Page 87 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

Boaz jumps to his feet, but I grab his arm.

He freezes, and I recognize the mortal fear in his eyes as the residual heat in my hand eats slowly through his fire-resistant amor.

“Come near my Mothers again,” I whisper, “and I’ll fucking end you.”

I wait another moment, long enough for his skin to blister, before I wrench my hand away.

He backs off, but not without a hiss. “With respect, my king, how would you know?”

His question drives ice down my spine.

I wouldn’t. He could terrorize my Mothers within the underground city, and I wouldn’t know unless Zenaida told me about it. I rely on her to be my eyes and ears, and I trust her without question, but I’m not there to protect her, either.

She told me I needed to choose a successor, an Ember fae who can walk among the people, but I didn’t realize how desperate her request might have been.

Boaz doesn’t waste another second, racing to his serpent, taking to the air, and speeding southeast toward the main entrance into the underground city. His men leap onto their serpents, rising upward in swirls of sand and flying in the opposite direction toward the border.

Only once it’s clear they won’t circle back does my serpent leave the air and land next to the Mothers, a sentry watching over them.

I remain suddenly hunched where I stand in a wide stretch of sand. I reek of thistleberry oil and ash. I’m covered in soot that has only worsened with my flames. Whatever armor I was wearing burned off earlier today, leaving me in tattered pants.

My chest hurts as I prepare to face my Mothers, where they stand closer to me than they have for years. Even the other day, they stayed much farther away.

If the Oracle is among them, she’s well-concealed.

Their silence is, as always, a heavy weight across my shoulders.

“Mothers.” My voice is hoarse. I force myself to stay where I am, even though I want to help the fallen women back to their feet. “Are you hurt?”

They answer me with silence, as I expected they would.

Their faces are pale. They tug their silks back into place, creating hoods that cast shadows over their expressions. Several of them reach for the three who had fallen to the sand, drawing them back into their fold, wrapping their arms around each other.

Then, from within their group, a clear voice sounds.

A voice whose power could drive me to my fucking knees.

“They’re hurting. But they love you too much to tell you that.”

The women part to allow the speaker through and suddenly, I am completely insignificant. A mere grain of sand in these dunes, this vast wasteland stretching out around me while only the Oracle matters.

She sheds the silks that were keeping her identity hidden, pulling the sashes smoothly from her head and shoulders, unraveling them from around her body, fluid movements as she walks, leaving the material to stream from her hand in the early evening breeze.

Her gait is smooth, her balance impeccable despite the shifting sand beneath her feet.

She hums softly as she walks, sending the silver armor she’s wearing rippling across her body and then retracting.

Like water, the threads flow up and back, leaving only a narrow sash across her breasts and pelvis while the rest of her armor forms a silver cloak that floats out from her shoulders.

A wise move, since my fire could burn her armor and that would be a very great shame because this garment can only be the lost gown of the Lethian Queen, clinging to Thyra’s curves like a song.

But with the exposure of her skin comes revelations I wasn’t expecting.

The scar across the upper-right skin of her arm freezes me. That part of her body has been covered each time I’ve glimpsed her. Now, my father’s punishing mark is visible to me.

How?

I grind my teeth, a fury that only worsens at the iron burn visible across her upper-right rib.