its skull. The creature can’t withstand Xerxes’ sheer physical strength, and its head finally tears open, goo-like insides splattering the tree trunk, Xerxes, and my face.

  The winding silver body falls limp to the ground, the lower part still twitching. I keep staring down at it with wide eyes, its insides splattered all over my face. The next thing I become aware of besides the cold feel of them is the smell. Surprisingly pleasant, like flowers, a smell that makes me think of black roses.

  “Nazarean,” I whisper, and Xerxes crouches down by the creature. He draws a hunting dagger, and starts cutting the snake’s body. I wish I could look away, because the act looks barbarous, no matter how much the monster deserved it for having swallowed my familiar, but I can’t. Xerxes moves so smoothly while he does it, it’s compelling. Again, it makes his military experience obvious, and at this point I’d say he does it like some sort of art.

  Before he reaches the middle of the snake’s body I can already see a clump of wet fur.

  “Realms,” I yelp. Even I can hear the gut-wrenching pain in my voice. I drop to my knees and stick my hands in there, scooping Nazarean out.

  “He’s trying to breathe,” I tell Xerxes, even though my familiar’s breath is faint. I can barely feel his heartbeat against my palms. I set him down on the ground, between two large, knotted branches of tree roots that
claw into the mossy ground.

  “He needs heat, please, Xerxes.”

  He lays his clawed hands on Nazarean’s body, and firelight glows from his palms onto the animal’s body. Xerxes is running low on fire power, but luckily it works. I close my eyes and place my own hands on Nazarean, helping to channel Xerxes’ energy. It works quickly, and my familiar opens his eyes.

  “High Realms, he lives,” I cry, taking him in my arms and pressing my cheek to his fur that is now dry on one side from Xerxes’s touch.

  As for the King of Fire himself, he drops down by the tree, resting his back against the trunk. Nazarean climbs down from my arms and prowls over to him, curling into a ball on his stomach, right above the holster around his hips.

  My heart breaks when I look at him, the powerful fae king that had all the worlds’ leaders tip-toeing around him, trying to catch his breath. While he appears far from weak, I sense him on levels no one else does. I can’t even explain these undercurrents between us, they’re just there.

  “The dead aren’t the only danger in this place,” he says, his big chest heaving. “The hill is crawling with creatures of the Underworld.”

  “Xerxes—”

  “But while they’re dangerous, they also bring opportunity,” he interrupts. “This is your chance to practice draining the magical powers from a dark creature.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t have the time, and I don’t have the energy to explain, Cerys. We need to get our shit together fast, because we have one hell of a problem ahead. This snake, it was just the beginning. We’ll encounter more, and we both know my power is waning. Soon I’ll be reduced only to my physical strength again, and there’s no source here for you to draw on and replenish me. But at least we’re close to the Firestone.”

  “But we don’t know exactly where to look for it.” I look towards the top of the hill, even though I can’t see very far into the dark, humid forest. “We know there’s a chapel at the top, and that the Wraiths might have hidden there, but—Wait.”