53. A BREAKING TO REND THE WORLD
Chapter fifty-three
A brEAKING TO REND THE WORLD
Rian
N uala was exhausted from being on her feet for too long. Carrick and I had been sure to get her as many breaks as we could, finding places where she could sit whilst we were conducting business on behalf of Asha and Ivie. When it was necessary, I carried her without question for the longer walks between shops, or we would simply portal even if the distance was small.
But the city was enormous and bustling with every sort of fey in Autumn, and it was very nearly overwhelming for the witch. I caught her often staring up at the sky with a childlike wonder, but then she would cringe from loud sounds or people passing by too closely. I had her warded, and I wore a hood, so no one recognized her as a witch or me as the Autumn Prince. I was also sure to take her to the quieter parts of the city and to prevent her from being jostled or touched by anyone but me or Carrick.
The witch was an enigma. I was sure after the way she had borderline commanded me to take her with me the day before that she would now desire some independence. Perhaps even protest me carrying her or insist on picking her own clothes, but she was back to being submissive. Quiet, soft, and always looking up at me for her answers and for decisions to be made.
It was confusing, perhaps a little concerning, how she could go from one to the other so quickly, but I attributed it to trauma and decision fatigue. Although the warning Darragh had given was still bothering me and so was the conversation with her about how much she could See. And how much of it she would tell me.
I felt badly that I had probably asked too much of her when we got home, and Nuala went to curl up on my bed. She slept for a couple of hours during which time I helped my uncle organize the crates he was taking back to his village and read the letter Ornella had written.
It was good. The perfect mixture of our urgency and the right touch of personal appeal for her friend to meet her mate. Her words about Sage were deeply touching. Much more raw and honest than I was expecting.
I put my seal upon it, so there could be no doubt I had endorsed the letter and the meeting it called for, and then sent it with an official envoy. Hopefully it reached Amira and her mate in the next day or so, and I was tentatively hopeful that it would at least get us a meeting with them.
“You are brooding,” Carrick advised with amusement, drawing my attention to where he was finishing up with cataloging the crates. We had been chatting lightly while we worked, but I realized I’d been sitting in silence on the couch and staring down at my hands.
“I will miss you,” I told him honestly, and he looked up in surprise. “And I am sorry.”
Carrick’s expression cleared and then he smiled.
“There is no need to apologize, Rian. I overstepped.”
I was not satisfied. “Any advice for me, Uncle?”
“You want it now?” he verified with a teasing smile, and then he looked toward my bedchamber when I merely raised my brows expectantly. “Take gentle care with her. I’ll not question your arrangement with her, it was clear to me today that it is beneficial to her. But she is of a strong mind and will not be content with that arrangement long. And yet, there is… fragility in her heart. A wounded thing that could be as dangerous as it is useful to you.”
There was silence as I worked up the courage to tell him what I needed to say.
“She can touch my shadows.”
He froze, mild horror and then confusion in his eyes before he tilted his head thoughtfully. I knew that he was shifting through his wealth of knowledge as a miotas and keeper of lore in Sage’s teine .
“Did she give reasons for this ability?” he asked me, and I could tell he was trying to keep his voice calm.
“Only that she is mine. And evidently I cannot hurt what is mine.”
He blinked at me, looking startled, and then he began to nod thoughtfully again.
“It requires some thought. In the meantime—”
éadrom growled from my bedchamber, a warning that had me across the room without thought in a second.
Nuala was sitting up in my bed, and I couldn’t even be distracted by the fact that éadrom was curled up with her on the mattress. Her eyes were glowing white without any fire in front of her to See into and a reddish-brown mark that I did not recognize had appeared on her forehead.
“Rian,” she whispered, her milky eyes unblinking and her face eerily blank. “There is so much death…”
I rushed into the room, sitting on the bed, and Carrick followed me in to stand near us while I grabbed Nuala’s limp hand to squeeze.
“What is happening?” I demanded, and she tilted her head just slightly as if she were trying to See more for me. And her blank face grew tense with confusion.
“I cannot See anything. Nothing but blinding white. Nothing but cold and unfeeling light. But I feel it, Rian. Such anguish and death. Such loss and heartbreak.”
