Page 88 of A Dance With Fire
“Emperor Laurel put an order out to all the noble families and his soldiers.” He gasped and sobbed, heaving in breaths that sounded like they grated against his lungs. “He’s doubling his efforts to find the Fae. He wants them all. But he wants the Elementals unharmed.”
Shula tensed. She felt eyes on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet them.
“Why?” Valerio asked.
“I don’t know! All I know is he wants them. Badly. Any and all Elementals we can find, we are to turn them over to our captains so they can get them to either the emperor or the kings. We’ve been combing through Illyk for weeks to try and find the damn Elementals and any other Fae we can!” He started to cry. “That’s all I know! I swear, that’s all I know!”
Valerio smiled and patted his palm against the human’s cheek. “I believe you, Philip.”
Through his pain, Philip trembled and breathed a sigh of relief. “You—you do?”
The Seelie Prince’s smile was a chilling thing. Humans had stories of hell, of demons, and Shula could picture it so vividly then. The legends they were so afraid of, they reflected on the prince’s deadly expression.
“Of course, I do.”
A hand clamped on Shula’s arm, drawing her attention away from the sniveling human. She looked up and met Ryker’s grave expression. Bicolored eyes flickered across her face in silent communication. She didn’t know how she knew, but she felt what he was telling her, deep in her bones.
Eyes on me.
“No! No, please, what are you doing? I told you everything I know! Please!”
She started to look back to the human, but Ryker’s hand shot out and gripped her chin, holding their eyes together.
Eyes on me.
He angled her so she couldn’t even see out of her periphery. So that all she could focus on was the two different colors that were his eyes. One white, one black. One like the heavens, one as dark as hell.
And in them, she found a modicum of comfort, even as she heard the swipe of a blade being unsheathed from its resting place.
Eyes on me.
Because whatever animosity existed between them, he was still trying to protect her. She could see that truth at least in the intensity of his demeanor. It burned, hotter than her own fire. He was commanding, his presence consuming. He confused her, she hated him, they hated each other.
Yet she couldn’t look away because he was equally hypnotizing.
“No! Please!” There was the sound of steel meeting flesh. Of gurgled cries, choking on blood.
She wanted to wince but couldn’t.
Perhaps later the sound would haunt her dreams. But for now, she could focus on him and forget her fear. Forget, for a moment, that the Emperor of Illyk was sending armies out to find her and bring her to him.
Looking at him, she could forget for a moment that she wasn’t safe, and she probably wouldn’t be again. But at the moment, it didn’t matter. Nothing did because it was his gaze and the hand that still gripped her chin, strong yet gentle, that made her feel safe.
It drowned out the sound of fear.
It drowned out the sound of the dying.
31
The Truth in Prophecies
“This means something.” Valerio slapped his palm against the surface of the table. The dishes clattered together with the force of his distress.
The king merely raised an eyebrow, stroking his stubbled chin in thought.
As soon as the last dying cries of the human faded from the prison, they’d all ushered out of there and to the meeting room with the king, to tell him exactly what the human had said.
About Emperor Laurel, the Kings of Illyk, and the Elementals. About how badly the emperor wanted Shula.
