Page 73 of King of Fire and Flames

I kissed her one last time, walking her backward toward the bed, then laying her down. “If any of those Fire Court fucks touch you, tell me straight away. They’ll be added to my list of dead men.”

She bounced up off the mattress. “Dead men,” she scoffed, as if I’d never killed anyone on her behalf before. She slapped my ass, then ducked behind me so I couldn’t retaliate.

I spun on my heel. “Hey, get back here.”

“Did you forget that you’re powerless in the Sun Realm? You won’t be killing anyone, whether they touch me or not.”

“Won’t I? We’ll see about that.”

“Orion, the orc who helped me board Loligos’s ship. He’s a prisoner, trapped in—”

“I know. We’ll deal with it. Tomorrow morning I have a meeting with Azarn’s counselors and some traders from the Ice realm. After that, I’ll find you.”

“All right,” she said, smiling at me in a sweet, open way. A smile I thought I would never see again. “We desperately need a plan.”

Damn right we did. With my power blocked, getting out of Taln safely wouldn’t be easy. But the Sun Realm’s queen held the key to our escape. The secret conversations I’d had with Estella had revealed she hated Azarn with a fiery passion, which would work to our advantage.

“The night of the last trial, how did you appear invisible in my room?” I asked.

“The serpent fae gave me petals from the blood orchid. I rubbed one on my skin and became temporarily invisible. That’s its power.”

“Good. Keep the rest well-hidden.”

“I will.”

“Will you be at dinner in the hall?” she asked.

“Yes. And it will fucking kill me to ignore you. I love you,” I whispered. “More than you’ll ever understand.”

As I stared at her gap-toothed grin, the City of Taln seemed to turn upside down, the horror shaking out of it, and everything in the realms felt right again. I would gladly spend eternity in the hell realms if it were the price of seeing her smile every day and night for the rest of my life.

I opened the door and shouted for Azarn’s men to return, struggling to suppress my own grin as the word tomorrow spun through my mind, a sweet, unbearable torture.

How would I wait a whole night to touch her again without losing my mind?

A wave of dread surged through me. Fuck. We’d forgotten to talk through our bond.

What if Melaya heard us?

I guessed if he had, I’d know about it soon enough, because Azarn’s mage and his soldiers would be crashing down my door before dawn.

If so, bring it on. I’d never had a fight I didn’t enjoy.

And in all truth, I was dying for a reason to break Melaya’s nose.

Chapter 23

Leaf

The earthy tang of old parchment coated my tongue as I licked my finger and turned another page in a book about the history of Sun Realm magic.

Thankfully, the guardians, as the Taln librarians preferred to be called, were busy cataloging new titles from the Ice Realm and had left me alone to flick through a dusty tome called Masters of Mythology: A Case Study of Magnificent Magicians and Mages Throughout the Ages.

Earlier, I had grabbed a pile of books from the Historical Magic section and retreated to a snug corner nestled behind rows of shelves beneath the domed-glass ceiling, in a section of the library perched high above the town.

In one direction, the cozy nook overlooked the library’s entrance far below, and in the other, the mountains beyond the forest, making it the perfect position to study any fae coming and going from the building and waste time daydreaming as I stared out at the view.

No one had entered for at least an hour, so I skimmed through chapters undisturbed, searching for information about the magic behind the Sentura Pyre and my mergelyn anklet, concluding that the fae of Taln weren’t avid readers.

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