Page 22 of Blaze

The room is lavish and large, hung with silks of every color and pattern. The floor is covered in woven cloth and the air is perfumed by sticks of incense. Braziers leave the room unseasonably warm. I stripped off a layer before conjuring it into being so I wouldn’t die of heatstroke inside.

“This is a convincing replica,” he continues. “Much like the lamp I discarded centuries ago. How’d you learn the secret?”

My smile is thin and unpleasant. “Does it really matter now? This is where it all ends. You won’t get out of here. I’ve made sure of that.”

He strokes his beard thoughtfully, eyes fluttering shut. He breathes in deeply, filling his lungs with the perfumed smoke. It’s making me dizzy and giving me a headache. If I never smell agarwood again, it’ll be too soon. His lips twitch up into an impish smile as if this is all too funny for words.

“Indulge an old man’s curiosity, girl. If these are to be my final moments, I think I deserve that much.”

I remain cross-legged on the plush seat I settled on when we arrived. In truth, I want to reach across the gap and twist his head from his shoulders. After all the lives he’s ended, he’s still an entitled monster. I don’t know why I expected anything more.

“You deserve nothing,” I hiss.

He cracks one eye open. Their dark depths glimmer with mirth, amused at my expense. Still getting his pleasure at the expense of others even in the eleventh hour.

“Perhaps, but you’ll tell me anyway, won’t you clever girl?”

I almost duck out of the reality, fold it in on itself, and toss him away. He’s so fucking arrogant that I can almost taste it on my tongue. Sour, like bile. But he’s right. If he’s going to die, I want him to know the hows and whys.

“A scroll,” I said quietly. “It was stuffed in one of Hattie’s endless writing desks. An obscure writing from a madwoman that traveled through Wonderland years ago. Except, she wasn’t a madwoman, was he? She was your owner before you joined Morningstar. An unfortunate princess from your home dimension who tried to snare you. You tormented her daily for having the gall to be your mistress and order you around like a common servant.”

Hassan’s smile slipped, becoming more of a feral bearing of teeth. “Mogra.”

“The girl with eyes like stars and hair like flowing jasmine flowers,” I agree. “Hattie and I found her living as a peasant in the Red Queen’s court, a favorite punching bag for the Queen’s assassin. We brought her to the battlefield, let her watch your demise. That is true fairness, Hassan. I’m not telling you this for your sake. I’m telling you for hers. She’s out of your reach for good. You won’t harm her or anyone else ever again.”

Hassan’s genial expression evaporates and he lunges off his stool, trying to snatch me off the seat by my hair. He may as well be reaching across a canyon. The floor yawns, swallowing the carpets and his feet along with it. He sinks down to his waist as the floor adopts the consistency of quicksand. I turn on one heel contemptuously, smashing his fingers under one heel as I go. In a lamp, he’s bound to certain rules. He won’t follow, no matter how much he may wish to.

“I will find a way back!” he snarls, beating the floor impotently. It only makes him sink another inch into the rug-colored sand.

“No, you won’t,” I call over my shoulder. “You won’t be doing anything, Hassan. You’re a dead man.”

The mirror on one side of the room ripples like lake water, and parts when I push one leg through it. A gust of wind from the outside pours into the interior of my replica of Hassan’s lamp. It’s tinged with the smell of blood and waste. The battle wasn’t completely bloodless. We had to lure Hassan in with the promise of a fight before springing our trap. At least a hundred are dead. More are injured. Herrick is going to have a busy night ahead of him.

The last thing I see before I step back into the real world is Hassan’s murderous expression. He’s thrashing, trying to swim through the muck to get to my exit. I slam it closed inches from his nose with a sigh of satisfaction. All that’s left of him is the lamp-shaped protrusion at the end of my wrist.

“Someone do it for me please,” I say, glancing up at my men. They’ve gathered around me standing sentry while I trapped Hassan in his own pocket of reality. Malvolo and Reve are in dragon form, ready to roast anyone who comes near us. I can’t hold Hassan in the lamp forever while it’s attached to me. “I don’t think I have the strength or concentration it will take.”

Herrick’s golden brows scrunch together over his beautiful tawny eyes. Even covered in blood and grime, he’s possibly the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, with the exception of his brothers.

“I still think it’s a bad idea. You don’t have to cut off your hand, Neva.”

I give him a level look. We’ve discussed this many times. Of all the time for the doctor among us to be squeamish. Herrick can’t meet my eyes directly. It’s charming in a way. He can’t bear to hurt me, even with the world hanging in the balance. I stand on tiptoe and brush a chaste kiss across his mouth. He groans at the contact.

“Many of our comrades will be walking away with worse injuries than mine.”

“Neva, I’m not sure I can...” Herrick begins.

I shush him before he can begin to ramble. “Fine, don’t do it. Mal?”

The onyx dragon swivels his great head in my direction. It’s harder to read a reptilian face, but he looks unhappy too. The fearsome General Malvolo, Scourge of the Souther Dragon Clan can be soft with his female. But unlike Herrick, I know it won’t stop him from doing what needs to be done. One of his wings is a tattered stump, torn away over a decade ago by Morningstar himself during the battle of Nighburrow. We both understand the meaning of sacrifice. He understands the necessity of this. Still, his eyes flutter close when I offer him the lamp and my arm along with it.

It’s over quickly. Malvolo’s dagger-like teeth clamp down on my wrist and with one sharp snick, the lamp comes free of my wrist. The pain doesn’t even register immediately. It’s warmth, pressure, and then a sudden lightness at the end of my wrist. Then I’m falling. Herrick’s arms shoot out instantly, capturing me before I can impact the earth hard on my ass. I manage to contain the screams, but only just.

Herrick reaches into his satchel with a curse, drawing out bandages, pressing them to the stump with tears dewing on his lashes. Tears for me, for the pain he knows I’m enduring. When he brings something hot and metal to the end of my stump I do scream. Cauterizing the wound is the only real way to keep blood from pouring out to soak the earth, and it reduces the chance the wound will get infected. But gods and goddesses does it hurt.

Herrick lifts me in his arms and begins jogging for the medic’s tent at the rear of our formation. The soldiers still on the field stare at us in a mixture of fear and wonder. To their eyes, Hassan was there one second, and gone the next, sucked into the mouth of the lamp like a child slurping a noodle.

“Someone tell Bera to have the ambrosia ready!” he shouts, spurring the soldiers ahead of us into motion. “She needs healing, quickly!”

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