Fused in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy Book 3)

by K. F. Breene

  “If it turns around, we’re screwed,” I said, putting on a burst of speed.

  It doesn’t know we are here, and it doesn’t know how fast we can run. We have time before they zigzag back in our direction.

  We couldn’t be sure they were zigzagging at all, since this place wasn’t logical, but I let it go.

  A demon sat forward as we passed, confusion written across its face. Two others popped out of a willow tree, interrupted from some intimate activities, by the look of it.

  I had a brief curiosity about their reproductive abilities, but let it go. If there was ever not a time to talk about demon sex, this was surely it.

  The purple tones around us darkened and turned muddy brown before sliding into black. Stars still speckled the sky, but that was the only light. Velvety moss turned into wild grasses that scraped my legs. I knew without testing it that it would rip up human skin.

  “Are we sure we can trust that demon?” I asked as we veered left. My foot splashed into water. My other foot did the same, the land turning marshy. Not deep water, however, which was good, if annoying.

  Considering how star-struck it was with your pouch, I would be inclined to say yes.

  I sure hoped this wasn’t the one time he was wrong.

  Some indeterminate amount of time later, which felt like hours but was probably less than one, we slowed as we came upon our first sect on the new route. Shades of molten blue interrupted the black of the sky. A full moon shone through the clouds, shedding light on hard-packed dirt in strange patches, like it was shining through tree branches high above, although no trees surrounded us. Ahead, a huge church or gothic mansion—maybe a combination of both—rose into hazy bluish fog. The ground dropped away on either side into jagged cliffs.

  A stream of thoughts invaded my mind: Darius working things out. Calculations, distances, a catalog of the architecture before us, the time it would take to go around it all, the probability the dragon would head this way, the likelihood of an attack by the sentinels posted at the entrance with rigid frames and weapons—on and on, round and round. Finally, it ground to a halt and he said, “Let’s continue on as planned.”

  “All that just to keep moving as we were?” I angled right, like the demon had said. “And what did the architecture have to do with anything?”

  “I like to notice the fine details in case they might be relevant in the future.”

  We snuck around a tree and paused, looking at the sentinels. Neither of them were looking our way, and we were too far away to see their eyes. Figuring they hadn’t noticed us, or didn’t care about us since we weren’t approaching them anymore, we continued down the ravine, which, my pouch-wearing demon friend had promised, would lead to a secret path along the cliff face. It was a way to get around without having to go through, and the fastest way by far to get to the heart of the Dark Kingdom.

  “Well, here’s hoping it wasn’t a whack job.” I clutched the rocky side and started down the steep, narrow incline.

  “It wanted a fanny pack. How sane do you imagine it is?”

  “Not cool, Darius. My poor pouch sacrificed itself so we can get to our destination, and you’re making fun.” I shook my head and noticed a cut in the side of the rockface. This path had purposefully been created with sneaking in mind. My kind of people.

  My foot hit a rock and kicked it over the ledge. I paused, listening. After an incredible amount of time, it bonked off a hard surface far below.

  I flattened against the rockface for a second, looking down at my heavy boots. Only one and a half could fit on the path side by side. Rocks jutted out along the “path,” and I’d have to contort my body to get around them. A couple hundred feet away, another rockface looked at us, wondering what the hell we were doing, no doubt. Below, the fake moonlight glittered on a sea of metal points, ready to stick anything foolish enough to take a tiny path along a cliff face and slip off.

  “If I fall, I’m using my power,” I mumbled, moving along.

  “If I fall, I also hope you’ll use your power. This is…treacherous.”

  A spot of black interrupted the moonlight.

  I froze and grabbed at the wall. My foot slipped and my weight shifted, tilting me toward the ledge. Darius grabbed me and pulled me back, but his heel slid out from under him. I grabbed his arm and heaved with all my might, stopping his downward progress. He scrabbled up beside me again, and we stood with our backs to the rock, breathing heavily.

