The Demon King (42 page)

Roman looked from Darius to Arach, the
Dragon King. “Was yours a hunting accident as well?”

Arach gave him an
exasperated look. “
Iceling
accident,” he said with a shrug and then a wince.
His green eyes flashed with pain and he let out what sounded like a
truly weary breath. “This is the last time I volunteer to help with
summer training.”

Roman considered his words. Summer training
was the quarterly practice of introducing dragons just coming of
age to their breath weapons, inherent dragon magic, and battle
tactics. A second training session would be held to welcome anyone
new and anyone needing further work at the beginning of fall.
Winter and spring followed, of course, and usually meant all new
dragons. It was a difficult task, and often the more powerful and
experienced dragons were brought in to help out. Arach was one of
those more powerful and experienced dragons. This was not his first
time getting involved with the training, and despite what he was
currently claiming, it probably wouldn’t be his last.

An “iceling” was a dragon who breathed ice
crystals, sharp as knives and pointy as needles, fast as a tornado,
and entirely deadly. Roman had seen iceling injuries before, and
they could completely destroy an appendage – or an entire body.
Fortunately for Arach, dragons also healed quickly, but again not
as quickly as some others. Iceling injuries in particular were
gruesome enough to take great care, medicine, and a lot of time. It
was no wonder Arach was less than amiable at the moment.

Now
everyone
turned to regard the Time
King. Like the Dragon, he also had green eyes, and they stared back
at the other kings with bright, keen intelligence.

He smiled. “Would you believe me if I told
you I’d managed to piss off a menstrual dinosaur?”

The entire room fell silent.

It was Damon Chroi, the Goblin King, who
laughed first. It was the softest chuckle, one clearly meant to be
kept quiet. But they heard it anyway.

“
I would totally believe
you,” said Poppy Nix.

Everyone looked at her. Poppy’s expression
was dead serious.

Damon Chroi’s laughter became boisterous,
and this time everyone joined him. Poppy was the only woman at the
Table who might have actually known William Balthazar to any real
degree, as William enjoyed spending time in the Winter Kingdom with
her and Kristopher, the Winter King. So when her lips slowly
slipped into a smile as well, it was clear she was teasing
William.

He winked at her.

Roman had a chuckle
himself, which admittedly felt good, and when the laughter finally
died down, he took a deep breath.
Very
well
, he thought. If William didn’t feel
like sharing, he certainly didn’t have to. Roman had been curious
more than anything. Who wouldn’t be?

“
Okay, let’s get to why
we’re here tonight,” he told everyone, wanting to move things
along.

“
We’re here to welcome our
new queen!” said someone at the Table, beating him to the punch. He
glanced over to find Violet Kellen rising from her seat and
stretching out her hand. Dahlia Kellen rose from her chair directly
opposite her at the Table, and the two proceeded to engage in a
fist bump over the polished mahogany.

Dahlia and Violet were sisters. Violet was
married to the Shadow King, Keeran Pitch. Roman thought of the
expression on Violet’s face, which was dual. She looked saddened.
And she looked relieved. And he could easily ascertain the source
of both emotions.

Dahlia Kellen had been through a great deal,
all of it emotionally damaging. And then Violet had been chosen as
one of the queens. And Violet, who loved her sister endlessly and
unconditionally, had felt guilty. While Dahlia was suffering
disgrace after disgrace, each of a worse nature than the last,
Violet was marrying a handsome and wealthy king, and being given a
seat at the all-famous Table of the Thirteen.

When Dahlia became a queen as well, all of
Violet’s prayers were no doubt answered. Dahlia was now as strong
as any queen, and she had renewed control over her life, which was
something that had very much been taken away from her. The sisters
were together there in that room, they were both safe, and they
were both powerful. Violet could not have asked for more.

