White Fire: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 5 (28 page)

She couldn’t see around the Queen or her ridiculous plumage. “Move. You stupid bitch.” Emma fired a blast of fire at the Queen and didn’t stop to admire her work as the Queen was thrown out of her way.

When her vision focused on the pillar, she laughed in relief when she found Ajax smiling at her, completely untouched by the Queen’s attack.

Emma raced to him and kissed him. “Thank God. Why aren’t you dead?”

Ajax kissed her back. “You. I burn with Angel’s Fire every time we make love, Emma. I don’t think it can hurt me. Not while I carry your Mark.”

Emma hugged him tight, then looked up at the chains. There was no way she could pull them off. “Where’s the key?”

“There isn’t one. They are held by the will of their maker.”

“Who made them?” That jerk was going to be moved to first place on her burn list.

“The Queen..”

“Of course, she did.” Emma was done waiting to kill her.

Emma turned just as a sword arced toward her head. She had no weapon drawn and reacted on instinct. Emma raised her arm to block the blow.

Emma expected to be cut, badly, but the black armor she wore sang with a high, peeling note, like a bell ringing, as the blade made contact. It hurt, and she’d bleed, but the armor held, and the sword didn’t cut clean through.

“Impossible.” The Queen held the sword, her calculating gaze as patient as a spider’s with Emma trapped in her web. “Where did you get that armor?”

Emma and the Queen circled each other, the Queen’s eyes inspecting the suit, but not with curiosity or confusion, with anger, like a spoiled child denied a toy only to discover her mother had given the toy to someone else.

“You know where.” Emma clenched her hand as a warm trickle of blood flowed to her palm from the injury.

“The goddess has not set foot on Itara for centuries.”

Emma flexed her wrists, prepared to strangle the woman with her bare hands if that was what it took. “And why is that, Nelina?”

“Because, she was more powerful than I am.” The Queen’s calm answer reminded Emma of the psychopaths’ profiles she’d studied during her psychology lessons with Bran. No emotion. None. It was creepy.

The Queen swung at her again, and Emma dodged. “Sora didn’t deny her sons their destiny, you did.”

“My Aunt Sora was my first kill. I convinced her son to take her life.” Nelina smiled at the memory.

“Droghan?”

“Yes. And he’s been mine ever since.”

Ajax yelled from behind her, and despite the chaos of battle, all the noise, she’d hear his voice anywhere. “Come on, Emma. Hurry up and kill the bitch so I can get out of these chains.”

The Queen had her back to Ajax now, and heard every word. Enraged at Ajax, she took another swing at Emma. This time, instead of dodging, Emma rushed inside the Queen’s reach and tackled her to the floor of the chamber. Momentum, and the silky glide of the Queen’s dress brought them to a halt at Ajax’s feet.

Ajax kicked the sword from the Queen’s hand and put his foot over her neck to help Emma hold her down.

Emma didn’t need the help, but she welcomed it anyway as she called her fire and asked it to burn.

The Queen screamed as the flames consumed her, and Emma felt the evil burn and burn, nearly as hot as when she’d burned through the small army of forbidden sons on the beach.

The Queen was gone, white ash beneath her hands.

The chains holding Ajax dropped away and he lifted her into his arms. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

Three words before they turned to join the fray. It was enough.

Ajax picked up the Queen’s sword and charged into the fight. The Immortal numbers were thinner, perhaps a quarter of them gone, turned to ash by the Triscani Hunters that remained. There were too many, and they were too hungry.

The Itarans were going to lose this fight.

Ajax stepped up behind a Hunter and turned him to ash moments before the Triscani managed to touch a woman who had fallen to the floor. Emma watched her Mate hold out his hand and help the female to her feet. She wore an emerald-colored dress, and she was too beautiful to be real.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Ajax moved on and the female turned, raising her arms toward a group of Hunters a short distance from her. The Triscani floated off the floor, dangling like meat as the warriors they’d been battling hacked at them with swords.

There weren’t many females left shooting the Angel’s Fire, and the few who remained were being overrun with Triscani, as if Droghan had ordered his Hunters to kill those females first.

He probably had. If she were in charge, it would have been the first thing she’d made them do. Eliminate the biggest threat to success. But Droghan hadn’t counted on her.

Emma shouted to Ajax as he cut the head from another Hunter. “Get me to the center.”

He looked over to the raised platform in the center of the room and nodded. She burned as many as she could on the way, but they were in close quarters, and she didn’t have time to stop. She saved the people who looked like they were about to be ashed and ignored the rest. Ajax did the same as he took head after head, leaving the Immortal he’d just saved behind to finish off the Hunters he left behind.

When they reached the center, Ajax boosted her up onto the Queen’s platform and Emma surveyed the room.

The Triscani were everywhere. And the Immortals were worse off than she’d thought. Less than half remained.

The goddess’s words returned to her.
The rest are as innocent as your humans.

Where the hell was Robbie? She looked down at Ajax, and shouted, “Keep them off me.”

He nodded, and whistled, a strange sound she’d never heard before. But the warriors knew, like it was some secret form of communication, and they made their way to the center, to surround her so that the Triscani could not rise and attack her while she burned.

Emma took a knee and gathered her courage. Even with the magic suit, this was really going to hurt.

She’d just begun to call her fire when a pair of feet appeared before her.

Shocked, she raised her head to find Droghan standing over her, sword raised, ready to strike. She’d forgotten that he was an Archiver born, too. He’d ported here to take her head.

No one was going to be fast enough to to save her. She’d have to jump.

