Chapter Eleven WITCHING MOON

Chapter Eleven

WITCHING MOON

Week Two, Day Three

Year 3000

Zanya's shadows carried them into chaos.

Ash could sense the flames even before the shadows receded. They raged out of control, feeding on wooden buildings and thatch roofs that had little protection against the fierce burn. His instinctive push to quiet the flames did nothing—something unnatural had kindled this fire, something he had never felt before.

Trusting Zanya to keep Sachi safe, Ash raced toward the inferno. Another thrust of his magic met a resistance he'd never felt before—a sickening twist, as if the flames themselves were ... ill . Poisonous and wrong.

"Ash, wait!" Elevia shouted. "This isn't normal fire!"

It was possible the Mortal Lords had been dabbling in weapons meant to foil the powers of gods. It was equally possible the Empire had provided this as a distraction. Its source didn't matter. Only stopping it did.

Cautiously, Ash approached the leading edge of the fire. The heat of it felt unnatural, but not deadly, so he reached out. Flames leapt to his fingers, crawling up his arm. It stung, like dragging something rough over sensitive skin, but it didn't burn him. Not until he tried to draw the fire into himself.

Scalding agony erupted beneath his skin. He gritted his teeth, weathering the pain, and tried to quench the fire, but it wouldn't dissipate. It raged within him, seeking an outlet. He knelt, holding his fingers spread wide above the dirt—and hesitated.

Sending the fire into the earth might bank it, but every instinct he had screamed against it. This sickness should not— could not —go back into the ground.

"Ash?" Sachi's voice sounded behind him, rough with worry—and pain.

Their potion-induced temporary bond lingered, but Ash could do nothing about that now. "I can draw it into me," he growled. "But there's no way to bank it without poisoning the earth."

Suddenly Zanya was there at his side, her shadows swirling. She hissed in pain when the flames reached for her, and Ash struggled to expand the circle of his protection. It saved her from burning, but agony still seethed in her dark eyes as she grabbed his hand.

"Use me," she ordered. "I think I can send it into the Void."

The Void. Vast, endless. It was pure destructive power, grinding everything into the dust that fueled creation. Whatever wrongness might be at the heart of this could not withstand an annihilation so complete.

But Zanya was so new to her powers. If she slipped or lost control, the flames could consume her. "Are you sure?"

She scowled at him. "Now, Dragon. While there may yet be people left to save."

Bracing himself, he released the fire again. It raged down his arm, toward their joined hands. She gasped when it crawled across her wrist, her skin reddening beneath the wild flames. But almost as soon as it touched her, shadows spun down from her shoulder, surging toward the fire. They smashed together, twisting into a column that flared upward.

Then the shadows began to swallow the flames.

They could do this. But they must move quickly.

Ash wrapped his free arm around Zanya, dragging her against his chest. "Hold on to me," he shouted over the sudden surge of flames. "Don't let go. Not for anything."

The vicious heat seemed to lift her hair on a hellish breeze. "I won't," she promised, clinging to his neck. "Do it."

Someone behind them screamed a warning, but Ash ignored it. With Zanya held protectively in his grasp, he raced toward the heart of the conflagration. His power swirled the fire around them in massive sparks of color, churning through the sickly greens and blues, replacing it with healthy golds and oranges.

He felt when they reached the source of the blaze. An unnatural liquid coated the earth, burning a bioluminescent green he'd rarely seen outside of Inga's more fantastical creatures. Ash wrapped all the protective power he had around Zanya and roared over the flames, "Now! Open yourself to the Void!"

Shadows stretched out in all directions. Ash pulled the sickly fire toward him, starting with the flames that licked at their feet. It churned around them, battling his own fire and the tendrils of shadow. They were too small, thin ropes of midnight trying to entangle the blazing vastness of the sun. Zanya's breath heaved against his ear, her agony evident. He could protect her from burning, but not from the pain ...

Fool. She's too new. Too untried—

And in trying to resist his overprotectiveness, he'd put her in jeopardy. Sachi would never forgive him if he lost Zanya. And he'd never forgive himself, either.

