heaved, folding his spine. He rolled onto his side and heaved up a sticky mass of wet blackish phlegm.
The sounds of a scuffle and blades and gasps tried to pull his focus back into the moment. A battle… he was part of it, maybe… Gods, he couldn’t think. Etara, take him now. Why was his skin on fire?
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit…” Yasir’s worried face suddenly filled Niko’s vision. “Niko… Are you in there?” His hands roamed over Niko’s shoulder and chest, burning every damn inch of skin they touched.
Niko let out a low moan. “You shot me.”
Yasir grinned. “Move… we have to move. Now.” He whipped his head up. “Fuck,” he said, and was gone, leaving Niko trying to grasp at the falling ash.
The hideous, twisted face of an elf appeared, looming over him.
Fear shot like fresh ice through his veins. He reached for his blade—gone. The elf lunged in. Thick, rough fingers vised around Niko’s neck and the other hand sank into his hair. The elf hauled him along behind. Niko clutched at the elf’s grip and tried to dig his boots into the cobbles. He twisted, grabbed at the road, but his fingers slipped and his nails scraped the stone instead.
The elf let go.
Air. He pulled it over his tongue and filled his lungs, then hacked up more of the foul black stuff and spat it onto the cobbles. The world dipped and swayed, his place in it unbalanced, like he lay on an ocean that might swallow him down.
Boots running. Swords clashing. Moans and cries.
And fire. Real fire, with heat and sparks.
Was he in Etara’s hell? It was all too much at once and not a bit of it felt real. He’d dreamed… but what was real and what was fantasy?
Vasili had given him up to Amir and then told him he cared. That was real.
Niko rolled onto his front and pushed up with his arms. Soldiers marched through the street. So many. Loreen guards. If he could just find a sword… he could fight. He knew how to do that.
He got a knee under him. His shoulder throbbed. Get up. Fight. Simple.
An arm hooked under his. He was about to thank them when a cold blade touched his throat and he looked up into a fresh pair of elf eyes. The elf smiled.
A small blade swooped in from behind him and opened up a second smile in the elf’s neck, but Niko’s sudden hope was short-lived. The elf dropped, clutching his throat, and Amir grabbed Niko by the arm. “The city is lost,” the king whispered close as he hauled Niko to his feet. “You’re still mine.”
But Niko wasn’t. For all the pain and dizziness and sickness, he knew this was wrong, and his body was his own again. And by the gods, his fury was a thing alive in his veins, like the flame, only it belonged to him. Amir had a bloody dagger in his hand. If he could get it from him, he could kill the bastard, but if he did that, the flame would jump and destroy all the control left in Vasili. Better to wait, to play Amir’s game, to trap him.
Vasili darted from a side alley, swung a right hook, and landed it square in Amir’s already bruised nose. Amir’s grip on Niko vanished, and Niko staggered against a wall. If he let go, he’d go down to his knees, and he couldn’t afford to drop again.
Vasili landed a second punch, this time in his brother’s gut. Amir grunted and buckled over. Vasili brought his knee up, smacking Amir’s face again. This time the king sprawled backward, arms flung out and landing like a deadweight in the road, puffing up clouds of ash.
Vasili stood over his brother’s prone figure. His fingers twitched around his remaining dagger’s handle.
“Don’t,” Niko rasped.
Vasili turned his head. His face was smeared with blood and ash. His skin was as white as his hair, but his eyes were black. All-black.
“No,” Niko urged.
The flame wanted this. It wanted to be whole again. Niko knew because he’d heard its voice in his head too. It would play the game of men and women until it was free, no matter the bodies it burned through to get there.
“Don’t,” Niko said again, louder. He didn’t care if the elves heard. He couldn’t let Vasili kill Amir.
“Don’t…” He staggered from the wall. “We’ll find another way.”
Vasili’s face fell. “There is no other way.”
He knelt on Amir’s chest.
“Vasili?” Amir wheezed.
And plunged the