Page 4 of King of Flames and Shadows

“Well, well,” he murmurs. “You’re definitely what he came for.”

I spit at his feet, earning myself a sharp slap across the face. Stars burst behind my eyes. I taste blood.

“Feisty,” he drawls. “Good. He’ll like a little fight.”

Then he leans closer, his voice dropping to a soft, deadly whisper.

“You’re coming with us, little witch. The king has plans for you. And now, he’s chosen you.”

The universe seems to shatter open around me like glass.

Everything is reduced to a blur. The world is a facsimile of itself, undone by dread and fear. The soldiers drag me through the village square, my feet stumbling over the uneven cobblestones. Every step feels like a death knell, the world closing in around me with suffocating finality.

The commander barks orders to his men, his voice sharp and unyielding, and I barely register it through the haze of pain and fear clouding my mind. I keep my head down, my breath coming in short, panicked bursts.

The villagers watch in silence as I’m hauled forward, their faces pale and drawn. No one speaks up. No one tries to help. They just stand there, staring at me with a mix of fear and relief—relief that it’s me and not one of them. Their lives will go on unchanged, even as mine falls apart.

Lyra, my only friend in this wretched place, is nowhere to be seen. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.

“Get in,” a soldier growls, shoving me toward a rickety wooden wagon parked at the edge of the square. The cart is old and splintered, its wooden frame bound with iron bands that dig cruelly into my wrists as they push me up and onto the narrow floor inside. The wagon’s wheels creak ominously under my weight, as if protesting my very presence.

I bite back a sob, struggling to keep my breathing steady. The ropes binding my wrists are so tight I can barely feel my fingers. My body aches from where they struck me down. I curl in on myself, shivering as the wind howls through the square, whipping at my hair and clothes.

The storm I’ve been awaiting is almost upon us now. Rain blurs the distant horizon. And I can smell smoke coming from somewhere—coming from everywhere. I spy it rising above the rooftops.

A soldier climbs up onto the front of the wagon, snapping the reins. The horses snort, pawing the ground restlessly, and then, with a lurch that nearly sends me sprawling, the wagon begins to move.

As a subsection of the garrison begins to move out, I spot the king atop his battle mount at the front of the charge, black cape pinned high atop his broad soldiers with silver ornamentation, head raised toward the sky as if scenting our desperation on the wind.

I hate him so desperately that it steals my breath.

I glance back over my shoulder, desperate for one last look at the place I’ve called home for so long. From down here, I can’t see my home, my cottage. Mygrandmother’scottage, and her mother’s before her. The only home I’ve ever known. The villagers blur together—a faceless crowd of strangers who have unanimously turned their backs on me. The commander stands in the center of their gaggle, issuing orders with cold, precise efficiency.

The smell of smoke is getting stronger. It begins to sting my eyes.

My heart stutters, and I crane my neck, peering past the soldiers standing guard around the corralled population of Essenborn in the square. Flickers of orange and gold dance at the edge of my vision, the telltale glow of growing flames licking at the thatched roofs and wooden walls of the village’s outermost buildings.

“No,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “No, please—”

The flames grow higher, roaring to life as the soldiers set still more torches to the thatches, to the wooden beams and shutters.

They intend to burn it to ash.

Essenborn’s houses catch like dry kindling, the fire spreading rapidly, hungrily. My throat tightens, and I choke on a sob, the bitter stench of burning wood and thatch filling my nostrils.

The screams begin, faint, rushing south toward me on the growing wind. The villagers cry out in horror, some of them rushing forward in a futile attempt to smother the flames, to save what little they have. But the soldiers push them back, swords flashing in the torchlight. The commander’s voice cuts through the chaos.

“Burn it all,” he orders. “Leave nothing standing.”

High above the whistle of the wind and the shouts of the villagers, I hear a piercing yelp. An unmistakable sound of agony. I know innately that it is Lyra. Desperately, I listen for any further sound, but she is silent.

My only friend in this world, my single ally in a place that has always hated me, is dead. They’ve taken her, too.

Unbidden, the memory of the last time I saw her, only days ago, rises in my mind.

As rainwater drips down the outside of the cottage’s narrow window, I cork another bottle of valerian root tincture and set it carefully on the shelf. The label is neat, written in my hand:For Restless Sleep, Dreamless. It’s one of the last recipes my grandmother taught me before she died, and even now, after all these years, the familiar scent of it brings her voiceback to me. Soft, gruff, and filled with a fierce, defiant wisdom. A wisdom the villagers hated her for.

The door creaks open behind me, and I glance over my shoulder, on edge already.

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