Blood. She needed blood. As his sword began its descent, Emma wrapped her bloody palm around the stone at her neck.

Time stopped. Frozen. And Emma stood, shocked. This was not what she’d expected.

She surveyed the room and discovered Robbie standing in front of the Gate, smiling at her.

“What is this?” Emma tried to jump, but couldn’t.

Robbie’s lips moved, but Emma heard the voice of the goddess inside her head.
It’s an anchor point, the strongest ever created. No Itaran technology or Timewalker’s power will be able to navigate through it.

Emma understood. The Queen was dead, and would remain so. There would be no recovering those that had been lost. No manipulation by the Archivers, the Timewalkers, or the Triscani ships and their wormholes.

This was forever. No going back.

She looked down at Ajax, frozen like the others below her. He was midway through removing the head of another Hunter. He was fierce and powerful, and he was all hers.

She was okay with forever.

“Thank you.”

Robbie nodded.
Your Mate was immune to the Angel’s Fire because he is a Darkwalker. Darkness and light serve together.
Robbie stepped back, toward the Gate, but before he disappeared, the goddess gave Emma one command.
Burn them all. Give them back to me.

Emma knelt at Droghan’s feet as time restarted. His sword whistled over her head through thin air. She placed her hand on his thigh and welcomed the rush as the white fire rose through her body and lit him on fire.

He staggered back, and fell, still burning. Emma didn’t look up. Her fire was hungry, and it could feel all the fuel in the room. Each Triscani Hunter was like a ping on her personal radar.

Fire flowed from her hands and feet to the crystals below her and spread across the platform, down the sides, and onto the floor of the throne room. White flames spread from the center like water from a fountain and consumed every Triscani in its path. It also took a few of the Immortals, but Emma didn’t fret over the lost ones much. The fire consumed darkness, fed on evil. If the Itarans turned to ash, then it was because they were both.

She rose with a cry as the fire started to hurt. The suit helped her maintain control, but it wasn’t going to be enough. There were too many. Thousands.

Then Ajax was there, his arms around her, his darkness and cold power flowing into her just like before, but this time it was more. The connection deeper and more powerful. She let her fire burn and held herself safe in the cold pool of his darkness, anchored by her Marked Mate.

She opened her eyes and smiled up at him from the circle of his arms. He smiled back and she knew they must be frightening to behold. She could see the flames of white fire that shot from her flesh, from her eyes. But Ajax looked like the Triscani they killed, his skin and eyes as black as the Gate that had brought them here.

Darkness and light.

When it was over, the flames flickered and died on her flesh as the darkness faded from Ajax, his flesh slowly returning to normal.

He held her there and she tilted her head up for a kiss.

The gentle exploration quickly grew beyond her power to control and she clung to him with every ounce of love and fire she had left. She was burning up in his arms. And still he kissed her, like she was his life, his air, his everything, and he didn’t care who knew it.

Someone cleared their throat, but Emma was too far gone to care. When a sword strike sang against the stone at their feet, Ajax lifted his head in annoyance and she turned to glare at Nicodemus for the interruption.

That was when she saw them. Hundreds of Itarans, every single survivor, Timewalker, Itaran, and Darkwalker in the room, on their knees.

Chapter Nineteen

Emma turned, her arm around Ajax’s waist, and surveyed his people as they paid him homage. They’d done it. They’d defeated Droghan and survived. She turned to him with a smile. She leaned up to whisper in his ear, relieved when he bent at her urging. She didn’t want every single Immortal in the room to listen to her gloat.

“See? Told you I’d fry the Queen and you’d get the throne.” She was so happy she was jittery, ready to clap and jump and kiss him again. None of which would do for a new human Queen who was going to have to deal with these Immortals for the next forever. So she held it in, and settled for standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Even then, if he hadn’t leaned over to hear her speak, she wouldn’t have been able to reach him.

But Ajax shook his head and backed away from her, left her standing in the center of the room alone. He hopped off the round platform and Emma lost sight of him as he disappeared at the base of the raised circle. She tried to ignore the stab of hurt. What did he think he was doing, leaving her standing here like a fool talking to herself?

He walked far enough from the platform that she could see all of him again, from head to toe.

And then he turned to face her, held her gaze, and knelt before her.

Emma shook her head and took a step back. She looked around the room again, expected people to rise now that Ajax was no longer before them.

But they remained.

“What are you all doing?” Emma asked the question loud enough to ensure every single Immortal ear could hear her.

The female that Ajax had saved, the one in the green dress, lifted her head. “May I speak?”

“Please.” Surreal.

The Immortal female stood and everyone raised their heads to hear her. “We have not seen a true chosen one since before the Thousand Year War. The goddess herself has blessed you with the gift of Angel’s Fire, true soul fire.”

There were murmurs of awe and agreement, and Emma felt like her whole world was shifting. Chosen one? Thousand Year War?

The Immortal continued. “We are honored by her blessing, and by the gift you gave us this day.”

Emma shook her head, but didn’t speak.

“You have returned many of our sons to us, and freed us from the rule of a deceitful tyrant.”

Now that, Emma could agree with.

“With a blood oath, I pledge my honor and service to you, Emma, as my Queen, for as long as you draw breath.” The woman walked forward, sliced her palm with her blade, and offered her hand to Emma. “Do you accept?”

Emma didn’t know what to do. This was not what she was expecting. Ajax was supposed to be the King, and she was supposed to be his sidekick. She was having a very hard time wrapping her head around that in reverse. And what about Ajax? Was he going to freak out? He was born to be their King. What did he really think about this?