“I remember.” I rub my forehead in a nervous rhythm. “I’m still not sure about Maxon, though.” I gesture to Tyberius. “You say he’s fine, but you’d lie for him, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d never when it comes to my prince’s health. Besides, look how happy he is. He totally wants to go kill stuff with you. How can you say no?”
Maxon bobs his eyebrows up and down. “I know you want to check me out again, beautiful.” He folds his arms across his chest once more, just like he did when I was last ogling him.
“I wasn’t checking you out.” Much.
“Maybe you want a repeat on playing doctor? Make sure I’m all healthy?” He pulls on his edge of his upper body armor. “I can whip this off pretty quick.”
I can’t help but stare at Maxon’s pecs. Warmth crawls up my cheeks. The guys start chuckling.
“Trust me,” says Nizam in his rumbling basso voice. “If Maxon can flirt, he can fight.”
Maxon steps in closer, invading my personal space. “You heard what the badass thrax warrior said.” I really shouldn’t notice how good he smells, but I do. He’s so yummy.
Stay focused on the defeating Silas, Lianna. “Okay, I’m convinced.”
Maxon’s smile widens. “You won’t regret it, beautiful.”
Somehow, I doubt I will.
Lianna
Maxon and I step through a dark and deserted shire somewhere in England. Normally, I love places like this. Everything’s broken down and industrial. Cracked slate walkways. Abandoned factories choked with undergrowth. Smashed-up street lamps that droop at odd angles. When I was on the run from Zephyr, I hid in spots like this all the time. Usually, they make me feel safe.
Today, not so much. Instead, a cold sense of fear creeps across my stomach.
“You’re nervous, yeah?” asks Maxon.
“How’d you guess?”
“You’re having trouble staying human looking.” He shoots me a half smile. “Not that I don’t like you in monarkki blue.”
I stare down at my skin. Maxon has a point. Strong emotions like fear always make me glow. Right now, I have some serious sapphire action going on.
“Walker used to hide me in spots like this,” I explain. “Normally, I’d feel comfortable here.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I hate these kinds of places. Class A jobs love anything industrial.” He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “Walker probably cleaned them out for you before you got anywhere near. The guy’s a killing machine.”
“Walker, a warrior?” I picture the tall and gentle ghoul. “That’s hard to believe.”
“Oh yeah,” says Maxon with a chuckle. “Walker’s a total badass. Killer engineer and architect, too. Your regular Renaissance ghoul.” We stop outside a one-story brick building with an arched roof and shattered windows. “We’re here.”
I stare at the lopsided wooden doorway. Silas is in there. Images flicker through my mind. My old cage. His scalpel and bone cutters. The tiny mouse cowering against my chest. Raw terror clamps around my body, encasing me from head to toe.
Maxon seems to read my thoughts. “Chances are, he’s already flown.”
A heavy sense of foreboding settles on my shoulders. “Nope, he’s still in there.” I stare at the crooked door intently, my skin starting to flare ever brighter shades of blue. “Promise me something.”
“Sure.”
“We kill him first thing.”
“Wish we could, beautiful. But if we do that, we’ll never lay our hands on the Kristalli of Fire.”
“Then we kill him right after we find the Kristalli.”
“That we can do.” He tilts his head. “Want to do the honors?”
My voice turns hard and rough. “So long as he’s dead, that’s all I care about.” I step forward, push the doors open and stride inside. The moment I’m past the threshold, awareness tickles across my skin.
No doubt about it. Someone’s in here with us.
Dust and cobwebs cover every inch of the abandoned weaving factory. The floor is lined with small tables, moldy sewing machines, and broken metal looms. Long strips of wire hang down from the arched ceiling. Large skeins of thread hang at the bottom of each line, their bright colors now dimmed with dirt and age.
I’d think it was cool if I didn’t know what kinds of things Silas was manufacturing here.
Thwack. Thwack.
The rhythmic pounding of a hammer sounds from the far wall, followed by the sickeningly familiar sound of small bones cracking. My chest tightens with anxiety.
Oh, yeah. Silas is here, all right.
