A sharp pain slashes my shoulder, and I realize the first guard struck. Cursed realms, I have to snap out of this damned love, or it’s going to be the death of me. My eyes blaze at my attacker, and I hiss so menacingly that he starts shaking from all his joints. He’s young, I can see it through the cross-shaped slits in his helmet that allow him to see, breathe and speak. Probably equally inexperienced. I can smell his fear, and his desire that he hadn’t done what he just did, but it’s too late.
Fire gathers in the back of my throat.
“Xerxes, no, just tell them why we’re here,” Cerys shrieks behind me, but the ball of fire is already ripe in the back of my throat. I release the fire onto the ground, a wall of flames surging between the guards and us. It won’t kill them, because I didn’t spit fire directly at anyone, but it will confuse things, giving us the chance to disappear.
“Come on.” I make sure she’s got her silver suit on, and pull her to my side. I wrap an arm around her shoulder as Nazarean jumps off a ledge above us just before the flames lick at it, and settles into her arms. “Take a deep breath and, whatever happens, don’t let go of me. Keep yourself and Nazarean pressed to my body.”
Holding her tightly, I flex my legs and jump through the flames that are already consuming the room. Beams fall, the flames roar and soldiers grunt behind us, but they can’t see us, and even if they could, they’re too busy trying to save their own lives to chase after us. I expand the fire-proof protective field around my body to include Cerys and Nazarean as I jump through the flames as they consume barrels and goblets.
As soon as we get past the guards I retract the field back to my skin, loosen my grip on Cerys, and grab her hand. We run down the corridor toward the kitchens, where cooks and servers shriek and scream, dropping their plates and glasses. The sight of the Winter Realm’s longtime enemy may be short-circuiting their brains, but the fire rolling in after us must be the main attraction.
“Can’t you put it out?” Cerys calls over the fire’s roaring, and the screams. Panic spreads through the ground floor of Lysander’s castle like wildfire, and I can’t deny that it gives me a sick sort of satisfaction.
“The fire is the only thing that stands between them and us. It’s our only ally.”
“You’re controlling it, aren’t you?” She looks behind as we run, the flames reflecting in her irises. “You’re making it destroy everything in its path.”
I stop abruptly, and grab her shoulders, glaring daggers at her.
“I didn’t just spare the guard who did this—” I jerk my chin towards the wound in my shoulder, blood trickling from the slash onto the studded leather of my arm like lava. “To get this from you. I spared them all, just to make you happy. But I can’t get it right with you, can I?”
Her eyebrows rise. “No one died?”
“No.”
We start running again, Nazarean tucked under the messy ponytail draped over Cerys’ shoulder. We turn corner after corner, and I have no idea where we’re going, but the spreading fire is a good ally. I keep it burning and expanding, rising to the high ceilings, and keeping our pursuers off our tracks, basically walling us away from them.
We’re back in the catacombs as distant thudding announces that soldiers are about to cut in our way. The fire protects us from those chasing us from the castle, but not from those cutting into our way from the front.
We turn and break into a run, but thudding reaches us from this side as well. And from behind the next corner.
“We’re trapped,” Cerys shrieks.
The blade of fire forms in my hand, the flames blazing as I take a fighting stance.
“Damn it, Xerxes you should have let me go to Samael, and none of this would have happened,” she cries.
“I’ll die before I let that happen,” I say through my teeth just as the first group of soldiers round the corner, their armor and their weapons shining blindingly. I hiss and swing the fire blade, intercepting the first one as he launches himself at me. It’s a burly guy, with strength and experience, but not much agility.
I swing the fire blade twice until I land a hit, the blade cutting his breastplate in half. He screams as it clangs on the floor, along with a bit of his flesh.
Two more attack, and though I manage to get out of their way to avoid their dexterous jabs at my neck and face, what they think are my weaker spots, it’ll be harder to fight them without actually hurting them. The fire blade ends up slashing one’s arm off, his weapon falling to the floor, his screams filling the catacombs. I breathe fire to block another one from attacking, not burning him, but forcing him back. He knocks into the others, sending them skidding on their butts.
But I won’t be able to get us out of here like this, without actually killing anyone, not with more and more of them cornering us in from all sides. I swing my blade, walking backwards, protecting Cerys and Nazarean behind me. I center all my focus on the battle ahead, and I’m ready, at least mentally, to take on an entire army. I am sure I’ll fall at some point, even though they won’t be able to kill me. They will hurt me, badly, and on a certain level that makes me happy. That way, Cerys will be free of me. Because I won’t be able to let her go if I’m alive and walking the realms. I must be at least imprisoned if she is to have a chance at a life outside our fated bond.
The groups of soldiers converge, now approaching carefully, eyes trained on me, forcing us against the cold wall. This time I can’t wait for them to attack. I have to do it first.
I lunge forward, right in their midst. I handle my sword with precise dexterity, cutting their armors off of them, but making sure not to do any deadly damage. Some scream in pain, and those whose armor isn’t part of their bodies start to retreat because, without any armor, they’re vulnerable. But that won’t help my cause for long. The bastards soon realize that one, two, or even four of them at a time won’t be enough to hold me down, but they might bring me to my knees if they jump on me in organized heaps.
I breathe out fire, blasting them off of me, and the flames soon threaten to consume this whole place. It’s like a kingdom of fire taking over the ice. But this is, in the end, the Winter Realm. A row of soldiers in the back leave their weapons, remove their helmets and start humming, calling upon the magic of ice. A blizzard soon starts, snow swirling in the air. It all happens fast, and the impact is strong enough that a thick crust of ice starts forming on my face.
I shield my eyes from the blizzard, trying to advance through the roaring wind towards the spot I know I left Cerys, but I can’t find it. I’m soon buried in heaps of snow, and in the distance I can hear the whipping sound of countless sharp objects flying through the air. By the time my irises have adjusted to identify them as killer icicles, they’re too close.
I make peace with the idea that this is it, I will be taken prisoner. There’s no way I’m getting out of here other than in ice chains, depleted of energy, my heart still bleeding with the need to have Cerys close. But then the blizzard comes to a sudden stop, the icicles freeze in the air, and one second later, they fall on the bed of snow. What were deadly blades only a moment ago are now harmless little needles.
It takes a few seconds for my ears to adjust to the complete silence around us. I start to dig myself out of the mounds of snow, and the first thing I see when the curtain of falling snowflakes disappears is Cerys’ face by the wall. She stares directly at me, and yet her sparkling honey eyes seem lost in the distance. The whirlwind has completely undone her ponytail, her bluish-black hair now a witchy mess. She’s holding Nazarean in her arms, by her chest, like she would a sacred animal.