Prince Of Blood And Shadow

Chapter 7

The scene was chaos; decorations lay strewn across the floor, the festive trinkets, and garlands shattered in disarray. As Inias and Styx tore through the room, the colorful display of decorations spilled everywhere. Vayne had hidden the second Inias spotted him, and he didn't have time to play hide and seek. "Yule is ruined..." Inias muttered as he tore through the room, ripping through every box with his hooked claws and causing a colorful display of decorations to spill everywhere on the stone floor.

"Styx, guard the door!" Inias ordered, worried Vayne might slip past them. Styx rushed towards the steel door as Inias continued his assault. Wherever he was hiding, he'd masked his presence. His scent no longer lingered in there, making tracking him difficult. The room wasn't that big, and he would tear through every box pile. There was no scent in the room. Vayne had masked his presence. Moonlight streamed, illuminating the room, but it offered little aid as he frantically searched.

Tree decorations, garland, and various figurines lay shattered on the ground, the only noise filling the silence as he searched the storage room. There were so many answers he needed from him. What was that silhouette, and why stop Keira from finding her brother? He didn't have time to ask any of them. Someone had taken her and all he needed to know was where.

His claws ripped through a thick wooden crate, yanking it across the floor to find a ball of fire coming for his face. "Styx, fetch!" Inias ordered in a panic as he ducked and as the flames passed by him Styx leapt out, extinguishing the flame in his mouth. Inias rolled across the floor and stood as more came his way. The fox moved behind him to catch each before the boxes caught fire. Tendrils of shadow followed behind his fluffy tail as he caught each one.

They were coming from all over the room. Every time one came their way, Vayne seemed to move his position with blinding speed. Styx grew fatigued, crossing the room repeatedly as the flames intensified. If one of them hit anything, the entire room would be up in flames. "Missed me!" Inias taunted, maneuvering through a relentless storm of blazing fireballs within the small space of the storage room. He ran behind boxes, ducking away from the oncoming flames.

Inias tried to get closer but was stopped by more fireballs. One grazed his arm, causing him to cry out as the flames burned at his skin. He snuffed it out and ducked to avoid the next volley of fiery balls. If he could just evade the flames long enough to close the distance between them, he could pin Vayne down. The gap in their physical strength was considerable, but that didn't help Inias when he had fiery projectiles coming from every direction.

He couldn't dodge those flames forever, it would eventually drain his reserves. Inias wasn't sure he could outlast him in such a small space. One would hit him or get past the fox and set the room ablaze. He wasn't giving Inias an inch, overwhelming him with a constant barrage of fireballs and blasts from his fingers. Should've learned some water spells, He thought to himself, watching as Styx struggled to keep up with blocking every projectile before it engulfed anything.

"Keep it up! You'll burn the whole castle down, genius!" Inias cried as he rolled from behind a stack of crates to his feet. "Come on buddy, let's use our words!" He reached into his sleeve and chucked a dart toward the last fireball, only for it to land in the wall. "Just tell me where Keira is, and nobody needs to find out! Except the cleaning crew, I'm sure as hell not cleaning this up." He kept talking, hoping Vayne would tire of his voice and lash out to shut him up.

Suddenly, he emerged from the corner. "Gotcha!" Vayne's triumphant shout echoed through the room as he unleashed a blast of flames straight from his hand. Inias summoned a wall of shadow to shield himself, but the relentless force of Vayne's attack pushed him back, the flames searing through his defenses. The heat intensified, sweat dripping down Inias' forehead as he fought to hold his ground. His raven black hair singed at the ends, and he could feel his scarf catching fire. "So long, my prince!"