Page 12 of ColdIron
The men carrying me ducked. The wyvern’s claws swiped—one man screamed, throat torn open, blood spraying hot across my face. I toppled from the stretcher and hit the ground, pain lancing through my broken rib.
A scream tore from my lungs, raw and useless.
Talons missed my face by inches. I felt the rush of air, smelled rot. Yellow eyes locked onto mine, intelligent and hungry. It wanted to capture me. Somehow, that was worse.
My heart pounded, my throat parched. I raised a shaking hand in an attempt to fend it off. At least my limbs were moving now, even as pain and exhaustion throbbed through every part of me.
A vine shot through the air and gripped the wyvern, yanking it away from me. But the monster caught the other man carrying the stretcher in its jaws before Aelindor’s magic crashed into the beast with a sickening crunch of breaking bones. The soldier was dead when he hit the ground.
The sky had become the monsters’ playground, their bodies blotting out the light. The dragon poured fire into a purple-scaled wyvern, incinerating it mid-flight.The redhead on his back tossed cards at the wyverns surrounding them, and the magical cards exploded on impact. Blood and body parts rained down. Flaming arrows flew toward the sky like a deadly firestorm.
Two hands lifted me with surprising gentleness. Intense crimson eyes locked onto mine. The man pressed me to his chest, shielding me with his body as he dodged through the chaos. I felt the solid muscle, the cool skin, the steady rhythm of his heart—slower than a human’s.
Ooh, vampire,the demon realized in delight.
The vampire’s arms were strong and sure. As he sprang like nothing could stop him from getting me to safety, blackness crept in at the edges of my vision. Exhaustion won the battle against adrenaline. And somehow, despite everything, I felt safe with this monster who protected me from other monsters.
I blamed it on the fever dream.
The demon didn’t stop talking.We’re free, Max. No more sea of Coldiron to shroud you and bind my power.
A final realization clicked into place. My blood ran cold.
Coldiron.
I hadn’t been caging the entity with my willpower or my silence.
The sentient metal had.
And now, without it surrounding me every day in the deep earth, the entity was free.
Free to grow stronger.
Terror seized me. Unconscious to the world beyond, I was at my weakest. The barriers in my mind were thin, breaking down. I tried to wake up, to claw my way backto consciousness, to prevent the creature from taking over. But my body was full of lead.
All four of them want us,the demon purred with satisfaction.Did you feel it? One of them is a dragon! Do you know how rare that is? They haven’t walked this earth in centuries.
It had never been this chatty, never this active. I could feel it stretching inside my mind, testing boundaries, pushing against walls I’d built over years of practice. I could no longer stop it. The entity grew stronger with each passing moment away from the mines, without Coldiron suppressing its power.
Are we in heaven, little Max?it preened.
I was afraid I’d just landed in a personal hell.
6
MAX
Four days ago…
In my shack—basicallya hole carved into the wall—Rogue, Kaid, Desta, and I huddled together, our heads bent over a three-legged table pressed against the mud wall. I jabbed a finger at the middle point on the map.
“You sure the map’s accurate?” Desta asked, looking at me instead of the yellowed paper.
Rogue stood to my right, close enough that our shoulders brushed. Lean and wiry. His jaw was sharp, made sharper by hunger. Four blue stripes marked each of his cheeks—he’d followed my lead.
Kaid hovered near Desta, his brown eyes lighter than hers. He watched me too. They were an item, as much as anyone could be in a place like this.
Desta was the only other woman in the mines who’dsurvived this long. She was small and sharp. Shadows pooled under her eyes, hunger showing through.
