Chapter 31 Serena
SERENA
Shit.
No other word comes to mind as we circle the castle to get a better view of what we’re dealing with. There are so many golden soldiers. They outnumber our armored guards by double.
No, triple.
I expected Kylian to come for me, but I didn’t think it would happen this soon. The fighting is already well underway, shouts floating up to us as we coast along the treetops. I turn back to Jace.
“You’re the Ex-Captain. What’s the order?”
“If we use dragon fire, she’ll take out half our armies, and you’ve never tried to wield before,” he responds over the roaring wind.
“Have Furi drop us inside the gate and tell her to stay close by. We need to make sure the king and the princess are safe, then round up everyone we can and get them out. Kai, Mar, and Dover—stay with Furi. We don’t know if the walls have been breached yet. ”
“I can fight,” Kai protests.
“No,” Mar and I say in unison.
“You’re not back to full strength, and you can’t push it. Not today,” I finish.
Furi, did you get all that?
Yes, Blackblood. She veers down at a sharp angle.
Be careful, girl.
Jace, Zadyn, and I leap off, the dirt ground of the outer courtyard meeting us with a thud and stealing our breath.
It hurts like a bitch, but we’re up in a matter of seconds, Zadyn immediately shifting into the biggest beast he can muster.
I’m well stocked on knives thanks to Jace, who opts for his usual swords and skilled phantom hands.
Stop thinking about his skilled phantom hands.
We cut our way to the towering doors, hurling out our gifts to take down every golden soldier in our way. The halls are pure chaos, bloodied servants running, tripping over the bodies of nobles scattered across the floor.
We burst into the council room to find bloodstains all over the table.
Jace shifts the massive hunk of wood aside in an impressive show of strength and heaves open a trapdoor in the floor.
We peer down into a black hole, and I breathe a sigh of relief when Sorscha’s big doe eyes peer up at us.
She holds a trembling blonde female in her arms. Cece.
“It’s you! Oh, thank gods.” She clasps her chest, and the horrified look on her face recedes. Her gaze shifts to me. “Cousin.”
“Are you hurt?” Jace pants, cutting off my response. The princess shakes her head. “Where is your father?”
“He made us promise to stay here and not to come out.”
Jace and I exchange a look.
Then a crashing boom rips through the air. I’m momentarily blinded as shards of stained glass rain down on us. The girls scream as Jace and Zadyn both leap for me. Jace gets there first, tackling me to the ground and covering me with his body.
Black smoke rolls in, letting us know that the castle is now on fucking fire.
I scan the room for Zadyn. He’s in one piece, still in OrCat form.
Jace scrambles off me, reaching down to pull Sorscha and Cece out from their bunker.
“Get them out of here,” he says to Zadyn. “Get to the edge of the woods and have Furi pick them up. Serena, tell her they’re coming and to be ready.”
I nod as Zadyn nudges Sorscha’s leg. When she doesn’t move, Jace picks her up and plops her on Zadyn’s back, then does the same with Cece.
He hesitates, looking back at me. Jace places his hand on Zadyn’s furry head and says, “I’ve got her. Now go.”
I watch him disappear through the blown-out window with the girls.
Furi, we’ve got an incoming. Zadyn’s on his way with the princess and Cece.
On it.
“Oh my god.” My breath catches when I see the massive army in the distance, charging over the hill.
The rising smoke. The field turned battleground. The bodies littered across the lawns.
Kylian’s vision is coming true.
I grip Jace’s sleeve. “We have to find Derek.”
He nods, taking my hand and pulling me into the smoke-clogged hall. We’re holding our breath, pushing through the thick haze, when a body slams into me full force.
I blink and stumble back a step. “Igrid?”
She stands before me, frantic and disheveled, tears streaking her freckled face.
“Oh gods, you’re here!” She throws her arms around my neck. It’s then that I notice the cluster of terrified women and children behind her.
I pull back. “Are you alright?”
“It happened so fast, I rounded up as many people as I could—”
“We need to get them out of here,” I say to Jace.
“The tunnels are the safest place for them.”
She shakes her head. “I couldn’t get to everyone—”
Before I can respond, a cluster of golden soldiers bursts through the smoke and charges at us. Igrid’s huddle shrieks as Jace shoves me behind him and lunges forward.
“Serena go! Get them out of here!”
“I can’t leave you!”
Jace’s sword slashes through the air, burying itself in the neck of one of the soldiers. I cringe.
“I could do this in my sleep, now go,” he shouts.
A few of the soldiers fall to their knees, clutching their necks and gasping for air. Jace whirls to me, clutching my arms, his voice urgent. “Get to the kitchens. There’s a trapdoor inside the pantry. Go now!”
I don’t budge.
“If you don’t, they will die. Please. I’ll find you.”
He jerks me forward, pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead. Then he shoves me toward Igrid and turns back to his fight.
I swallow my panic as I stealthily lead the group down the steps toward the kitchens. We’re almost in front of the throne room when I see the Stryga materialize before me. There are four or five of them heading right for us.
I pivot to Igrid. “Run. Take them and don’t come out.”
“Serena, no—”
“Go!”
