35. Chapter 32
Chapter 32
It is important to remember that the five dragons that stayed on Nyth are not the only dragons that ever lived. It is important because each of those dragons has its own strengths, weaknesses, and personalities. Our Great Houses were built on powers of the four that became the Anchors. If, instead of Sidon, another had stayed, our society would be completely different.
~Erevan Morvyn, A History of Magic and Dragons
Maeve
Every muscle hurts. Every joint feels like it’s locked in place. At the same time, I can’t stop smiling. I can feel Cole. I can feel everything.
It’s only been two hours since I brought us back to our chambers, and I still can’t quite believe that the man lying next to me is real. It’s been so long since I felt him. I’ve lived an entire lifetime in the six weeks I’ve been asleep.
There’s a knock on the door, and my Earth senses reach out to see who it is. “It’s King Aric,” I say.
Cole nods to me. “Impressive how quickly word got to him, but I’m sure he specifically told the footmen outside my room to inform him the moment you woke up. He’s been rather insistent that I help protect his kingdom.”
“We said that we would, didn’t we?” I say, my smile never leaving my face. He shrugs, and I know why he didn’t help Aric. He was sitting beside me.
We still have time, though. I can see that truth in Cole’s eyes. Yes, the time is waning, but we’re not beyond success yet. We can still win, and things… have changed .
I’m not the same woman who nearly shattered. I’ve seen a lifetime of memories since I went to sleep. Some of them were blurry, and others were barely more than shadows in the dark, but I have lived my life again, and I understand the truth of so many things.
I create a flawless ruby in my left hand and give it a squeeze, reveling in the way its edges cut at my skin. Cole moves to open the door. King Aric walks into the room and stares at me in shock. I’m sure he remembers the way I looked before. My body is very different from the one that met with him months ago, but since the first time we began talking to him, he’s become ever more aware of how little he knows about Immortals. He’s learning not to assume he knows anything. “Queen Maeve,” he says. “It’s so good to see you awake again. We were worried that you wouldn’t ever wake up.”
“I’m awake and ready to fulfill our promises, King Aric. But we’re going to need help to do so.”
He frowns, his brows knitting together. “What do you need?”
“We need you to maintain eyes on all the Fae that are crossing into any of the kingdoms’ borders, not just your own.”
He’s slow to respond, his elated expression slowly becoming thoughtful. “How am I supposed to do that without inciting numerous wars?”
“Reach out, King Aric. The other kingdoms don’t want these attacks any more than you do, and they also know that they can’t win a fight with the Fae. Let us win those fights for them. You can use us for your own political gain. Trade your help in return for whatever you want. We don’t care what you’re paid to take care of the problem, but we need to be informed whenever any Fae soldiers cross into human territories.”
Aric grins, his entire stature seeming to shift from the worried and struggling leader into the king that we met over a bottle of bad wine. “You want me to make deals with other kingdoms as if you are mine?”
“We don’t care,” I say. “All we care is that you get the information from these other kingdoms. I assume people will be more willing to accept your ‘Fae allies’ as help rather than asking for their help for your ‘Fae allies’.”
He nods emphatically. “Yes, that would be far easier to convince them of. Especially if you took care of the war band that’s been moving inward. Prince Cole, we’ve pulled the people back like you suggested, but they’re getting close to some of the major cities. I don’t know how many cities’ worth of people we can hold here.”
I glance at Cole, who has a questioning look on his face. “Give us the details, and we’ll take care of them,” I say. I’ll go, but I’m not getting into any actual fights. I’ll leave that to Cole. I don’t have the strength to fight. Luckily, I’ve learned a few tricks while I rebuilt my mind.
Aric’s eyes sparkle, and he explains what’s happening.
It feels like a lifetime since I held a spear. Made of solid shadows, it’s so lightweight that a toddler could carry it, but it’s hard enough to stop steel. The only problem is that every time that it touches steel, it drains me.
Luckily, I’ve had a lot of time doing things that most people don’t have time to do. Sitting and thinking. I learned an incredible amount about my powers while I was rebuilding my mind.
I spent many long days revisiting the memories of our battles with a clarity that I doubt any human could ever have.
“Are you sure you’re able to do this?” Cole asks.
I nod to him. “I won’t be able to fight Rhion or take on dozens of soldiers like before, but I’ll be able to handle myself.”
My joints still hurt. I’ve only been awake for a few hours, but this feels good. It feels like the perfect way to remind my body how to move.
The soldiers march into view, all of whom are fully armored and ready for battle. Twelve High Fae, all wearing House of Steel sword and shield insignias on their breastplates. A murmur runs through them at the sight of us, Cole in his crimson red gambeson with all the little coiled pieces of metal, and me in a midnight black dress.
“Ready?” he asks.
“You fight. I’ll support,” I say, and he nods to me.
A steel crossbow bolt launches across the hundred-yard field. My hand lifts, and a glittering ruby plate the size of my head appears in front of Cole. The bolt hits the plate and deflects off while the plate shatters, spraying the ground with shards of gemstone.
I look at the field and then I’m falling through the world. I’m barely all the way into the void before I appear on the opposite side of the battlefield. I throw my hand out again, and the ground shakes as more crossbowmen take aim.
Cole is running across the field, flames exploding from him at the lines of soldiers, blinding them and forcing them to protect their faces. Holes appear in the ground as solid earth disappears. There are screams as legs are broken. They obviously weren’t expecting to fall ten feet. It will give Cole time to maneuver. He doesn’t have the same mobility without the Shadowed Cloak, but he doesn’t seem to need it.
