Page 88 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Visha portalled next, then Eren, Alaric, the Skye, Larg and Triad followed by more soldiers, and Aura.

What they didn’t know was that we all had eyes on every corner of this realm.

“Evacuate the village,” Alaric shouted to the Skye.

“Too late for that,” Vas growled, rising from the ground again, flesh mending.

Just not quick enough. Caiden was already pulling him apart. Over and over. Each time his body mended, it broke apart within seconds.

“How long do you think you can keep doing that!” he growled, trying to reach Caiden, only to be caught in a web of my darkness, not realising he’d stepped out of protection, his flesh sizzling from the touch of death he was cursed to never know.

“Melanthe!” he shouted and then vanished away like the wind.

If I had a gold quarter for every time he did that when he faced me, I’d be a much richer king. However, just as I was studying him, he was studying us, learning our boundaries, learning how to mess with our heads.

Perhaps that is what tonight’s ambush had all been about.

Instigating fear. Torment.

Night had turned into day from the fire lit behind us, it had enveloped the village for miles around, almost catching on the forest behind it. The beasts had been many—many more that we’d counted Silas would be able to spare for an ambush.

Heavy rain downed on us, the master of the storm came and went from inside houses, trying to evacuate them along with us. Eren’s hands were full, sometimes holding people and at others commanding ice and rain to douse the fires.

Except, there was no dousing the fire that was lit with dark magic—blackfire.

Darkness dripped from me, slithering over the village floors and spreading over the fires enveloping the buildings around until they were doused.

Blackfire barely doused from cold like it doused from my magic, evaporating entirely from my touch, no toxic smoke following after to poison the air.

An Adriatian had planned this.

There were too many. Planned for far too long. No beasts. Not much magic either. They had only waited for us. Snow and I.

Thankfully, we’d been waiting for them as well.

Survivors had crowded the entry to the Myrdur ruins. Healers worked fast between hundreds and thousands who had sustained burns and many more wounds from blasting ice. The people were quiet, their eyes all glued to one.

Snow sat at the edge of the ruins with a little girl on her lap, soot covering both of their faces. Something had been robbed out of her today. Maybe even before and I'd just noticed. The empty stares—this was why she’d hid them from me. To not let me know that her father still held prisoner some part of her down in those dungeons. Torturing her still. Endlessly.

“I can’t find her parents,” she said to me in Darsan, her voice hopeless. “The house where they were sleeping was on fire when I went in, she had tried to douse the flames with wind and everything else around her had burned even worse. I should have looked.”

Her chest began rising fast and I took the girl from her arms, lulling her to sleep with a slip of magic. “You did all you could,” I said, kneeling before her. “These people live because of you.”

She shook her head. “The first thing that came to mind when I saw the flames was to run, just like I was told that night. I’ve never saved a single thing in my life, Kil. This is what happens when I try to save something.” Her face hardened, the icy gold fire returning to them again. “But…one thought separates me from getting up and showing the whole of Isjord what it feels to truly burn. That is my power. To destroy.” She looked over her shoulder at them. “Will they look at me the same if I do just that? Or will I become just another thing they fear?”

“Is that what you want to do?”

Her voice was small. “Yes. Do you fear me?”

“No, but I fear what it would do to you.” It would kill her. I ran my fingers over her face. Realisation crushing me and making my heart ache like never before. “You don’t, do you? You don’t fear what would happen to you.”

“I want to burn, Kil. No matter if I burn with it. But if I burn, I might burn you. What stands between my father and the fate he deserves, is you.” She wiped the lone tear escaping her eye, her hand shaking. “It will pass.”

“Your Majesty,” a healer called for her. “Would you mind helping us with some burn wounds?”

Snow looked at me first and then nodded, taking the girl from my arms and following shortly after the healer through the ruins to where more people had taken shelter. The feigned smiles she offered to those around her tore at my heart, ripping it little by little, but it comforted her people.

Caiden stood in the middle of the burnt remains of the village, staring at two Isjordian soldiers kneeling before him. “They’d been living amongst us for years. I knew these two idiots,” he said, kicking his foot on their faces. “They had identified all the Olympians here, slowly gotten to know everyone. My people had welcomed them to their homes. Fed, clothed and housed them.”