Page 134 of Fate and Flame
You’re wrong,a voice said into my mind.
I’m not.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Temir
“Go,” Greeve said, his voice cold.
He pulled that long, curved blade out, and though I’d shut the door behind me, my hearing was still keen enough to hear the final gasp of the second fae before he was killed. I walked to my room carefully. As much as I didn’t want to picture the faces of the servants who had likely died, I couldn’t help it. The cook that always gave me extra food for a starving stable boy. The laundress that never questioned why my bedding would go missing from time to time. They were gone. All of them.
I opened the door to find Nadra changing into something Wren had likely brought her. The female fashion in the Marsh Court was quite different than what they wore here and even in the Wind Court. The Flame Court replaced layers of fabric with something light and sheer to combat the hot weather, or they wore something they could fight in. Leathers, they had called them.
“Are you sure this is wise?” I asked as she sat to brush out her hair.
“Everyone knows Coro has the greatest army. Had,” she corrected herself. “If we can sway them to come south, it could make the difference between winning and losing. I’d say that’s a wise decision.”
“But your power . . .”
“No one will know. I’ll have plenty of guards. They aren’t going to listen to anyone else like they would listen to me. I’ll go straight to Xanth, plead our case, and come right home.”
I crossed the room to stand behind her.“No one knows the current state of Hrundel.”
“Exactly. We need to know, and hopefully Rhogan will have some time to check the skies for Autus’ army.”
“If you think he is going to leave your side, you’re wrong.”
She shrugged and twisted her hair into a knot on the top of her head. I handed her the pins she liked to use, and before I knew it, she was kissing me goodbye.
“Be careful.”
She moved her hands along my antlers and leaned in close. “I promise,” she whispered, and then walked out the door.
I thought I would try for a nap since I’d barely slept off our drunken night, but my mind wouldn’t stop. I pictured everything that could happen to her and knew I’d be up the rest of the night. I would probably be a wreck by tomorrow. So instead, I found myself wandering down to the city to find Oravan. King Fenlas needed to find that artifact, and if I could help at all, that was what I desired to do.
He was working in his own small corner of the blacksmith’s shop, pounding a red-hot piece of metal against an anchor. Sweat beaded on my forehead the moment I stepped inside. Though a soft breeze carried the smell of burning metal through the open window, it did nothing for the heat. Oravan wasn’t fazed at all, his shirt still clean as he worked. He was focused. Banging and rotating the iron. I had to walk in front of him to get his attention, avoiding sparks that flew through the air.
“‘Bout time you came by.” He shoved the metal into a pot of water, the sizzle concluding his work as plumes of smoke filled the air around him.
“I’ve got a question for you.” I stepped back as he grabbed another rod.
“No serum this time?” he asked.
“No. No serum. We’re on the same side now.”
“We’ve always been on the same side, Temir.”
“Can you tell me about the day the king asked for the sword. The one forged in death?”
He dropped the rod he was holding, and it clanged to the floor. He looked around the room cautiously and then pulled me closer to him.“What about it?”
“The last time we talked about it, you were working on it. You said it would be the most powerful sword ever made. I know you finished it before you could escape, and I know he has it. But he isn’t planning to use it the way you might think. I need to know what he said to you when he ordered it made.”
“But he didn’t order it,” he said. “He sent Eadas to order it. He asked if I’d heard of the legendary sword, and of course I had. He asked me if I could duplicate it and said it needed the same amount of power as the original, if not more.”
“How did you forge it in death?”
His eyes dropped to the floor as he sat silent with his haunted memories.“I was brought ashes, and I combined them into the metal as I was forming the sword. I’ll never do it again, if that’s what you’re getting at, Temir. Not for all the freedom in the world. There is a darkness in that kind of magic. It felt . . . wrong.”