Soldiers move into formation, and he’s in front of them, blinding them with fire as he stabs with his two-handed black-steel sword. It slides by the first soldier’s parry directly into his gorget. The thin metal over his throat gives way to the sword’s sharpened tip, and a massive dent appears. The soldier claws at it, trying to get the armor off as the metal digs into his throat, choking him. Cole doesn’t give him a chance and swings his sword in a heavy slice, the tip connecting with the soldier’s helmet. It knocks him over and gives him another huge dent in the side of the helmet.
That all happens in less than a second while the other six who aren’t in holes are blinded. They’re already attacking him with spears, but he dances away, his sword parrying them as he moves.
I rush at the soldiers in the back of the formation, and my shadow spear drives into the holes that their wings grow from. Four quick stabs have two High Fae gasping for breath with punctured lungs, and I have to retreat. I’m already feeling out of breath.
The soldiers that I didn’t attack whirl around. I’m forcing them to split their attention between Cole and me. I’m ten feet away from them when I reach down and pull liquid stone from under their feet over their boots. Some of them trip. Others stop for a moment, trying to break their connection to the ground. It gives Cole another advantage that he doesn’t seem to need because two more soldiers lay on the ground, massive dents in their helmets, and they’re not moving.
It takes mere moments for him to take down the last few that are still above the holes I created. Half the soldiers were killed in moments, and as the soldiers in holes claw their way up the side since there’s not enough room to fly, Cole lays waste with his sword. He moves like the wind, flashing from one hole to the next. One soldier tries to shoot a crossbow at him, and Cole knocks the bolt out of the air with his sword.
Unlike the six that had stayed out of the holes, these soldiers aren’t being killed with a couple of swift blows. No, there are smashed fingers and severed hands. Many of them fall multiple times. Cole’s eyes scan the holes incessantly, making sure that none of them successfully leave.
It’s time to be done. I raise my hand, and massive blocks of stone the height of a human appear above the holes. It drains my power to create stone of that size, but I have more than enough power since I’ve done nothing magical in almost two months.
They appear in the air and immediately fall. The sound of those stones crushing the High Fae is sickening. Then it’s quiet. After all the steel clanging together, the roaring of flames, and terrible screaming and groaning, the lack of sound feels unnatural.
The forest noises are still there, but compared to only moments prior, my ears barely pick up the wind blowing or the jays crying out.
“That was fast,” Cole says with a grin. “You’ve learned some new tricks with Earth, I see.”
I nod to him. “I… spent a lot of time watching and thinking over the past six weeks. I’ve done some things that were instinctual in the past. Revisiting those memories helped to keep my mind sidetracked enough to get over some of the harder memories.”
I say that last bit without the expected pain. I’d never have imagined that re-experiencing all those painful memories would help me heal from them, but it did. I saw the mistakes I made, but I also saw so many other people’s mistakes. I saw the people I lost, but I also saw all the happiness that I gave them and they gave me.
Reliving those memories helped me to accept what had happened. A lifetime in six weeks. It changed everything.
“Well, it’s impressive. I haven’t seen very many Immortals from the House of Earth fight, but I can’t seem to remember anyone ever creating stones, much less gemstones like that ruby plate you made.”
I grin at him. “That took me a while, actually, and it’s one of the more draining things I’ve done. It’s probably similar to your immolation. I don’t know if it’d be possible to create large stones without the Painted Crown. Making them flow from the ground is a very different thing than creating them.”
He looks me over, and I know he’s seeing more than my physical appearance. Those icy blue eyes are taking in everything.
“You’re really not shattered anymore, are you?” he asks.
I shake my head. “There are some cracks, but they’ll mend. I’d really encourage you not to die, Cole. Especially to the Nothing. But as far as the things that have happened in the past, I think I’ve healed myself. Thanks to you, of course. I was so overwhelmed by the pain that I didn’t think I’d make it. I didn’t think I wanted to make it. All I wanted was for the void to swallow me up. Thank you for… thank you for saving me from myself.”
He saved me, but it’s not like when he saved me from the harpies. He… made me want to save myself. I wasn’t a princess being saved by the knight like in the stories. Cole didn’t fight off the evil. He… he reminded me that there was something I could want, something that might be more important than ending the pain. He lured me out of that terrible place with him as the bait, and I took it.
I relived those terrible memories and watched my family die. Pushing through, I saw so much of my life destroyed. Everything except Cole Cyrus.
“You saved yourself,” Cole whispers as he steps closer to me, his warmth flowing to me through the weightless dress made of shadows. “You did it. I just helped you to remember that you would want to.”
I stare up into those icy blue eyes, and a hint of orange fills them. “Thank you,” I say, not needing to explain myself. He was there. He saw what I was and what I needed.
“Thank you for being so strong, Maeve. Those six weeks were the hardest days of my life. No one else believed me, but I was sure that you would come back to me. You had to. You… you’re the reason I’m still here.”
I nod to him and press my cheek to his gambeson to feel the beating of his heart against my skin. The strength in him is undeniable. He’s the strongest person in the world, and from the very first time I saw him, I knew that being near him made me feel stronger. When those harpies had shredded my body, and I was sure that I was going to die crumpled in a corner, I felt like I could stand when he talked to me. He made me feel like I could be strong.
I’m not shattered anymore, but I’m the weakest I’ve ever been physically. Sure, I can wield magic in ways that no one else can, but four strikes with the spear had me struggling to breathe. I need his strength. I need his unwavering determination because the coming weeks are going to push me to my limit every single day.
“Well, Cole, I guess we can both agree. Neither of us should die. Deal?”
He chuckles and pulls me close to him. “Deal,” he whispers in my ear.