33. All of Existence Is a Reflection of Our Beliefs
33. ALL OF EXISTENCE IS A REFLECTION OF OUR BELIEFS
ELOWYN
Once my great surge of power ebbed, evidence of the ongoing battle all around us slammed into me like an assault of its own. It was loud, grating, and absolutely terrifying in a way no imagining had prepared me for.
The lives of so many good fae were at stake. All it would take was one moment of distraction: losing balance on the uneven floor, a surprise swipe from behind, an arrow shot from across the room…
In the enclosed hall, the barrage of savage grunts and cries, the smacking of bodies and weapons, and the utterly unnerving beastly snarls and accompanying rending flesh were almost deafening. And the smells … by bitter, blistering sunshine, the smells . I easily recognized the unmistakable tang of blood, but there was also something more, worse and far fouler: the scent of intestines ripped from bodies? Bowels loosing with brutal deaths? I’d never expected war to be pretty or gentle, but neither had I understood how viscerally my entire body would react to the signs of pain coming from so many directions at once.
It needed to end. It needed to end now .
I flicked a look behind me and glimpsed Rush taking on three guards, Xeno’s silver-gray dragon ripping into a pygmy ogre, and West, Ryder, Hiroshi, and Roan standing back-to-back against a stream of oversized feethles, their fur smeared with blood.
Without a chance to check on any of the others, I reminded myself sharply of what Zako would say: Fear is a distraction you cannot afford. It is the fastest way to lose all you hold dear. Steel your will, little cub! Focus only on the next strike of your blade. Kill your opponent before they can kill you. That is how you save yourself and your fellow protectors.
There was no opponent more dangerous than Talisa—and she now appeared mortal and magnificently fragile.
I craned my neck to better scrutinize the she-dragon who stood on the other side of Talisa’s limp body. The dragon dwarfed the woman, dwarfed me.
What do you mean, ‘you fuerin will now carry out your justice on the shadow?’ I projected my question to Einar as well, wherever he currently was. And if your punishment will be gruesome, may I please watch?
It is finished, the she-dragon pronounced in a slow, low, melodic rumble.
I jerked my stare from her to Talisa and back up. Talisa hadn’t moved except to curl in on herself, as if to make her body as small as possible.
What’s finished? I asked.
The shadow is no longer.
Okay. Yeah. I kind of figured that after she and I battled it out. Or was it the light and darkness that had battled it out? But how are you going to punish her? Because after all the suffering she’s caused, she deserves quite a bit of her own.
She has experienced all the pain she has ever caused another creature while her essence has been in this body.
My brow furrowed, I turned toward Talisa but startled when Rush dove toward me. He rolled, pushed off an upturned slab of glass, jumped to his feet, and fended off a sneakle, who with its glowing red eyes and monstrous size no longer resembled a domesticated cat. The sneakle was five times larger than any I’d ever seen before at the palace. From my other side, a wall of silver-slate-gray scales revealed Xeno was also protecting me.
I crouched next to Talisa so I could see her face beneath her cascading sheet of hair. She was still naked, still shaking … only now she was whimpering— good . Sobs racked her frame, making her shoulders curl inward as she tried to pull her knees more tightly to her chest. An expanding pool of blood—not hers—spread to wet the ends of her hair, a dark nimbus around her head.
My brows drew lower. I’d like that to be true. But the fight she and I had isn’t close to being enough. She’s caused so much pain to so many. Of the fuerin alone, how many has she tortured and killed? How many generations of fuerin has she brutalized?
A great many, the she-dragon responded somberly. She knows exactly how many.
So … that’s it? Disappointment flickered like flames along the edges of my righteous anger. After all Talisa had done, this was what the mighty dragons considered sufficient punishment? Clearly people and dragons had different notions of justice.
It is fair. And so it is enough.
I stifled a sigh. Okay. So the fuerin have no more claim to her? I can kill her now?
You may. Ending her will be a mercy.
I don’t see how, I grumbled, trying hard to remain respectful.
You do not understand, Dragon Queen. Einar’s voice growled into my mind. What you think of as time passed differently for the shadow than for you.
I whipped around, searching for the massive black dragon. He was nowhere. My gaze skittered across so many fae locked in the throes of life or death.
She felt all the suffering she caused as if it were her own, Einar said. She experienced as many lives as she devastated.
You mean… I wet my lips, tasted blood, and grimaced. You mean you actually stilled time for her?
Time is merely magic, the she-dragon supplied .
And we fuerin have many powers, Einar added.
You can freeze time? I asked, my mind reeling from the implications.
We do not freeze anything, the she-dragon replied. We altered the shadow’s perception of what you call time.
All of existence is merely a reflection of our beliefs, Einar said.
Way to be cryptic when it counts most .
Huuuuh .
So, to confirm, you … altered the shadow’s experience of time … so that she actually experienced every little bit of torment she doled out on anyone she ever hurt?
We would not put it that way, Einar said, but it is correct enough.
Eyes so wide I felt them, I sat back onto my ass, not bothering to shift a hard lump that dug into a butt cheek. So while I experienced just a minute passing, she experienced years, decades even?
Longer, the she-dragon said. Her reach and influence were vast.
How long? Centuries?
More. She felt every act of darkness. And now she sees.
What does she see? I asked, breathless despite not speaking aloud.
She was a mere tool for the darkness, Einar said. What power she had was never hers.
She chose a destiny of darkness, the she-dragon explained. She laments having done so.
My chest was tight. Did she experience what it was like for my mate to be violated—I spat the word—by her?
