Page 25 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Of course, I had never actually witnessed it before, and its burns were not covered in my history lessons.

Maksym may have been trying to lay something out that seemed factually rational, but it was funny, the doubt a damning brush with death could bring.

“I don’t believe you,” I said simply.

To his credit, Maksym smiled before he glanced back. “Jasper? Would you mind giving our skeptical guest a demonstration in nytefire burns?”

“Of course, my liege,” came his mage’s obedient rumble.

“A demonstration?” I stared up at Maksym.

“Not on you. Don’t worry,” he chuckled.

I didn’t immediately believe him about that either.

But I watched as Jasper approached one of the many open wall lanterns adorning the cavernous space and hovered his hand beside the nytefire flickering away inside it.

Wisps of vibrant blue surged towards him, coalescing into a ball against his gloved palm as he lowered his hand from the dark metal housing. The blue glow lit the exposed bottom half of his face in a mesmerizing way as he approached us.

He had to be part dark fae, then, even if his few inches of exposed flesh were as warm-toned as mine, albeit a bit pale.

Without saying a word, he uncovered Streja’s other arm, which had been touched by far fewer burns.

My teeth clicked as I opened my mouth and snapped it shut, drawing the suffocating attention of both men. A feat, considering I wasn’t confident one of them even had any eyes.

But what good was the protest that danced on the tip of my tongue? Streja was already dead.

“Jasper can burn you, if you’d prefer that,” Maksym mused from my side.

I didn’t even bother to look up as I shook my head, and the mage wasted no time.

He turned over Streja’s hand, pulling it a little away from her body, and let the orb of nytefire drop onto it. A crackle sounded out as the blue flame devoured her skin, followed by the unmistakable acrid odor of burning flesh laced with something sour.

I averted my eyes and drew my shirt over my nose and mouth, though the threadbare fabric and my body’s unwashed musk did little to help the nausea that churned quickly in my stomach.

“That should be plenty,” Maksym finally said.

I lifted my attention as the mage gathered up the nytefire like it was a piece of cloth, and he tossed it back towards the row of lanterns.

I could’ve sworn his throw was on a due course to miss, but, at the last second, tendrils extended from the ball like arms and caught the edge of the lantern, merging with the flame inside.

Even more concerning than that, perhaps, was the smirk that graced the lower half of the mage’s face when my attention trailed back. As if I, a simple and magic-void Odessan, would be impressed and not unsettled by such a display.

“If you take a look…” Maksym’s hand brushed my back and nudged me a little closer to the table. “Nytefire burns.”

I almost missed them.

Streja’s body had lost all its usual rosiness, and any of her skin not charred black or blistered was a pallid gray-white.

But the closer I looked, the clearer the faint, cragged lines now intersecting her skin became, as did the ashy quality it had taken on. Like the outer shell of pieces of lit charcoal, except there was no longer a brightly burning ember at her core.

Fresh unease washed over me. I couldn’t tell if it was because someone who’d shown me so much kindness was now dead before me, or if it was the creeping acknowledgement I had gleaned no similar burns on my other fallen comrades, even ones with far darker skin than Streja.

The looming king beside me could not be right.

“Where are the rest of them? The other bodies?”

The ones laid out in this room only accounted for half of my travel party, and it wasn’t hard to assume the condition of the other half of the Odessans. They were probably the ones covered head to toe in nytefire burns.