Beside me, Maxon’s tail arches over his shoulder, ready to strike. I summon a dozen bullets onto my palm, each one made from super-heated water. The small blue projectiles smoke and bubble against my skin. To anyone else, they’d cause excruciating pain. To me? I barely register a tickle.
From across the room, Silas starts humming one of his mock-spiritual songs.
“Thy power is naught,” Silas sings. “Surrender to thy master.”
The lyrics fill my soul with boiling-hot rage. Silas is trying to use my bad memories of his evil songs to give him some kind of advantage. I suppose he expects me to cry again, just like I did when I was a powerless kid.
Won’t happen this time. I’m not thirteen anymore. And I’m certainly not powerless.
With each step closer to the far wall, more anxiety and excitement zing through my system. The footfalls of my boots become overwhelmingly loud, like a drumroll before a hanging. Overhead, the long ceiling wires no longer hold sewing supplies. Instead, each line ends in one of Silas’s mummified birds. I’d call it taxidermy, but that would only involve using skin. Silas’s black magic goes far deeper. Memories of his terrible spells flicker through my mind. An electric charge of anger makes my skin flare even brighter.
At last, we reach the far wall. Silas sits at a long metal table, tinkering with some unfortunate dead animal. Barrels of bloody slurry line the nearby walls. The smells of rot and death fill the air. I fight the urge to dry heave.
Lifting his arms, Silas repositions the animal that he’s working on. It’s the head and spine of a Rottweiler. Just grown to adult size, too, by the looks of it. All this demon does is corrupt innocence. Fury courses through me. I raise my palm, aiming the boiling bullets at his head. Silas flinches but doesn’t turn around.
“What do you want, my girl?” he asks.
Above our heads, the mummified crows open their eyes. A jolt of fear runs through my limbs. The birds search the factory floor, their gazes quickly locking in on Maxon and me.
Keep calm, Lianna. Stay focused.
I set my hands on my hips. “You know why I’m here, Silas.”
The old demon swivels around on his stool. He looks the same as always. Balding head, bowler hat, and handlebar moustache. He inspects me from head to toe, his irises flaring red with demonic power. “It’s been so long. Why don’t we rehash old times?”
Maxon’s eyes also flare red, only brighter. “You don’t get to talk to her.” He raises his hand, making lightning dance upon his palm. “Where is the Kristalli?”
Silas’s mouth winds into a smile, showing off his blackened teeth. “Zephyr told me all about you, boy.” He inhales deeply. “Oh, I can smell her on your skin. Strawberry, so sweet. How was she?” He looks Maxon over. “I never saw her as more than a servant. Perhaps I misjudged things. She could be a succulent concubine as well. How I’d love to take her body before I take her life.”
That does it.
On reflex, I raise my palm. A dozen water-bullets whip forward and tear through Silas’s chest. He leans his head back and lets out a satisfying roar of agony. His gaze snaps back to mine. Fresh menace flickers in his all-red irises.
“That was uncalled for, my girl.” Silas pokes his pointer finger through one of the holes in his dress shirt. “I can give you the exact coordinates to find the Kristalli of Fire. I have my price, however.”
My mouth twitches with hel
d-in words. How much would I love to whisper an incantation and take Silas down right now? It would feel sweet, but it wouldn’t get me any closer to the Kristalli of Fire. Silas watches me, his thick lips rounding into a satisfied smile.
“I remain willing to discuss terms, my girl. Magically binding, of course. You know I always keep my word.”
It takes everything I have to reply to Silas without separating his head from his shoulders. “I know.”
“What do you want?” asks Maxon.
“I wanted my girl’s life energy. That plan ended when she became an elemental.” Silas rounds on me. “Your life force is worth nothing to me now. And this one?” Silas gestures to Maxon. “He’s already vowed to kill me. I know the type. He won’t stop until I’m dead.”
Maxon’s tail whips out in front of him. The arrowhead end points right at Silas’s throat. “You got that right.”
