“Bloody bones of a bastard,” Roxanne swore.
“What happened to you?” Keriya whispered. This close, she could see Max’s face was drawn. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cool, dry atmosphere.
“It’s the enchantment,” he panted.
“We thought the enchantment was broken,” said Roxanne.
“Believe me, it’s not. My amulet protects me from the worst of it.”
“How come it isn’t hurting us when we try to escape?”
“Effrax’s intent has changed,” Max explained. “He wants you out of the dungeons now that the castle is under siege.”
Roxanne frowned. “Then why’s it still affecting you?”
“Because my intent is not in alignment with the king’s. He wants you to be with him for your safety.” He fumbled in a pocket and produced a set of keys. With shaking hands, he fitted one to the lock on Keriya’s door. “But there is nowhere in Fyrxav you’ll be safe, not in the dungeons and not with Effrax. A few shadowbeasts have already breached the city walls. We need to get you out of here. I spoke with Taeleia, and she said she’ll have mounts waiting for us outside the annex.”
Keriya shook her head as the lock clicked and her door creaked open. “I can’t.”
“Don’t worry about the enchantment. If it hits you, I’ll—”
“No,” she interrupted, “I mean I can’t run away.”
“Keriya, listen to me. Tanthflame will stop at nothing to get you. If you stay here, he’ll capture you. He’ll torture you, he might even kill you.”
Her blood chilled but she lifted her chin. “I’m not staying, either. I’m going to Mount Arax.”
“I’ll take you there,” he said distractedly. “We can reach it in two days on Taeleia’s saberfangs. Come on.” He went to Fletcher’s cell door and Keriya heard the click of the lock as it sprang open. Max pushed it inwards and Fletcher scurried past him into the hall. He ran to Keriya and flung himself at her.
“It’ll be alright,” said Fletcher, though whether that was for her benefit or his, she didn’t know. She could feel him shaking as she wrapped her free arm around him.
Max went to Roxanne’s cell to free her. Just as her door swung open, another thunderous eruption shook them all to the floor. Keriya and Fletcher sprawled beside each other as the ceiling snowed dust and debris.
This explosion hadn’t hit the dungeon, but the impact caused the crack to widen. Keriya looked up in time to see the bottom half of the wall crumble, rocks toppling down a steep slope. The dawn sun blazed between the buildings of Fyrxav, rays of light slicing through the smoke-heavy air. In the far distance a lone peak stood stark against the red sky.
Her stomach dropped. She recognized that distinctive shape from the scrying spring’s vision. It was Mount Arax.
A barrage of sensations spilled in from the outside world: the smell of something burning, the far-off agonized screams of fighting, and the closer shouts of people descending the dungeon steps.
Max stumbled into Keriya’s cell and grabbed her hand, trying to yank her to her feet. “We need to go now.”
Keriya pulled away from Max, hunching over Fletcher instead. His eyes were squeezed shut in pain.
“Keriya, they’re coming—”
“Then go distract them,” Roxanne growled at the prince. She hobbled from her cell and joined Keriya beside Fletcher.
Max stared at Keriya imploringly, his pale face shining with fear. Something painful flickered in her heart, rising until it reached her throat. She stood slowly and went to him.
“When I was young,” she murmured, “I used to dream about a handsome prince charming. I’d be at the end of my rope, and when all was lost he would come and sweep me up in his arms and everything would be alright.”
Max gave her a strained smile and offered her his hand—a silent offer to flee with him. She didn’t take it, and his expression collapsed into one of anguish.
“Keriya, you’re going to die here,” he hissed. “You can’t keep punishing yourself for what happened.”
“I can,” she said, as the painful feeling spread to her glowing eyes, causing them to water. “But this isn’t about that.”
“I can save you,” he whispered, his voice cracking.
“I don’t want to be saved.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed Max on the cheek. Then she whispered in his ear, “You’ve done so much for me already, but I have to ask you for one more favor.”
