Page 100 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

She turns midair, her arm still stretching, but now I can make out the blood bind on her arm.

Dark light flashes all the way down the bind, reaching her fingertips, where it ripples out like lightning.

Jagged, dark light strikes across the distance toward Aeliana’s sleeping form.

I’m a hundred paces away and the shove of the dark energy threatens to push me off course again.

Aeliana wrenches up off the pallet, her white gown thrashing around her body as she becomes upright but clearly not awake.

What the fuck?

“Riven!” I shout for the Iron Fae, but a second later, I make out his crumpled form lying next to the pallet. Probably knocked out by the first explosion of dark light. I promised Antony I’d keep Riven alive. The young Iron Fae had better not be dead.

I’m fifty paces away from the spot it appears Thyra will crash, ready to leap up to my serpent and snap through the straps keeping the dragon’s hide on his back.

Thyra’s two seconds from colliding with the ground.

A surge of panic strikes me. And then fury because panic is useless right now. And then helplessness as the rocky earth rears up at her⁠—

All at once, four threads of energy shoot from Thyra’s body.

One crimson-red, one icy-blue, and one fiery amber, stretching from her heart and across the air. A fourth thread, inky black, snaps from her spine.

All four threads pull instantly taut.

The amber thread hits my heart. The other three strike across the air, each one eastward but at different angles.

I’m wrenched to the ground, jarred mid-leap.

Thyra yanks to a stop, halting midair just in time before her body would have smashed against the rocks.

The threads jolt her upright, and me with her.

But while I remain with my feet on the ground, her now-bare toes are inches above the soil where she floats, her faded black hair swirling about her head and covering her face, the yellow ribbon she was wearing wafting at her cheek.

Opposite her, Aeliana gravitates forward, her left hand stretching for Thyra’s right hand, the two women reaching for each other across a distance of twenty paces and closing, despite appearing unaware of their actions.

Dark light swirls along their arms. Far more intensely across Thyra’s forearm.

Until now, Aeliana had lain, curled up on her side, her arms pressed tightly to her chest. Her body had been so locked in that position that my aunt couldn’t change Aeliana’s clothing or bathe her properly.

But now I can see a black rune inked into Aeliana’s left forearm.

The same style as the blood bind’s runes. And it’s moving. Slowly gliding along Aeliana’s skin, nearly to her wrist.

I push through the energy suddenly sparking between the two women, the same hard struggle I experienced when I was in one of Thyra’s blade visions, trying to use the amber thread to pull myself toward her.

Above me, my serpent circles frantically, hissing wildly, Aeliana’s starlight bouncing off his scales while he, too, appears to struggle to get closer.

“Bring me the dragon’s hide!” I roar. My serpent pushes toward the ground at my back, buffeted within the energy rippling around us but managing to land behind me.

Swiftly, with one hand locked around the amber thread, I unbuckle the straps keeping the hide in place, praying my fire doesn’t flare and hurt my serpent.

The hide slides off his back and I pull the thick leather to my chest.

As I turn to push forward once again toward Thyra, a droplet of liquid hits my cheek.

What…?