Page 97 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

I leap backward, evading every droplet and shooting across the boxes of ammunition, my outstretched hand flipping lids one by one.

At the corner of my eye, I’m aware of an Ember Fae who appears to be leading the Embers’ aerial formations. It’s clear he’s seen me. Saw what I did.

His fire burns more crimson than the other Ember Fae’s.

Shooting forward on his serpent, he blasts fire from both of his hands, one directly at the catapult. The other at the ammunition boxes.

Damn, but he’s brave.

By breaking formation, he’s not only exposed himself to attack, but he’s flying straight toward canisters that are about to⁠—

Whoomph.

The explosion knocks into me, but my speed was already immense, and I absorb the impact.

Not so for the Ember Fae with the red flame.

Black smoke billows across the air and this time, it’s flowing within Iron’s borders, not southward across Ember.

The fae with the red flame is engulfed in it. Surely to perish…

A second later, he punches through the black smoke right behind me, and I’m fucking amazed at his fearlessness. I have no doubt, despite his bravery, that he will have inhaled the toxins.

He follows my path as I soar to the next catapult and deal it the same blow. With smoke now billowing around them, the legions of Iron Fae are in disarray.

The second I fly away from the catapult, the Ember Fae’s crimson fire smashes into the broken canisters I leave behind.

I’m onto the next one. And the next.

Lagging behind me for a few seconds, the Ember Fae with the crimson fire lifts a horn to his lips and blows a quick series of calls that must be a command for his men to retreat because moments later, the Ember Fae fully retreat behind their border, rushing away from the smoke.

Closer on my left now, Stellen’s frost explodes again, but not in a vicious blast, this time swirling along the border, forming a barrier of misty snowflakes.

I catch sight of Stellen on his white wolf running parallel to my position before the smoke grows dark at my back and I’m onto the next catapult.

And then the final catapult, while the Iron Army is in chaos. I guess they didn’t all have masks, because the shouting and screaming from within the onslaught is brutal.

Even those who do have masks won’t be able to see clearly in this dark pall. Not like I can.

As for the iron dust now entering my own chest, well, it fucking burns, but Thyra’s blood won’t let me die. No matter how mangled my heart has become.

I fly through the last cloud of black smoke, having reached the far side of the flat land between mountains.

Landing at the side of the nearest rocky outcrop where I cling to the stone, I wait for the Ember Fae with the red fire to punch through the smoke behind me.

No sign of him.

Across the way, still on my left, Stellen raises his hands where he sits on his wolf, frost sparkling from his palms, his shout urgent. “Kaiba!”

A second later, the man’s serpent shoots from the smoke, but his rider isn’t on his back.

It seems the man, Kaiba, must be important enough that Stellen’s leaping off his wolf and running into the smoke.

I expect Stellen’s frost power to blast from his hands, but…no.

The smallest glimmer of snowflakes mist around his body before he runs into the fumes and not a single blast of frost follows.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was all out of power.