Page 26

Chapter

Fourteen

DAIN

E zabell moved swiftly down the road, her back rigid with fury. Sweat cooled on my skin in the aftermath of the fight, but the tug in my chest burned hotter with each step she took away from us.

It was a mistake to let her go. When she rounded the bend and disappeared from view, I turned to Nikolas. “We have to follow her.”

He stared after her with a stricken expression.

“Nikolas.”

He looked at me. Then he dragged a hand through his hair. “I know,” he said, his voice still rough from tangling with the bounty hunter. His gaze strayed to Ezabell’s dagger protruding from the man’s testicles, and green tinged his face. “She’s really angry, though.”

“We’ll explain things,” I said. Although, what could we possibly say to make her believe us? And why would she take the word of two thieves? Not even Nikolas had enough charm to smooth this over.

Still, the fist behind my sternum yanked at me to go after her—to find her and make things right.

Yes, we’d seen the sunstone as our salvation.

I’d suspected Nikolas’s bad intentions, and I’d said nothing.

Yes, he’d plotted the steal the stone, but he’d changed his mind.

And after last night, we could never betray her.

But how could we make her see that?

“We need to move,” I said, already stepping toward the road. “We’ll catch up to her.”

A streak of light cut across my vision, and Helios materialized inches from my face.

“Don’t even think about it,” he growled, his hair soaring in an agitated plume. “She’ll sense you, and she’ll kill you both.” His eyes glinted behind his spectacles. “And I’ll take pleasure in helping her.”

Nikolas moved to my side. “You can try, sunshine.”

Helios gave him a menacing smile. “I’ll start with you, asshole.”

Nikolas squared his shoulders. “You?—”

“We need your help, Helios,” I said. The sunsprite was closer to Ezabell than anyone. If Nikolas had any hope of winning her back, we had to start with Helios. “We never meant to hurt Ezabell.”

“Save it,” he snarled. “The princess doesn’t want to see you. The two of you have done nothing but put her in danger. I’m going to make sure she stays safe. If you want to stay unmelted , I suggest you forget you ever met her.”

He streaked away, a comet of golden light shooting between the trees.

A hollow feeling spread between my ribs. Worry joined it, his earlier words resonating in my mind. “If Helios was correct about shielding us, we’re vulnerable now.”

Nikolas turned from the road. “I’m not worried about it.”

But he was, the tension in his shoulders giving him away as he moved toward the bounty hunter. Maybe he wasn’t worried about the curse, but he worried about Ezabell.

He knelt beside the bounty hunter’s corpse. Swallowing my misgivings, I joined him, standing on the other side of the body. The hunter stared blindly at the sky, his amber eyes dulled but still too bright to be human.

Nikolas tugged the man’s collar down, and we both caught our breath. Black runes circled the base of his neck.

“Viraxes bound him,” Nikolas said.

Crouching, I grunted my agreement. Nikolas had been honest with Ezabell about not knowing for sure whether Viraxes was elfkin.

But the cloying dark magic he and I had experienced inside the Obsidian Tower made it hard to think otherwise.

Power had whispered in the air, unintelligible voices overlapping.

The scent of metal and decay had seared my nostrils and coated my tongue.

Whatever Viraxes was, he’d figured out a way to bind elfkin to him. Then he’d used the Pyrikion to give them magical gifts—or enhance what they already possessed. The bounty hunter had moved too fast for a mere human.

“We’ll divide his weapons,” Nikolas said, reaching for a knife.

I caught his wrist. “What if they’re cursed?”

“We’re already cursed,” Nikolas said. “At least this way, we can take out a few bastards before we die.”

We stripped the giant of his weapons—six daggers, two broadswords, the battle axe, a quiver of arrows and a short bow, and several sunblades.

“Look familiar?” Nikolas asked, holding one up.

I huffed as I slipped a knife with a serrated blade into my boot. “Don’t remind me,” I said, recalling how he’d taken several of the blades from Viraxes’s tower.

We removed the rest of the hunter’s weapons, then dragged his body deeper into the woods.

“Too bad this dickhead wasn’t carrying a shovel,” Nikolas grunted as we used the broadswords to dig a shallow grave. By the time I patted the last of the dirt into place, we were both dripping sweat.

“What now?” Nikolas asked, wiping his sword on his trousers. “Back to Saldu?”

I shook my head. “It’s not safe. Viraxes tracked us to the brothel. He knows we were there.”

Nikolas frowned. “Or Corvus tracked Ezabell there. Those men could have just as easily been his.”

We stared at each other, the reality of Ezabell’s peril heavy in the air between us.

“Corvus stole her throne,” Nikolas said. “He can’t risk letting her live. What if she finds the sunstone? He’ll always be looking over his shoulder.”

The weight of Ezabell’s predicament grew heavier. She faced dangers from all sides—Corvus’s assassins, Viraxes’s bounty hunters, and who knew what else lurked in the forest.

And now she was alone, her only protection a temperamental sunsprite.

“We have to go after her,” I said. “Even if she hates us, we have to protect her.”

Nikolas nodded, his brown eyes resolute. “We’ll follow at a distance at first. Maybe some of her anger will wear off, and she’ll agree to talk to us.”

A great deal rested on that “maybe,” but I kept my doubts to myself. Moments later, we set off down the road.

The magic in my chest pulled steadily, drawing me forward like an invisible thread connecting me to Ezabell.

“It’s working,” I said, relief sweeping me as I rubbed my chest. “I still feel her.”

Nikolas smiled. “Well, that’s one good piece of news.”

Pain struck out of nowhere, driving me to my knees. Agony bloomed everywhere. Hot pokers slid through my veins. I tried to scream, but only a wet gurgle emerged.

“Dain!” Nikolas’s voice seemed to come from far away. As my vision went hazy, he was an indistinct shape at my side. The world tilted, then crashed around me. Somewhere in my mind, I realized I’d slumped onto my side.

“Dain!” The forest shook. No, Nikolas shook me, but I couldn’t feel his hands. The pain consumed me, blocking out even the shadow of comfort.

I tried to speak, but my mouth refused to work. Burning chains wrapped around my chest and squeezed. Fire pumped through my veins.

Between one breath and the next, I stared at the sky. Nikolas’s face appeared above me. He’d tipped me onto my back. He wrenched my shirt open, and the color drained from his face.

“The curse,” he rasped.

Darkness crowded the edges of my vision. Nikolas gripped my shoulders, his expression pleading. His lips moved, but no sound reached me. He was worried. Nikolas almost never worried. He was the planner between the two of us. The talker. He always found a way out of trouble.

Don’t worry , I tried to say. But the words wouldn’t come. We’d run out of chances. Out of luck.

The darkness spread. My last thought before everything went black was of Ezabell—not as I’d last seen her, furious and betrayed, but as she’d been in the predawn light, her golden eyes bright with hope as the Dokimasi pulled us together.

Blackness fell. Then nothing.