I was about to ask how close it was to try and gauge what I should do, or if there was even anything I could do, but then I felt it as well. I heard the rending like fabric tearing deep in my essence that belonged to the Tithriall. Leaving me breathless and torn.
My skin prickled, and my magic stirred when the air seemed to heat and become charged with immense energy that was moving quickly somewhere in the Four Courts. Unfathomable magic moving and changing and…
Collapsing.
I looked up to meet Carrick’s eyes, and he felt it too, which meant that this was happening now . This was not a vision from Nuala nor one of my own premonitions.
“It is starting,” she confirmed, and then she blinked, clearing away the white from her eyes as the marking on her forehead disappeared again.
What is happening? Sage wanted to know, his voice a frantic plea down the bond, but I was as uncertain.
éadrom bristled, half rising over Nuala on the bed as if he meant to protect her, and the sound of hooven feet in the main room of my tent sent me to my feet. I pushed Carrick back, drew my sword and allowed my shadows to leap readily into my palms as I strode out.
Only to see one of my Spring Court fey spies sinking to his furry knees before the satyr gave a hollow cry.
“Finley! What happened?” I demanded, banishing my magic and sheathing my blade before running to him. There did not appear to be any blood on him, but he was wailing like he’d just lost everything.
“Balor… took his court… Thousands of kelpies went with him into the Vale… The Spring Court is collapsing… There is no stopping it now,” he sobbed.
The sheer horror of what he was telling me made me slow to react, but then a thundering rage filled my veins. My hands rose away from Finley as my power writhed with a dangerous fury inside me and leaked into the air.
Everyone to me, now! We ride to the Vale, I sent the command down the bond to all the riders I could reach, and then rose to summon my armour.
I felt a hand on my arm and turned to find Nuala who was shaking her head at me frantically.
“Rian, do not go,” she urged.
“I have to! Fey are dying,” I reminded her as the others began to arrive, all of them wearing their armour except for Sage who had given his to Ornella. But Nuala pulled on me with a strength that was surprising from a mortal before I could command Ornella to summon her own.
“Rian. Do. Not. Go!” she insisted firmly.
I wavered, weighing the look of fear in her eyes for a moment before I took her hand and gently prised her fingers free from my armour.
“I must,” I insisted, and then I turned to my riders because time was of the essence, and we needed to move.
“There is no saving the Spring Court, but we can portal as many of our people out as possible,” I told them.
“Where? They cannot stay here,” Sage reminded me. “They will be diminished.”
“We will have to take them to the Spring Quadrant in the Vale,” I admitted, spitting the words in resentment before turning to Ornella. “You need your armour.”
“Rian!” shouted Nuala, grabbing at my arm again. “Do not do this. I cannot See, there is too much light, but there is something sinister waiting for—”
“I will be back,” I assured her, “my brothers will be there with me, and we will protect one another.”
“Rian—” Carrick tried to speak from where he stood at the entrance to my bedchamber.
I did not have the time to reassure them, more people were dying while we stood arguing, so I turned away.
“I am sorry, but I cannot stand by while millions of fey are lost like this. I just cannot do that!” I shouted. Hold her back , I added to Darragh when I saw that Nuala was lunging for me again.
I tuned out her screams to focus on casting my mind into the Tithriall that was in writhing chaos. It took much more concentration and strength of will for me to push through and latch onto where we needed to be. The place where I could sense the biggest concentration of fey.
And then I formed a portal to the Vale with my riders right behind me, and Nuala’s screams echoing behind.
The Wild Hunt stepped through the portal as one, and I closed it quickly behind us to prevent Nuala or Carrick or any of the vargr from coming through after us. Enraged as I was at what had happened, I had no intention to fight. Our only priority was getting as many Spring Court fey to safety as possible, and vargr were too unpredictable. Although I’d happily allow them to tear all the griffins apart when it came time to deal with this tragedy.
We were in the Spring Quadrant and surrounded by griffins and Spring fey who all bristled at our arrival.
“Ornella!” screamed a woman, and I saw a dark-haired female in silk robes standing among the griffins. She was the only one with them who was dressed the same without any wings so I knew it must be the witch called Amira.
The same witch we had just dispatched that letter to in a bid for negotiation.