“Anything,” he replied, his breath rustling her hair.
“Please take care of my friends.”
Max didn’t have time to ask questions, because at that moment a trio of palace soldiers spilled out from the stairwell. With angry cries, they raced toward Keriya’s cell.
Max swore, wheeling to face the newcomers and drawing his shortsword. His amulet glowed still more brightly. Wind whipped around him, stirring the unsettled dust into hurricanes.
Keriya knelt next to Fletcher, who groaned as he sat up. “Stay with Max,” she said, looking between him and Roxanne. “He’ll bring you to safety.”
“Keriya—!”
Ignoring the cry, Keriya stood and darted to the hole in the wall. The side of the dormant volcano stretched beneath her, and the drop was steeper than she’d imagined. Far below was a walled-off area of greenery—a little garden—and beyond stretched the eastern quadrant of Fyrxav.
She heard her friends calling for her, but she refused to look at them. If she did, it would weaken her resolve.
Taking a breath and holding it deep in her chest, she clambered through the hole. The stone of the slope was porous and crumbly, and she lost her footing. With a gasp she slid downhill, gathering speed. She could feel her skin scraping away through her dress and leggings.
She came to a crashing halt when she reached the garden hedge. The bushes cushioned her fall, though not by much. Wincing, she extracted herself from their dry branches and stumbled into a grassy courtyard.
The wall looked taller from down here, and there were no doors or gates. A large tree loomed at the south end of the garden, and some of its branches splayed over the top of the wall. The wall was beyond her ability to climb, but the tree looked promising. She headed toward it.
“Keriya Soulstar!”
With a jump that sent pain radiating through her bruised ribs, Keriya whirled around. Fletcher and Roxanne were kicking their way through the hedge. Roxanne looked furious, Fletcher terrified.
“What the blood are you doing?” Keriya demanded.
“Us? What the blood are you doing?” Roxanne stormed over to point an accusing finger in Keriya’s face. “You left us up there—”
“I left you with Max,” Keriya cried, her voice rising several octaves in panic. “He was supposed to keep you safe. You were supposed to go with him! You were supposed to survive.”
Her blade thudded heavily against the ground as she sank to her knees, crushed beneath an indefinable weight. She covered her face with her hands and purple blazed against the backs of her eyelids, bright and sinister.
“Oh, Keriya.” Fletcher’s voice was full of understanding. He crouched next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “We’re not letting you do this alone.”
“I don’t think you can follow where I’m going,” she whimpered, her body shaking with suppressed sobs.
“Watch us,” said Roxanne. “We’re not splitting up. It didn’t go well the last time we tried it.”
Gulping back tears, Keriya opened her eyes and stare at her best friends.
“We know what you’re facing. And we know what we’re facing, too,” Fletcher assured her.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Behind him, she saw faraway black shapes circling, carving trails through the smoke. Shadowdrachvolds. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the palace. From the look and sound of things, a battle was raging on
the northern side of Fyrxav.
As she watched, a fiery boulder catapulted through the air. It curved a slow, graceful arc toward the palace. When it struck, it exploded. Angry flames billowed around the site of impact. Rubble cascaded down the building, tumbling toward the three of them. From somewhere far away, a brassy note rang out, harsh and piercing over the clamor of battle—a warning bell, or perhaps a call to arms.
“We should leave,” said Roxanne.
“What about Max?” asked Keriya.
“I don’t think he’s coming. He’s alright,” Roxanne added quickly. “He took out two of the soldiers, but he knew the third one. They stopped fighting and started talking, and we figured that was our cue to leave while we had the chance.”
“Oh,” said Keriya. For one foolish instant, she’d thought the prince would be joining them, that everything would be the way it had been.
But things would never again be the way they had been. Everything was changing.
“Come on, let’s see about getting out of this garden,” said Roxanne. “The longer we stay, the more likely someone will find us.”
