Any village that harbors the Oracle deserves this pain.
Leaning right, I head in the direction I saw the Frost Fae disappear. Their path will have taken them toward the center of the village, as good a place to start as any.
I have no concerns about my sister’s ability to make the Ember coward pay. She’s already chasing him, deftly standing tall on her eagle, evading his next fireball, multiple arrows aimed and ready to shoot. My two other warriors have reached the serpents in the distance—their fight also taking them closer to the village.
I quickly focus on the town itself. The humble buildings. The maze-like paths and streets. The boats in the distance, some of them now in flames. The villagers running for safety where there is none.
Ember fire is a devastating force,as I know well. My lips twist with fury at the anguish their flames have caused my family and my kingdom. Ember Fae have burned entire fields of crops, subjecting my people to the threat of starvation. It’s a slow death, unlike death by the fire itself, and that’s not even the worst of it.
These villagers now face a terrible death.
Again, I remind myself. They’ve harbored the female Oracle. If there were any pity in my heart, I would not spend it on these lowborn. No matter if their cries make me wince, while thesizzleof fire fills my ears.
Baring my teeth, I urge my eagle closer to the maze of streets, forcing myself to focus on searching for the Oracle.
She must be here somewhere.
A moment later, an explosion of ice hits one of the fireballs in the air ahead of me.
The blast is too far away to do me any harm, but I follow the ice-storm’s trajectory, seeking the location of the fae who conjured it, my search drawing me north of the village’s center.
There they are.
It’s good to know their location, but I can’t let them distract me from my sole focus.
Scanning the fleeing villagers, all of the lowborn running across the beach and spilling into and out of buildings, I continue to search forher. The female Oracle I must bend to my will.
The False Queen was the only other female Oracle in known history, and she was fabled to be seductively beautiful, able to beguile even the most guarded heart and mind. At least, so say the stories, but I’ve never doubted their truth.
How else could she seduce the Serulian King into her bed?
How else could she curse this land to shatter and break and descend into generations of bitter war?
Surely only with beauty and guile.
So I seek the female Oracle’s perfect countenance amid the dull complexions of the scattering lowborn, searching for hair so brilliant it would shine in the dark and a face so lovely a single glance could fell me.
I’m prepared to face her. Far more prepared than either of my enemy kings could possibly be, because my heart is already filled with poison, ready to deny her charms.
Of course, she’s probably cowering inside one of the buildings, hiding behind villagers, allowing them to pay the price for her presence.
Well, if I have to tear this place apart to find her, I will.
My eyes narrow because the Oracle may not be in plain sight, but the Frost Fae are now ahead of me on my left, and it will only require a small detour to take them down and leave Stellen on his own.
They must have left their wolves at the base of the mountains because they’re on foot.
As I hoped, Lilis is among them.
She’s cornered a female lowborn in the street, surrounding the woman with ice that will tear the lowborn’s skin apart if she touches it. The trapped woman is backing toward the stalactites, as if she’ll risk the physical damage to get away from Lilis.
Perhaps she’s familiar with Lilis’s vicious reputation.
Of course…myreputation is even more brutal.
Luckily for me, Lilis’s lowborn prey is providing the perfect distraction, because Lilis is no longer looking up.
I tap my bird’s neck twice, a signal he knows well.
