Page 99 of Empire of Flame and Thorns

“Good.” A small smirk tugs at his lips. “You’re finally learning to obey my orders.”

I narrow my eyes and level a glare full of challenge on him. “This isn’t over.”

I might have been forced to hand it over right now because he has me pinned to the ground underneath him with a blade at my throat. But as soon as he turns his back on me so that he can’t see my eyes, I’m going to manipulate his emotions and make him give it back to me.

“Yes, it is,” he replies, and slides my knife into one of his own holsters. “Because now, I’m going to fly away from here and drop the ring somewhere else. And you’re going to go back to the city and accept that you have lost.”

“I will never accept that I have lost. I swear by your god and mine, I’m going to fight with everything?—”

A white bolt of lightning slams into the ground right next to me. It’s so forceful that the ground shakes.

I gasp, the sound cutting my threat short. The air around me taste of ozone.

“Listen to me,” Draven presses out between clenched teeth before I can recover. “You?—”

Wooden groaning noises suddenly come from right underneath me.

Both Draven and I whip our heads towards it.

But before either of us can so much as open our mouth, a loud crack cuts through the dark evening air.

My stomach lurches as the hollow wooden trunks beneath us give way.

And we plummet into a dark abyss.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Pain shoots through my body as I slam back first into another set of hollow trunks. And then another. And another. Each one gives way as soon as we hit it, making us plummet too fast for us to even have a chance at grabbing on to something. I grunt in pain at each rapid hit.

Draven wraps his arms around me and throws his weight sideways. It makes us spin in the air so that he’s below and I’m above instead.

Hollow wood shatters and splinters fly around us as we tumble downwards in the gloomy darkness.

Suddenly, the layers of trunks end and we’re falling through the open air for a few seconds. But before Draven can even shift and summon his wings, we slam into the ground.

Air explodes from Draven’s lungs as he crashes back first into the ground with me on top of him. My back still aches from the first couple of layers that I smacked into when we fell, but because Draven flipped us around and took the brunt of the fall, I’m mostly unharmed.

He grunts and drags in a strained breath.

I suddenly realize that I’m still lying on top of him, my entire body pressed against his. It probably isn’t helping him get airback into his lungs. I try to scramble off him, but his arms are still wrapped tightly around me. So instead, I brace my palms on his firm chest and just raise my head to meet his gaze.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He drags in another breath and then presses out, “Yeah.” His eyes find mine. “You?”

“You’re the one who took most of the hits,” I point out.

His gaze flits down to his arms, which are still wrapped around me. He blinks, looking startled, and then quickly releases me. I climb off him immediately and get to my feet. My heart suddenly pounds in my chest for some reason.

Another groan comes from Draven’s throat as he sits up. Raising his hands, he rakes them through his now messy hair and heaves a deep sigh. Then he pushes to his feet as well.

For a little while, we just stand there side by side, staring up at the spot where we fell through.

It’s hard to make out all the details in the murky darkness, but we appear to be inside an underground forest. The ground beneath my feet is made up entirely of thick and lush grass, which is now flattened by our landing. Trees spread out around us, but it’s not the same kind of trees that can be found in the thorn forest above. These have a slightly surreal and almost magical look to them. But most importantly, there is no sky above our heads.

Instead of a setting sun and a sky painted in dark red and purple, there is a solid ceiling made of those strange thin trunks above us. It spans the whole area around us as far as I can see. And right above us is a narrow hole. Through it, we can see layer upon layer of those thin tree trunks, creating a thick barrier between the world above and whatever place we have ended up in.

“Well… fuck,” Draven mutters.

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