Page 55 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“I won’t let you hurt her.” He snarls at me, his eyes so pale, they could be made of the whitest snow.

The bloody orb has almost reached her hand again, tendrils of gore separating like fingers and stretching toward her wrist.

I drop to my knees, fear coursing through me so fiercely that my hand shakes.

Fucking hand! Fucking fear.

“Close your hand around the blood,” Miriam cries.

I scoop my palm behind the orb, slipping between Thyra’s arm and the writhing gore.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to scoop it all into my hand. The liquid is going to spill through my fingers and slip my hold⁠—

Fuck it.

I close my fist.

The blood touches my palm.

And jolts. And spreads. Plastering itself to my hand.

Power beyond any I’ve ever felt strikes through me, freezing and burning and calming and agitating and blinding and illuminating. All at once.

What the fuck is this?

As if from far away, my aunt’s scream breaks through the buzzing in my ears. “Burn it, Maxim. Burn it!”

I snap my fist closed.

Flames explode around my hand without another thought, a release of heat from a cage I can’t control engulfing every inch of my arm from the tips of my fingers to my elbow.

Screams fill the air, sounds so horrifying that I’m frozen.

A girl’s voice. And a woman’s. Filled with terror. The deepest betrayal.

Across from me, Stellen flinches, all of his calm gone. A second later, he hunches over Thyra, his eyes squeezed shut, his free hand pressed to one of his ears. His other arm clamps around her, but that hand lifts toward his head, as if he would block both of his ears if he could. His lips are moving. He’s whispering something, but I can’t hear it above the screams.

I’ve never seen pain like this.

What happened to him?

Whose screams are these?

The cries fade and the finest dusting of ash falls from my fingers, a final ember sparking before it dies.

I’m fucking shaking. My breathing is ragged. My fist opens and closes compulsively. My fire is doused, even though I don’t remember stopping it.

Stellen’s whispers reach me. “It is not the end. One day, we will Sing together again. Not the end… Not the end… One day, we will Sing together…”

He falls silent.

In his arms, Thyra takes a deep breath, her chest rising, her back arching.

I jolt toward her, watching for her eyes to open, but her chest deflates and she sinks harder against Stellen.

She isn’t waking up and around us, the storm continues.

Far behind me, I sense the Mothers’ heat chain wavering. They’ve sustained this warmth for far too long already. They must be exhausted.