Page 30 of The Flame King's Queen

Scourge roars in defiance, flings up his tail, and lowers his head. He can’t move his wings, but he can dive toward the battlements. Trusting in my dragon, I lay forward along his neck and hold on tight, knowing that our landing will be far from gentle. With the last of the fire in his soul core, he unleashes a torrent of flame.

The huge wooden gates into the castle keep are closed and barred. With his bony, horned head lowered, we crash through the gates in a shower of splinters, broken rock, and embers.

Scourge has slid on his belly, but his wings are no longer gripped by lightning, and he raises them up and gets to his feet. With a mighty bellow, he signals to my army that the castle has been breached.

I dismount, slide to the ground, and draw my sword. Now that the foot soldiers have a way into the castle, the battle is turning our way.

I’m braced for an onslaught of mages or undead, but the enormous courtyard is empty. Scourge lowers his head and snarls at the shadows, but they conceal nothing but dust and wisps of grass.

Several wingrunners dart over me, ready to protect their king, but after a moment, they settle onto the ground. The wyverns’ beady eyes search the area, their heads turning sharply. Captain Ashton dismounts and approaches my side, gripping a bloody halberd.

“Your orders,Ma’len?”

I don’t trust how quiet this place is. “Search the place. Kill Emmeric. Locate any phylacteries that the lich may have made and destroy them.”

That thing has had five hundred years to find a new way of binding its soul to this plane. Killing the man I once called my brother is only the first step in defeating it forever. We can’t leave any way for it to come back.

The foot soldiers have reached the broken gates of the castle and are running inside the courtyard to join us. Ashton relays my orders to them, and they split into groups of a dozen and begin to search the castle.

I move into the castle’s hall, carrying my drawn sword. Nothing moves. There are no sounds apart from my own soldiers’ running feet. This place feels abandoned. Dead.

Isavelle described being taken to a tower, and I hunt for stairs that will take me to the upper levels. A twisting staircase takes me up and up, and it finally opens into a large circular room. The room has been lived in recently. There are papers and books on the tables, but there is very little dust. When I touch a blown-out candle, it is faintly warm.

There’s writing on several unwound scrolls in a language I don’t understand, but I recognize the handwriting. I saw it every day when Emmeric and I were both youths suffering under the glares of our tutors. Neither of us were good students. I was too careless, and Emmeric was too arrogant. Even after all these years, I know my brother’s handwriting.

Emmeric was here recently. So where is he now? I suppose when his barrier came down, he fled. We didn’t breach the castle fast enough, and he found a way to escape.

I trudge downstairs, disappointment heavy on my shoulders. My soldiers will search the castle thoroughly, but I have little hope now that they will find Emmeric.

Ashton approaches me with a report. “No sign of Emmeric,Ma’len, but we have taken several mages prisoner. At least, I think they are mages.” He looks a little sickened.

There’s a cluster of men surrounded by wingrunners and loomed over by Scourge, who has his jaws menacingly parted. They’re all unarmed but still dangerous if they are mages. When I look closer, I see what has made Ashton so uncomfortable. The men’s flesh is dead-looking. Their veins are blackened, and some of them have clouded eyes. But they’re still very much animated.

“Bind their hands and gag them so they cannot cast spells,” I say, and the wingrunners do so, though I can see from their expressions of revulsion that they don’t enjoy being this close to the undead.

One of the mages is watching me with minute focus. There are chunks of flesh missing from his gray, clammy cheeks, but the wounds do not bleed. It raises the hair on the back of my neck to look at him, but I sense that he has something to say.

I step forward and pull the gag from between his teeth. “Where is Emmeric?”

“You will never find him,” the mage says. “You are not worthy to behold one of such power.”

Completely useless. What should I do with the prisoners? I don’t kill those who have been captured or surrendered, but none of them have beating hearts. They won’t be able to swear allegiance to me and assimilate among the people of Maledin when they were created to serve an undead master.

Green light flares in the mage’s eyes. “Seek me all you wish,” the man rasps in a very different voice. “You will never find me. I will always be out of your reach.”

I’m speaking with the thing that possessed my brother, and as I stare into its disturbing eyes, I wonder how Emmeric was able to welcome it willingly. He must have hated us all so much.

“Death to the black prince. Death to his bloodline. It will perish and be no more.”

The words send a chill down my spine, and I wonder if Emmeric somehow knows about Isavelle having my baby. The light fades away, and the mage goes limp like a doll. His skin flakes and flutters away on the breeze. His bones crumble to ash. All around us, the undead soldiers are dissolving and floating away on the wind.

I turn slowly on the spot, hunting for any sign of Emmeric, but there’s none.

All around me, riders and soldiers are coming to the realization that the battle is over. I push through the groups of men and women, seeking my mate. She’s near where I left her, tending to injured soldiers with theHratha’len.

My mate looks up, and as soon as she sees me, she jumps to her feet and runs to me. “They told me you were unhurt, but it is a relief to see you for myself.”

I pull Isavelle into my arms and press my palm against her belly, my fingers splayed so I can hold as much of our child all at once.

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