“Right,” said Fletcher. He and Roxanne approached the wall. In the west, another sonorous note pealed. Keriya glanced at the dungeon one last time, but there was still no sign of Max.
There’s one more goodbye, she thought as she turned her back on Indrath Nazrith.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“And what then should we think, but that love is yet another shackle?”
~ Belial Scartrench, Sixth Age
The first missile hit Indrath Nazrith as Seba was finishing breakfast. She was in the dining hall, waiting for Max. The pieces of her most recent foresight were falling into place, and she was doing her utmost to keep the prince out of the dungeons. She hadn’t forgotten her original vision, the one in which Keriya murdered him. Here in the Fironem, surrounded by red rocks and desert mountains, that dream had become a frighteningly real possibility.
What about the dragon? Max was with a dragon in my first dream, but Thorion is gone. Does that mean it won’t come to pass?
She tried to remember the finer details of the foresight, but they had blurred together. Its specifics had faded bit by bit, like water evaporating. She had spent so long obsessing over Max’s death that she’d lost the images of the glowing river, the blood-red flowers, the cloud-heavy sky, and the dragon. All that remained of the original vision was a glimmer of Keriya Soulstar raising a sword and driving its point deep into Max’s heart.
“It may yet come to pass,” Seba grumbled, violently spearing a honeydough roll with the tip of her silver knife. “The surroundings are irrelevant. That peasant has murder in her heart.”
Then a resounding noise split the air. The palace shook to its roots. The bass rumble of rock grating against rock hummed in Seba’s ears. Shouts echoed through the halls. The cold fist of terror closed around her heart.
War was no longer coming. It had arrived.
She shot up from her chair and tore out of the dining hall. Effrax had made plans for defense and evacuations. Seba had made plans of her own, and the time had come to put them into action.
Her first stop was Max’s guest chamber. She banged on the door and it swung open at her touch, revealing an empty room within.
“Helkryvt’s blood,” she growled. He’d probably gone to the throne room to meet with the military. Cursing under her breath, she turned and pelted down the corridor to her own quarters.
Once she reached her room, she unlocked the chest at the foot of her bed. Inside were the things she’d gathered: a travel pack filled with provisions, a set of plain clothes, and a dagger. She pulled on a shirt and trousers, tucked the dagger away, and shouldered the pack. Then she was off again.
She had to keep hitching the trousers up around her hips because the pant legs were too long. She stopped to roll them over her ankles so she wouldn’t trip and break her neck. That was when the second missile hit. It struck the palace ten heights away from her. A fiery rock ripped through the walls as if they were no more than paper, knocking Seba to the floor. She lay there, gawking at the crumbling hole, nausea rising within her. If she hadn’t stopped, she might have died.
“Princess, this way!” A passing servant helped her to her feet and pulled her in the opposite direction, leading her down a flight of stairs into the heart of the palace.
When they reached the second level, the servant tried to steer her left. Seba shook her head and pulled away from the woman. “I must see the king.”
“Your Grace, the king has ordered an evacuation—”
“I have to speak to him and Prince Maxton. I assume they’re in the throne room.”
The poor servant stammered her insistence that Seba follow the evacuation plan, but she ignored the warning and continued alone. Pandemonium gripped the palace. Servants were panicking, soldiers were running to the garrison, priceless statues lay in pieces on the floor, toppled by the attacks.
When Seba reached the throne room, she found the doors open. Effrax was barking orders. Blazecair and Taeleia were there, bedecked in battle gear. Of Max, there was no sign.
Taeleia was the first to notice Seba. She left the knot of men, taking long strides across the open floor.
“Where’s Max?” Seba asked when the elf reached her.
“Helping to prepare for the counterattack,” said Taeleia.
“The idiot,” Seba muttered to herself. Max was such a fool. This wasn’t his battle, yet he was all too eager to run to the front lines. Why did he always insist on playing the hero?
