Page 40 of King of Fire and Scales

The guard raised both hands into the air and moved them in an abstract circle. The other guards watched, stupefied.

The king felt his palms beginning to callous. His tongue tasted of hot smoke, a clear indicator of brimming aggravation.

“Words, give me your words!”

The guard’s eyes broadened, and his skin ran ivory white.

“My King…she used her magic to move the shelves and…it was as if she were swallowed…I punched through and she was gone. She had vanished.”

Drake’s mind was a tangled bird’s nest. He brushed off the extraordinary story, trusting only in bits of pieces, and ordered them with stark indignity to ransack the entirety of the palace.

“Strip the walls, throttle the stone, find her,” he seethed.

The guards scattered, and the king was left alone in the guest corridor close to the public meeting rooms. He ran both hands through the tumbleweed of his hair, wishing he could have ordered the whole of his army to dig through the castle and its various dark corners and tunnels.

But there was an impending war on the horizon.

He turned toward the high gothic window and watched with a feebleness that made him feel sickly as the swollen sky released a violent and hostile cloudburst. The angry shade burned as rain hailed over the kingdom, while a surreal streak of lilac lightning lit up the gloom.

A hillside that curved into oblivion speckled with a specific gleam. Drake knew it the second the refracted light hit his glare. Lucien’s army was mounting the terrain and proceeding toward the castle.

The war was no longer impending. It was there.

Drake rushed toward the meeting room where the war council had gathered. His mind was fractured, unable to sort through the terror that gripped his heart concerning Thalia’s disappearance. Mads and Olaf agreed there was no room for negotiation. Either Lucien bend the knee or he and his rogue comrades would suffer an untimely fate.

“The army has been assembled,” Mads confirmed, the steel of his armor blinking in the weak light of the room. “They await instructions from their king.”

“But we implore you, Drake,” Olaf said, looking particularly glum. “There is only one solution to this mess. We must defeat Lucien. We must not yield.”

The king agreed and left the war council. He was to return to them at the front of the lines once he had adorned his royal armor and military crown.

He raced to his chambers, thunder crackling overhead. He moved as if underwater, a part of him feeling inept and dead, another alive and ambitious. Thalia weighed heavily on him. His chest felt as if a bull were using him as a chair.

In a moment driven by the dreamlike sensation of grief, Drake tried to reach out to his beloved telepathically. He was barely aware he was doing it as he lifted the glittery chainmail from the armory, tucked away secretly in his royal chamber.

Thalia, Thalia. Please speak to me. Please tell me that your soul has not left this earthly realm.

He placed the chainmail over his shoulders and adjusted it accordingly. Then a voice, as soft as rose petals, caressed a portion of his brain.

Drake, it’s me. You have to stop this war!

The king dropped to his knees, a booming thud resounding through his chambers. The bull that had been sitting on his chest had fluttered away on butterfly wings.

Thalia? Thalia, where are you? Tell me, I will rescue you.

Pyralis is manipulating you. He plotted to make this war. You have to end this!

Hearing Thalia’s voice, as disturbed as it was, returned the king to a balance. He rose from his feet and went to the window. Rain pummeled the rugged landscape with its own fit of fury.

He spoke to her in his mind evenly and calmly as Lucien’s army descended upon the castle grounds.

Tell me what you mean, sweet one. Tell me, and I will find you.

He heard her words with a clarity that felt musical.

Pyralis is the one who was seeking me out. He weaved the tale that Lucien was searching for me to harness my powers, which forced you to seek me out. But he is the one who wants to absorb my power. He needs this war so your attention is drawn away.

Her voice returned to the crestfallen horror that made the king press his fingernails harder into his calloused hands.

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