Page 44 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

HANNA

My vision was blurry as Dare backed away, fixed on something beyond me; I turned to face the crowd, which was parting for a gray-haired man. It took time for his tall figure to resolve into recognition.

Lord Baelur strode toward the altar. His dark cloak flowed behind him and an arrogant smile was fixed on his face.

“Lady Ginelle,” he greeted me with more warmth than one would expect, given I was bound and bleeding on the altar.

Gods, I didn’t want to die pretending to be that dull, smirking woman.

He seemed to be speaking more for the crowd than for me. “Soon, you will ascend, and if the gods find your spirit worthy, you shall return to us enshrined in their eternal favor.”

It wasn’t likely I was going to please the gods. I raised my chin with the defiance that clung to me as stubbornly as my blood-drenched gown.

“Why do they follow you?” My voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper, and every word burnt my throat. I’d meant to speak to the crowd, as he did, but my voice wasn’t loud enough to carry beyond Baelur. “Why do these people follow one noble, crying for salvation, while they demand the blood of the rest?”

Lord Baelur regarded me with an expression that flickered with surprise. “I have made my atonement. The gods have seen fit to cleanse me of past transgressions and have blessed me with their power.”

He stepped closer. Fervor burned in his gaze, though after glimpsing the Shadow Weaver, I wasn’t sure what was true anymore.

He placed a death-cold hand upon my forehead, his touch seeping through my skin.

“Let us pray,” he said, his voice rising to address the heavens, “that you, too, shall be found worthy. May the Shadow Weaver possess your soul, claim your body, and rise within you.”

The crowd echoed his entreaty, their voices a single, haunting chorus that filled the temple.

I doubted any god would particularly want my soul.

My heart pounded in my ears as Baelur turned from me, addressing the sea of faces that hung on his every word.

“The gods demand sacrifice,” he intoned. His voice seemed to roll through the room as if he was using one of the spells to amplify voices. “Through suffering and surrender, through death itself, one may rise to divinity.”

“Are we not all willing to bear these trials for such a gift?” Lord Baelur called out, spreading his arms wide. “The gods have favored and raised Lady Ginelle, and they give her a chance to atone and be reborn. Even a moment of fear can be purged, and her soul can be found worthy.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd. They seemed intoxicated by his promise, ready to embrace oblivion if it meant touching the hem of godhood. Panic fluttered within me like a trapped bird.

Furtively, I shifted against the cold stone of the altar, testing the ropes bound around my wrists and ankles. The cuts Dare had inflicted stung with each movement, but the bindings began to give way. He had done his work carefully as always.

As Baelur’s rhetoric swelled, enrapturing the congregation, I tightened my muscles, breaking free of the half-sawed ropes.

I dared not glance at Dare. I wasn’t even sure where he was now.

“Behold!” Baelur suddenly bellowed, his voice transforming, resonating with an unearthly power that silenced the temple.

I froze. In the span of a breath, Baelur’s form wavered, then grew impossibly tall. A shimmering aura surrounded him, casting shadows that danced across the walls.

Fuck.

Was this a magic trick, or were we about to fight a god?

“Let the gods rise from our bodies! The Royals stole magic from the gods, and now they will repay them!”

Roses sprouted from the ground, their thorns gleaming like daggers. The vines snaked toward me with unnatural speed. I frantically threw off the cut ropes, ready to fight, and sat up just as the vines reached me.

They wrapped around my limbs, dragging me back down to the altar. My head slammed into the marble hard enough to make the whole world dark for a second. As I came back to myself, the scent of their blooms was suffocating, sweet and cloying.

“Your path is set, Lady Ginelle,” the godlike version of Baelur spoke. His voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating inside my skull. “The Shadow Weaver awaits.”

I struggled, but it was futile. Each movement only tightened their grip, drawing blood as thorns pierced my skin. I cried out in pain, too worn and tired to be brave any longer.

The statue of the goddess bent toward me, her stone hands reaching for my body as I had accidentally reached for her. The chanting of the cultists rose. I caught a glimpse of Baelur’s smirking face before the goddess commanded all my attention.

If any part of me remained…I would burn this temple to the ground.

As I fell through the darkness, the goddess rose above me.

* * *

DARE

Dragons soared above the temple, slamming into the crumbling ruins.

The shadows blurred, and Zehr, Jaik, and Caldren strode through.

A dragon landed between Hanna and Baelur, snarling. Baelur, even as a god, took a stutter-step back.

“That’s my little sister,” Caldren snarled, drawing his sword.

Dragon Royals and Dragon Guards alike filled the room, and the cultists ran screaming before them.

Without wasting a heartbeat, I spun on my heel, my boots sliding on the stone floor slick with spilled blood.

The sight of Hanna bound to the altar, so still, sent a cold spear of fear through my chest. Even Baelur didn’t exist for me now. I had to trust the others to fight while I tried to care for her.

Hanna convulsed in a violent shudder.

I rushed to her side, my hands hovering above her thrashing form. “Hanna!”

But she didn’t wake. My hands shook as I cut frantically through the vines that bound her. Her lips moved, in conversation far from me. Her eyes moved frantically beneath closed lids, as if she were deep in a dream.

As if she were fighting the goddess.

Whatever magic the goddess had carried into her was melting the runes off her body, until Hanna was Hanna again, her face taut with pain and agony but familiar.

