“Wait,” Blaze said. “Didn’t Gia know the truth?”

  Griff glanced away. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if she knew what I was doing, or if Artaxis told her what I was doing afterward. After I’d been hurt. All I have to go on is what I’ve been told, and I don’t know if my memories of any of it are even my own now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Try as he might, Griff couldn’t discern whether or not Grlind and/or Jade was lying to them in any context. The Storm King was a pain in the ass, but in Griff’s experience, royalty always had a sense of entitlement that made them obnoxious at times.

  With the exception of Blaze, who was, after all, the second son of a king and queen, brother to the current king in his clan.

  Even Artaxis had his moments where he went full-out raving diva on people. Griff had never experienced one of his king’s tantrums firsthand, nor had any of them aimed at him. He’d seen Artaxis lose it a handful of times, though, and while most of those events had been justified, a couple had been more those of a spoiled child not getting his or her way.

  Griff groaned and rolled his neck, chasing off a mild pain there. He had to question every memory he had, and it made believing in himself very difficult. That reflected in what he thought he knew about almost everything, and who he was, even.

  Blaze sighed and nuzzled the back of Griff’s neck. “Got a kink? Well, besides the obvious one for being bossy when it comes to sex. Which I like. A lot.”

  “Hah. Yes, it’s a bit tight back there.” He rolled his eyes, knowing he’d just left Blaze an opening.

  “I bet it is,” Blaze leered—Griff could hear it in his voice. “Real tight.” He tickled the top of Griff’s crack.

  Griff tried not to laugh to no avail. He ended up squealing and scrambling to his feet. “Behave,” he said when he saw Blaze’s intention in his eyes. “We’ve got to get back to the others. If you’re a good boy, I might just bind your hands tonight and…” He smirked as Blaze whimpered. Let him think about what I might do after I have his wrists bound together. He’ll anticipate it all day.

  Griff would damn sure have to live up to those expectations, too.

  Once he had them both clothed properly again, Griff hefted the bag over one shoulder. “I think I’ll spend some time talking to the Storm King today. See if I can get a good reading on him. Who knows, maybe he’ll admit to messing with us all just for a whim. Elves can be flighty.”

  Griff immediately felt bad for the comment. “Then again, the same has been said of most fairies. Especially the Love fairies. We’re only good for fucking.”

  Blaze surprised him by stopping Griff, catching a hold of him by one arm. “No.”

  “No?” Griff repeated. “No what?”

  “No, you aren’t only good for fucking,” Blaze explained slowly.

  “I didn’t think I was,” Griff assured him. And for the most part, that was probably true.

  Before they reached the area they’d bedded down in, they heard a ruckus coming from that direction.

  Blaze stilled Griff once again, tensing noticeably. They exchanged worried looks. Griff tried to make out what the sounds could be. His first were sexual thoughts—bodies slapping rhythmically, grunts of pleasure and exertion.

  Which made him grimace as he wondered if Grlind and Jade were doing the deed.

  Except a low curse sounded, followed by a muffled voice, one that definitely carried a strained, frantic tone.

  Blaze held up one finger and stared at Griff.

  Griff stared right back. If the dragon thought he’d just hang back and let Blaze go barging into whatever was happening, he had another think coming.

  Griff inhaled, and caught it then, a whiff of something metallic on the breeze. The breeze—which was blowing from the direction of their little encampment.

  The grunts and thuds didn’t sound sexual at all, Griff realized. He gripped Blaze’s hand tightly. They exchanged a look, each trying to read the other.

  Griff shivered when a low moan reached them. That isn’t a sound of pleasure.

  Blaze tipped his chin at Griff, as if he knew of and agreed with Griff’s deduction.

  Blaze looked back toward their encampment. He scowled, clearly wavering over what to do.

  But Griff knew only one thing. If Grlind and Jade, or even one of the two, were innocent of the hijinks happening around them, then he couldn’t stand back and leave them to battle whoever, or whatever, was in the camp now.

  Because something most definitely was, and it was either friend or foe, just as Jade and Grlind were.