My attention snagged on the biggest portal I had ever seen through which Spring Court fey were streaming in the dozens trying to escape certain doom.
“Portals,” I ordered my riders, and they all complied, allowing me to direct them mentally so dozens of escape routes opened up to every location where we had people. Multiple portals in every major city I could remember. Some of those places were already lost, and it felt like my mind was clawing through smoke to grab onto what was no longer there, but I focused through the horror.
Our portals were not transparent like the one through which Balor must have come, but we could faintly hear the screams through ours. There was a pause, and Sage tensed like he would run into one of the portals to start directing people into it, but I forbade it.
We waited, and finally people started to come through, crying as they collapsed to the ground.
“Rian! Thank the gods,” sobbed an elfin woman whom I recognized as one of our trackers who had been trying to find Balor before he did something like this. She clenched a child that I was sure was not her own. “Everyone who could portal fled and left us all behind,” she cried.
I knelt next to her wordlessly and placed a hand on her shoulder as she bowed her head over the child and cried. While I stared through the big portal, watching as the Spring Court was gradually consumed in darkness. I did not know what it was, perhaps the nothingness of the place in which the world had been created.
One by one, our portals were closed with wisps of black that quickly faded as each location was destroyed. One fey lost his arm coming through just as it collapsed, but Ornella instantly leapt forward to heal him.
And still I knelt and watched through the giant portal as the Spring Court was destroyed. Tears tumbled down my cheeks as I beheld it. Helpless to do anything else.
And then our last portal closed in a puff of smoke just before the darkness hit the big portal and swallowed the crowd of fey still trying to come through…
The portal warbled and closed, and the Spring Court was forever lost. I could not move for many moments as the final waft of its scent faded in the air around me.
This was my fault. My failure. I had ferried thousands of fey home over the years only for them to die there…
My heart felt like it split open wide, the anguish was crippling, and my magic roiled in ready response.
I took my hand away from the female elf before I felt my magic bleeding out of my pores. It moved in me with a violence that made this young world tremble .
I rose slowly and turned, feeling my riders behind me while I faced the griffins and King Balor with them.
“ You ,” I snarled, my rage a palpable thing when I set eyes on the treacherous king who had the gall to smirk at me like he had won some game.
All of the fey kneeling around us swiftly regained their feet and began to disperse into the forest. Fleeing from what they knew must be coming now that I had Balor in my sights. I had not meant to start a fight, but after what I had borne witness to, I would not be restrained.
“Do not come any closer,” someone commanded, and I tore my gaze from Balor to look at the griffin standing just in front of him. He was dressed in golden armour and a crown with his wings tensing readily. At his side was that witch who was staring behind me at Ornella.
“You must be King Riordan,” I spat at him in disgust as more of my shadows hemorrhaged into the air.
Do not hurt the witch, Sage cautioned me, but I made no promises. Not after this egregious crime.
Riordan eyed my riders and my shadows. He did not look nearly as terrified as he should be, and there was a cruel part of me that relished the thought of showing him how foolish he was for it. How quickly and easily I could take absolutely everything from him if I wanted to.
Then the Griffin King reached down and unsheathed a strange blade very calmly from his belt.
“There are five riders in the Wild Hunt, are there not? Where is the other?” he demanded.
I didn’t know why he wanted to know, but I certainly was not giving him answers. Especially not while he was holding a Sylvan blade that was possibly the only weapon that would repel my magic. I understood why he was not afraid since he must think himself invincible now with such a weapon in his hands. As if I could not still bleed his power from the world around him. Although I was unsure why he set the tip of it against his own finger like he was about to cut himself instead.
Darragh hissed at the very sight of it, but I held up my hand for him to be still.
“I had no quarrel with you, Griffin King. Until today. You will answer for the millions of fey who just lost their lives because of what you have done.”
“No quarrel with me?” Riordan repeated with a scoff. “You kidnap my people, you hunt for the fey monarchs to consume their power, and you did not think that I would take any issue with that?”
“Riordan, you do not understand!” Ornella shouted at him before I could speak up. “He was protecting the fey! That darkness has infected all the Four Courts—”
“Lies!” shouted King Balor, storming forward to stand at Riordan’s side with a glance down at the Sylvan blade. “He has lied to you, child!” he swore to Ornella with an admirable performance before narrowing his eyes at me. “This has all been his doing. His unnatural magic poisons the Tithriall as he leeches from it, and he knows it!”
