Page 100 of Oath of Betrayal
I let the quiet murmur of their voices send me to sleep and an almost forgotten feeling of warmth and contentment spread through my chest before I drifted into my dreams.
I could feel Vahin in my thoughts as he circled the castle, guarding our sleep while my men cocooned me in their love. I’d failed to fix the keystone, and war would surely come to our kingdom, but in that moment, I just felt happy, safely enveloped in their arms.
Something—either the heat from the two bodies wrapped around me or a noise from outside—had woken me up, but when I opened my eyes, only the reddish hue of the rising sun greeted my tired mind.
Orm and Ari were still on either side of me, but their hands were now clasped together on my hip. I couldn’t help but smile at that, a special place in my heart filling with tenderness.
I loved them both.
I knew deep in my soul that they had become a part of me, even if Ari had yet to Anchor himself to me.He will. Not even the Lich King can stop me from claiming him,I thought, stroking their hands.
A sudden thundering on the door made me flinch, and I gasped when Alaric instantly covered me with his body while Orm jumped out of bed, pulling two daggers from gods knew where.
‘Commander, there’s an emergency,’ sounded a panickedvoice from the outside.
‘Enter and report,’ Orm was furious but professional while I still wrestled to extract myself from beneath my dark fae shield.
A dishevelled man burst in, and with him, the putrid smell of smoke. ‘The boarding house is on fire. We rescued most of the women, but we need more men to tackle it … and the mage,’ he said, and I finally recognised Tomma, Orm’s second-in-command.
‘And you waited how long to tell me?’ Orm snapped his question to the rider, but Tomma couldn’t answer as his body was wracked with a hacking cough. I winced at Orm’s pounding of his subordinate’s back, but it seemed to help, and Tomma straightened. ‘It didn’t look like much initially, but the fire wouldn’t die down.’
I struggled out of bed, yanking my dress off the chair. ‘I need you both outside with me. Now!’ I ordered. My battle mage uniform was designed for ease of dressing, and I was ready in no time. Sprinting towards the door, I looked at the men, who frowned at my words. ‘Now! Someone is playing with fire in my fucking castle. I can douse these flames, but someone has to look after our people.’
I bolted outside without giving them a chance to answer, cursing up a storm as I ran. What I’d thought was the glow of sunrise was, in fact, light from the fire engulfing the female boarding house and threatening the town.‘Vahin!’I shouted in my thoughts, and the dragon’s roar answered from above.‘Here, Little Flame, tell me what to do.’
‘Stay nearby. I will have to counter the spell and douse the fire. I need your Anchor.’
His reassuring presence was all I needed, especially when I entered the town square and saw the scale of the disaster. The boarding house burned fiercely, and the nearby buildings were already smouldering, giving me very little time to think. I heardOrm shouting to the soldiers, commanding them to further evacuate people, but I ignored him as I tried to concentrate. I cleared my mind, tuning out everything but the beating of my heart.
Then I felt it—a spell of the High Order that had used a small amount of aether to combat any attempts at smothering the flames. I needed to find the glyph controlling the energy and erase it while preventing the fire from spreading.
Think, Annika. No man can enter the female boarding house, so it has to be nearby.
I reached for the aether, and its power flowed through me with ease, grounded by the presence of my two Anchors. I took a deep breath and exhaled, slowing my heartbeat, letting more and more magic filter through my body until I reached a hand out towards the lake.
‘Hoc ta mae.’1
Water answered my call, rushing through the streets, flowing uphill while the citizens leapt from its path. I condensed the stream, forcing it into a tighter, smaller jet that turned and twisted into a spiral surrounding the boarding house. As the water scoured the walls, the flames and smoke cleared enough for me to spot the complicated diagram drawn on the side wall.
‘Motherfucker!’ I cursed, unable to stop myself. Whoever had done it had tied the spell to a fire elemental, and the poor creature was burning everything it touched as it attempted to flee.
I drew in the water, spinning it faster and faster, moulding it into a raging torrent. I aimed its entire power at the offending glyph, grinning in triumph as the diagram was obliterated. I felt the joyous cry of the elemental as its shackles shattered, and the fire whipped and jerked, suddenly less intense.
‘Annika, we need more water directed to the front,’ Orm shouted, and I heard screams coming from the building.
Alaric rushed inside. I felt a shift in the air and saw something flicker around him. The dark fae had shielded himself as he entered the burning building, but I almost panicked when I realised he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Meanwhile, Orm focused on protecting the town, directing the soldiers to drag the burning debris away from the other building and beat it with wet blankets. At the same time, the dragons small enough to fit in the narrow area were holding their wings out to protect the soldiers from falling wreckage as they worked.
I’d solved one problem, but I still needed to deal with theordinaryfire. ‘Move back, everyone!’ I shouted, and the people who were still on the street next to me ducked for cover.
I weaved the elemental power of the water within my grasp, exhilarated beyond measure. My mind called to Vahin, and the image of torrential rain so heavy even a dragon’s wing would struggle to withstand it was his answer. Vahin understood my intention, expanding the vision to include the image of a cloud heavy with water drifting slowly over the mountain peak.
The aether in my hands weighed me down as it gained substance while the euphoria of channelling its power nearly lifted me from the street. The only steadying forces were my Anchors, their strength holding me in place as I wove magic into the vision, with the dragon’s deep understanding of the sky helping to recreate the natural order.
This has to be enough, I thought, unwilling to repeat yesterday’s experience. I reached my hand to the sky, releasing the magic, and thrust forth the vision and my intent behind it with one powerful word of command.
‘Das’an!’2
The skies opened and water crashed down upon the ground with the sound of thunder. The dragons protecting the soldiers huddled together, supporting each other as they kept their charges safe, while everyone else sheltered beneath the nearestdoorway. The fire that had raged like an inferno just moments ago hissed and stuttered, falling back from the relentless deluge, filling the air with the smell of soot and burnt wood. I kept the spell going until its light was completely extinguished, holding the waterlogged clouds above the damaged building.
