Page 46 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“A strange thing,” Zenaida murmurs. “That the frost stopped the smoke. Thousands of innocent Ember Fae saved…” She shakes herself. “I will keep your kingdom safe until you return.”

“‘Until’ I return,” I murmur.

“With the Oracle.” Her lips compress, a firmness behind her eyes. “Remember your promise to me.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“This curse must be broken, Maxim. Or your days as king are numbered.”

I’m not surprised she speaks so bluntly. After I first let Thyra slip through my fingers, Zenaida came to tell me that, since I will never have a child, I must choose a successor.

She may as well have driven a blade through my heart, since a successor need only be nominated if the Ember King anticipates his death.

I took her request seriously—and still do. She is never hasty. She strategizes. If it weren’t for Ember Law, which forbids women from ascending the throne, as my older sister, Zenaida would have been queen.

She would have made a damn fine monarch.

Still, her reminder now brings home to me the painful fact that she, my aunt, and the Mothers didn’t come here out of care for me.

They came because it’s critical I stay alive until I name the next king.

Fuck, but that hurts too.

Whatever warmth I was feeling vanishes.

Taking a careful step back from Zenaida, I wipe my expression clean and square my shoulders. “I trust you to do everything necessary to keep my people safe.”

Whistling for my serpent, I wait a moment, surprised when he doesn’t appear out of the nearby dunes, where I thought he’d sought shelter.

Instead, a glint of gold catches my eye from the sky up on my far right. My serpent soars through the air, cutting a determined path toward me.

There’s something different about him…

As he snakes through the air, I make out the shape of a saddle on his back.

I catch my breath as he comes closer. The saddle appears to be constructed from the legendary dragon’s hide. Cleverly folded and strapped, since the hide can’t be pierced for stitching or cut into shape.

Unwanted fear strikes me.

I took the hide from Ortansia, the leader of the Tol-Dakri, the fierce tribe that lives in the south of my kingdom. This dragon’s hide is fabled to be the skin of the last fire dragon, which the Tol-Dakri took as a prize after the Battle of Fire Dragons. It’s sacred to them.

I promised Ortansia I would keep my possession of the hide a secret so her tribe wouldn’t find out it was gone.

Until now, the hide has been hidden within the dark channel. Aeliana Vividari has been resting on it, a precaution to protect her from my flames if I happened to be nearby.

Now, the hide is out in the open.

As my serpent soars toward me, he flies over the women’s heads.

A flicker of movement among them draws my attention, one of the women tipping her head back, the silken scarf she’s wearing whipping back off her head, but before I can focus on her, the others are doing the same, their scarfs billowing in the harsh wind, and I can no longer be sure which of them moved first.

My serpent hisses, dipping and blocking my view of the women as he soars down toward me. He won’t be able to land in this mess of blackened lava and freezing water.

Setting aside my disquiet, I prepare to leap up to him.

Seconds before my serpent would reach me, my aunt jumps across the water to the nearest stone and, in the rush of wind, calls to me. “You will bring her to me, Maxim.”

“What?”