Page 38 of King of Fire and Scales

NINETEEN

THALIA

Thalia laid her palm flat against the light green door. The torchlight next to her dampened the alcove with an unearthly glow in a way that wasn’t quite malevolent. She felt a sense of being drawn in, or lured, like taking bait on a hook.

It didn’t deter her though. Her curiosity would not blind her as it had on many occasions. It was a trust that very few humans were insightful enough to follow, including witches.

A single silver knob gleamed under the torchlight. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be locked, and when she turned it, it slowly swung open inwardly.

It grunted open to reveal a damp, humid darkness. Thalia turned, catlike in her swift movements, and pulled the torch from the wall. It clanked heavily into her hand, and the orange light flooded the stone staircase.

The witch’s heart raced madly. She felt a quiver of impending doom, a sweeping instinct of a child who peers over the edge of a steep cliff. But the sensation was infantile, one reserved for the human of average potential.

Thalia had a gift. She knew it, without ego, as the earth knows the pacing rise of the moon and sun.

She swallowed and licked her lips, clutching at the torch while beads of sweat flowered around her forehead like a garland. Thalia, the great Creation Sorceress, stepped into the cavernous mouth and descended.

The fabric of her tunic clung to her back and chest as she forced her feet to keep padding downward. She was thankful for the coolness of the stone against the bare soles of her feet, the soupy air starting to take its toll. She started to envision herself suffocating within the duress of the stifling climate when the green door at the top of the stair slammed shut.

Thalia jumped, but she didn’t stop moving. Her fear pushed her forward like her ribs had sprouted wings. The thought of being ingested by some malicious beast kept trying to prod her like a pinprick on the back of her neck. Nevertheless, she endured, trusting the knowing that had taken on a life of its own inside her limbs.

The witch was relieved when she finally reached the bottom. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, casting the orange light over a single room smaller than the king’s closest.

It was dingy, muggy, and dimly lit. The orange light swept over the continuation of rutted stone, lumpy and washed out from the lack of light and restoration. Thalia breathed heavily, sensing something insidious as she combed through the tiny, vacant room.

Except the room wasn’t vacant at all. A craggy voice crept out of the dark like a locust.

“How did you find me?"

Thalia jumped a second time, bumping her elbow against the cobbles hard enough to send a spurt of lightning up her arm. She cursed, then spun to shine the torch in the corner from where the voice had sounded.

It was as her suspicions had premeditated. Pyralis sat in an old threadbare chair with his rawboned legs crossed.

The torchlight spun in the pearl of his eyes, illuminating nefarious intentions.

“What are you doing down here?” Thalia implored, switching the torch to her opposing hand to rub at the blooming bruise of her elbow. “You’re hiding out because you know that you did the wrong thing, correct? You turned the king on Sorcha!”

“I had no other choice, dear Thalia,” he said, rubbing one eye in a circular motion. “Lucien had decided that war against our great Mountain King was fruitless. He was going to yield, to bend the knee. I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

The flames flickered over Pyralis’s closed eyes, his mouth twisting into a malignant grimace. The truth was showing its vile face, and the witch took a step back, her heel kissing the cobbles carefully.

He went on, musing into the oppressive air.

“I need Lucien to attack the castle. I needed to reinvigorate him. Once he heard his cousin had been thrown in the dungeon though, it did the trick. He is bloodthirsty, that damn dragon. Dim, but lusting for brutality. That is what I need.”

He chewed on the word like a wolf thrashing around its latest kill. Then, his eyes opened, and he darted a stare at the witch with a devious grin.

She stood straight and held the torch out as long as her arms could stretch while they shook mercilessly.

“Are you saying that…” she mumbled, her voice having gone horse. “You are telling me that you want Lucien to attack Drake? You want a war? Why?”

The sylphlike man chuckled darkly, then rose from the chair. Had he been sitting in the strange, clammy room, waiting for her to discover the hidden door? Had she been led down here by some kind of veiled hex of his own?

Thalia panicked. She pressed her body flat against the wall and considered fleeing. She knew she would have the upper hand on him strength-wise, but there was a wiliness to him that made her feel ill. His eyes were wide, brimming with the torrent of orange torchlight as he came toward her, elongated fangs hanging from his mouth.

“Our king is easily distracted,” he said, straining his hands around his back, then eyed her from head to toe. “As the present company exemplifies. You are a sweet, shiny toy to him, my dear. A very fetching one, but a toy, nonetheless. A war will steal his attention away while my plan unfolds like…”

He touched a finger to his thin and chapped lips, his eyes glittery as the word hit him like a tidal wave.

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