  Knowing who was who or what, those answers eluded Griff. But he couldn’t stand back and do nothing.

  He tugged on Blaze’s hand. Griff raised his other hand, bringing his thumb and forefinger together until they almost touched.

  Blaze shook his head.

  Well, Griff understood that—if they were small, they’d be easily defeated.

  He also understood something else. If whoever was attacking wanted to hurt him and Blaze, they might not be looking for them in minimized form. Altering their size might allow him and Blaze to use the element of surprise.

  The scuffling was still going on. Griff gestured for Blaze to come closer. Once he did, Griff explained his plan.

  Blaze gave him a quick kiss, then nodded.

  They needed to see who was doing what and decide from there whether or not to intervene. It was strange that there might be fighting occurring and yet there were no truly loud noises coming from it.

  Magic. But whose? Griff wouldn’t know until they could get closer, which meant he needed to do a little magic of his own.

  He just hoped it didn’t get them both stepped on.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Blaze’s heart stopped the second he spotted the fiends attacking Grlind and Jade. He supposed it shouldn’t have been such a shock—elves and fiends were mortal enemies. So were orcs and fiends, dragons and fiends…everyone and fiends, except for other fiends, of course.

  Fiends never turned on each other.

  And they were viciously difficult to defeat.

  Griff clenched Blaze’s hand and fear etched his features. His eyes were huge as he looked from the battle to Blaze.

  Fiends called for a retreat and some kind of plan.

  Blaze tugged Griff back a good distance, keeping track of the fiends in case some of the bastards spotted them. Not likely, maybe, but possible.

  As soon as he had Griff far enough away, Blaze pulled him close and whispered in his ear. “A half-dozen fiends, Griff. We aren’t armed enough to take them on. Even the Storm King is going to lose to them.”

  “Fiends.” Griff shuddered. “I couldn’t remember the name of them. They’re so…” He shuddered again.

  “Scary,” Blaze finished for him. It was true. Just seeing a fiend could strike fear in the heart of someone and freeze them on the spot.

  Which might have been why fiends were rarely defeated. There were disagreements about what fiends truly looked like, but Blaze knew the truth of their appearance.

  They were supernatural beings that drew from viewers’ fears. Whatever gave someone nightmares, whatever terrified them asleep or awake, that was what each fiend appeared to be to them.

  Sometimes even the viewer didn’t understand what they were seeing. Not everyone’s fears were coalesced into an easily understood nightmare.

  Blaze wasn’t sure what he’d seen. He refused to dwell on it.

  “If we have to fight them, I don’t know if I can,” Blaze admitted. “What if I look at them and see you?”

  “See me? Why—” Griff frowned, then beamed at him. “Oh! I remember what they are! Well, I don’t know what they’re really called. We were told tales of frighteners when we were children. That’s what they are. They steal into your mind and display your fears. Why would you see me? You’re not afraid of me, Blaze.”

  There was no way he’d explain that all of his worst fears had to do with something bad happening to Griff. “What did you see?” Blaze asked.

  Griff shrugged. “Nothing scary. I don’t think, after what I went through, that they could scare me more.”

  Blaze felt his eyebrow winging up his forehead without him even having to think about it. “Hey! If you don’t have any fears…”

  “Then they can’t be used against us,” Griff said. “I mean, I’m afraid of never finding my wings again, but how would they make that into a…a…a thing?” He shrugged. “Do they have magic? Besides that?”

  Blaze nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know what kind of magic other than the scare the shitballs out of you kind.”

  “Shitballs?” Griff glanced back over his shoulders. “We need to help Grlind and Jade. Even if they might not be on our side.”

  “I wonder if the fiends just stumbled on them or if someone sent them,” Blaze murmured.

  “Are they for hire?” Griff asked.

  Blaze had no idea. “I don’t know.” He hated being so stupid. Maybe he wasn’t dumb about everything, like he knew…well, he knew some things. Just not the stuff he wished he knew.

  “Whatever you’re thinking must be unpleasant,” Griff observed. “Do you have any idea how to fight the fiends?”

