Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Before dawn, our troops gathered. Lines of citizens who believed in a cause had organized and turned themselves into soldiers.
Fae and halflings wore armor crafted by skilled Fevar who didn’t actually need it themselves: chain mail tunics, thick for protection but lightweight so as not to hinder movement, and helmets that glinted in the firelight.
Wearing only a loose pair of black yoga pants, an athletic tee, and my trusty Converse, I was the odd man out. If all went as planned, I wouldn’t need anything else.
Fevar and Dryad stood together. Lesheno and Poppy organized people into neat lines, and an envoy from Queen Ffione stood near the banks of the river in human form, listening intently to the plan of attack.
Sunrise.
We’d arrange our positions under the cover of darkness, and once the sun rose, ground troops would approach from the north. The Encantado would approach from the river abutting the camp in the south.
Luckily for the Encantado, it didn’t matter how far the camp was on the other side of the Unseelie wall. They weren’t impacted by the wall’s magic.
For the rest of us, everything hinged on my abilities.
I stood in front of people who’d pledged themselves to me and wondered if it wasn’t the greatest mistake of their lives. “Today is the day when everything changes.”
My fingers drummed out a rhythm against my thigh and I paused, stretching each digit before forcing them to calm.
“Today we march on Dorian Jade’s camp. No matter what happens, I want you all to know you are valued.
You are the only reason this resistance has a chance of making a meaningful change in our world.
We fight for freedom, not just for a certain kind of person, but for every person.
Freedom to live your life. Freedom to exist equally.
For too long halflings and lesser Fae have been seen and treated in a demeaning way.
Even the label is detestable: lesser Fae. ”
I’d always hated it. The term itched along my skin, a creepy brush of something insectoid and wrong.
“I’ll lead the way,” I went on. “This isn’t a battle where you’ll be fighting while I stay a safe distance away and use you like pawns.” My teeth bared with blinding hate for Dorian Jade and the way he’d choreographed our last fight. “Where you go, I will go. I’m with you. We’re in this together.”
I nodded, locking eyes with Mike.
“The Encantado will have the river covered.” I glanced at Ffione’s envoy, who nodded agreement.
Ffione and Eri appeared from beneath the surface of the river, their eel tails keeping them steady in the rapids.
Leave it to us, Eri assured me, mind to mind. We have everything covered.
They certainly had enough numbers to make a sizable dent in whatever forces Dorian might send to the banks of the river in their camp.
Thank you, I sent back.
“Our Fevar members, you’ve worked so well with the Dryads, the potency of your combined skills and powers will be a complication Dorian Jade won’t see coming.
All half-shifters with the power of transfiguration will approach through the air.
We will encircle their camp, stationed around the perimeter at each of your strategic positions.
On my signal we all attack at once. This should keep the enemy occupied while I go for the heart. ”
No matter how many times I said it, no matter how we strategized and changed the plan to make it take shape, it never felt real. Until now.
“What about the magic wall?” someone asked. “How are we going to get through it?”
“Leave it to me. There is a plan in place to deal with the wall,” I assured the assembly. “Elfhame, split your pixies between the air strike and the ground advance. Your wings will come in handy but your earth magic will be what seals the deal for us,” I reminded the pixie queen.
She wore her own battle armor, and if any offense was taken at my directions, Elfhame showed none of it.
Poppy and I had discussed at length the best way to transport the rest of our rebels to the Unseelie wall. It would take hours to get there conventionally, but the risk of draining everyone’s power before the fight was too high a cost. On that we’d agreed.
But the poisoned wound showed me one thing if nothing else: I had enough inherent power to recover quickly. Dorian had gotten only a small taste of my full abilities, not a significant look. Even I had no clue what I was fully capable of.
If Poppy and I could hold the portal open long enough to get our troops through it, I was willing to keep her back at camp while she recovered. And as much as she’d fought me on that, eventually she relented.
The first glint of sunrise cut the horizon in half. We’re ready.
“All right, it’s time.” I rubbed my hands together. “Thank you. Every single one of you, thanks from the bottom of my heart. None of this would be possible if it weren’t for you. If we don’t make it through today, then I hope to see you in the Summerlands.”
Poppy swept her hands toward the line of forest, tearing the fabric of reality open for the portal. I added my strength to hers and forced it wider, with Mike leading our troops through. The ranks of the rebellion filed in through the opening and my heart lifted at the resolve on their faces.
Maybe we could do this.
Maybe we had a real shot at winning.
Dryads interspersed with the soldiers at strategic points, Fevar at their backs, and our newer arrivals mingling between them.
I spotted the intelligence agent with the weather-colored hair blending in with other soldiers before she disappeared.
Marsh and Nora Kwan marched together with Agent Rooker and the former shot me a jaunty salute on her way through.
My gaze fell on Coral, then lifted to the sky as Julie and Bronwen led the other halfling shifters through the air.
None of them would die today. I made the promise to myself.
