blade into his brother’s heart.
Chapter 38
The dark flame erupted out of both Amir and Vasili like it had with Talos, manifesting as a great funnel of darkness so large it threatened to block out the sky and chase all the light in the world. It roared skyward in a spiraling storm and then split into two great jaws and came down upon Vasili, swallowing him inside its vortex.
“No!”
Niko stumbled forward. He had to get to him, to tear him free. He’d tear him from the flame with his own bare hands if he had to. He was Niko’s, and Niko needed to keep him safe. He’d always save him. Always.
The dark howled and whipped up ash and grit, trying to blind Niko, but he made it through the howling noise to see the flame feeding into Vasili’s skin.
Vasili lifted his face to the sky.
Ash clung to the tears on his cheeks.
“Vasili?”
He whipped his head around, but there was no emotion on his face, nothing but the dark looking back. He had become the storm, and the storm had no soul, it had no heart, it just was.
No… Damn that thing, it wasn’t taking Vasili’s light from this world.
Niko thrust out a hand.
The dark flame lashed.
Let it take Niko instead.
He was done. He’d lived enough, fought enough, but if he could win this last battle and make it so Vasili lived, then it would have been for something.
The flame reared up to strike again.
He looked through the dark and found Vasili at its eye, caught in a life he’d never wanted under a curse he couldn’t control.
Niko closed his eyes and sighed out.
“Take my hand, Vasili…” The storm tore the words from his lips, but he’d have heard. He had to. Niko held out his fingers and, like before, when he’d saved him from the flames, Vasili came fighting through, the storm folding around him. His slim fingers locked with Niko’s.
Niko heaved with all the strength he had left, and Vasili fell into his embrace.
The roaring storm quieted. The wind died.
Niko opened his eyes and blinked through the ash stuck to his lashes.
Vasili breathed against him, his body nothing but tremors and gasps. Ash lay in his hair. He looked up, blinked, his lips parted in silent shock. But he was Vasili again. The dark had released him, either because it was done with Vasili or it had won. That was a question for later.
“Are you… all right?” Niko asked softly. It was the most absurd question to ask, but Niko could think of nothing else.
“I’m alive.”
Gods, he wanted to hold him forever so nothing in the world could hurt him again. Niko reached out a trembling, filthy hand to pluck a piece of ash free from Vasili’s hair, and then Vasili tucked himself against Niko’s chest, his head bowed under his chin and, gods, Niko held him so close he didn’t know where he ended and Vasili began.
The sounds of battle still rang out streets away, fires still raged, and at any moment, elves might come upon them, but he didn’t care.
“You’re not alone, Vasili. I have you.”
Vasili’s fingers tightened into fists against Niko’s back. A sob tried to choke Niko, and if it weren’t for the striking, gun-carrying figure sprinting toward them, he might have gone to his knees and taken Vasili down with him.
“Go! Elves— Go!” Yasir waved the gun toward a side street, indicating which way to go, and they ran.
They fled Loreen alongside terrified townsfolk.
Niko wished he’d done more. Done… anything. He had blood on him and his body bore the aches and hurts of battle, but his memory was full of holes. When he reached for how or why he’d ended up on the street, he saw only Amir’s laughing face, and so he stopped looking for the past and concentrated on the winding path ahead. Amir… whose body they’d left on the street. Whose flame had funneled into Vasili…
“This is Bucland Manor, isn’t it?” Yasir whispered as they stumbled up an overgrown track to find two great stone pillars marking a treelined entranceway.
Niko frowned at the sign—the words BUCLAND etched in stone, now covered in ivy. He hadn’t been aware of any direction, just out of Loreen. Long ago, when the trees had been smaller and the track clear, he remembered walking hand in hand with Mah to this gateway. She’d crouched and smoothed his hair back, telling him she’d be home for dinner, and she’d leave him to go inside the enormous house.
“It