Page 79

REPEL THE KNIGHTS-IN-SHINING-ARMOR (YOUR WIFE DOESN’T NEED SAVING, THANKS)

KAZIMIR

I watched Nyx spiral above us, her sleek black form slicing through the clouds and painting dark trails against the pale sky.

She’d grown significantly since the day I first brought her to Skyspire, hoping to seduce my new wife.

Now, she boasted a fifteen-foot wingspan and the kind of aerial precision that raised one inevitable question: just how powerful would she become once fully grown?

I let my gaze drift downward. Arabella leaned against the stable’s outer wall, the tension in her posture betraying the storm beneath her surface.

She hadn’t said much since we left her father in the dungeons.

Instead, she’d walked straight out to see Nyx, as though only the dragon’s presence could anchor her thoughts.

Any number of pressing matters demanded my attention—troops to marshal, defenses to reinforce, a war to spark—but I remained at her side.

If she needed this moment of quiet, I wouldn’t deny her.

And if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t prepared to walk away from her even if the entanglement allowed it.

Something fierce shimmered behind her eyes whenever she stared into the sky, the same look I’d glimpsed when she first arrived at Skyspire, defiant and ready to carve her own path. Even in stillness, she looked coiled tight enough to shatter steel with her bare hands.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked carefully. My voice came out a bit harsher than intended, reflecting the tangle of regret and protectiveness inside me.

She shook her head, not turning around. “Not yet,” she said quietly. “I’m not ready.”

I understood all too well. On more than one occasion, I would’ve done the same: swallow your rage until you find the right moment to aim it. Still, if Arabella asked me to rip off a dungeon door and hand her a sword, I would have complied.

My eyes narrowed when I spotted dark bruises around her wrists. A spark of anger lit in my gut. I reached out and took her hand gently, tilting it to study the discolored flesh.

“What happened?” I managed, my tone low with forced calm.

She hesitated. “It’s nothing.”

“Arabella,” I pressed, voice dropping further, “those are finger marks.”

She exhaled, pulling her hand from mine. “They’re from the stabilization enchantment yesterday,” she admitted. “You had that... episode, and you grabbed me. I couldn’t get free.”

Memory crashed through me. It had felt like some ancient presence erupted from nowhere, ransacking my thoughts. I must have clamped down on her in my desperation.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. The words felt pathetically inadequate. “I didn’t realize?—”

“It’s fine,” she said, cutting off my apology. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

Fine or not, I hated seeing those bruises. They were my fault, accidental or not. I moved to cast a healing spark, but she backed away, out of reach.

“Don’t waste your strength,” she insisted. She waved a hand in a vague gesture to indicate the sprawl of my summoned shadow warriors patrolling the forest below the citadel. “You’ve got enough magical burdens right now.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. Keeping sixty shadow warriors in existence took a toll, and my runes hadn’t settled to normal after Solandris. Still, being told not to bother only sharpened my sense of guilt and mild bitterness at my own limitations.

I cleared my throat. “The citadel’s defenses did receive a boost during that stabilization enchantment. The shadows are just an extra measure.”

Arabella’s look of skepticism felt like a physical jab. “At what cost to you?”

I shrugged, hoping to dismiss it. “I’ve certainly endured worse.” It was the truth, though the ache in my bones could have argued otherwise. My pride would never let me admit that out loud. “Once our entanglement ends, I plan to inspect the garrisons in person.”

She angled her head to study me. “You still fight on the front lines yourself?”

I nodded once, short and certain. “I’m not the kind of warlord who hides behind an army.”

Arabella’s eyes flicked over me, measuring my words. “I guess I knew that.”

Overhead, Nyx let out a keening screech that pulled our gazes skyward.

She spiraled downward in a graceful corkscrew, wings slashing the air in rhythmic beats.

Curls of heat shimmered around her scaled hide when she finally touched down.

She folded those massive wings carefully, and Arabella reached out, stroking the dragon’s snout.

“She’s getting better at landings,” Arabella remarked with subdued pride.

Even in my darkest mood, I felt a flicker of pleasure watching Nyx respond to Arabella’s gentle hand.

Stepping away from the stable, Arabella turned toward me. She kept one hand on Nyx’s muzzle, but her gaze was fixed on my face. “During the Syndicate’s visit,” she began, “you said something that’s been rattling in my head.”

I tensed. The Syndicate’s visit had exposed more than I’d intended, thanks to Zaraiah’s calculated barbs. “Did I?”

“‘All’s fair in love and war,” Arabella said. “Tell me what you meant.”

I exhaled slowly. “It’s a common enough saying.”

“You don’t do common, Kazimir. You measure every word.”

I attempted a smirk. “I’ve been known to indulge in a bit of poetic flair.”

She snorted, clearly unimpressed. Her intensity wrapped around us, urging a raw confession I didn’t want to out myself with. My heart hammered in protest. I did the only thing I could think of to break through her tension—close the distance and press my mouth to hers in a fierce, immediate kiss.

For an instant, she stiffened beneath my touch; then her lips softened, melding to mine.

My arms slid around her waist, pulling her firmly against me.

I felt the pent-up worry, the anger, the uncertain heartbreak all melt into that kiss.

The entire realm could have burned around us for all I cared.

I just wanted her warm lips and her body against mine.

When we finally broke apart, Arabella stared at me, chest heaving. Her eyes glowed dangerously, and for one shining heartbeat, everything else disappeared.