  A large body glided above us, its wings spread and feet tucked under its body. The dragon’s scales caught and refracted the moonlight in a beautiful kaleidoscope of color. On its back, looking over its shoulder, was that persistent clown.

  “I hated clowns before, but now…” Rage pounded inside of me. I could tear that thing out of the sky. Pull it down and send it careening to the spikes below.

  Easy, love, Darius thought, probably feeling me tense. Any large use of power might alert the sect above us. They are not so far away, and they have sentinels.

  I knew that, I did. But my split personality didn’t care.

  The dragon pumped its wings, pushing a little higher into the faux-sky. The clown jerked its head left and stared at something. The dragon pumped its wings twice more, putting on a burst of speed.

  A roar shook the rockface, and not from Rainbow Dragon.

  “Another one?” I whispered, trying not to shake. That deep-throated dragon roar—I was pretty sure it was another dragon, anyway—rooted fear deep inside me, like that (now headless) demon I’d encountered in the edges. “They must not be super rare.”

  Darius didn’t say anything, just breathed slowly in and out. His heart was beating erratically again.

  I couldn’t hold back the grin that spread across my face. “That scares you, does it?”

  Rainbow Dragon curved away from the sect, disappearing over the other cliff.

  “That magic is powerful.” I saw Darius gulp as he said it, and my smile spread. “I wonder if a mage can re-create it.”

  “You nearly peed yourself. Admit it, you are scared of something.”

  “I am scared of a great many things, and most of them concern your safety.”

  My smile slipped. “Foul play, getting gushy when I’m making fun of you. That’s below the belt.”

  We looked up, but the overhang of the cliff prevented us from seeing anything. Rainbow Dragon hadn’t circled back.

  “Do you think it saw us?” I asked.

  Darius shook his head, not yet moving along. “They would have to know to look for this path, which seems unlikely. They’d probably assume it was a cliff face.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Yes. Hurry, we don’t want to be stuck here in case the other creature decides to inspect.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Two other sects, a few lovely oases, and another indeterminate amount of time later, which was probably a half a day instead of the months it seemed to be, Darius and I came to a weary stop. We had just cleared the last tree in a sort of evergreen forest, and an endless desert stretched before us, flat and empty except for a couple dead trees that dotted the hard, cracked ground.

  I braced my hands on my hips and looked back the way we’d come, desperate to lie down and take a nap. But here we stood, on the edge of the worst place to dodge a dragon attack.

  “That demon didn’t seem too smart, and so far it’s been right, but it’s starting to look like it had an elaborate plan to strand us in the middle of nowhere while that dragon flies overhead.” I pictured the map in my head. “We are close, too.”

  Darius stared out ahead of us, and I knew he was going through our options. Thankfully, he’d stopped including me in his chaotic thought-fests. There was clearly a reason for his placement in the vampire hierarchy, and it wasn’t just his age.

  “We haven’t seen the dragon in a while,” Darius said.

  “True.” I rubbed the ground with my toe. The top flaked off, dry and brittle. “But if the clown thinks we
’re going to the castle, it might pass over this area. This is one of only a few entrance points on this side of the underworld. We’ve taken a lot of time getting around those other sects. And that’s not even taking into account that there’s clearly no cover by design.”

  Silence fell again, and I waited for Darius to put those new tidbits into his think tank.

  He shook his head. “It is impossible to tell how long it will take to cross.”

  “This has to be an illusion.” I looked up at the gray-blue sky showering down yellowed light. Puffy white clouds hung above us, getting lower and smaller on the horizon, emphasizing the impression the desert went on forever. “Unless you were wrong about the underworld, and it has pockets of infinity like you say the Realm does.”

  Darius continued to stare out at the desert, not answering. He’d probably already thought about that. Then replayed his conversation with Ja, including all the little nuances most people wouldn’t notice.

  It was exhausting me, and I wasn’t actually doing anything.

