Page 280 of Heat of the Everflame

“They must have taken the prisoner back to her cell.”

“We passed the mortal cages. They weren’t there.”

The King stirred at my side, his groggy voice emerging from the dark. “I’m over he—”

I slapped a thick patch of shadow over his face.

“Did you hear that?” a soldier asked. He crept our way, warily craning his neck.

An idea struck.

They already left.I pushed the thought out with force.The King must be in his office now.

The man stopped. “They already left. The King must be in his office now.”

My heart leapt.

Another soldier raised his brows. “No one saw them leave.”

The man blinked, then frowned, then shook his head as if clearing a fog. “I... I’m not...”

How dare he question your command?I thought.

He spun on the other with a glare. “How dare you question my command?” He shoved him in the shoulder. “Get going. Back to His Majesty’s office.”

The others hustled to obey. The soldier whose mind I’d spoken into lingered and stared down the dimly lit corridor. After a moment, he was gone.

My magic dissolved. The King gasped for air, his face alarmingly blue.

I swore and reached for him. “Are you al—”

He launched at me in a rage, slashing at my head with enough force to shatter bone. I yelped and rolled across the ground as his blade carved a gouge in the floor.

He didn’t spare a second before trying again. I abandoned my shadow sword and frantically crawled out of his path. A whiff of air whistled past my ear, his strike missing by a hair.

My godhood snarled to answer in kind. I snarled right back, still determined to do this my way.

“Wind,” the King wheezed between pants. “You usedwindto push me back.”

I climbed to my feet. “You hit your head too hard,” I said, desperately trying to keep my tone light as panic spiraled in my chest. “Wind belongs to Meros.”

“Earlier, in the hall—it wasyouusing my magic.” His eyes blazed a bloodthirsty crimson. “Sophos was wrong. You’re not just an imposter, you’re an abomination.”

He swung for my neck, and I struck fast. I crafted another sword, this one sizzling with white-hot light, and glanced a blow across his wrist. His blade clattered to the floor as his hand went limp, skin bubbling and raw from the magic’s burn.

He screamed and clutched it to his chest. I pinned him against the corridor wall with the length of my sword, its scorching edge pressed to his throat.

“You’ve lost. Yield, and leave with your life.”

“Fortos never surrenders. We fight until we die.”

I scowled. Without him offering his blood by choice, I couldn’t open the cell doors to lock him in, but the longer our eyes stayed locked in mutual rage, the clearer it became he would never give in.

He arched his neck against the blade. “Go on then. Do what you must.”

I let out a loud, frustrated groan, then stepped back and dissolved my sword.

The King balked. “You’re not going to do it?”

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