Page 1 of Blade of the Nightking

PART I

THE PRINCE

CHAPTER 1

Inever burned.

And yet the pain ravaged my body, scorching, devouring, a relentless heat eating through my left side. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The agony was so complete my mind broke apart into wild, frantic pieces.

I felt my own scream more than I heard it, swallowed by the roar of the flames. Only that one thought remained—a thin and useless objection—as I was roasted alive:

I never burned.

Not a stray spark, not a wandering ember. Fire always slid past me, as if it recognized the bond I shared with its master long before I ever did. But this was different.

This was no ordinary fire.

The flames were blue. Bluer than his eyes, wrong in every possible way. And yet they billowed down from the sky, pouring from the jaws of the great scaly thing circling overhead, a wall of descending death no one could outrun.

And then they vanished.

A tremendous beating of wings pulsed through the air, displacing it in heavy rhythmic waves. Shadows rippled over the churning caldera waters. The ground trembled beneath my limp body.

If flame had finally found me, maybe it was because it had no lord left to restrain it. Maybe it meant Aedric was dead. If that was true, I prayed the Seven would take me too, and quickly. I couldn’t live without him. Judging by the state of my body, I likely wouldn’t have to.

“Fuck!”

No. Not dead.

A broken sob escaped me at the sound of his voice.

I wanted to turn my head, to reach for him, to say something—anything—but I couldn’t move. I could only lie there, staring blindly at the sky, every nerve screaming. The fire might have stopped, but the burning hadn’t.

“Fuck,” he said again, closer now. I felt him drop to his knees beside me. “Gods, El…” His voice cracked on my name, raw and terrified, and I knew he was looking at what was left of me. I couldn’t bear to look myself.

He gathered me into his arms, lifting me carefully. A fresh scream tore out of me, ripped from somewhere deep, somewhere primal.

Aedric ran, boots slapping against stone slick with steaming caldera spray. The parapet had become a deathtrap. Water coated the walkway, turning each step treacherous. He slipped once—hard enough that the world pitched—and slammed us against the wall to keep from going over the edge. The jolt ripped another cry from me.

He held me tighter, barreling through a splintered doorway and down a spiraling stair that wound around the inner wall. The stairwell roared with the chaos below—screams, cries, the sounds of the dying.

His body was too warm.

It always had been—solid, encompassing, a comforting heat I normally sank into without thought.

But now that same warmth was unbearable. It pressed against my skin like hot metal. I writhed weakly, instinct warring with pain, a small whimper leaving my throat. Aedric pressed onward, cradling me against his chest.

“Easy. Easy, I’ve got you.”

The entire world smelled like roasted meat.

Charred. Smoky. Sickening.

Then I realized the smell came from me.

The edges of my vision darkened, closing in like fists.

I caught a glimpse of my arm as my head lolled back: it was a blackened ruin, the flesh blistered and split. That couldn’t be me. That couldn’t be⁠—