Page 60 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“Quickly, serpent,” she murmurs as she leans close to the serpent’s head. “We need to get the Oracle underground as fast as we can. Without being stopped. No matter what it takes. Do you understand?”

The serpent hisses and then the group passes over the crest of the dune.

I pause, my brow furrowing at the tension in Miriam’s voice. Without being stopped? No matter what it takes?

My eyes narrow, my gaze passing to the sand dunes that swallowed Maxim, an undefinable dread rising within me.

I should have asked more questions. I know the Ember Fae are a people of fire and that, other than Maxim’s sister, their women aren’t allowed to hold positions of authority, but I’m also not aware of any civil unrest.

Maybe I should have gone with Thyra…

But that would guarantee a fight. And many dead Ember Fae.

Dammit, I have no choice but to keep my distance.

Unable to turn away, I watch as the serpent’s body disappears behind the dune, the furrow in my brow deepening.

For a second… I think I catch a pulse of golden energy, just like the blade’s energy, rippling down the serpent’s tail, but I shake it off.

It can only be the sun’s reflection off the serpent’s scales.

Chapter Twenty-One

Maxim

Lava splashes up around my legs as I race across the sand dunes.

I’m barely conscious of the direction I’m heading, only that I’m sprinting away from Thyra and Miriam and my Mothers.

My hand burns where I touched the dark blood that rose from Thyra’s fist.

A disconcerting, tingling scorch. A power that has unsettled me.

As I hit the base of the mountains standing at Ember’s border, I turn sharply east, wary of taking my fire too far west and hitting the channel where Antony’s mother sleeps.

Overhead, the snowstorm has stopped, but the frost is thick on the ground and finally…finally…the ice calms my power, neutralizing the heat on my legs, the frosty air wafting up across my chest, cooling my face.

Beads of sweat roll down my temples and clump my hair.

I drop to my knees at the edge of the mountain peak to the left of the breach where Hadrian focused his worst attack.

Pure devastation lies below me along the plains. Then, far into the distance in the north, I make out the shapes of the first eagles rising into the air.

They’d better not fucking fly south. I have no mercy for Iron Fae today.

Movement below me snaps my attention to the rubble of Ember Towers near the one from which I dragged Kaiba.

Stellen and his wolf have reached the border already.

Damn, but that wolf can move fast, carrying Stellen at speeds that rival my golden serpent. I’m certain the beast must have some wild wolf in her. Rare strength.

More surprising is that Stellen didn’t change his mind and take Thyra back, after all.

My brow furrows when he dismounts from his wolf instead of riding east toward the charcoal tower I told him he could use.

He crouches to the ground, one hand hovering above the melting ice, his head tilted sharply to the left.

Then he points.