  As much as Blaze wanted to be Griff’s hero, he couldn’t lie. “No. I’ve never fought them and have only heard about other dragons who’ve fought—and lost—against the fiends.”

  “Don’t they burn?”

  “I don’t have fire, so it doesn’t matter,” Blaze mumbled. “And if I freak out because I’m terrified…”

  “We can fix that.”

  “How?” Blaze asked just as Griff tore a strip off his tunic. “Ohhhhh.”

  “Ohhhhh.” Griff smiled briefly before he placed the material over Blaze’s eyes.

  Blaze huffed as darkness encompassed him. “Griff? I can’t see to fight.”

  “Uh—” Griff stopped tying a knot behind Blaze’s head. “Your other senses can’t lead you? Scent and sound? I thought dragons had really sharp senses.”

  “Not sure they’d work against fiends. Fear could appear in different ways, right?”

  Griff removed the material. “Damn it, yes. It could manifest in a scent or sound, certainly. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Maybe I’m rubbing off on you,” Blaze said.

  Griff pointed at him. “Don’t. Don’t you start insulting yourself.”

  Blaze ducked his head, embarrassment warming his cheeks. “What are we going to do?” he asked softly.

  “We’re going to go fight. We’re not going to let fear have any sway over us. We can’t.” Griff tucked a finger under Blaze’s chin. “If we lose, if I die—”

  Blaze couldn’t have stopped the growl if his life had depended on it. He yanked Griff to him and said, “You won’t die. Ever!” and before Griff could even blink, Blaze crushed his mouth to Griff’s, tasting him, feeding him that determination not to even consider dying.

  Just as suddenly as he’d grabbed Griff, Blaze set him back a half step. If he didn’t, there’d be sex, and sex while Grlind and Jade were being attacked wasn’t cool at all.

  “We won’t lose,” he told Griff. He might have trouble believing it himself, but he’d damn well make it happen. They’d be the first to defeat the fiends.

  “No, we won’t. But we must be bigger, and you need a weapon.” Griff chanted, and a moment later, both he and Blaze were no longer small, and a long, deadly-looking sword had appeared in front of Blaze. The hilt was plain, nothing fancy at all, but the length of the sword was covered in etched symbols or words. Blaze didn’t know which.

  Griff’s breath hitched, and he drew his hands away from the weapon. “Gods, it’s the Sword of Synchrony. It doesn’t just take lives, it destroys their soul, utterly! They are dead dead!”

  Blaze yanked his own hands back. “I don’t want to touch it!” Souls were sacred, and they were definitely vital to reincarnation. If one was destroyed, that was the end of a person’s life. They were just…gone.

  “It’s what the goddess Ahndwa saw fit to send you,” Griff said. “I wouldn’t risk insulting Her.”

  Insulting the goddess of war was unthinkable. Blaze bit his bottom lip. “Thank you, Ahndwa. Please guide my hands.”

  “No one has seen it in centuries,” Griff said reverently as Blaze grasped the hilt.

  Blaze felt a current unlike any he’d ever experienced. It zapped from the sword to his palm and fingers, up his forearm to his biceps, triceps, shoulder and down to his chest. It hit his heart with a painful jolt that made his ears ring with a shout he never loosed. The metal warmed in his hand and seemed to throb. A swell of power thrummed throughout his body.

  “Blaze.” Griff placed a hand over his own heart. “You…your eyes. All of you…”

  Blaze didn’t get to hear the rest of what Griff was saying. A fiend appeared behind Griff, as if transported there.

  Blaze roared as the creature doubled in size and raised razor-sharp talons over Griff’s head. Blood dripped from them as Griff spun around.

  Griff neither screamed nor shrank back. He raised one hand and sent a bright ball of green and gold flames at the fiend.

  The flames hit the creature, and the fiend shrieked, stumbling back.

  Blaze moved with a speed he had never before possessed. The sword hummed. He felt it, heard it, and his heartbeat aligned with that song.

  It empowered him, and he surged past Griff. The sword’s musical sound grew louder as it sliced through the air.

