Page 88 of Crown of Darkness
Unless it’s with a knife in hand.
Sweeping my hand wide, I send flames licking toward the warrior on my right. He leaps out the way, but a cinder catches his cloak and I slam my fist shut, igniting it with a thought.
A shape drives toward me—an armored fist hammering toward my face. It’s like being hit with a sledgehammer. I spin off guard and as my vision blurs, a gauntleted hand locks around my throat, hauling me back into an armored chest.
Halvor.
“You should have had the decency to die at the Queensmoot,” he hisses in my ear, one hand clamping on the top of my head, his other arm cutting across my windpipe until my eyes bulge. “You’re a problem to be dealt with and I’d slit your throat here and now if you weren’t the weapon that can cripple that filthy prick.”
Erlking’s cock….I can hardly breathe.
Grabbing his armored wrist, I grit my teeth and force myself to draw my energy inward. “Burn you—”wretch.
Heat ignites through my skin.
My hair whips around us and Halvor gives a shout as I erupt into flame.
His armor is cooking him from the inside out, broiling him within. I catch a glimpse of his reddened face as he falls away, before I turn and run, leaving dripping pools of fire behind me.
* * *
Everything hurts.
Everything.
My skin is blistered and peeling, and the ends of my hair have sizzled. The flames were crafted from my magic, which means I should be mostly impervious to them, but clearly my control slipped for one crucial second.
My lungs rasp for breath, and my throat is bruised from his crushing grip.
I stagger through the old quarter in a mindless dash, and even though I’ve barely had the chance to learn this part of the city, some part of my memory must be trickling through, because my body knows the way better than I do.
“She’s down here!” A voice cries out.
Fire rages unchecked through this part of the city. Not thanks to me. Someone else perhaps. Or maybe the Deathguard on my ass aren’t the only ones who were sent.
BOOM.
Another explosion.
The sky is falling. Little white flakes drift through the air now. Burning. The world is burning. Gravel rains down. I throw my hands over my head as I dart beneath an arch, and it’s so fucking hard to breathe right now, bruised throat notwithstanding.
“Thiago?”
Where in the Underworld is he?
My heart skips a beat. This was clearly an assault designed by my mother. Even though he’s one of the most powerful males in the alliances, she’d have accounted for him.
And he should have stopped those explosions by now.
Maia’s mercy. I need to get out of here. I need to get moving.
Shoving off the wall, I take two steps just as something moves in the square ahead of me. I skid into a narrow space behind a barrel, heart hammering as I crouch there.
It’s just a wisp of a red cloak, but I know the hunters are closing in.
A shadow ripples over me, and I glance up as Halvor leaps from rooftop to rooftop above me. He pauses on the lip of the gutter, his hair a ragged, smoking mess and the left side of his face blistered.
If he looks down, he’ll see me.
