Page 54 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
Closer now. Close enough to smell the acrid stench of charred citrus. Sepdet smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. No, he was all too aware of the glowing sunfire energy pooling around me. He was too casual by far. He believed that he had one last weapon. One last card to play.
He reached out and clamped his hand around my other arm, deliberately sending a pulse of blazing sunfire energy as a threat. “Did you stop to wonder why the sunfires couldn’t escape me?”
I knew that Quasar was the key, but I wasn’t sure what exactly that had to do with Sepdet. His fingers tightened, deliberately trying to hurt me. Scare me. But I had lived through so much worse. He didn’t dare hurt me like he wanted. Not until he had me back in Heliopolis, away from anyone who might actually try to help me. Staring back at him with my usual aloof, cold look of detachment, I waited in silence. I wouldn’t give him my words. I wouldn’t pretend curiosity or interest.
His ego wanted to boast and tell me. So I’d let him.
“What is my power?” He whispered, his voice slithering through me. “Darkness in the light. I alone am able to make the sunfires work without the sun. I am the Darkest Light, a natural black hole that pulls all light into my depths. Nothing can escape me once in my hold. That is why Ra in all his infinite wisdom assigned my sunfire to me. So I could help him control the others.”
He jerked me up against him, and yes, I did flinch, at least in my mind.
:We are here.:Sunzi’s bond vibrated with intensity, one breath away from surging toward me despite my request for them to stay back.:We will not allow him to harm you.:
The bees’ drones escalated to an angry roar. They swarmed around us, evidently stinging Sepdet enough that he temporarily let go of my arm. I stepped back to gain some space, searching the swirling darkness for Quasar. He had to be here, hidden nearby. Sepdet wouldn’t want me to see him, let alone get close enough to re-energize him like the others.
:Where are you? Show yourself so I can free you.:
Sepdet swiped at the bees covering me, as if he could force them to leave. Their buzz rose louder. More of them clung to his exposed skin. One flew straight into his eye, making his head whip back. Welts swelled on his face and hands, already oozing blood and pus as if they were infected or poisoned.
Such small creatures. Harming the massive bull-like son of Ra.
What if Quasar was also small? Or somehow made invisible to the naked eye?
I’d been looking for the large horse-like creature to rear up out of the shadows again, but perhaps Sepdet’s hold had crushed him somehow. Rather than using my eyes, I focused on my energy. The blazing sunfires pouring through me. Around me. The sun straining to break free. It was all too bright and magnificent to see or feel anything but that glorious power.
I needed something else to see the way. Helayna’s words from when I’d first arrived in the nest popped into my head.“We can’t access our power without blood.”
Allowing my fangs to lengthen, I deliberately pricked my bottom lip. Blood filled my mouth.
The sun exploded. A nuclear surge mushroomed from me, rumbling the ground, sweeping all the debris outward in a perfect circular explosion. My ears roared with the sound of rushing solar energy pouring out of me. My vision changed, sharpening with precision detail. I could see each individual sunfire sweeping around me, their original shapes that had blurred as they were drained by Sepdet. They almost looked like ghosts or misshapen lumps, though as they gained energy from me, they were regaining their forms.
Some of them did look like fiery horses, but none of them were Quasar.
:Where are you?:I asked again.
An image filled my mind. Red rain dripping onto a dry, thirsty earth. Only it wasn’t rain. It was blood. My blood.
I lifted my wrist and tore the skin open so I could sling my blood out in an arc. Sunfires surged over the droplets, catching most of them in midair and exploding in a fountain of fireworks as my blood revived them even faster.
Sepdet stepped away from me, jerking at his lash that was still wrapped around my other wrist. As if he feared me.
If Quasar was the secret to his power, he would definitely keep the powerful sunfire close. The molten lashes he used on his arms weren’t Quasar’s though. They didn’t feel the same at all. They didn’t even feel like sunfire energy any longer, as if Sepdet had changed it into something else. Something worse. Or maybe that was Ra’s power, the solar magic that Sepdet might have inherited from him.
Making sure I had a solid grip on the lash I swung my arm back around in front of me, splattering Sepdet with my blood.
He howled and bayed like the sundogs when they’d finally found me. Thrashing against the lash gripped in my hand, he staggered backward, flinching away from my blood as if I had sliced him open. He batted and swiped at his chest, trying to wipe my blood away, but it had burned into his flesh. Just like my blood had accidentally hurt Mryk when he’d carried me down into Helayna’s basement.
A flash of gold caught my attention as he flailed. A heavy medallion around his neck bore the Eye of Ra, marking Sepdet as one of the god’s possessions. The chain was extraordinarily thick. Not decorative. As I focused on the chain and Sepdet’s neck, I could see the barest hint of shadow beneath it. Almost like a black cape, nearly invisible, that hung down his wide, beefy shoulders.
Before he could stop me, I leaped closer and pressed my bleeding wrist to the embossed golden eye.
“No!” Sepdet wailed, trying to shove me away. But it was too late. My blood smeared across the medallion and dripped onto the chain, effortlessly cutting through the gold.
The thin, wispy shadow reared up over Sepdet’s head. Blazing red eyes glowed with hatred. Hooves rose up over his head and slammed downward, pile driving Sepdet to his knees.
Finally freed, Quasar reared and let out a bone-chilling scream of fury. Fiery smoke plumed from his nostrils and he started to solidify into a giant four-legged creature. Horse like, but much too large with spines on his head and curly black tentacles for mane and tail. Cracks gleamed in his obsidian body, revealing molten lava inside.
Sepdet was far from finished, though. He swung his head around, sending one of his vicious horns into the raging sunfire’s flank. Quasar screamed again and stomped down, trying to break off the horn or at least dislodge him.