Silas steeples his fingers beneath his chin. “How I’d love to kill the prince. Sadly, that would bring all the thrax on my head. I’ll pass on that, thank you very much. These are my terms.”
“Go on,” I say.
“I don’t raise a hand against either of you, and you don’t raise one against me. Ever. On pain of an especially gruesome death. In return, you get the coordinates for the Kristalli of Fire.”
I frown. Something about this doesn’t add up.
“Why risk Zephyr’s anger?” I ask. “He won’t be happy when the Kristalli isn’t here.”
“Don’t worry about how I’ll position the lost Kristalli to Zephyr. Someone will die for the error. It won’t be me, I can assure you.”
We all stare at each other for what feels like forever. Above our heads, the crow poppets shift their weight on their wire hangers. At last, I turn to Maxon. “What do you say?”
“Your call. I’ll do the deal on your say-so.”
I run through my options, but every mental path takes me to the same place. There’s no doubt about it. I need the location of that Kristalli.
“We accept the deal,” I say. “If you give me the coordinates right now.”
Silas closes his eyes and starts mumbling in Latin. I don’t catch all of it. That said, I hear enough to know that he’s placing a binding spell. Once Silas opens his eyes again, all our hands flare with red flame. There’s a spike of pain that ends within seconds.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” says Silas with a crooked smile. He gestures to one of the nearby barrels of bloody sludge. “The Kristalli is attached to the bottom of that barrel.”
Rage corkscrews up my spine. “Sneak! You made it sound like you hid it somewhere else.”
“I know I did. Rather clever of me, wouldn’t you say? Otherwise, you might have killed me long ago. Now, we’ve a binding agreement.” He rises to stand. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Above us, the birds spread their wings, showing off their long silver feathers. Or, they should be feathers. Instead, they’re layers of long razors bolted together. Their clawed feet are made from rusted nails.
Maxon frowns. “I thought we weren’t raising a hand against each other.”
“We did agree to that,” says Silas slowly. “However, that deal only includes me. My poppets can do as they like. Unfortunately for you, they like to kill.”
A crow dive bombs me. I try to dodge the attack, but I’m not fast enough. The bird holds a scalpel in its claws and I know what that means: Poison. As the crow swoops lower, the blade scratches my cheekbone. Silas’s poison enters my system. This is his fast-acting stuff, too. Within seconds it starts sapping my strength.
Now, I’ll be limited to small strikes. Not good.
Turning on his heel, Silas runs for the back door. Maxon and I rush to follow him, but the birds are faster than we are. Dozens of them swoop down from their wires, attacking us in coordinated strikes. We’re forced into defensive mode while Silas heads toward the exit.
There’s no time to follow him, though. More crows dive for us, their eerie caws echoing around the factory. I kill the birds with ice darts, while Maxon summons lightning. His bolts blast through the ceiling, smashing through old desks and dusty equipment. Unfortunately, whatever black magic fuels the birds also makes them immune to these strikes. Maxon tries different lightning forms—cages, swords and shields—but the only thing that stops the birds are traditional bolts. Even then, I think it’s the sound and brightness that shocks them more than anything else.
In no time, Maxon is forced to give up on lightning. Instead, he skewers the birds with his tail or tears open their chests with his dragon-scale hand. It’s slow going. Still, it works pretty well.
I switch things up and summon long water whips, one in each hand. Flicking my wrists, I use the super-heated liquid weapons to slice through the birds as they close in. Before I know it, Maxon and I are fighting back to back, each of us downing whatever poppets come our way. Maxon mumbles something unintelligible. My whips slice through more birds. “What did you say?”
“I’ve never had a battle twin before.” I can hear the smile in his voice, and suddenly, my boiling-hot rage at Silas cools a little.
“Me, neither.” I test out a crisscross move with my whips and take out a half-dozen birds in one strike. “It’s kind of fun. We’re pretty good at this.”
A low growl sounds from behind me and I freeze. A razor-winged hawk swoops close to my ear. I smash in its head with the handle of my whip. Fresh howls fill the air.
A prickly sense of fear crawls up my neck. “What was that noise?”
