Page 33 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

His face scrunches up as he struggles into a sitting position, only to lean over the sand and hack out more black air.

“I’m not sure I want to be,” he rasps before he descends into another bout of coughing that makes my heart sink.

By the sound of it, his lungs are damaged…

My outstretched hands fold into fists. Fucking useless hands that can only burn Kaiba more. “Cousin⁠—”

But he’s suddenly focused downward, staring at his palm where he was holding it near his mouth.

“What the fuck?” he whispers.

I draw a sharp breath as the final puff of black air from his mouth wafts away, revealing an icy-white powder coating his hand and wrist where his breath landed.

As another shudder racks Kaiba’s body, the air frosts in front of his mouth.

“Frost?” I shake my head. “Impossible.”

There’s no way frost could reach us here in Ember, let alone be sustained in the heat of my kingdom. Let alone enter Kaiba’s lungs.

My cousin’s gaze rises to mine, his eyes wide. “My chest is clear. I’m cold, but I can breathe again.”

I can’t believe it. “But how⁠—?”

Whoomph-whoomph.

Icy power slams into us. Two forceful beats in a row.

We’re hurled into the air, tumbling uncontrollably, airborne for all of three seconds before the second beat dashes us against the ground.

Smack.

My head rings and it takes every ounce of my self-control to contain my fire.

I can’t let my fire out!

Kaiba’s too close to me. I’ll kill him.

As I try to process what happened, try to constrain my fiery instincts, a roar reaches my ears.

A sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

A howl of…

Fury and pain and vengeance.

My heart pounds and again, I fight to control my fire, every last nerve in my body suddenly lighting up.

“Kaiba,” I shout, fear pushing at my heart. “Get away from me!”

He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t argue, throwing himself across the sand and leaping to his feet, sprinting away from me across the dunes.

Only to dig in his heels a few fraught seconds later and stop still, frozen, every muscle in his body visibly tense as he stares into the northern sky above the flaming towers.

I follow his line of sight as I draw myself to my feet again.

An immense wall of white rises up in the north, filling the horizon behind the billowing smoke, ascending so high that it’s visible above the tops of the mountains along the rest of the border.

Despite the roaring sound in the air, everything has become still.