Page 13 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

My warriors raise their hands, their fire intertwining as they attempt to take the canisters down.

Dear Goddess of Truth and Light…

The burning canisters smash against the Ember Towers, crash against the sand, and blast through my warriors’ defensive lines.

They don’t contain pure iron dust, after all.

Something far worse.

Crimson-colored oil splashes across the sand, the stone, and my warriors, the liquid sickly sweet and metallic. Oil clearly contaminated with iron dust.

It isn’t the oil or the iron that’s lethal.

It’s the fucking black smoke rising from the burning oil, billowing across the air, carrying toxic iron into the chests of every fae breathing it in.

I’m running, shouting at my serpent to get back. “Get to a dune!”

Suddenly, the air fills with the screams of warriors whose throats and lungs are burning out.

Thick, poisonous smoke smothers the air around me.

My warriors can’t fight smoke.

I can’t fight smoke.

Smoke is our weapon. Fire is our weapon. We’ve never had to flee from either of them.

We don’t have stores of water in our towers. We are a people of fire.

“Kaiba!” I roar into the thickening darkness, sprinting through the toxic pall in the direction I last saw my cousin.

Every step I take only compounds my helplessness.

My body deals with the toxic iron fumes, protecting me, but with every beat of my cursed heart, I face the horrifying realization that my greatest power, my flames, are being used against me.

Now I understand why Hadrian brought in the wooden crates last night. He would have transported the ceramic canisters within those crates. That ashen-brown wood withstands heat and would have kept the canisters’ oily contents from exploding in transit.

I reach the tower where Kaiba was standing only moments ago. Before the smoke closed over this structure, I caught sight of him shouting to his men, calling them to retreat into the building.

Ripping open the trapdoor, I find my warriors huddled in the far corner of the first room.

“Kaiba!”

My hand lands on the shoulder of the nearest man, only for his body to fall sideways.

His throat is burned out.

“No…” I push through the bodies, my heart bursting with fear until Kaiba’s muffled voice reaches me.

“They piled on to save me.”

I push through the final bodies to find Kaiba slumped against the wall, his face wrapped in cloths, the material pulled up across his eyes.

“You need to get clear of the smoke,” I say. “Come with me!”

His response is quiet. “I won’t make it, cousin.”

A snarl grows in my throat. “Yes, you will.”