  Those green and gold flames had done some damage to the fiend, but nothing like the sword slicing through flesh and bone. Blaze had never held such a mighty weapon, one so finely made that it could cut through a living being like it was nothing of substance at all.

  He was equal parts horrified and intrigued as he watched Synchrony cut the fiend in half. Some small part of his brain was reminded that, for all Blaze knew of the creatures, they could be boneless, hence the ease of doing what he’d just done.

  Except he saw white bones before the blood and entrails went everywhere.

  “Oh…oh gods!” Griff spun around and retched.

  Blaze wanted to reach for him and comfort Griff, but the sword was a living thing in his grasp, and it was mightier than he was.

  There was no releasing the beast he’d been handed. His fingers wouldn’t obey his mind’s command to do so.

  Blaze was jerked a foot forward. “Griff! Griff!”

  Griff wiped at his chin and mouth. “Mmph.”

  “GRIFF!” Blaze shrieked because he was being pulled away from his bonded. “The sword is—ow!”

  “About to dislocate your shoulder.” Griff ran over to him. “Let it lead. It won’t stop until its task is complete.”

  Blaze could barely keep up with it. He wasn’t even certain his feet were touching the ground.

  Griff ran behind him. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

  Blaze got it. Griff hadn’t known he’d end up being attached to the bossiest sword in all of existence.

  But it was a good thing he was, because the moment the rest of the fiends came into view, Blaze’s mind recoiled in horror. His fears were, apparently, numerous after all. He saw Griff dead, dying, in agony. There was Fyre being eviscerated and his parents in various stages of decay.

  Blaze saw it all in the blink of an eye, then his arm was swinging, his feet moving in a skillful dance he shouldn’t have known.

  He saw Grlind, bleeding and down, heard Jade screaming, but what was real and what was a nightmare, he couldn’t say. When he sliced through one Fyre lookalike, it almost killed Blaze.

  Then there was Griff, on his knees, begging for his life.

  “Blaze!” Griff shouted. “Kill it!”

  That voice came from behind Blaze. Whether he’d have listened to it if he’d had the choice, Blaze would never know, because the sword called, and it took. There was nothing he could do but watch in complete horror as Synchrony speared the kneeling Griff right through the heart.

  Blaze screamed. He was going to lose his mind! He couldn’t—

  “I’m here!” Griff grabbed him, all but climbing onto Blaze. “I’m right here. I’m always going to be here, with you. See? The sword isn’t trying to get me.”

  Blaze gasped and gasped until his world stopped spinning and the insane chaos in his head slowed down. “Griff?”

  Griff was in front of him, holding him, arms wrapped around Blaze’s middle. “Right here. I’ll hang on. We’ll fight together.”

  “It was you,” Blaze got out as his arm was jerked up and outward again. “Gods, they’re all you!” Every one of the fiends had morphed into a matching version of Griff.

  Jade bellowed and leapt on one of them. Grlind shot up from the ground, a gash in his chest, but undeterred as he tackled another fiend. Blaze was faced with two.

  “Close your eyes,” Griff whispered. “Now you have the sword to guide you, and me, right here.”

  Blaze tried to close his eyes, but he saw the sword driving through the body of the fiend that had taken on Griff’s appearance. He might never be able to close his eyes again.

  Griff unwound from him and leapt toward the sword.

  Blaze shouted, but Griff only grabbed the hilt, his hand covering Blaze’s as much as possible.

  “I’m right here,” Griff said. “We’re together.” Tiny lines appeared around the outer edges of his eyes and framed the corners of his mouth. “Now!”

  Pain burned down Blaze’s hand and arm, following the path the power had taken moments earlier.

  Something was wrong, something was off, but he didn’t have time to figure out what. The sword was leading him—and Griff—and the battle raged on.

  There would be no losing to the fiends this time. Blaze knew it as surely as he knew his soul was now forever darkened.

  Chapter Thirty

  Two things occurred to Griff as he clung to Blaze. The first was that he hadn’t known he could call on a goddess. He couldn’t have named the deities had his life depended on it before that moment when he’d reached for Ahndwa’s help.

  Second, the Sword of Synchrony was possessing Blaze, at least to a degree.