Page 107 of The Flame King's Queen

The scrap of soul is shrieking in pain and fury. I didn’t know that a soul could scream, but Caraxmorenas’s soul does. I fumble in my bag for the lead bottle covered in binding runes, unstopper it, and use what is left of my magic to force the lich inside. It does not go willingly, but using the power of its name, I’m the one who’s in control. The green light disappears inside the bottle, and I slam the stopper in.

All the binding runes light up, and the bottle is hot and vibrates slightly. Caraxmorenas is fighting against the runes, and I speak aloud their names along with the lich’s name, strengthening them, making the bottle into the lich’s personal prison.

I take a shaky breath, some of my tension dissipating. My feelings are far from relieved or victorious. This bottle won’t hold our enemy forever.

For now, I stash it in my bag and run to Zabriel. His eyelashes are fluttering, and he groans in discomfort. I place my hands on his shoulders and help him to sit up.

“Zabriel, can you hear me?”

He sits up and both his arms come around me and crush me to his chest. He holds me in his lap and rocks me back and forth.

“I’m so sorry,sha’lenla,” he says in a voice roughened by emotion. “I should have stopped him. You were looking at me with so much terror.”

I smooth his hair back from his face and up his cheeks, hating to see him so broken. “You couldn’t help it. I know it wasn’t you. All it did was make me love the real you even more.” I cup his face and make him look at me. His beautiful red eyes meet mine, and I see fire flickering in their depths.

“I could feel it wanting to hurt our child. It was considering all the ways he could do it just to torment me. It was going to make me do it.”

“Sylvi is safe. Fiala and Dusan have her. They will protect her no matter what.”

My mate takes a shuddering breath. “I felt centuries of my brother’s anger, fear, and pain. Emmeric never showed us, but he lived in terror of that thing that possessed him. He welcomed it willingly, he was entranced by the power it gave him, but he suffered for that power. I think in the end, he knew it hadn’t been worth it. He’d sacrificed too much.”

“I was never tempted by what it was offering. I don’t want power over you any more than you want power over me. You’re my Alpha, and I love you.”

“I could never believe you would be tempted even for a moment.” He covers my mouth with his, kissing me so fervently that we both sink to the ground, me falling onto my back with my mate on top of me. His black hair falls all around us, and as his body presses down on mine, I finally feel safe again.

“Scourge,” I whisper between kisses. “Is he all right?”

“He is himself again. He is impatient for us to be up and chasing after that lich again, wherever it has gone.”

“I have it.”

Zabriel pulls back in surprise. “You what?”

I sit up and pull the bottle out of my bag. It’s hotter than ever and practically jumping around in my hand.

“You bound it in this bottle?”

“Yes, I discovered its name. Caraxmorenas. Or rather, Biddy found out and told me before it killed her.” I’m speared with pain again as I relate the details to Zabriel.

“I’m so sorry about your crone. Her strength means you were able to bind it in that bottle, and she won’t be forgotten. But what are we going to do with that thing now?”

I gaze at the bottle. “I don’t know, but we have to be rid of it somehow. It wants to destroy everything that it touches. I’ll never understand it, and I don’t want to understand it. I just want it gone, and I don’t think we have much time. These spells won’t hold it for long.”

“Can you keep it locked inside that prison for a few hours? If so, I know a place.”

“Yes, I think I can keep these runes in place for a while longer.”

“Then come with me,sha’lenla.”

Zabriel picks me up in his arms and carries me atop Scourge. His scent is spiked with determination, and I burrow my face against his chest, breathing in his strength and comfort.

As we fly, I whisper the binding runes and the lich’s name to the bottle, keeping the prison strong. I’m so intent on it that I don’t notice for some time that the sun has come up and we’re flying over a great expanse of water.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“This is the eastern ocean. Maledin is behind us now.”

I peer down at the waves below. I suppose dropping Caraxmorenas into a very deep part of the ocean could finish him. It won’t be able to find another person to possess even if it manages to escape its lead prison. But could it possess a sea creature and find its way back to land somehow? I don’t know, and I don’t think we have much choice but to try Zabriel’s plan.

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