  “I can try to tear this down, like I did on the bank of the River.” I pulled my lip through my teeth. “The trick is to imagine what I want to do and then let my dark passenger, A-K-A my power and the reason I’ll end up in the looney bin, do its thing.”

  “Why would he put an illusion here?” Darius asked softly, squinting now. His wheels had to really be turning. “Is he trying to turn people away, or does he simply wish to watch who approaches his castle?” He rubbed his chin, something I’d never seen him do.

  “Perplexed, huh?” I nodded and started forward. “Let’s just handle this my way.”

  “That is exactly how you will end up revealing yourself.” His roving eyes caught up to me.

  “This is going to show my extreme ignorance on most things magical worlds, but…cameras don’t work outside the Brink, right?”

  “No, not that I have seen. Something happens to them when they go through the gates, even those powered with batteries. Light in the Realm is created magically. I assume the same is true of the light here, such as it is.” He looked up at the glow above us that never wavered or changed wattage.

  “I’d love to know how,” I said, gesturing toward the fake sun. Despite the danger, I half wanted to see if I could use my magic and try and get the blueprints.

  “As would I. In the Realm, it is usually a flame or an orb created with magic. Elf magic, pixie magic—there are a few creatures that can achieve the effect naturally. But the magic has to be stored in an appropriate container—it’s tied to a specific source. I don’t see that here.”

  “My dad has tricks.”

  “It would seem so. Ones he is not sharing with the elves.”

  “So if he doesn’t have cameras, someone has to physically watch for travelers. I doubt there is scaffolding above us, so that someone would have to fly or sit on the ground. Sitting on the ground doesn’t make sense, because they don’t have phones here. The watcher would have to race us to announce our presence. I’d kill it before it put on the jets. So we’re really only worried about flying things.”

  “Yes,” Darius said simply. He’d thought of all that.

  I continued talking through my thought anyway while I walked, I’d already decided; Darius kept pace with me. “We’ve only seen one flying thing. The dragon. Which…could be a problem. I didn’t try any real magic on it, but it’s a dragon. It might be impervious to my magic, or too far away for me to do anything.

  “If it is our dragon friend and his clown sidekick, they won’t try to tattle on us. They’ll try to kill us and take our stuff. Which isn’t ideal, I grant you, but I am confident I can think of something to keep from dying.”

  “And if it is another dragon? Is that why you were rubbing your chin?”

  “No.”

  Oh good. There was a more perplexing situation at hand than a rogue dragon.

  “I’m sure I could figure it out. Violently.” I looked up at the sky. “Like I said, I can always try to crack this bitch open and see the guts. Just give me the word.”

  “Since when do you ask for permission?”

  “You think ahead, right? Isn’t that your claim to fame? So I’m letting you do your thing. Don’t get lazy on me now.”

  Darius looked behind. We’d already put substantial distance between us and the lush green trees, but the horizon looked unchanged, the way ahead never ending. “The risk is not yet worth the reward. You showing that level of power so close to the castle…” He shook his head and glanced upward. “Not yet. How are you doing on energy?”

  “I’m feeling the drain of all this traveling. I could use sleep, finally. You?”

  “The same. I am amazed we were able to last so long without it. Longer even than in the Realm.” He tsk’ed. “I should’ve asked earlier.” After a pause, he said, “I almost wonder if we should go back to the cover of the trees and take care of that before we get too far out.”

  “This can’t go on forever. It can’t. It’s more eye trickery. Impressive, though. If I wasn’t stuck in it, I’d give the old man a nod of approval.”

  Darius’s honeyed gaze came to rest on me for a moment, assessing.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Were you like your mom?”

  “Somewhat. Why? Are you wondering how like my father I am?”

  “Yes. It is a pity things are the way they are.”

  “Tell me about it. That is, if he’s a cool guy. Or maybe he’s mostly an asshole with a few good qualities. In which case, I’m good with the way things are. Except for the hiding thing.”