My fingers brushed against her forehead, a futile gesture meant to call her back from the brink. My mind opened, inviting her in; I pictured a cottage, the way I always did, flooded with light from all the windows thrown open. But she wasn’t there.

“Fight, Hanna,” I whispered.

Her body arched against invisible chains. The goddess was claiming her temple…within Hanna. We had waited too long, trying to draw the Lord in…and now both he and the goddess were here.

“You can do this,” I told her frantically, lacing my fingers through hers. A fierce battle raged through the temple, and I needed to get her out of here, but the biggest danger to Hanna now was within. “Come back to me, Hanna. You’re enough of a pain in the ass as a woman—I can’t imagine what you’re going to be like if you’re a goddess.”

The thought of Hanna being erased and replaced by the goddess, becoming nothing but a form she carried, overwhelmed me. I’d rather try to convince myself that in the inner war between her and the goddess, Hanna would emerge, as maddening and irrepressible as ever.

I clenched my jaw, my knuckles whitening as I fought against the despair clawing up my throat. I would be damned if I let anything rip her away from me, even the gods.

“Stay with me,” I urged, my voice a hoarse whisper. “Please, Hanna, fight her. Stay with me. Thorne and Kaelan need you…I need you.”

I cradled her face, my thumb brushing against her lips; she had bitten them so hard as she fought they were chapped and bloodied. “I’ve been a prisoner to my past for too long, haunted by vengeance. But I’m ready to let go of it all.”

My eyes burned with unshed tears as dreams I’d once had of the future suddenly connected with reality.

I’d dreamt of family, while I’d had Kaelan, Thorne, and Hanna sitting around a table with me, laughing and talking. I’d already had what I’d wanted. But I’d been too fucking stupid to see it.

My voice hitched unexpectedly. “Forgive me—for everything. Keep fighting. And I’ll fight too. I won’t run away again.”

A sudden presence at my side jerked me out of my focus on Hanna. “Finally. Maybe you’ll be worthy of her.”

It was a deep, familiar voice.

I whipped my head around, my heart skipping a beat at the sight of icy blue eyes mirroring my own turmoil. Kaelan was distraught, no matter how lightly he spoke.

“Kaelan!” Disbelief laced my tone.

“Who did this to her?” Kaelan’s gaze swept over Hanna’s broken form. “I’m going to rip their guts out.”

I had hurt her, and I had married her, and Kaelan wouldn’t be thrilled about either.

I hoisted Hanna into my arms and off the bloody altar. Her head lolled against my shoulder.

“Where did you come from?” I asked Kaelan. I was glad he was here to fight alongside me, but I also felt shaken by his presence.

“I heard her call,” he said. “She screamed for help. So I came.”

He thought she had screamed for him; no one else had the mental link with her…as far as Kaelan knew, anyway.

All around us was chaos. The noise in the temple pounded around us: the clash of steel, the shouts of guards, and the panicked screams of cultists. The acrid smell of smoke and sweat permeated the air, mixed with the metallic tang of blood. Guards seized those cultists they could, their armor glinting in the flickering torchlight as they grappled with robed figures. Those who resisted too fiercely met a swift and brutal end, their bodies crumpling to the cold stone floor.

Above us, the temple groaned ominously. Some of the massive dragons had perched on the already crumbling walls. Their scales glittered like jewels in the moonlight that streamed through the holes in the ceiling, but their weight was too much for the half-ruined structure. Dust and small debris rained down on us as the walls began to give way, adding to the frenzied atmosphere.

I cradled Hanna’s limp form against my chest, her skin clammy and pale. “We have to get her out of here.”

Without a word, he plunged ahead of me, his broad shoulders creating a path through the pandemonium. I followed close behind, my arms tightening protectively around Hanna as we dodged falling debris and battling bodies.

Two cultists burst toward me, but Thorne stepped between us. “Go,” he told me, his voice tight. “Get her to safety.”

Baelur was nowhere to be seen.

We burst out of the temple entrance, the cool night air a sharp contrast to the stifling heat inside. For a moment, relief washed over me as we escaped the collapsing building. But that relief was short-lived.

There, blocking our path, stood Baelur.

Whatever god possessed him loomed above us, his presence seeming to distort the very air. He was impossibly tall, his form shimmering with an otherworldly light that hurt to look at directly.

The ground beneath our feet trembled with each step he took toward us. His eyes, ancient and terrifying, focused on Hanna’s unconscious form in my arms.

The night seemed to grow darker around us, as if the stars were dimming in Baelur’s presence. A sense of dread washed over me. The emotion was so powerful that I wondered if that was part of this strange god’s power.

“The Shadow Weaver will serve me.” Baelur’s voice seemed to shake the earth beneath us.

The sounds of battle from the temple faded away, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

And in my arms, Hanna moved.

My heart leapt, but when I looked down at her, her eyelids were still closed, her eyes moving rapidly underneath them. Her face looked fragile, distant.

“She’ll never be your servant.”

Beside me, Kaelan gripped his sword. “I’ve always thought the gods deserved to answer for leaving the world in such a state of chaos. I’m happy to start with you. What’s your name? Or has that been forgotten?”

Baelur’s cold gaze flickered between the two of us, and his lips curled up in amusement. “I am Riel, and I’ve come to fix the chaos,” he promised. “Beginning with you and the girl and all the chaos you have wrought together.”

He raised two fingers on his right hand, and the world seemed to stutter.