Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(33)

“Do you think it’s them?”

I didn’t respond to her query.

I turned her in my arms toward the wall of fire that we were now surrounded by. “Put out the fire, Ovailia.”

“Sain …”

“I know you can,” I continued before she had a chance to rebut. “Show me how powerful you are. Remind all of these people that you are more than your father’s pawn.”

I felt her stiffen underneath my grip, her breathing picking up as, with wide eyes, she stared at the flames.

“You are more powerful than anyone here,” I told her, letting my magic run over her skin, letting it soothe her as it attempted to move into her.

As she inhaled sharply, her magic rose up to meet mine. The warmth and strength of her power were a drug against me. Even with the power I held, the strength and anger that moved inside me, all I wanted was to kiss her, to take her and forget that the flames burned before us.

The heat of the flames was weaker than the heat that her magic sent into my blood.

Dangerous.

“I think it’s time you remind them of that.”

Pressing my lips against her neck with the deepest longing, I felt her pulse beneath my kiss. I savored the stuttered beat of her excitement before I pulled away, ripping my magic from her.

Backing away, she lifted her hands, the pressure of her power filling the air. Her hair swirled amidst the vortex of heated air as she stood alone, feet before the flames.

Moments from the fire attempting to devour her, moments from my Míraculous rescue.

I couldn’t let them all think her powerful, but I couldn’t destroy the flames on my own, either.

Laughing, I folded my arms over my chest, feeling her magic swell as mine began to spin. The streams of gray and black were a beautiful contrast against the flames as they spread from her hands. They sped through the air and slammed against the wall of fire with a reverberation that shook the ground beneath us all, ripping through the sky with a howl akin to an animal. An animal inches from death.

The screams of fear increased as the fire fought back against the attack, a wall of smoke flooding us, filling the air until it was hard to breathe.

I smiled at the magical battle before me, laughing at the war, only to have the laugh echo back to me.

The heavy wave of smoke shifted beneath me, choking me as the power in it became an infection, an infection that sparked against my sight. My head began to spin as my magic consumed me, pulling my mind into a different smoke-filled space.

Unable to pull myself out of the sight, I was surrounded by billows of gray and white so thick I could scarcely see past them. I couldn’t be here. I needed to save Ovailia from the flames before they devoured her. I needed to save them all, to show them all what their new leader was capable of.

Yet, the magic had trapped me within it, the urgency great. It had been decades since I had been pulled into a sight of such importance, and now it chose to take me.

I needed to get out of here. Time was not on my side.

“Is there any news?” a deep, gruff voice I recognized filtered past the smoke, the very words beginning to clear it. The heavy shroud dissipated and left me standing in the center of a smoke-filled room where three Trpaslíks sat around a table.

“You,” I barked, knowing the word would go unheard to those in the sight before me.

It was them, the same three men who had haunted my sight for the past few weeks, who had attacked the quiet silence that I had expected as king and challenged my crown at every turn.

Every turn that I met them at, that I had defeated them at.

Too bad no one living knew the very basics of dealing with a Drak.

Perhaps I should give them a hint. You couldn’t defeat them, because you could not hide anything from them.

Through the distorted darkness they were surrounded by, the figures that sat around the table were clear and crisp beyond what was normal, the precise imagery too clean to be of this world. This was coming.

Perfect. I could use this premonition to find them. I could use it as my opportunity to destroy them.

Alojz, the man who had spoken, pulled the elongated pipe he was known for from his mouth with an embellished sigh, a billow of lavender smoke wafting around his head like a crown before dissipating into the already pungent space. “I am tired of waiting,” he growled, the last of the smoke from his pipe floating into the air. “The Chosens’ camps are on fire, and he still hasn’t shown.”

I tensed, my heart beat ramping up violently at what the old man had said.

This was not coming. This was now.

I could find them.

The older Trpaslík leaned across the table, his eyes wide as he looked at his two companions. The small tilt in his lip was partially hidden beneath his carefully trimmed beard, something that I had yet to adopt with my own scruffy mane, choosing to let the wild look I had adopted frighten my people, instead.

The mad, blood-soaked king.

“We are still waiting for word, Alojz,” Georg said before leaning back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath him. “Perhaps the fire has devoured him.”

A snicker ran over the three men at the suggestion.

Alojz returned the pipe to his mouth with an elongated sigh, obviously unpleased with the response.

“We must have hope,” Bronislav said with a sigh, the portly Trpaslík looking very elderly beneath the yards of graying beard. “I worked for centuries to develop that attack. This was not what I had wished to use it on.”