Zanya's head fell back. Her eyes flew open, and they were pure black. No iris, no white. The kind of blackness you could only find at the farthest depths of the ocean, or deep within the earth. Places that had never even known the touch of starlight.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream.

And that untouched darkness exploded, swallowing them both.

A wind rose around them, a vortex of fire and darkness. The force of it threatened to buffet them apart, but Ash wrapped both arms around Zanya as that ghostly wind lifted her feet from the ground.

The dark whirlpool expanded. Ash clung to Zanya and pulled with everything in him, commanding the flames to converge upon him from all directions. It should have overwhelmed them both, but as fast as he pulled, the wild, dark power swallowed the inferno. He barely had time to feel the agony as it washed through him and vanished.

"Not so fast!" he shouted, but the darkness swallowed the words, too. Zanya's black eyes stared past him, unseeing. She'd thrust both arms out to her sides, her hands balled into fists. Her mouth moved, but whatever sound she made was lost to the roar around them.

The unnatural fire collapsed, spinning away into nothing. The remaining flames stretched out into impossibly thin strands of glittering gold, lost to the Void. Ash couldn't see the rest of the village, couldn't see their people, couldn't see anything except Zanya and the shadows.

Shadows that swirled around him now, tasting. Hungry. He felt a tug at some intrinsic part of him deep inside. The fire that lived within, that pumped his very blood.

The power that made him the Lord of Fire.

The strength went out of his legs. He hit his knees, still clinging to Zanya. The toes of her boots barely brushed the dirt, as if only his weight kept her from launching skyward. "It's done, Zanya!" he screamed.

She stared down at him, her eyes still flooded with shadows, her hair floating on a breeze that didn't exist. The tug inside him sharpened into pain—just for a moment—and then she shuddered in his grip. The whirlwind died. Shadows turned to mist, revealing a glimpse at the world outside them for the first time.

Her boots thumped against the blackened dirt, and she swayed, bracing one hand on his shoulder to keep her balance. She closed her eyes. When they opened, she was Zanya again—warm brown eyes and a brow furrowed with concern.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No apologies." He squeezed her hand and rose. "You did what needed to be done. And you did well."

She exhaled, then looked over his shoulder and went stiff.

Ash turned slowly. The moonlight illuminated what had been a thriving village only a few days ago. He recognized the distant tree line, a few outbuildings. He recognized the shocked, ash-streaked faces of the few survivors hovering outside the circle of charred, burned destruction.

Emmonsdale. The village where the Mortal Queen's soldiers had tried to burn a healer as a witch. Where Zanya had killed Lord Velez, and the villagers had fought back.

Apparently, the new queen had decided to make an example of them.

"Sachi!"

Zanya broke away from him, staggering through the blackened ruins all around them. Ash followed in time to see her sink to the ground. Sachi was already there, her pristine white nightgown covered with soot and blood. She cradled a body in her arms, and her fingers trembled as she tried to smooth the corpse's matted hair.

Ash's stomach lurched when he recognized the dead woman's face.

It was the healer that Velez had sought to burn. The woman Ash had saved, only so she could die a different death. An equally pointless one.

"She never hurt anyone." Sachi's voice was hoarse, either from the smoke or from screaming. "But they had to make her pay, didn't they? For our interference."

Confirming it would only break Sachi's heart, but Ash couldn't bring himself to lie to her.

"Come away, Sachi." Zanya gripped Sachi's arms, gently urging her to rise. "You can't fix everything."

"I don't need to fix everything," Sachi snapped, then sobbed as tears streamed down her face. "Just something. Anything. One godsdamned thing."

Zanya looked distraught. But Ulric crouched before Sachi and lifted her chin. "Then help us fix this," he rumbled quietly. "The soldiers who burned the village told them that anyone who forsakes their rightful queen will suffer the same. What do you know of the girl?"

