Page 160 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

Thyra

“Maxim!” My scream echoes across the cliffs as I throw myself out into the air.

Nara’s sprinting form is a blur of white behind me. I already shouted for her to get Antony and Stellen and I trust her to race back to them as fast as she can.

I also trust that Stellen will have heard my cry.

Plummeting toward the dunes below, I calm my heart and take these long seconds to center myself and set my intentions.

Only minutes ago, I watched Azul risk his life to carry away that damn wood. A risk that cleared my mind. For a few incredible moments, I pressed my hand to my chest while my heart expanded, the beats lighter. Not for days has my mind felt this unclouded.

Then Maxim appeared in the distance, flying on his serpent to one of the few intact towers, only to quickly turn around and leave, soaring low across the dunes, this time in my direction.

That’s when I saw the dunes rippling. The sand shifting. Serpents racing along beneath the surface, all of them headed for Maxim.

Now as I fall, the dunes thrash.

Riderless serpents ram Maxim’s serpent out of the air at the same time that more riderless beasts crash into Maxim, using their horns to hit him hard and fast. Bam! Bam! Bam!

Fire explodes around them. Sand sprays. My acute eyesight gives me the false sense that I’m nearer than I am. As if I could reach out and put a stop to the attack.

My fall is about to come to an end.

I brace for impact, taking a final deep breath and reaching for the sense of weightlessness that allows me to slow my tumble and levitate to the ground.

Even so, I hit hard, a thump that vibrates through the dunes ahead of me and back through the stony mountains behind me. If the attacking serpents feel the vibration, they don’t show it, their attack frenzied even as flames engulf them.

Leaping up from my crouch, I sprint as fast as I can toward the fire, smoothly navigating the shifting ground after a childhood of running along beaches.

Serpents wouldn’t attack like this out of the blue. Not without being commanded, I’m certain of it. Especially when attacking Maxim means certain death. A terrible fact evidenced by the scent of burning flesh now wafting through the air.

The heat waves and flames ahead are too thick for me to see through them while the sound of splashing lava fills me with dread.

I don’t, for a moment, second-guess my decision to run toward that heat.

Maxim is my hope. His kiss tore through my inhibitions to a raw need. He was the one I saw in my blade visions. He and I are fated in ways I can’t yet understand. I refuse to believe he isn’t yet rising to his feet, that he won’t emerge any moment from the fire ahead of me.

The splashing sounds stop. The flames begin to die, but the heat waves only increase, filling the air.

I reach the edge of the devastation, a wide section of sand now resembling molten gold.

Serpents float within the wash, burned and dead, a horrifying sight.

My heart wrenches at the sight of Maxim’s serpent, easily identifiable as the largest beast, one portion of his black scales pressing against Maxim’s far side, as if he were trying to shield his master.

Maxim lies face up, his eyes closed, his body floating in the deepest section of lava, his hair swirling around his head.

His entire body is on fire, a simmering flame.

A cry rises to my throat.

Maxim’s chest is torn open, his limbs gashed, bones visible. I want to believe his fire is healing him, but I can’t tell, and my fear rises.

“Maxim!” I cry. “Get up!”

I press forward into the heat waves, listening for his heartbeats, willing myself to hear the thuds as I reach the very edge of the burning lava.

“Get up, dammit!” My scream nearly dies in my throat because this heat… Dear Goddess. Too hot.