Except that she knew Dahlia
had been given no choice in this matter either. And at its core,
that stung a little. It was
part
of the reason behind the sadness in Violet’s
eyes. Her only consolation in this lack of a choice was that
becoming a queen at this Table was a fulfilling experience. At
least, Evie had told him as much, and according to her, other women
at the Table had experienced the same. They were part of a
sisterhood now, a circle of friends and family that would never
falter or break. It was, in and of itself, empowering.

Lalura Chantelle was the other reason for
the woe in Violet’s eyes. And that same mourning was reflected in
her sister’s emerald green gaze.

The girls both sat back down, and when
Dahlia took her seat, she turned to her left to meet Poppy Nix’s
outstretched hand. The second fist bump sealed the congratulatory
exchange between the triad of women who had been warlocks under
Chantelle’s care. It was meaningful.

Suddenly, Roman felt a strange sense of
gratitude. He was grateful for the family that sat at that table.
There was a serpent among them – somewhere – but the rest truly
were as close as any family could hope to be. There was warmth
here, and support. And given that the Table contained dragons,
unseelie fae, warlocks, and demons, that was saying something.

“
It’s too bad Lalura
couldn’t see this,” said Poppy softly to Dahlia.

Dahlia nodded, just once, and they exchanged
a meaningful, if melancholy, smile.

Truer words were never
spoken
, thought Roman.

“
Oh I wouldn’t be so sure
that she’s not,” someone else said.

Roman turned to find Darius Walker nodding
toward the large windows on one side of the meeting room. Roman
followed his gaze.

The meeting room this time
was on the 80
^th
floor of “2 International Finance Centre” in Hong
Kong. It was night, and the windows on one end of the room
overlooked buildings that looked like lit crystal growths coming
out of Hong Kong below, and the deep, dark stretch of Victoria
Harbor beyond them. It was a view very few people in the world had
the opportunity to experience. In fact, as kings and queens had
begun to arrive for this meeting – magically of course – each had
made his or her way to the windows to gaze out over the view
beyond. At night, as it was now, it was breathtaking.

However, at the moment the important aspect
to the view was the fact that it was eighty stories up. There was
no way to scale the building short of expert, belayed climbing, and
at this height, the wind sheer alone outside the windows would be
enough to sweep someone off them.

So the fact that there were several cats
sitting on a nearly nonexistent ledge right outside the window was
a little surprising.

Not long ago, when the Phantom King Thanatos
had met his queen, Siobhan, a cat appeared to them. Thane professed
that the cat had an old soul, a long dead soul, and that he’d come
back to the earthly plane for some unknown reason. Since that time,
other cats had randomly shown up to join the first feline.

At the moment, that same first large ginger
cat sat licking its shoulder on the thin ledge as if to
nonchalantly scratch an itch. A charcoal gray cat stretched out
beside him and flicked her tail, then rolled over on the impossibly
thin ledge and splayed her paws in the air.

The third cat, Roman had never seen before.
It was new. It had snow white fur and very, very blue eyes.

Roman stilled, and the world grew so quiet
that a ringing began in his eardrums. Those blue eyes locked on
his, and he had the sensation that he was falling. As he fell, he
tasted tea. He heard the crackling of hearth fire. He saw leaves
skittering across an autumn landscape.

I was
wrong
, he thought as they peered at one
another and he remembered... prophecies and cauldrons, laughter and
rocking chairs. Long white hair that blew wispy in an unseen
breeze.

I have indeed seen you before.

The moments ticked by in their shared
silence, and Roman smiled. “Stronger with the Force, indeed,” he
whispered softly.

But everyone at the Table heard him. And
everyone understood.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Stale Fire.

It had once taken everything from Dahlia.
Its purple flames and poison smoke had gobbled up her childhood
world and belched it wordlessly into the sky. She’d watched it burn
unhindered, its power so strange, no one in her realm could control
it.

Thousands of years had passed since that
night. But things had a way of coming back to you. And now Dahlia
stood once more in the madly flickering shadows cast by the violet
flames of Stale Fire.

