Page 29 of King of Fire and Flames

“Perhaps. But it won’t be me who kills him. Not today, and not while Melaya is by his side.”

Interesting, I thought, as we left my room and hurried out of the palace toward the stables. Azarn seemed over-reliant on his mage, which meant I had to find out more about his power. How it worked. And if there was a way to destabilize it.

“No chains today?” I asked Esen, waving my hands as we dashed through the statue garden. Lit by bright sunshine, they looked particularly grotesque, every splotch of mold and peeling paint visible.

The sun warmed my skin, and not one cloud floated in the azure sky. If I had to die, today was a fine day to do it.

Esen gave me a withering side glance. “I think you’re smart enough to realize you’d be dead before you got three feet away.”

“But I feel like you’re warming up to me, so there’s a slight chance you might just let me keep running. Might be worth the risk.”

“Oh, Leaf, you’re relentless.” Shaking her head, blue hair tumbled around her face as she laughed. “Today, your task is to find a specific plant in the forest. If you succeed, then similar to the last trial, you will fight an opponent. And if you survive that, you’ll only have one trial left. The worst, so I’ve been told.”

“Great,” I said, with zero enthusiasm. “What’s the deal with the Fen Forest?”

“Treacherous place. Holes filled with burning lava lurk beneath the pine-needle floor. Fall into one and you’ll never come out again. By all accounts, it’s not a pleasant way to go.”

“No kidding. How do I avoid them?”

“If you concentrate and block out other sounds, you’ll hear their hiss and crackle when you walk nearby. Be sure to step elsewhere.”

“Thank you. That’s helpful.”

In the stables, a single groom stood near the entrance, holding the reins of a large gray horse. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

Esen smirked. “In the forest. Waiting for you.” She took the reins from the stable hand, then thumped my back, pushing me toward the horse. “Hurry up and mount. Sable won’t hurt you. She has a mild and steady temperament. Unlike you.”

As soon as my butt hit the saddle, Esen mounted behind me.

“If you wanted to get close to me, there are more comfortable ways than sharing the same saddle,” I joked to distract myself from the nausea churning in my stomach.

Esen nudged the horse into a trot. “Very funny. No one at Taln, apart from Arrow, is stupid enough to give you a ride of your own. We’d spend the next week hunting you down.”

“I’m flattered you think so,” I replied. “Why would Arrow give me a horse?”

“Because where you’re concerned, he’s a fool.”

“Was a fool,” I corrected, ducking as we skirted an overhanging elm branch. I scanned the rolling hills and the pine forest in the east that grew closer with Sable’s every hoof beat.

Very few geysers shot from the ground in this lusher, treed area behind the palace, where the air almost smelled fresh and clean. As I drew a deep breath into my lungs, the sky over the woods suddenly darkened, looking gloomy and dramatic.

Perhaps not such a nice day to die, after all.

“Can you tell me about the plant I have to find?” I asked as we reached the edge of the forest.

Esen slowed Sable to a walk and spoke in a low voice against my ear. “A hidden plant called the blood orchid. It’s carnivorous, and the petals are rumored to possess great power, but I’m not actually sure what they do. A courtier told me they’d heard it suppressed Azarn’s magic.”

“But from what I’ve seen,” I said, “the king let’s his mage do most of his dirty work. I didn’t realize he had much power.”

“Azarn is lazy and allows Melaya too much freedom. You remember the price fae pay to wield magic? Before you arrived, Arrowyn would often sleep for days to recover from large expenditures of storm magic. Sun Realm fae suffer likewise.”

“So how do I find this blood lily?”

“Blood orchid,” Esen corrected, pushing pine branches aside as Sable trotted into the eerie darkness of the Fen Forest.

The smell of burning wood and smoldering embers hung heavy in the air. I looked around for signs of smoke or flames, but found none. Charred bark covered many of the tree trunks—the remnants of fire damage—and the leaves of nearby branches glowed blood-red, as if imbued with magic.

“Esen,” I prompted. “Did you hear my question?”

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