Page 161 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

My armor shrieks an anxious melody and I’m relieved when the silver threads tear through my warrior’s garb, pouring between the torn edges to rush up into the cooler air at my back, seeking safety there.

Now, my scream changes. “Stellen!” I don’t care about the tattered rags I’m left wearing as I try again to push into the heat. “I need you!”

A rush of air brings me hope until a new group of golden serpents soars across the sky above me, rapidly circling back and landing to form an arc in the clear sand.

I’m not afraid of being boxed in. I can fight my way past these men.

Their leader dismounts first. Boaz. The man who hurt the Mothers. My rage toward him resurfaces and this time, I don’t have to worry about collateral damage.

“Did you do this?” I prowl toward Boaz, deciding against trying to draw him nearer to the fire, where I could just as easily injure myself as hurt him.

“Sacrificing a few serpents was worth it,” Boaz says as he reaches for a contraption attached to his serpent’s saddle. “So is sacrificing a few men to slow down the former Kings of Iron and Frost, although I’m certain that fight won’t last long. Which is why I’m not about to waste another breath on talk.”

Boaz lunges toward me and that’s when I get a full look at what he’s holding.

A wooden collar attached to a pole. The entire thing made from ashen-brown wood that won’t burn.

Worse, I have only a heartbeat to identify the metal sparkling around the collar’s inner edge, the chain of a ruby circlet embedded within the wood, the chain’s latch exposed.

Antony warned me there were more of those circlets. If wrapped around my neck, this circlet could be triggered to sever my head from my shoulders. A deadly means of controlling me.

My reflexes kick in and I evade Boaz’s first attempt to snap the collar around my neck, darting to the side, staying clear of the other men.

“You hid from me the other day, Oracle,” Boaz says. “You won’t evade me again.”

So much for his promise not to waste air.

I may not be able to easily break that wood, but I can certainly break his arms and legs.

Dashing forward, sliding beneath the rod, I aim a bone-breaking punch at Boaz’s ribs.

A split second before my fist would have connected, the air shrieks all around me, a disorientating rush of sound and movement.

I’m wrenched backward with barely enough time to register the multi-pronged lashes wrapping around my arms and legs, each belonging to whips being wielded by Boaz’s men.

I have a split second to wrench my right leg out of the way, but the other lashes meet their targets. The men were clever enough to aim for where I was headed, not where I was.

One of the whiptails snaps around my left wrist, pulling my left arm taut, while another wrenches my right arm outward, and the third pulls my left leg out from under me.

Each lash is ashen brown, supple strands of wood woven into seemingly unbreakable rope.

Worse, they’re barbed.

As the men pull back on the lashes, the barbs hook deep into my flesh and I’m driven to my knees on the ground.

Through watering eyes, I make out the men quickly securing the lashes to their serpents’ saddles, the beasts’ strength ensuring the ropes stay taut.

I fight the panicky urge to struggle, trying to breathe through my alarm.

I tell myself I can get out of this.

Even if the lashes have already cut deeply enough into my flesh that hot blood flows down my left wrist and my left calf. Only my right wrist, where the lash wraps across the Dragonstone Blade, remains unscathed while my right leg is unbound because of my quick evasion, an imbalance I’m determined to use to my advantage.

Boaz grins as he approaches me, brandishing the collar again.

I cope with the pain by imagining my right foot breaking his jaw. Maybe my leg squeezing around his throat and breaking his neck. Somehow.

Come a little closer, Boaz.