She breaks away from me, cerulean eyes torn and brimming with tears as she and her group steal around the corner.
I race into the throne room, luring the Stryga in after me.
A line of fire shoots from my palms and slams into them, but they don’t stop.
I reach for my dagger, slicing a clean line through one’s throat.
Hot blood sprays across my face and pools on the polished marble tiles. I take an involuntary step back.
Razor-sharp pain slices across my arm. I glance down at the four symmetrical slits on my leather sleeve and the blood welling beneath. The creature swings again. I duck just in time to sink the knife into its back.
Hurried footsteps sound down the hall. I whirl as Derek appears beneath the archway, followed by a few of his guards.
“Serena,” he breathes.
And in that moment, it’s not the king standing there. It’s not Derek.
It’s my dad.
I can’t help it. I do the thing I’ve been dying to do since the moment I arrived in this strange world, since the moment I saw him on his throne of diamonds, regarding me with violent distaste.
I rush toward him and throw my arms around his neck. He catches me, staggering back a step. Instead of shoving me off like I expected, he hugs me back. His familiar scent washes over me, and my throat seizes up.
“I prayed to the gods for your safe return.”
I pull back to look at the perplexed expression on his face as he reads the emotion striking me stupid.
Blinking back tears, I say, “I’ll catch you up on everything over dinner tonight. If we survive this.”
He breaks into a wide grin, crinkling his kind eyes. “I look forward to that.”
Together, we turn to face the next round of Stryga as they pour into the room.
I fall into a killing trance, my motions fluid and streamlined as I cut through the wall of horrific creatures. Derek wields his power in an impressive display, alternating between his sword and the spears of ice shooting from his palms.
I dance around a beast double my height, matching it stride for stride.
It knocks the dagger from my hand as I skirt around the marble pillar, swiping the flagpole from its place and snapping it over my knee.
I ignore the pain radiating up my leg as I come around the other side and drive the jagged end into its gut.
Metal clangs against marble. I spin toward the sound. Derek’s sword is on the floor. His boot catches on the dais and he falls backward. The beast before him lifts its lethal claws.
No.
I grip the other half of the flagpole and hurl it forward like a spear. It flies through the air in a smooth line, finding its target. The Stryga freezes, then hits the ground with the pole protruding from its chest.
Derek glances at me, stunned, as I bend to scoop up my dagger and his sword.
“Jace is upstairs.” I jog over and help pull him up. “We need to get to him.”
Derek nods. We race out of the throne room and up the steps. My heart locks in my throat as we pass a window in the hall and I see Jace facing off with a golden soldier on the thin ledge between towers.
I clutch Derek’s arm, pulling him to a stop. His eyes widen as he sees what I’m seeing.
“This way,” he says.
Derek leads us onto a bridge running parallel to Jace.
He hurls out his power from across the way, sending a spear of ice into the chest of Jace’s opponent.
Screams fill the air as he plummets to his death.
Jace wheels toward us, dark hair beaded with sweat.
He makes an impressive leap onto our bridge, and Derek folds him in an embrace, clapping him on the back like a proud father.
“Jace.” I tug his arm as another cluster of golden soldiers spills onto the bridge after us.
He tosses his sword in the air and sends it slicing through our assailants, freeing his hands to draw two daggers.
The way he fights is beautiful. Easy in a way it shouldn’t be. Everything about him is calm and deadly.
Shards of ice continue to spray from Derek’s palms, skewering the golden soldiers as they topple back over the stone ledges.
I think we’re actually doing pretty well.
Until a dozen Stryga arrive on the bridge.
I’m flooded with relief when the falcon circling overhead drops down beside me and a certain familiar OrCat pops up in his place.
Zadyn takes out two or three Stryga at a time in his lupine form, which would be super useful if they would just fucking stay dead.
“Serena, one of those banshee screams would be helpful right about now,” Jace tosses over his shoulder as he lifts a Stryga into the air and impales them on a spike.
“I’m not exactly sure how I did it last time without killing you all,” I quip, my voice sing-songy.
“It’s easy. Just open your big mouth and let it rip.” He grunts, thrusting his blade through the horned skull of another grizzly creature.
“Cover me.”
Closing my eyes, I plunge into my well of magic.
The banshee in me is buried in a dark, deep place that I don’t like to touch often. A place that houses every bad thing that’s ever happened to me—every heartbreak, every grudge, every scrap of pain and grief I have ever endured.
She is made of shadows. Of despair. Of rage. I’ve never attempted to summon her at will.
But right now, I need her. We all do.
Fire kisses up my throat, narrowing into a soul-deep scream. The castle trembles—pebbles and towers collapsing in on themselves as I rain chaos and destruction down upon us. I lose myself in the peace of death, purging my buried pain, and the world around me disintegrates.
It’s uncontrollable. I can’t rein it in. It’s going to consume me.
Someone is shaking me. Calling a name I forgot I had.
I blink, jarred out of my trance and spit back into my surroundings.
It is deadly quiet.
The Stryga are gone.
I look from Jace, clutching my arms with wide eyes, to Zadyn, now in his fae form, crouched over something.
Someone.
The world shifts into slow motion as I approach him, pulling his shoulder back to let me through.
The king is dead.