Compassion and sorrow pulsed from the she-dragon, loosening the hardness around my heart. There is not a single suffering on another we fuerin did not make her also suffer.
The din was loud and clamoring. I nevertheless found temporary stillness within it. A few seconds slipped by before I finally nodded.
Okay. Then you’re right. It’s enough.
We fuerin are always right, Einar said.
Mmhmm.
Huuuuh .
Thank you, I told them. It’s more than I could have hoped for. It’s true justice.
What we fuerin do is always true, the she-dragon said. We came to each other’s aid as we foretold.
So it is.
To absorb the change in circumstances, I allowed a single moment to meander by before I shot to my feet. With a hiss, I winced at the sharp reminder of my injured leg, and yanked out the shard of glass protruding from my leathers and calf before I could anticipate the pain. My entire calf stinging, I grunted, tossed the glass aside, and shouted.
“Everyone! ”
Not even Rush heard me as he ran the length of his sword through a guard I didn’t recognize. He pressed his boot to the male’s stomach, pulled on the grip, and retrieved his sword. The guard clutched his belly and pitched forward onto his knees. A snake instantly slithered around his neck, wrapping it tightly, and began to squeeze.
My mouth dropped open in surprise. So at least this serpent was now fighting alongside us. Or perhaps it was as simple as the snake striking easy prey.
Careful not to turn my back on this eager, possibly opportunistic viper, I tried again. “Attention, everyone!”
Rush heard me. He spun, his eyes darting across my body, slowing along the blood dripping from my leg, how I stood gingerly upon it. He scowled, his moonlit eyes flashing silver, before looking at Talisa—still curled on herself, still shaking violently.
“What is it?” he asked while swiveling his head around, scanning for immediate threats.
“Talisa can be killed now.”
His stare jerked back to mine. “Truly?”
“Truly.” My smile was vicious.
His responding smile was even more so.
“I need everyone’s attention,” I said.
Immediately he called, “Ivar!”
Without looking away from a feethle that was as tall as he was, Ivar snapped, “What?”
“We need you,” Rush said.
“What, now ?” He jabbed his sword at the feethle, who only darted its head out of the way before lunging at him.
“I need you to amplify my voice like you did for Talisa in the arena,” I told Ivar loudly enough to be heard over the fighting.
The feethle surged forward from its haunches, snapping its monstrous teeth. Ivar stabbed it in the chest. The blow glanced off.
“A little busy here,” he gritted out.
“It will end the fight and save lives.”
With an animalistic growl, he parried the feethle back, shooting a flash of magic into the changeling. The feethle slid back from the force of the blast, its furry leg snagging on a piece of glass.
Ivar leapt over the snake still strangling the dying guard. His bloody cutlass dangling from one hand, he brought together both palms to cup the air between us even as he slid to his knees. With a glance at Hiroshi jumping in to engage the feethle, he barked at me, “Go!”
“Everyone,” I called out. “Cease your fighting this instant!”
The clanging of metal and the grunting of effort and injury diminished some but ultimately continued.
“Xeno, do not let Talisa out of your sight.”
Dragon-Xeno grumbled his assent.
“Fae, you must stop right now,” I yelled, my amplified voice reaching every corner of the once grand Hall of Mirrors, now devastated with piles of rubble, bodies, and shards of glass .
“Look,” I went on, “the dragons do not attack unless you threaten them.”
A few of the dragons hissed warnings. Most simply looked back at their observers with a sobering, shrewd cognizance.
“If you think you fight for Embermere’s rightful queen, whichever of us you believe that to be, halt now. You hurt your fellow fae without justification.”
The clanking slowed further.
I asked Ivar, “Does my voice reach the exterior of the palace?”
“It does now.”
“Good.” Then I announced, “This is Elowyn Xiomara Ashira of Embermere. I am the rightful queen of Embermere and all the Mirror World, chosen by the land’s magic as validly as if I’d completed the Magicus Probatio. Cease your fighting. The war is over. Talisa, the false queen, no longer holds power over any of you.”
For those inside the hall, I gestured toward the female who lay crumpled on the floor, between the sapphire-blue she-dragon and Xeno. The nobility huddled in clusters around the room, no longer pressed to the mirrors since monsters now writhed behind their surfaces, pounding against the glass. Hesitantly, several lords and ladies shuffled forward. When they saw Talisa, they gasped and clutched each other. Their reactions drew others.
“You now have a new king and queen,” I declared for all to hear. “Rush Vega, drake of Amarantos, and I are mates and your new rulers. You have our solemn vow that every action we take will be for the well-being of this land, its people, and its creatures. Your needs are as important to us as our own.”
I glanced at Rush with an inviting arch of my brows, but he shook his head, offering me a beaming, proud smile instead of his voice. All remaining sounds of fighting, save for some hissing, finally quieted.
“There will be time for you to accept a shift in power. But there shall be no more fighting. No more hurting. No more killing.
“We are forever one in the light. In the darkness we are forever divided. Fae of the Mirror World, it’s time for the light to reign and shine once more!”
Hopeful cries rang out. Then again, more loudly.
I scanned the ragtag crowd and its many faces—covered in skin, scales, or fur—pointed at me. “And if a sense of rightness doesn’t motivate you, then your new king and queen command you to cease all violence.” I allowed long moments to pass. “Save one final act…”
A few unsettled murmurs punctuated the quiet.
“The sun will not go down today without the fae seeing Talisa Zafira Tatiana, murderous, dark, blood-drinking, false queen of Embermere, who used darkness to claim a reign to which she had no right … dead .”