Page 108 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Thirty-Six

Atlas was a giant.

As we entered the forge for the third, and hopefully final time, I saw him towering over the other smiths and armorers. He was leaning over an anvil, lifting a huge hammer to strike against something metal.

The rippling muscles of his back stretched and bunched beneath a sweat-soaked red shirt as his long, powerful arms raised the hammer and then struck down in a long, graceful blow.

The ringing sound of the metal filled the chamber with a loud twang as Io and I stepped inside.

I took my seat on the stool next to the anvil. The dented and marred top was still flecked with the gold plating from my cuffs.

When Atlas finally stopped hammering and turned, his face spread in a wide grin.

"Atlas," Io said, nodding.

"Big man!" Atlas replied in a deep rumble that bordered on a roar.

His skin was deep golden brown, his smile ferocious, but somehow achingly sweet. He had slightly elongated canines under dark, smoldering eyes and a heavy, fierce brow.

He stepped forward and wrapped Io in a violent hug, slapping his shoulder soundly. As the hand lay across Io's wide back, I suddenly realized how big Atlas really was. He was a veritable giant—and a really gorgeous one at that.

"This your sweet lady?" Atlas asked casually, kneeling down beside me. His long, black hair fell down his back and over his shoulders wildly. He inspected my face, then surveyed the cuffs on my wrists before looking back up at me with a heated, promising gaze.

I snorted with laughter at the look on his face. He was being ridiculously flirtatious. Likely for Io's benefit, hoping to work him up into a lather.

"That's her," Io said breezily, still standing behind me. I thought he was enjoying letting me handle the situation without his interference.

I shoved my hand out into Atlas' gorgeous face. "Aelia of Windemere," I said.

His hand nearly swallowed mine as he shook it. "Atlas, formerly of the Grove, lately of Morgus Grund."

"Well-met Master Smith, now can you get these cursed things off me?"

"It won't take but a moment, sweetling," Atlas purred, turning to the anvil he had been working at. He lifted what looked like a hammer sharpened to a point. I recognized the dull sheen of mellitrium as he stepped closer.

"Shield your maiden, big man," Atlas said as he raised the hammer-axe over his head.

My eyes went wide as Io slid quickly into place behind me, grasping my arms. The shield went up the instant before Atlas' voice filled the chamber.

Magic crackled in the air as fire licked up the handle. It was a solid white stream with a bright, vivid core that looked more like lightning than flames.

And then down came the mellitrium hammer. I closed my eyes as the deafening roar of Atlas echoed through the forge.

The hammer struck the metal with another loud twang. I opened my eyes just in time to see the lightning-fire arc out, striking the cuffs.

Atlas's triumphant face filled my vision as he took the trajectory of the hammer's rebound and absorbed it with his massive arms. He was cocky and smiling as he flipped the hammer up into the air, catching it neatly.

His face fell, though, as he saw what I had been looking at all along. The solid, unmarred surface of the cuffs.

"What devilry is this?" He dropped the hammer and held my wrists in one of his hands. Leaning over, he rested his forehead against the cuffs, and I heard muttered whispers as though he was working a spell.

When he was done, he looked up at me, eyes full of sorrow and regret. "This is not bound with the necromancer's life. It is bound with yours, Aelia of Windemere."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I demanded.

"It means that when the spell was crafted..."

"I don't give a shit when it was crafted, how do you un-craft it?" I was panicking, nearly to the point of screaming.

Atlas shook his head regretfully.

I pushed up from the anvil, my breaths coming in short, choking pants. My movements felt jerky and uncoordinated as I tried to find the door. It was never the one I thought it was. I was somehow always getting turned around in the forge, so I turned to find the other door.

"I'm sorry, Aelia of Windemere. Nothing short of the hand of the Dagda himself could bring those cuffs off you while you live."

Atlas' deep rumbling voice chased me down the corridor.

I realized I picked the right door as I rushed through the Citadel. I ignored the startled faces of everyone as I ran past corridors and rooms. I wanted out. I felt the weight of the entire mountain pressing down on me., and nothing could have stopped my headlong sprint through the ancient academy.

"Sera, wait!"

I halted. Nothing short of him could stop me.

I met him halfway down the hall.

"Come with me," he said quietly, catching my arm and turning me back in the direction we had come.

"Io, I don't want to go back there and let them try and try and fail."