“Hounds.” The joking tone Maxon had a moment ago is gone. With only that single word, I know we’re in deep trouble.
From across the factory floor, more birds awaken from their wires. We haven’t even made a serious dent in their numbers, and now we have mummified demonic hounds to deal with.
Correction. We’re in really deep trouble.
The hounds start circling our position. Maxon calls down fresh lightning, but the dogs easily sidestep the bolts. Even worse, the strikes distract Maxon from killing poppets with his hand and tail.
A memory appears. Namare telling me to summon my elementals in case of danger. How can I summon the Valta? The last time I asked for their aid, it was face to face, and they kicked me out of my own palace. A remote summons is sure to fail.
One of the hounds gets closer. The animal is huge and could easily tower over me if it put its paws on my shoulders. Its eyes are metallic stones and its mouth has broken glass for teeth. The creature’s rib cage has been cracked open and sewn back together with thick black leather straps. I shudder, thinking what Silas must have placed inside that creature to make it so evil.
The hound’s eyes flare bright red as it leaps onto my shoulder, digging its teeth into my already-injured skin. Fresh pain radiates from the wound. I drop my ice whips, snap the beast’s neck, and toss the carcass aside. More of my life energy goes into fighting my injuries. Less power is available to battle Silas’s poppets and poison. Of the two, the poison’s really starting to do me in. Black puss oozes from around my wounds. My legs feel like they’re made of jelly. Sure, I know how to heal myself, but that’ll take all my concentration.
That’s time I don’t have.
The hounds circle us as more birds swoop in for the kill. “Got any big ideas?” asks Maxon.
“I’m calling in reinforcements. Cover me.”
Maxon turns and pulls me against his chest. With a great battle cry, he summons bolt after bolt of lightning to strike the ground around us. The sudden onslaught buys us some time. Leaning into Maxon’s chest, I reach out with my consciousness to my people.
I am your monarkki. I need your help.
A pulse of acknowledgement moves through my mind. I could whoop with joy, I’m so excited. One of my water elementals definitely heard me.
I pull back from Maxon. “Done!”
Maxon releases me and spins around so we can fight back-to-back once more. His back shifts against mine as he takes out another hound.<
br />
“Did I get you enough time?” asks Maxon.
“I hope so.”
Before me, a bright blue mist appears. Excitement tingles through my stomach.
“It’s Fisk,” I say quietly.
“Not sure how much help he’ll be.” Maxon takes out another demon bird with his tail. “You know what he thinks. We’re lovers.”
Quick as a flash, Fisk materializes before me. I keep working the whips to hold off the hounds, but I can’t keep it up much longer. Despite the battle, some part of me registers the look of total devastation in Fisk’s sea-green eyes.
He heard the last two words Maxon said.
We’re lovers.
“Fisk, we’re outnumbered and…” Before I have a chance to finish, Fisk disappears.
My limbs feel sluggish with disappointment. Suddenly the onslaught of demonic animals seems far too much for anyone to handle. And now? I’ve just managed to isolate the one person who could’ve helped us.
“I’ve enough energy for one last round of lightning,” says Maxon over my shoulder. “Once I summon it, you need to run.”
Well, that’s not happening.
“No way. I’m staying with you.”
“Well, I’m not…”
At that moment, bright blue light floods the factory. Water elementals of every shape and size cover the stone floor. Large snake-like creatures with blue scales rear up on their coils and start snapping demon birds into their jaws. Beasts that resemble a cross between bears and salamanders tear into the hounds. Fisk takes out his blue sword and dives into the center of the fighting.
These aren’t professional soldiers, but they aren’t nothing, either. What does it say that Fisk wouldn’t or couldn’t summon his own Valta?
There’s no time to answer that question. More birds and hounds lunge at Maxon and me, but the numbers are back to being reasonable. Meanwhile, my rank-and-file elemental army goes to work.
Relief saps every ounce of energy from me. We may actually win this one. Suddenly, the poison in my system boils through me at a faster pace. Pain overwhelms my mind. I close my eyes and curl into a fetal position. Voices echo around me.
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