I desperately wanted to be logical, to keep control of my power, but his accusation could boil my blood.
“You abandoned your people knowing your departure would doom the Spring Court. And when I am done with you, Balor, you will beg for the chance to make the right choice and put your people first for once.”
His rage was palpable as he looked over at Riordan in expectation, but the Griffin King was looking right back at him and waiting for an explanation. He was not quite as big a fool as I initially suspected. He might not trust me, but I was sure he knew Balor was not trustworthy either.
The Spring King seethed, and instead of engaging in a conversation he must know would end with him being forced to relinquish his power to a younger successor…
He reached over with immense speed and jerked on Riordan’s arm. A seemingly innocuous action, except that it caused the griffin to slice his finger on that blade.
The king hissed as his blood dripped on the ground, and I felt a ripple pass through the air. I was sure it was a summoning but for what ? It was a Sylvan blade, but they were forbidden from walking in mortal planes. Although I supposed that did not mean they may not be able to send something else in their stead…
I could almost hear Nuala’s frantic voice in my head. Blinding white light…. Something sinister waiting…
“Ornella!” called the witch, beckoning for her friend, but the dryad immediately pressed closer to Sage.
It was time to go before whatever Riordan’s blood had called arrived. I attempted to form a portal behind us so we could keep the enemy in sight and back through it.
Except that my power bumped against a crystalline magic that burned mine with a startling coldness.
No. No, no, no, no…
I looked at King Riordan, but he was not looking at us anymore, rather his head tilted up like he was listening. Balor grinned at me as he relished my realization that we were trapped while Amira, the fire witch, stared up at him before she met my eyes with a dawning horror.
“Run,” she told me unexpectedly, earning her a glance from several griffins. “Go before they come. Go now !”
If only we could get away, then I would have, but the trap had been sprung.
“Did you destroy the Spring Court just to lure me here, along with those I love most, to be slaughtered?” I snarled at Riordan, my voice wavering from the force of my rage. Because if this had all been deliberate then I did not care if Ornella never forgave me for it.
I would burn every griffin city to the ground.
I ignored the other riders all shuffling nervously at my words before I felt them also reaching for home only to be rebuffed by that cold magic. My attention was focused on the Griffin King who looked shocked at my accusation.
“I did not destroy the Spring Court.”
He did, but at least he was an unwitting accomplice of that particular crime.
“But you did plan to bring me here, and you wanted to ensure that all my brothers were here to share my fate too. That is why you asked where the other rider was.”
Riordan did not answer as his attention shifted to the males behind me. Still worrying that he had missed one.
I could almost always find it in myself to forgive someone for a crime committed against me .
But he came after my brothers . He came for all that I had left in this world. All that I loved most.
My eyes shifted down to the little witch clenching his arm as my magic began to roil with vengeful resolution. Time was undoubtedly short now, but I knew just where to strike to hurt him as much as he was about to hurt me.
“Rian, no!” shouted Sage when he sensed my intention just before a bright light erupted and blinded me.
The same white light that blinded Nuala no doubt.
When I was able to lower my hand again, I saw there were three figures in veils and robes of shimmering white standing between me and the griffins. They were deathly still and such terrible coldness radiated from them that the grass wilted at their feet.
“ Fuck ,” uttered Ornella from behind. An unfamiliar curse but it felt right nonetheless.
“Scrios,” hissed the Sylvan Elf in the middle, their veil not even moving from their breath despite how harshly they had spoken.
“You should not be here,” I chastised them with a false bravado, suddenly wishing that I had listened to Nuala. “I’m thinking someone will be very displeased to feel you intervening in the affairs of the mortal plane.”
“ Someone is distracted. Just long enough for us to deal with you at last,” answered one of the other elves.
Run. They want me, so please just run while I distract them for as long as I can! Once they have left this plane, you will be able to portal home, I begged my brothers.
Absolutely not , was the consensus.
We are here with you, Sage assured me, a strong and calming presence. They cannot stay long. We just need to survive them until the Mavaari come to remove them.
