Emberhawk - Jamie Foley Page 0,114

protect her. So why? And why didn’t the wine obey her?

Foolish girl. I am the source of the Malo element. Your power is mine to give or take away. And you do not deserve it.

Panic slithered into Vylia’s heart and infected her. Without her element, she was powerless. Defenseless. And this traitor had already slaughtered her bodyguards and her mentor.

Now even her goddess had turned against her.

Sousuke ducked under Aoko’s blade and jabbed at his knee. Aoko jumped back to the doorway, then swung off-balance as Hiro rose and slashed at him.

Sousuke side-stepped and ran Aoko through all the way up to the hilt. Aoko stared in shock as he fell, blood trickling from his mouth. Sousuke put his boot on Aoko’s chest and yanked his blade free, then finished the job.

Vylia stumbled back, coughing against the growing smoke. Sousuke looked as horrified as she, and yet his gaze held a glint of resolution. He moved to block her view of the body as he panted for breath.

Hiro spat on Aoko’s still form as he held his side. “If you’re going to kill me, do it right.”

Vylia rubbed tears from her eyes, resisting the grasp of panic. “Is everyone else really gone?” Her voice fractured. “Uma?”

Hiro’s eyes darkened. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness.”

“We need to stop the bleeding.” Sousuke coughed as he pulled a cloth bandage from his belt.

“I’ll be fine.” Hiro waved for Vylia and pointed to the door. “Get to the Great Hall.”

Sousuke led them through the elegant building Brooke had gifted them—the newborn embassy in a dying city. Blood splatter marred the walls and seeped into plush rugs. Vylia couldn’t bear to look, but her eyes hardly worked, anyway. The smoke overwhelmed her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t think.

Outside didn’t seem as bad, but the intensity continued to rise. The fires below were brighter now. Ravenous infernos that devoured lives and belched their sacrifices to the heavens. Impenetrable smoke enveloped the platforms and bridges around them, growing thicker by the second.

One of her bodyguards handed her something soft. She fumbled with it—a cloth? A strong grip moved her hand up to her face, making the cloth cover her nose and mouth.

It didn’t help. Her lungs felt like they were burning from the inside out.

Sousuke dropped to one knee in front of her, panting and coughing. Something dark peppered the wood beside his boots.

Vylia tried to call out to him, but her voice came out like her ship’s squeaking anchor chain when roughed with rust.

She looked behind her. Hiro lay face down on the platform, unmoving.

“Go,” Sousuke managed.

She couldn’t leave them. She wouldn’t.

But if she died here, her father would reduce this continent to cinders.

She stumbled forward, trying to remember the path to the Great Hall in the vertical maze of a city. But why should she go closer to the inferno below?

Darkness swirled at the edges of her vision as if the smoke had been possessed and slithered into her mind. Her thoughts waned. Why would her father send Aoko with her? Unless . . . he wanted her to die here?

She choked on her tears. Everything made sense now. Why he finally let her leave the island. Why he suddenly seemed kind toward her. Why he’d sent her on such an important diplomatic mission.

It didn’t matter whether or not she negotiated peace with the tribes if he was going to war with them anyway. A dead princess was the perfect excuse.

She fell to the searing wood and gasped for air that wouldn’t come. No. Even her father wasn’t that evil.

You mortals are like gnats. Born one day and dust the next. A sound like a sigh drifted through Vylia’s mind. But I am closer now than ever before. My next wielder shall free me, and this world will once again gaze upon me and tremble.

Darkness consumed her.

42

KIRALAU

Kira balked at Waelyn. No, Queen Deirdre. No, Zamara.

It couldn’t have been her that entire time. Waelyn was a blind old man. Or had his eyes lacked pupils because he was an elemental, not because he was blind?

Her eyes watered, either from the sting of smoke or betrayal. “What have you done with Waelyn?”

“He never existed.” Zamara shifted in Waelyn’s clothing, which hung on her like rags in comparison to the dress she’d modeled in the forest. She wrinkled her nose at them, and they were incinerated in a brilliant flash of light. Molten syn replaced them as a familiar silver dress.

“Kira!” Ryon coughed and writhed in invisible bonds,