A Queen of Thieves & Chaos (Fate & Flame, #3)

“Fates!” I yell, frustrated with her bullish nature.

But her blade’s strike lands true, severing the hag’s right leg. It topples to the ground. Tar-black blood sprays through the air as it drags itself away.

Finally … “Stay back, Abarrane!” I launch my affinity at it, engulfing it in flame. A thick plume of smoke rises as its ear-piercing scream ricochets through the otherwise silent night, and the air grows pungent with the smell of decayed flesh alight. Only when its screams die down do I release my hold on the flame.

A charred black heap remains. “That is how you deal with these things,” I snap.

“It is still alive.” Elisaf points to the fingers on one hand. Even now, its nails claw at the dirt.

Abarrane marches over, streaks of its black blood across her forehead. “You ate my hostages.” She stabs her blade into its throat and twists.

Its hand stills.

“And that is how you kill them.”

“That scream will have been heard far and wide.” Elisaf searches the darkness around us. “Possibly by Telor’s men.”

“Then perhaps that will make them think twice about coming any closer to the rift.”

A groan pulls our attention. Horik has propped himself up with his sword, his free arm wrapped against his stomach. A gaping wound threatens to spill his insides.

Abarrane is at his side in an instant. “On your feet, warrior,” she commands, but worry laces her voice.

“Have I told you how much I hate these mountains.” Elisaf fits his shoulders under Horik’s arm to help him walk.

I smirk. “Once or twice.” I scan the trees, sensing eyes but unable to find their source. I could set fire to the perimeter and hope to catch whatever it is within the flames, but I decide against it. Horik needs immediate attention from Gesine and, besides, nothing good waits for us out here.





CHAPTER SEVEN




ROMERIA


Zander grimaces at the angry purple mark on my biceps, earned during one of Jarek’s robust training sessions. “Why can’t you heal yourself?”

“I tried, but it doesn’t work like that.” I hold up my arm in front of me to study my bruises, the silky white canopy over our bed providing an airy backdrop. The matching sheets have been pushed aside, leaving our bare skin to the warm night air flowing through the open windows. “Wouldn’t that be nice, though?”

“Then Gesine should have healed it for you.”

“It’s nothing, and she’s been a little busy putting Horik’s guts back together.” The gouge across his abdomen from the hag was so deep, I could see his intestines. He was pale when they dragged him in, and it took Gesine an hour to fix it and half a day to recover afterward.

I was no help either, too busy heaving from the gory sight. It seems I’m nowhere near proficient enough with my affinities to heal someone unless I have a two-headed beast hovering behind me.

I did, however, manage to close the gash on Zander’s forearm. I admire my work now, tracing a fingertip along the thin silver line. “Do all these creatures leave scars?” A regular blade strike vanishes as if it never existed on elven skin, but merth wounds and marks from these otherworld beasts seem everlasting. I wear one on my hand, where Zander cut me the night I arrived in Islor. Oddly enough, the merth arrowhead that pierced Princess Romeria’s heart left no evidence, but I imagine that has more to do with Malachi’s touch when he brought this body back to life with me in it.

“Most things from the Nulling do, yes. And certainly, anything that crawls out of Azo’dem is especially difficult to heal.” Zander leans in to kiss the scars on my shoulder, where the daaknar skewered me, leaving five jagged gouges that we spent weeks hiding with caplets and high-collared dresses to keep up illusions.

The affection ends with him scraping his teeth along my dewy skin, sending a shiver along my spine.

“Are you afraid of going out there again?”

He shifts his attention from my scars to the swell of my breasts, his lips grazing my nipples as he speaks. “Hags are rare. We’re not likely to see one again for a few weeks, at least.” More quietly, he adds, “I hope.”

I tremble beneath the feel of his breath, fresh desire stirring in my core despite the morbid conversation. Then again, all our conversations are the same—talk of threats and treachery and imminent death. “I mean, because of the blood curse.” I’ve sensed the change in him since we came to Ulysede. Sure, he’s burdened by plenty of worries, and yet he seems … lighter too. Now, when his mouth finds my neck, he isn’t as reserved as he once was—as if he was afraid he’d forget himself. I’ve caught him dragging his tongue across his teeth from time to time and the marveled smile that follows, as if he can’t believe those needlelike fangs are no longer waiting to descend.

Zander described the first few moments of stepping beyond Ulysede’s gates the other night, of the crippling need that hit him, buckling his knees. But it was the dismay in his eyes that showed his true agony, of feeling that gnawing hunger again, a cancer returned.

“It will get easier, each time. According to Abarrane.” He swallows. “But I will need to feed again before long once I’m out there. Of that, I am certain.”

Because he is determined to go out and save Islor by himself if necessary. He’ll probably get himself killed in the process. I push my growing panic aside and smooth a palm over his angular jaw, pushing it back far enough that I can admire his handsome face. “That’s fine. Fearghal should be back with his wife soon and has offered himself up as needed.”

Zander’s deep chuckle vibrates in my chest. “Is that to be my lot in life now that I am with you? Feeding off hairy old men that smell of ale and sausage?”

“Hey, don’t knock him till you try him.” The rugged mortal with missing teeth from the wild town of Woodswich has proven far more loyal than I ever expected when he sat down across from me in the Greasy Yak. I trail a fingertip down Zander’s chest, somberness taking over. “I wish you didn’t ever have to do it again. I wish we could stay here forever.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.” He runs his tongue over the top of his teeth. “It’s like they no longer exist. I couldn’t call on them if I wanted to.”

“Imagine if it was like this everywhere in Islor?”

He rolls onto his back, giving me a sublime view of his naked form and all the hard, chiseled curves that come with it.

“The entire keeper system would be meaningless. What would the lords and ladies do?” His gaze crawls over the vaulted ceiling, his thoughts wandering.

I resist the urge to climb on top of him. “They’d still lord over people, like they do in Ybaris. That wouldn’t disappear overnight.”