If ever there was a time for a truce…he held an arm to steady her. “Thanks. For holding them off.”
She nodded, then leaned against him, resting her forehead on his shoulder long enough to drag in a deep breath. Then pushing herself away. “Good work yourself.”
It was the first time she didn’t add some teasing moniker—King of the Daemonsorhot and handsome—and the fact that he missed it made him give a brusque nod and turn to seek out Elianne. She’d clearly only kissed him back the other day because he’d surprised her.
Still. He’d relived it a hundred times since, replaying it in his mind like a recording on a crystal, especially when Perla taunted him.
Elianne was the one he’d been trying not to think about for decades. And now that they had their freedom, his and Eldrid’s agreement didn’t seem so important—Eldrid had been full of grinning stories about the pretty women who stared at him every time he walked through Reykstoll. His brother clearly wasn’t hung up on the one they’d agreed neither of them could have.
Until half an hour ago, he’d thought she’d be leaving for Ellas with Stefanos, thought that kiss would have to fuel him through the next twenty years…but maybe not. Maybe she—what was she doing?
She’d been standing before one of the cells, not saying anything like the others, just staring. Hands curled into fists. Now, it looked as though some rope holding her back snapped,and she flung herself forward, into and through the columns of seeping lava, into the cell.
“Elianne—no!” A new surge of energy got Daemon to the cell, which of course had Isidor in it. Who else could have made her do something so stupid?
By the time Daemon arrived, she’d already curled her fists into the white robe Isidor still wore, from Nik’s trial. Flame met ice, making steam and smoke curl up from the contact. “You sold your own daughter, you arrogant coward. And cost me, yet again, my son.”
Isidor’s brows actually knotted. “Your son?”
“Nik!” She screamed the name, the explanation, and Daemon saw both incredulity and disgust settle in Isidor’s eyes before the mask of ice obliterated it.
The former tyrant let her slam him into the block wall, a smug smirk on his lips. “I take it Stefanos arrived, right on schedule?”
“Elianne.” Daemon hesitated at the bars. Yes, he could pass through them just as she had, but didn’t she realize that put her within the reach of his magic? The channels of crystal kept him from the outside world, but that didn’t keep him from being able to influence water within his cell. And the human body was still made primarily of water—even theirs. “Get back out here. Now.”
“You do not get to live, to smile, to rejoice in your evil while they’re in the hands of that monster!” She slapped a hand to Isidor’s face and held it there. Veins glowing. Hand turning red.
“Elianne—stop.Now.”
Isidor fought her, of course, with magic instead of limbs. Pushed ice against her fire, but she was too angry. Too far into the flames. He’d kill her or she’d kill him, but there’d be no truce, nothing in between.
Daemon would either lose the second woman he’d come to care for to death, like Tuva, or be forced to lock her in this prison for murder.
He had no choice but to intervene. Elianne would not be the first person tried under Kyrja’s new justice system. He shouldered his way through the bars, the lava as comfortable as a fountain.
But Isidor moved in that moment, shoving off the wall, bringing Elianne with him, resorting to physical strength with a roar. Daemon didn’t have time to react before they were both crashing into him.
There was a flash of blue light as he felt Isidor’s magic collide with his, light like what came from Perla’s hands, but far more intense. A spray of red-tinted ice, a soul-shattering scream. A bolt of pure lightning zapped through him. More than heat, hotter than lava, and aimed straight at his heart.
Elianne slumped at his feet.
22
Would she never wake up? Nik brushed a lock of hair from Kyrja’s cheek and let his fingers linger there. Darkness had fallen as they’d been brought aboard, but beyond that, he had no idea how long he’d been in this strange room with her in the heart of the trireme. Only that he’d been cradling her limp form so long his limbs were going numb, and still she didn’t open her eyes.
“Kyrja. My heart, please. Please, wake up.” He shifted her in his arms again but couldn’t bring himself to just set her on the down-filled, canopied bed in the corner of the crystal-lined room.
For the hundredth time, he checked her pulse. It still beat steadily against his fingertips.
Behind their lids, her eyes darted back and forth, and Nik relaxed into the plush divan on which he held her. Sleeping. She was sleeping now, dreaming, and that seemed far healthier than just being unconscious from the blow to her head. He knew she’d scarcely slept since she’d won the Challenges, but here? In this room that he had to assume silenced her Blessing as surely as it did his fire? There would be no noise to wake her mind. Nothing to pull her constantly from rest.
She needed this. And so he rearranged them again so that they were both cradled by the back of the lounge, tucked her tight against him, and let his own eyes slide shut. Prayed that the heat he felt building inside him, unable to disperse through the ground at his feet, unable to do anything but simmer in his own veins, wouldn’t burn them to cinders.
Helviti was in his dreams. The dark of the tunnels, the sting of the sulfur, the comforting glow of the lava streams. It felt an eternity away, forever out of reach, and his blood ached for it, for the relief of a dip in the pools.
Then a whiff of fresh-fallen snow, the kiss of cold air outside the dome, a sweet chill that swept his fever-hot brow. He sank deeper into the dream, let it run wild, let that coolness soothe his own internal heat.
He surfaced sometime later feeling more refreshed than he had any right to, the flames within him banked to manageable embers.
