Page 103 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

My heart stops, suddenly beatless in my chest.

A second later, a painful burn scorches across my other hand, wrenching my focus back to Aeliana.

She was right. The rune has rushed from her wrist up and across the back of my hand.

A chill spears down my spine as the darkness in this rune hits me.

Poison. Endless sleep. A dark pit sucking at my mind. An intense dragging sensation pulling at my legs, threatening to send me to the ground.

Aeliana trembles, uttering a deep groan of clear relief as she wrenches her hand from mine so that now I’m only touching Thyra.

“You have the rune! Now let Thyra go. Step away. I’ll use the hide to protect us from your fire.”

But I can’t let go.

I’m not holding Thyra.

She’s holding me. With an impossible strength. Her hand acting like an unbreakable chain.

Pushing down my panic, I tug sharply in the direction that should force my arm through the gap where her fingers don’t quite close around my limb.

She moves with me, her grip unbelievably strong.

“Fuck.” If I pull her in the wrong direction, I could smash her against my chest, where my fire could consume her.

The rune has reached my right shoulder and it’s moving fast, cutting a trail across my pectoral muscles on its way to my left shoulder.

“Maxim!” Aeliana cries. “Let Thyra go before the rune reaches her!”

I wrench harder on my arm, but Thyra retains her balance. “Thyra!”

Pure panic fills me as the rune reaches my left shoulder.

Aeliana launches herself at me with a scream, her starlight cutting across the rune, slicing the flesh on my upper arm as neatly as a fucking knife. Goddess, damn it!

The rune remains untouched.

Aeliana stumbles back from me, scooping up the dragon’s hide, rocking on the balls of her feet as if she could just as easily throw herself toward Thyra as away from us.

Her voice is strained. “The blood bind must be controlling her actions. She won’t let go. You have to burn the rune, even though she’s holding you.”

“No.”

“The Dragonstone Blade will⁠—”

“No.”

I try again to free myself. One last time.

Jolting forward and wrenching hard and sharp, I end up on my knees, but Thyra comes with me, dropping to the sand beside me, her shoulders hunched, her hair swaying across her face. And her hand still gripping me.

“Thyra.” I’m out of time. The rune has reached my forearm.

My other palm hovers in the air beside her head. I’m unable to brush away the strands of her hair to know if there’s pain in her eyes. Or terror. Or nothing at all.

Her faded black tresses curl in my heat waves, the clump of her hair nearest to my palm shriveling like a leaf.

“You have no choice,” Aeliana says, rapidly backing away.