It took a moment for Sachi's sobs to subside, but when they did, a fierce light filled her eyes. She went still, so still she barely breathed, and the last flashes of her emotions deserted Ash, as if she had just gone blank. Fear gripped him before he recognized her stillness for what it was—a predator considering an attack.

"No." Sachi's voice had steadied, cooled, and she shook her head as she finally rose. "The queen is a child. Barely fifteen. If the order for this destruction came from House Roquebarre, then it likely came from her regents."

Elevia crossed her arms. "Tell us."

"Dalvish's three siblings—Doven, Bodin, and Tislaina. Easily dealt with on an individual basis, whether through diplomacy or bribery." She paused, her eyes still flashing but her expression grave. "But their united front poses a problem. As long as they stand as one, they are formidable. And brutal."

The Huntress hummed. "Then we should find a way to divide them."

"No. We face them with a weapon rarely seen at Dalvish's former court—the truth." Sachi paced the scorched ground. "The arrangement between the mortal rulers of the Sheltered Lands and the Lord of Earth and Fire was codified by treaty. A treaty that Dalvish violated."

"Presumably by trying to murder Ash," Ulric muttered.

"Not exactly. The true breach was when they sent me to serve as his consort." She stopped and faced Ash. "They promised you an heir, my love, but they sent you an orphan. You have recourse."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but why would they give a shit about his recourse?" Elevia asked. "As Ulric just mentioned, they did try to kill him. They must assume they've lost any claim to his protection."

"Oh, they absolutely won't care about that. But they'll care about losing the lands granted to them in trust by the terms of the treaty." Sachi ticked a list off on her fingers. "The entirety of the Blasted Plains plus nearly half of the Burning Hills, including portions of the fishing lands and farmsteads to the east and north."

Ash could barely remember the specifics of the negotiations. He'd been reeling in the aftermath not only of war but of losing the Builder to pride and avarice. But something Sachi said prompted a recollection. "The capital."

"Yes," Sachi confirmed. "Parts of it, anyway. Most interestingly, Castle Roquebarre. You could take their home, Ash."

All he wanted was for the killing to stop. "Will it work?"

"I'll make it work," Sachi murmured fiercely, then glanced at each of them in turn. "I will go to Anikke with proof of her army's brutality. If it turns out that she knew about—or, Dream forbid, approved —this order, then we'll know."

"Know what, exactly?"

"That killing a tyrannical king wasn't enough." Sachi stared down at a smoldering tuft of grass, then crushed it beneath her slipper and met Ash's gaze. "And we must also now depose a queen."

Ash stared at Sachi. He'd known she was hungry for knowledge and history, and Zanya had once noted offhand that she would have made a formidable scholar. But he'd never seen that curiosity and focus turned quite this ruthlessly toward political practicalities.

It was almost as frightening as it was dazzling.

"Good. Then that's settled." Sachi's eyes burned, and her chest heaved. "I met your friend tonight. The Phoenix."

His heart leapt. "In the Dream? You found them?"

"I did. They were ..." Her brow furrowed. "Smuggling refugees out of the Empire, I think. I found them in some sort of cavern or tunnel system."

"Sachi." Elevia stared at her with appraising eyes, as if seeing her for the first time. "Are you saying they were awake? That you spoke to them—"

"In the real world, yes." Sachi caught Ash's gaze. "I never left the Dream, but they could still see me."

"That's—" Ulric bit off the word with a glance at Zanya. Impossible still lingered in the air, but no doubt he dared not say it when they'd just witnessed Zanya channel the corrupted power of a fiery maelstrom into the Void.

Impossible was a concept they all might do better to forget when it came to these two.

Ash believed. "What did they say?"

"That they're coming for you as soon as they can, but you must prepare." She swallowed hard. "It's to be war."

Ulric cursed softly. Zanya looked away. Ash met Elevia's gaze and saw resignation but no surprise, as if she'd known all along that this day would come no matter how zealously Ash ran from it.

The days of denial and avoidance were coming to an end. Ash would have to face his ancient enemy again ... and pray the world survived it.