Nyx’s sudden hiss yanked us back to reality. She craned her long neck toward the main citadel, nostrils flaring.

At the same time, a chill threaded through me. I sensed a shift in Skyspire’s wards, the kind that signaled an emergency. An alarm thrummed at the edge of my awareness, and adrenaline flared in my veins.

“What is it?” Arabella asked, noticing the tension in my stance.

I shook my head sharply. “The citadel’s defenses just triggered.” I grabbed her hand. “We need to get to the Inner Sanctum. Now.”

We sprinted to the nearby lightning bridge and were halfway across when the entire structure went dark beneath us. I felt the surge flicker and vanish underfoot, leaving only sky and a jarring sense of weightlessness.

Arabella gasped, and together we plunged.

A desperate shout lodged in my throat as I summoned a void portal, ignoring the red-hot pain that tore across my carved runes.

Instead of splattering thousands of feet below, we dropped into a swirling darkness and emerged on the gate tower’s stone floor.

Our landing was awkward and jarring, but at least we were alive.

She stumbled into me. “What the hell was that?” she managed.

“Emergency protocol,” I snapped, not at her but at the entire fiasco. “The bridges shut down if there’s a threat.”

No time to explain further—we broke into a run again. Something or someone had triggered a major assault. I yanked on the psychic tether to my shadow warriors, summoning them upward, but they’d need precious seconds to converge inside the citadel.

We skidded around a corner and nearly bowled over a Hero’s Guild soldier in shining armor. Shock flashed across his face. Clearly, he hadn’t expected me to appear out of nowhere. I reacted faster. A burst of shadows snapped around his throat, and the soldier died before he could cry out.

Arabella’s breathing hitched, but she stayed focused. We kept going. Alarm bells rang in my head at the distant clang of steel and the crackle of spells echoing through the citadel’s halls. The fortress had been breached. My domain, my stronghold, violated.

We nearly ran straight into Vex. She had a vicious gash on her cheek and dried blood crusting the front of her tunic. She sucked in a breath upon seeing us.

“My lord,” she rasped. “Lady Blackrose. At least a hundred from the Hero’s Guild. They used the emergency ascension platforms.”

I wanted to snarl. We’d installed those platforms so that our people could evacuate in a disaster, never for an enemy to exploit. Only a handful of people knew they existed, and fewer still knew how to activate them. “They’re after the Heirloom,” I stated coldly. “And Arabella.”

“Yes,” Vex replied, picking up her pace. “They seem to think they can seize both.”

Fury lanced through me. I swore I’d find whoever leaked that information, then string them up. “Where are our people?”

“Thorne’s holding the gate tower. Griffin’s holed up in his workshop—I last saw him heading that way. Sims is…” She hesitated, her voice trembling. “He’s dead.”

A cold ball of anger hardened in my gut. Irritating as Sims was, he belonged to me. And now he was gone because these fools marched in with their self-righteous illusions.

We tore around another bend and slammed into three more knights.

The one in front roared, raising a sword.

My shadows lashed out. His eyes bulged when I severed his hand.

A second knight conjured a golden shield, only to have my darkness swirl behind it and slice through his unprotected flank. He collapsed with a strangled groan.

The third, a robed mage, began chanting to dispel my illusions. She almost succeeded, but I lunged forward and wrapped a hand around her throat, cutting the incantation short. “Who let you in?” I growled.

She spat out a curse. “Go to hell,” she rasped.

I tightened my grip until I felt her windpipe give way.

She crumpled to the floor, lifeless. Arabella stepped past me without comment, not a shred of revulsion in her expression.

I hardly had time to register my own grim satisfaction before we raced ahead.

Besides my wife, the Heirloom was the greatest prize in these walls, and that was where the Guild must have been headed.

As we passed the war room, I saw the doors flung wide, half a dozen Guild soldiers ransacking my maps. They spotted us, and one with a commander’s insignia beckoned Arabella with an almost triumphant gleam.

“Lady Evenfall! We’ve come to re?—”

“It’s Lady Blackrose,” she said fiercely. “And I didn’t ask for rescue.”

That final word dripped with contempt. My temper flared anew. Enough. With a flick of my hands, I unleashed a wave of blackness that blanketed the room in stuttering gloom. Cries of alarm erupted as they stumbled into illusions among swirling shadows.

One knight bore down on me with a flaming sword.

I sidestepped, thrusting a conjured blade into his back.

Another two harried Vex, but she twirled away with nimble efficiency, twin daggers gleaming.

A final knight rushed Arabella, only to be blasted by a bolt of blazing gold magic. He fell, armor smoking.

Their commander tried to call for a retreat, but I appeared behind him before he could rally. He whirled, sword swinging, scraping my swirling darkness. My hand morphed into razor talons, slicing him wide open. His armor parted like paper. He dropped, mouth agape in silent horror.

The silence afterward was punctuated by labored breathing. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the fierce burn in my runes. We had to keep going. We had to secure the Heirloom. Vex turned toward me, probably to await orders, but at that moment a searing pressure exploded behind my eyes.

Something ancient and ravenous twisted in my mind. The same presence I’d felt before, biting into my consciousness with frenzied hunger. My runes erupted in agony, and I let out a raw, choking cry. The world pitched, pain shredding every nerve. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hold on.

Vaguely, I heard Arabella shouting my name. Then everything receded into darkness.