“Me?” I added aloud to the elves, desperate to keep them talking as long as possible. There is no need for all of you to get caught up in their vendetta! I am the only one with Shadow in my blood! I insisted down the bond. “I’m truly flattered, but this is a little low for you, isn’t it? You cannot face the Mavaari, so you will stoop to taking it all out on me? A lowly aes sídhe,” I taunted the elves.
One of them tilted their head with a preternatural grace that was horrifying.
“We are not here for you , Scrios,” said one with just a hint of smugness in their voice. And as I watched them in confusion, all three veiled heads turned toward my riders. Toward my cousin…
Toward Sage. The Light Wraith.
“No,” I snarled at them immediately, stepping forward as the ferocity of my rage threatened to unleash my magic with an unforgiving wrath. “You will not touch him.”
The other riders stepped in front of Sage, even Ornella who he tried to push aside, but she remained planted right in front of him. Her hands behind her and clenching on him as if she were terrified to let go of him.
“We thought you might feel that way,” admitted one of the elves, sounding rather pleased.
I was no match for these creatures that were not gods but something far older than the earth. The tiny drop of magic which they hated so vehemently in my blood was nothing compared to the ageless power of the stars.
But I would die before they took Sage.
The middle one stepped forward, and I struck with all my might, uncaring who I hurt in front of me. My magic ripped out of me so forcefully it shredded and desiccated all living things—plants, trees, grass—and the shock wave rumbled through the ground. It was thunderous enough to take nearby fey and griffins off their feet, but there was a shield of Light in front of them that prevented me from devouring them.
And where my magic hit that Light, it recoiled.
I dug deeper, delving into the depths of my power, and for the first time in my life, I let it all pour out of me into the world. Unchecked. Unrestrained. A force of death and destruction that began to eat everything living around me. Consuming until I felt the fabric of the Griffin King’s magic fraying all around us.
“Rian, stop! You will rupture the wards of the Vale!” someone screamed at me.
But I was holding them back. I had created a barrier of shadow that the elves could not seem to cross, and I did not care that it was cleaving the Vale in half if it kept my cousin away from them.
Rian, please, you can’t do this! There are fey here! Sage objected, but I ignored him. He may decide never to speak to me again after this, and I still would not have a moment of regret, so long as he was safe.
I love you, cousin. I am sorry, I told him before I shut him out of my mind so thoroughly that there was no way he could try and smother my power like he did before.
I held my shield even as magic began snapping around us like threads of a tapestry, and I could feel that Riordan was trying to respond. The Griffin King desperately tried to hold his kingdom together while I cleaved it apart.
“Go back to the stars where you belong,” I snarled at the Sylvan, my voice strained. “You will not have him.”
I could see the Sylvan Elves through the dark haze of my shadows as they hissed at me, their hands all raised, but they were unable to pass through my shadows. I saw the Griffin King go to his knees, the witch and another warrior grabbing his shoulders to support him as he put his hands right against the quaking earth.
It was bleeding. The ground was leaking tendrils of his magic as I sliced through them and sipped from them like a vampire from a vein.
“You would tear this place asunder!” hissed one elf as if they had just come to this horrifying realization.
“I would ,” I answered them unflinchingly.
Get Sage out of here! I commanded Darragh forcefully. Do not shift. I do not want them coming for you next!
I felt his shock, confirming my suspicions about him, about where he came from, and the demidragon complied with my order. Now that he saw I might actually be able to hold the elves off by myself, he grabbed my cousin to haul him away, and the others grudgingly retreated too.
The elves screamed their fury, a piercing keen that was raw and primal, and chilled me to the bone, but I could not help smiling at them in triumph.
“Go back to where you belong and do not ever come for my family again,” I warned them.
“Very well, Spawn. If you care so little for this world, then we have no choice but to risk destroying it for you.”
And then everything exploded . My magic was erupting out of me, and then it was scalded so hot that it seemed to hollow me out. The darkness all bled out of me, and it felt like my insides had been torn out. My ears were ringing, but my perception of sound gradually came back as blood began to roll down my upper lip.
“Rian!” The first thing I heard was Sage shouting.
Go , was all that I could think at him as I hit my knees. Keep running, I commanded all of them.