It was an Akyri who had known to come to her
about the strange dark fire. It was three days after the meeting of
the Thirteen where Dahlia had been introduced as the newest queen.
Dahlia had been in the Demon Realm with Bael and Bowie, learning
the ropes of queendom, when Pi suddenly entered the flames of her
hearth to give her a message from an Akyri magic user.

He’d told her that a seaside city in the
Seelie Realm was under attack by a dark fire that could not be
contained or put out.

The Akyri were not as locked in any one
realm as many of the other supernatural factions were. They
followed dark magic, wherever that magic may lead. Warlocks used
dark magic. And warlocks came in all shapes and sizes, and lived in
all manner of places. So the Akyri joined them in those various
places, all across the stretch of thirteen different realms.

Now Dahlia stood in that seaside city,
looking out over the destruction. This city was highly populated by
magic users. It rested against the border separating it from the
Twixt, and just on the other side of that border rested a city of
the Duwomm fae.

The fire had begun in the Twixt, and both
King Avery and Lord Caliban had come together with their queens to
attempt to put the fire out before it could spread into their
realms. But not even the Wishers’ magic had managed to assuage the
blaze’s hunger for more. The fire kept burning, claiming the Duwomm
homes and hitting the border.

Here in the Seelie Realm on the seaside,
magic energies coming in off the sea often forged strange
weaknesses in the border separating it from the Twixt. They weren’t
weak enough to allow anyone unwanted entry. But they were weak
enough for Stale Fire.

The purple crackling blaze had made its way
through, riding over the salt water of the sea as if it were
gasoline. Its strange all-consuming cold-fire continued to spread,
at last touching the homes of warlocks and Akyri.

And that was when one of them remembered the
Akyri King – and his new Akyri Queen. Who was also the Demon
Queen.

Who was said to have the
gift of Dark Fire, known in other realms as
Stale Fire
.

And now here Dahlia was,
standing before the raging amethyst inferno that had once devoured
her home. But this time, Dahlia was not a child. And she was not
helpless. This time, staring at the nearly heatless flames that
crackled madly and released hordes of nightmares into the sky was
like meeting gazes with an old acquaintance:
“Oh hey, I remember you. Long time no see. How you been all
these years?”

She tilted her head a little at the roaring
conflagration, as if it truly could talk, as if it would stop
mid-flicker and turn around. Dahlia almost smiled. Instead, she
closed her eyes and raised her arms at her sides, palms-up.

All around her, warlocks, Akyri, demons, and
several kings and queens looked on. They had grown quiet. Not one
uttered a word or made a sound. They wouldn’t have been heard
anyway; the Stale Fire was ten thousand conversations all on its
own, a hissing, popping, crackling cacophony of selfish, burning
fury.

Beside her, bumping supportively against her
right leg, Bowie the dog whined softly. Despite the discordant
sound that raged so close by, Dahlia heard her. She smiled and sent
the dog a tiny touch of magic to let her know that everything was
okay.

The rest of her magic, she concentrated
elsewhere. A wind began to blow. It gathered and intensified,
brushing through Dahlia’s long, black locks to send them flying
about her face. She felt a humming in her fingertips. A vibration
in the air.

Answer
me
, she called out to the fire that had
become so much a part of her. She reached out, touching it with her
mind.
Remember me
, she told it.
Know
me
.

Obey
.

The wind picked up behind her and rushed
furiously past her now, heading for the fire. Dahlia nearly lost
her balance with the force of the gale that pushed her forward. But
she maintained her footing, kept her magic flowing through her, and
slowly opened her eyes.

The Stale Fire that had engulfed the better
portion of a seaside city was coalescing. It was drawing together,
leaving the houses of the city one by one. In its wake, smoke
curled and billowed into the heavens. Dahlia knew it was filled
with nightmares and she knew it needed to be stopped.