Page 60 of Empire of Death
I continued down the path, holding the torch away from her so I wouldn’t accidentally burn the beautiful skin around her throat. “I’m ashamed of my past lovers.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re bad people.”
“Then why didn’t you find someone in the mortal world, like you have with me?”
“Because I’m not supposed to interfere with the living.” Because a relationship with a mortal could compromise my dedication to the underworld—and it absolutely had. I gifted her my abilities while receiving nothing in return. I was helping her win a war that I should avoid. Protecting theRealm of Caelumthen asking Riviana to help me save Talon Rothschild. “But the moment I looked upon your face…I was lost.”
I kept my gaze focused on the dark path before us, ignoring her stare as it punctured the side of my face. I’d never been a man to hide my feelings. I simply felt nothing most of the time. But with Lily Rothschild, I felt things I hadn’t felt in hundreds of years.
Then I felt her hand slide into mine. Her armored gloves were made of dragon scales with spikes behind the knuckles, and they slid against the metal of my own armored gloves, cold to the touch but containing a heat I could feel in my heart.
Hand in hand, we walked through the dark forest in our battle armor with our capes flat against our backs, our blades protruding over our shoulders at opposite angles—her, the queen of the living…and me, the king of the dead.
I returned Lily to her bed, taking her from the mortal world for just an hour, while an entire day had passed in the underworld. She was exhausted by the time I returned her, probably because her body had experienced an entire day of fatigue.
In a flash, I left the Southern Isles and traveled far across the sea, back to the island in the west that the Barbarians temporarily inhabited after their retreat from Riviana Star. The world was in color now, their bonfires a brilliant mix of orange and red flames. Despite the late hour, they were hard at work on their ships.
They’d built a forge on land, and I could see them constructing something long and cylindrical, something I didn’t understand on sight. I approached the edge of the land where their ships were docked and saw the men working to remove one of thegolden frescoes mounted on one of the walls of the ship. The gold that lined the hulls appeared untouched.
I looked back to the forge where they were working on whatever apparatus they were constructing. It wasn’t a sword or a weapon as far as I could tell. My eyes searched the sea of ships until I spotted him—Kennt.
The world disappeared and reappeared instantaneously. Now I stood upon the ship behind Kennt’s back, watching him order his men to secure the golden apparatus to the planks of the ship to keep it in place. With iron nails and enormous hammers, they secured it in place.
The longer I stared at the brilliant gold, the more I understood what I was looking at. It was a cannon, but it didn’t fire metallic balls of destruction. Instead, it fired a massive spike with many sharp edges, multiple opportunities to pierce flesh…and dragon scales. It was meant to impale its targets and remain embedded, based on the little spikes that pointed the opposite way up the blade. If you tried to tug it free, it would cause more damage, damage that couldn’t be healed.
Kennt flinched, his entire body hardening as his chin rose. He turned his head like he’d heard something, and then his body completely turned around and he surveyed his surroundings, looking right over me without realizing I was there because I didn’t reveal myself to him. “I know when I’m in the presence of a god. Reveal yourself.”
Lily had adapted to my presence as well. She could notice me the second I appeared, searching for me until she spotted me in the corner. She seemed to know when I was there, even when I didn’t reveal myself either, judging by the way she stiffened even when she was in the middle of a conversation with someone.
I appeared before him, watching his eyes harden on mine once I came into view. I stepped forward and approached the golden cannon with the lethal spike ready to launch. I noticed the other spikes they had in their arsenal, stowed on a rack secured to the side of the ship so they could reload and take another shot.
When I looked at the other ships, I realized they were all installing the same cannon on the starboards. An ice-cold chill ran through me as the adrenaline dumped into a heart that no longer beat. “I gave you an army of vampires, so why do you destroy the beautiful golden frescoes on your ship?”
“There’s no gift you can grant me to defeat those dragons. So I’ll defeat them myself.”
Fuck.
“Shoot them out of the sky,” he said with a smile. “They’ll refuse to serve me, but as vampire dragons, they’ll do whatever I say.”
My expression was always stoic, but right now, my features wanted to tighten in angry frustration…and fear. King Ithaca’s allegiance was questionable, and the Brigandine Empire was impressive but now dwarfed by the weapons that stood before me. It seemed like there was no gift or foresight I could grant Lily to defeat this enemy.
“We’ll conquer the Empire Colonies and command their fleet to sail with us,” Kennt said. “They’ll take the damage on the front lines, and we’ll shoot their pretty little birds out of the sky one by one. And then I’ll fuse with one of these dragons or become a vampire myself…and never pay your debt.” He gave the most arrogant grin before he turned back to the cannon being constructed, not caring that he spoke to someone whom none of his comrades could see. “This couldn’t have gone any better.”
I held my silence behind my clenched teeth, turmoil exploding inside me that I could never share. I was responsible for all of this, every single event that had come to pass in this developing war, and there was nothing I wouldn’t give to change it.
Even Lily.
But I couldn’t go back and right my wrongs. All I could do was ensure victory for Queen Lily Rothschild.
I wouldn’t stop until that happened.
19
LILY
I sat at the dining table alone, the soup and bread brought to me long cold because I hadn’t touched them. My mind was far away from food, thinking about the darkness of the underworld, my father’s lifeless body in his bed, the kingdom that prepared for an imminent battle against foes that could mortally wound us.