That cabin flashed into my mind. I saw the familiar kitchen, bright and filled with bundles of drying herbs, and the dark-haired woman stood at the stove with her back to me. The scent of cooking food permeated the air, and one of her fair-haired children stood next to her on a wooden stool to watch her mother.
I felt hands on my shoulders that jolted me out of the vision as Ciaran tried to drag me to safety before a cold air blasted, and I felt him thrown away from me.
I was choking on blood. I had not realized until it came pouring out of my mouth and dribbled over my chin.
An elf was standing right in front of me now with their shimmering robes flecked with my green blood.
They hissed at me in pure disgust.
“You were stronger than we thought you to be, Scrios. But you were not strong enough.”
And then they held their palm open to me as if to show me something. An orb of Light.
I did not understand until they grabbed my shoulder, burning me even through my armour, and drove that fist with the ball of starlight straight into my chest. I could vaguely hear people screaming, but all I could focus on was the sensation of my insides being flayed apart.
“Burn away now, Shadow,” the elf sneered at me as they stepped back from me.
Magic filled the air. I could feel all my riders trying to defend me, but none of it was a match for this power.
GO! I screamed at them. But they would not.
I turned my attention inward, trying in vain to find a scrap of shadow to shield myself from the blaze of a star burning me up from the inside. My hands tore at my own flesh in an attempt to claw it out of me so that I could find a way to protect them.
Then I heard Ornella screaming. Screaming like her world was cleaving, and I did not need to look to know that the elves had taken Sage.
I roared out the pain and rage, lifting my bleary eyes to see my cousin dragged behind one of them like he was nothing. Like he was less than nothing. Vines and tree roots erupted out of the ground, desperately grabbing onto him to try and stop them from taking him, but they all snapped. Sage’s own inferno of flames were smothered as if they were utterly insignificant.
The elf took him, walking straight into a light that flared briefly, and then dimmed.
Gone. He was gone .
I realized one of the elves was still standing in front of me and watching me. Waiting, I supposed, for their Light to kill me, and keeping my brothers away until it did.
“You are just as tenacious as your ancestors.”
“You will die for taking him,” I managed to choke out, my blood spraying on their shimmering robes again.
“I cannot die. But I would not say the same for you.”
I became aware of Ornella utterly unravelling behind me with screams that sounded of such a breaking that it would rend the world faster than my shadows. Her magic raged wildly, the sky dark and wrathful as wind and hail battered griffins and fey alike. Thunder roared and bolts of lightning stabbed so rapidly and viciously at the earth that it set the forest on fire around us. Any trees that had escaped my magic were writhing around the clearing that I’d made like her anguish had become their own.
But powerful as the dryad princess was, all of it railed uselessly against the shield of Light that the elf had cast around me to prevent my being rescued.
And then, in her grief, while she was grabbing onto every ounce of magic inside her to throw at the Sylvan, she stumbled upon something unexpected.
“Impossible,” hissed the elf standing in front of me a second before a bright light burst out of the dryad. It was almost as bright as the one that eradicated my shadows, but this one was not directed at me.
I heard a shrill keening, like water whistling, and when I was able to look up, I saw that she had finally blasted through the shield around me. Obliterating it until it was nothing but a shimmer of Stardust floating in the air.
The elf was shocked, trembling in either rage or fear, before Ornella turned her whole attention on them with her mate’s Light igniting in the veins of her arms. And she screamed so loudly and furiously that it seemed to shake the earth as she imploded in Light again.
Light that obliterated everything before it.
Trees turned to ash, earth was scorched and cracked, and the few fey and griffins foolish enough to linger were incinerated with the exception of all those near Amira.
Ornella’s rage and fury was such as I had never heard until she hit some kind of edge to her magic and abruptly hit her knees, gasping in breaths that sounded painful.
But the elf was gone. I did not think they were dead, but they had fled before Ornella’s wrath.
Ciaran grabbed me, heaving me up over his shoulder as he retreated to a portal where Darragh had Ornella who was kicking and pounding on his back.
“Don’t leave him! We can’t leave without Sage!”
Her screams were ignored as we all swept into a portal and fell to the floor of my tent where I felt Nuala grabbing my face. She was yelling something at me, but I could not hear or understand.
I lost Sage. My cousin was gone .