Page 157 of Of Serpents and Ruins
The items were still melting down. Maybe four minutes to go. Possibly five. I tore a strip from my dress and tied as many of the reagents onto a rock as I could. Blood stained the fabric, but it worked.
Standing, I chucked it into the heart. The rock heated at once, the feathers and herbs catching fire and flaring. Elias bashed a fiend as I stooped to grab another, and Kine swept around yet again.
My fingers shook as I prepared another chunk of rock with more of the reagents. I flung that rock in as well. It scraped the blue line of the heart's edge but tilted back in time.
We were almost through the reagents. Gently, I pressed Tile onto his back and searched the inside of his robe. There were a few more. A root and a few feathers and a silk bag of coarsely chopped plants. I bound them to a palm-sized rock, my hands shaking. Then I spotted another few feathers and herbs.
Elias seized the first one. "I’ve got this," he said. He dodged another attack, the bony knife scraping his side and cutting into his sleeve. He brought the quarterstaff down with a single hand, landing a solid blow.
I gathered up the last scraps, tore off another bit of my dress, and wrapped it around the hot rock. This had to be enough. Right?
More fiends crawled up over the edge. Arjax roared in pain as a blade bit into his side, dark blood splattering the stone before he forced a partial spinosaurus transformation and bit a fiend in half. Lorna’s ice fire sputtered. She leaped up at the ceiling and shoved a stalactite down as if it were her own personal spear.
The Gola Resh and Babadon continued to coo over one another as if nothing else mattered. She spun and looked back at us on the stone platform before the lava river, sailing in front of the rock islands. Chuckling, she struck her hands together. The arcanists’ incantations came to a strangled halt. Two dropped to their knees, gasping.
"That’s quite enough," she said, glee filling her voice.
Light shimmered. Energy shields went up, separating Kine, Elias, Buttercup, Tile, and me from the rest. The monsters dropped, splashes of lava erupting.
She twisted about, her shadows flaring. "My love, my love, these are the ones responsible for all our woes and all our trials."
The Babadon turned his gaze on us, his blue-red eyes brilliant and sharp despite his face not being fully formed. A cold laugh escaped his jagged-toothed mouth. "I remember."
Kine dragged me behind him as Brandt lunged at the energy shield.
"Don’t touch her!" Brandt bellowed. He struck at the barrier with his fist. "I will deal with you both."
The Gola Resh twined back around the Babadon, leering at us. "I just can’t decide which of them I want to suffer more." Her orange-green eyes lit up with delight as she arched back to peer at the Babadon upside down. "Who do you want to see suffer?"
"Surprise me," the Babadon said. His form had become more corporeal, his voice stronger now. The wraith-like tatters at theend of his body resembled blades more than silk. "You always know how to make me happy."
"They’re trying so hard with their little incantations and charms and rituals," the Gola Resh continued. "But the best they could do is one that makes us vulnerable. Not even one that makes us stop flying." Her gaze swept over us, hard and yet delighted.
She wanted us dead. The hatred in her eyes—it frightened me. Any move Brandt or I made, she'd probably notice. We needed a moment. Maybe we could use her focus on me?
As she glanced down to nuzzle the Babadon again, I slipped the stone with the reagents into Kine’s hand and whispered to him. He gave a small nod. It was too dangerous with the Gola Resh’s attention on our little group right now, even if she was gloating. But a chance would come.
Elias took advantage of her looking away and chucked his stone with the reagents forward. It sailed through the air, going longer than it should.
Horror sliced through me, ice cold.
The rock struck an overhang above the heart and landed on the edge.
My heart dropped.
No! I clapped my hands over my mouth. No, no, no!
Kine swore.
Elias clenched his jaw, his breath hissing through his teeth.
"It was so easy to deceive you," the Gola Resh said, her gaze returned to Elias. Either she didn’t notice the trapped reagents or she didn’t care. "You were so desperate to save the people you cared about. The legacy of your family. All of which meant nothing. All that work—all those traditions—all those weapons… They’ll just dissolve. Just like your people." She snapped her clawed fingers.
The remaining Kairos Faction members went rigid. Their bodies pulsed in the air for a moment as their shadows pulled taut. Then they erupted in red mist and swirling shadows. They joined the lazy funnel circling the heart of the Ember Lord’s Crest. The blue sulfur hissed as the red and yellow lava bubbled.
More laughter, harsher and biting. "If you had cooperated, I would not have tortured you in this way. Your reward would have been a peaceful death," the Gola Resh continued. "But instead, you choseherover me. Which is all the richer considering what led you to my doorstep. She doesn’t love you. She’ll never love you." The Gola Resh spat the words at him, mockery dripping from every syllable. "She pitied you. Like a pet. A guard dog to guide her back. And that was all. She used you when all the while her heart belonged to the king. You were too low for her to notice even before she was queen."
Elias scoffed. He lowered the staff. His gaze drifted back to me. Soot and blood streaked his tanned features, his dark-red hair slick and bloodied. But when he spoke, his voice did not tremble. "I was wrong. About everything. Except that you were worth saving, Stella. Not all love is meant to be returned. Especially not when it came from such a selfish place. For what it’s worth—and I know it is not much—I am sorry."