  He smiled at me and looked forward again. “Touché.”

  We fell into silence as the faux-sun blazed down on us. Our feet crackled on the brittle ground. I thought back to the map. To what I had thought was a relatively small section of nothingness between sects. I’d seen a few at this point, and many of them had turned out to be an oasis of some sort, or just a common travel way. Demons in those areas tended to mind their own business, and if they looked me askance, they went back to minding their own business as soon as I met their gaze.

  I thought back to those demons, and how quickly they’d looked away. “You don’t think word of me has spread already, do you?”

  Darius glanced over at me before going back to his scanning. “Why do you ask?”

  “Did you notice any demons wary of making eye contact with other demons in the oases?

  His gaze stopped moving, now pointed upward. “I did notice demons seeming wary of each other. Shifty-eyed, as you would say. You clearly looked out of place to them, but you didn’t seem to raise any more concern than the others.”

  Small graces. “Demons didn’t seem wary of each other in the edges.”

  “No.” Darius slowed and put a hand on my arm. “I’ve noticed it more the farther we’ve traveled into the Dark Kingdom. I can’t tell if that is normal, or if we are walking into something unusual.” He raised a hand and pointed. “Do you see that?”

  I squinted into the sky, not seeing anything but a few puffy clouds heading toward the distant horizon, which did not curve like anyone born in the Brink would expect. It tripped me out.

  “My vision improved with the bond, but it’s still not to your level. What is it?”

  “A flying object of some kind.”

  I was so tired, I could only think of one possible response to that: one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater…

  He did another scan of the sky before going back to that one spot. “Yes. It is something flying. Either it is small and near, or large and far away.”

  I nodded, because yes, that was how perspective worked.

  Darius pulled the flap away from his satchel and looked around. His gaze stopped on a dead, leafless, twisted sort of tree standing fifty feet away, leaning so hard I wondered how it hadn’t already fallen.

  “Are you going to try and work a privacy spell?” I asked, trailing after him.

  “Yes. I want to see what’s coming be
fore it sees us.”

  Doing things his way really had its advantages.

  We stopped by the tree. Spells worked best when they were rooted to something, and natural things worked best. But out here, since there was a distinct lack of somethings, I agreed that the tree would have to do.

  We put one on each side and one above, though the one overhead balanced unsteadily as it tried to cling to the paltry branches. Usually for short term only, the spells would (hopefully) make the eye slip right by us, rendering us mostly invisible until the brain of the being observing us figured out something was tricking it and wised up.

  I stared out through the purple film. Our side of the spell was colored, but the other side would appear clear. It didn’t take long for me to see what Darius was talking about.

  “A vulture,” I whispered.

  “Three times as big as a Brink vulture, but yes, that’s what it looks like.”

  And like a Brink vulture, it drifted lazily past us without flapping its wings. Unlike a Brink vulture, it was not riding a breeze.

  “We’re headed back into mind-fuckery territory,” I said, tapping my gun and thinking about taking out my sword. “Do you see any more?”

  “No. Not just yet.” Darius whipped around and squinted. His hand fell on my shoulder.

  I followed suit, and there it was, a giant bird soaring through the sky, looking at the ground with beady eyes (we were too far to see the eyes, but I’d back my imagination on this one).

  “We were looking at a distorted reflection, used to trick travelers as to the whereabouts and proximity of the coming entity.” A small smile graced his lips. “Genius.”

  I didn’t have time to ask him how he’d figured that out. The bird was nearing us now. It did one pump of its great wings, pushing itself through the air. I bit my lip as it flew overhead, inky black wings fluttering. My magic swelled, urging me to shoot a jet of fire at it.

  I dug my nails into my palms, desperately trying to hold back with everything I had. Because who knew if there were more beasts coming right up behind this one? If there were, the others would see the whole thing and they wouldn’t have to travel far to tattle.