"We aren't. I know how to get them off but be quiet and try not to draw too much attention."

"How?"

He smiled down at me. "Just come."

I went, but I wasn't happy about it even as his level of excitement made some stupid bit of hope blossom in my chest.

When he led me into the room with the elderwood sword, I felt my face drain of color.

"Absolutely not, Io. You will not touch that thing," His ridiculously noble heart was giving him the mistaken impression that he could wield that terrifying, pain-inducing bit of elderwood and break my cuffs.

He was foolish enough to believe himself capable of withstanding the pain for me—pain so great it could incapacitate a body for a full month at the least and kill at the worst.

"Quiet," Io said, walking around the chamber and closing the three doors that led out of the rounded room.

"I won't be quiet!" I hoped my voice carried to the smiths in the forge only a couple of doors away.

"Once again, my wicked, impatient Sera, you have to trust me."

I moved to block him as he headed for the sword in the center of the room. "If you touch it, so will I!"

"You will do no such thing.”

"You won't be able to stop me. You'll be on the ground, writhing in pain and crying for your mother!"

He gave me an irreverent grin as he approached. "I won't."

"You're not that strong, you fucking idiot!"

"It's not strength I'm after, Sera."

"What are you after, then? Being unconscious for a month? Death?" I demanded, pushing against his chest.

He slid his hands around my backside and pulled me to him.

"Generally, I’m after getting inside your.

..hot…” He punctuated each word with a soft kiss on my lips “.

..tight...sweet..." I didn't notice he’d been moving me backward until my back hit the edge of the pedestal, and I heard a scraping hiss, like stone against stone.

I gasped, turning to find his hand on the elderwood blade.

"No!" I shouted as he lifted it from the plinth. I reached for him as though to smack it out of his hands, but he raised his arm higher.

"Careful, darling. You really don't want to touch this thing."

"What the fuck, Io? How did you do that? Are you okay? It doesn't hurt?" I reached up, running my hands over his face assessing him, looking for signs that he was hiding the effects of the blade from me.

"I'm fine. And to answer your question, I don't know. I've been playing with this sword since I was a boy. Nothing has ever happened. I never told a soul, and neither will you, so we need to hurry."

"Why would you never tell anyone?" I hissed, letting him gather my wrists on the edge of the stone.

He chuckled. "Then, it was because I knew Cassius would be cross with me, and I didn't want him to tell my father.

But now...I don't want to have to fight every king in the world when they won't take my word for it that I don't want or have any claim on the fucking crystal throne. Now, are you ready?"

I nodded. "I'm ready."

"I won't hit you," he promised.

"I know that," I said, glowering at him.

He smiled that wicked, dark smile. "My brave girl."

He stretched the fingers of one hand across my forearms, holding them together. A whisper of cool darkness ran down my wrists.

I closed my eyes, not because I doubted him, but because some unsettled part of my brain apparently did.

I felt nothing from his hand on my arm—not tension, not muscle contraction, not even a breath of wind as he swung the blade down and struck the cuffs.

I heard the muffled ring of the elderwood striking metal and opened my eyes to see the remains of the mellitrium on the stone table. Only a fine powder was left behind where the sword had shattered both cuffs into nothing in one swing.

I pulled my hands away, dusting the mellitrium from my wrists, looking in wonder at the pale blanched white flesh that had lain beneath the metal.

As the last of the powder floated to the floor, a weight lifted from my chest in a glorious explosion of relief. "Oh!" I cried, feeling a lightness inside me, something unfurling, building, opening.

Power thrummed through my veins, making wild, streaking paths through my blood, my skin, deep inside my bones, fighting, growing, wanting to get out.

"Oh shit," Io said. "We have to go. Now!"

I barely heard him as my body pulsed and ached for release. Energy crackled down my limbs making little sparks dance at my fingertips. The ground vibrated beneath us.

Fire, golden and lovely, so achingly familiar, burst from my hands. It wreathed them, licking up my shirtsleeves.

I raised them before me in wonder as the material caught fire.

Io grabbed my arms. Cool, fresh water soaked my shirtsleeves as the acrid scent of burning filled my nostrils.

My body still vibrated, and my hands still burned.

"Beautiful," I heard him say from somewhere far away.

I couldn't focus. I was too full of hot, screaming, angry fire. I would die if I didn’t let it out. All of it.

"Sera," he said, sharply.

And then I exploded.