I’d give every ounce of magic inside me until the enemy went down or surrendered, but no one else I loved would suffer for this.
Dorian Jade was about to come face to face with the shifter from the Faerie Prophecy.
We silently fell into place on the other side of the portal. I was the last one through and cut a glance over my shoulder at Poppy on the other side. She’d dropped to her knees and offered an exhausted wave before the edges of the portal closed and cut us off.
The heaviness in the air grew thicker the closer we got to the great wall. A sense of foreboding draped over my shoulders at our approach. Coming face to face again with the enchanted wall of tightly stacked gray stones brought a sickening wave of vertigo.
I hated this fucking place.
I hated the way the wall morphed between solid and airy lightness, its shimmer of magic, the top too high above us to see.
I stepped to the front and closed my eyes, near enough to touch the stone. My mind’s eye filled with memories of Noren passing through without the choking presence of a collar around his neck, like the one I’d been forced to wear so the magic didn’t kill me.
“This is for you, bud,” I whispered.
Inside, I fixed my attention on the well of power, urging my consciousness to go deeper. The air stirred around us as I dove, searching for the bottom where none existed. My chest squeezed tight the longer I swam, drowning in the combination of witch and Fae magic, gathering.
The distinctions between the two were not as easily distinguished as my wolf side. She fit snuggly in the trifecta but her magic came from the earth in a way the others didn’t.
I went further than I had in the last battle, enveloped so entirely with magic the world did not exist. If it didn’t exist, it couldn’t end, could it?
I was tired of hiding and struggling. Tired of waiting for an attack to come. It would be a relief to face Dorian at last.
This might be the last time we were all together for a while.
My heart thumped, a violent crack against my ribs like it was fighting to make the exit now before things got messy.
Stop caring.
This was my mission: to take down this wall, to end this visible symbol of separation. Faerie had chosen me before my birth for this purpose. Which didn’t make the struggle to the bottom of my powers easier to bear.
There was still no bottom to this magic no matter how furiously I hunted for it.
Finally when enough time passed and there was still more power to draw, I stopped. If there was an end to it, I’d need more time than we’d been granted today to make it realized.
With a breath I pushed upward, dragging the force of so much magic with me. It uncurled, exploding from my outstretched palms and eyes squeezed shut, I let it go, directing it at the tiny molecules of magic between the stones of the wall.
Behind my closed lids, the magic spell worked into the wall glittered in an expansive network of arcane symbols and primal power.
Whatever Dorian had done to divide the territories, he hadn’t done it alone. Unlike me, he lacked what it took for a spell of that magnitude. He’d gathered many other Fae to pour their power into creating this monstrosity. Their individual energetic signatures sang through the spell.
None of them were stronger than I was.
A tremendous swell of hope mingled with my magic and I poured it into the stonework. Sweat broke out along my skin. The harder I pushed, the more magic it took, flooding the spells of the wall and melting into them.
Come on!
My teeth ground together, jaw clenched, and I spread my legs to physically balance the output before it toppled me.
Bringing down an entire wall was hard work. It couldn’t be a small doorway I opened; I had to make sure the whole thing came down. All of it.
There would be no more division between the territories. One united Faerie. That’s what we wanted. Anything less was failure.
I caught the moment my spell mingled with the entirety of the wall’s instilled magic, noticed the change in the air, the way it thinned. The way everyone held their breath.
You’re done.
I gave a final vicious tug, pulling my magic back to me along with the spell that had been infused into the wall. An awful silence permeated the forest around us…until a loud crack like a gunshot cleaved the atmosphere in two.
A strange light swirled through the air and sparks ignited as the esoteric power of the wall fell. A low hum stirred movement behind us and the crackling flash of energy tore through space.
The first chink in stone broke right in front of me. Gathering speed, it spread like the spidery web of a shattered windshield. Louder and louder as the break took hold, forking off in every direction.
Pieces cracked off from the whole and shattered, falling free like dust scattered from a giant’s hand.
“Back!” A bizarre roar filled my ears and distant screams from the other side reached us through the space.
The others moved clear of the damage and I flinched when Lesheno put his hand on my shoulder.
It was a good start, but not enough. I wanted to make sure the last of the wall was gone before I stopped.
Every last bit had to disappear.
I held on until the ground began to rumble and the wall itself shook, finally released from the binding spell.
Hoping my timing was right, I then pushed my magic back toward the wall, full force.
It hit with a tremendous shock wave. Like dominoes toppling, the wall collapsed, going left and right from the weakened spot I’d created.
Mike and Coral held the line with me, adding their magic to the moment to keep the pieces from destroying anyone. Instead they thinned, their molecules erased and spread out through the atmosphere before they touched the earth.
The people on the other side of the wall, at Dorian’s camp, were plastered to the ground where the shockwave had leveled them.
Only I stood.
A moment of stunned silence stretched.
I wasn’t sure who recovered first.
Then a battle cry from our side set things in motion. The first wave of rebel soldiers rushed across the ruined wall.