“He and I spoke about the cats,” Taeleia continued. “Max requested I leave them by the annex gates instead of the main entrance. Danisan will have them ready for you.”
“What?” Seba blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“My saberfangs. Don’t you remember our agreement?”
Seba had told Taeleia about her personal evacuation plan days ago. The elf had agreed that Seba could take the jungle cats if a fight broke out, thus ensuring the saberfangs’ escape. Seba had planned to get Max out of the palace and ride to safety with him.
The trouble was, Max hadn’t known about this plan.
“What exactly did he say to you?” Seba asked, struggling to keep her voice calm.
“He said he needed the cats to get Keriya out of harm’s way. I told him I’d already arranged everything with you. He requested I bring the cats to the annex, and Danisan did so.”
There was an odd ringing in Seba’s ears that had nothing to do with the sounds of approaching battle. “When did this happen?”
“After the first trebuchet attack. I assumed he’d told you he was changing your plans.”
“My plans,” Seba echoed faintly. She could feel the blood pounding through her veins. Her hands were shaking. Max was trying to save that little witch—and he had wrecked Seba’s carefully laid plans in doing so.
“I must go,” she said. “Thank you for your help.” Twirling on her heel, she left the throne room. She couldn’t talk anymore. She couldn’t think straight. She had to find Max.
And she had a bone to pick with him. Suppose she’d never seen Taeleia and the elf hadn’t told her what he’d done—Seba would have been trapped in the palace as Tanthflame laid siege to it. Would Max have gone with Keriya and forgotten Seba, leaving her here to die? She didn’t want to believe that of him, but the situation stank like three-day-old fish.
“I will find him,” she muttered, heading toward the annex. He must be in the dungeons by now. “And I will get to the bottom of this.”
Another deafening blast assaulted her ears and she staggered. More trebuchet attacks. The city had magical defenses, but she hadn’t seen any employed. What was Effrax waiting for? At this rate, Tanthflame would demolish Indrath Nazrith within the hour.
She rounded a corner and found
a decimated hallway. The east side of the corridor was gone, scraped away by a flaming boulder that had lodged in the outer wall. Through the cavernous hole, she could see the annex.
“Hold on . . .” She squinted. Beyond the annex, the edge of the palace garden was visible. Seba had spent some time there over the past fortnight—it was a nice enough place if one was partial to cacti and other prickly plants—and she recognized the twisted branches of the old yew tree that hunched at its southern edge. But something was wrong. The branches were moving.
Seba ran to hole and peered out. Yes, there—she saw three tiny figures clambering from the yew onto the garden wall. Two appeared as indistinct brown blobs. The third had white hair that shone through the smoke and haze like a beacon.
“Gods curse it,” Seba wailed. Keriya Soulstar had escaped, and Max was probably with her, running to his death. The palace was crumbling and Tanthflame had a regiment of elite wielders parked outside Fyrxav.
It was over.
Movement in the annex courtyard caught her eye and her heart lifted. There, emerging from the dungeon stairwell, was Max! He passed prone bodies of palace guards scattered before the shadowed entrance and hurried away.
“MAX!” Seba screamed for him at the top of her lungs, but her voice was lost amid the chaos and the crackle of fire. Max didn’t look up as he disappeared through an archway. Where was he going if he wasn’t with Keriya? What was he doing if he wasn’t trying to save her?
Seba didn’t know the reasons behind his madness, but it didn’t matter. She could follow Max. And if she encountered Keriya Soulstar along the way, so much the better for her, so much the worse for that wretched trollop.
She doubled back, ran past the throne room, ignored Effrax as he called to her, hurtled down the steps, and tore through the entry hall.
Outside the palace, civilians flooded the streets. Soldiers lined the thoroughfares, directing women and children to the south and militia to the west, toward the garrison. Seba ducked her head and hugged the sandstone walls, making her way toward the annex.
Dragon Child Page 46