Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The crumbling of the magic wall was huge.
The self-proclaimed Unseelie king had intended that only those with his special medallion could cross through.
I’d never wanted to experience such a vacuum, such an absence of life, again.
Now no one else would have to.
My head spun with memories and sensation.
Yet now a determined army of people who thought otherwise had breached it.
Mike stuck close to me and blasted one of the Unseelie warriors with twin balls of light. They danced in the air, cracking off of each other like wild pinballs, until catching the man’s head in the middle.
He went down and didn’t get up.
Disgust boiled at the sight of the camp and the people within, more lesser Fae who were considered substandard by the kingdom. Dorian had the right idea to lift them up.
But not to lift anyone above the rest.
I drew on my power and moved fluidly through the coming onslaught of soldiers, holding back slightly for the right moment of release. This magic wasn’t a sword to swing; it was the flow of life. It would restore the realm.
It was a balancing act cutting through smoke in the air and the enemies who approached with screams of vengeance.
The pieces of me churned together in a terrifying triad. Now. I released it and a brilliant light slashed through the camp, whipping through tents and buildings and people.
Cries and yells of battle spread as halfling shifters raced through the sky.
A black crow led them, driving through lines of Dorian’s people and shifting as she landed.
A deep growl rumbled through the air, the rest of the shifters following her lead, spreading out like a blight.
From hawk or falcon to wolf or fox—warriors with wings to warriors on four legs.
Heat blasted my way and a spell lit the clouds of dawn. I tucked into a roll and sprung up, sending out a spell of my own. It dragged the air, thickening it, choking my opponent in a blink.
Screeches from farther away amid the surge of distant water heralded the arrival of the Encantado.
Time to stretch out and see what I can really do.
I wasn’t hiding anymore and I wasn’t a victim. Dorian was going to pay for everything he’d done, for daring to think he could pick and choose who to dismiss.
I struck out, barely a thought or intention, and a wave of blinding light cut across the swath of oncoming soldiers. Bodies fell, direwolves howling out a final mournful song as they dropped.
Another thought and gravity changed. It lifted the bodies and sent them out toward more oncoming soldiers. I returned gravity and everyone slammed into the dirt, unmoving.
Where is Dorian?
I didn’t expect him to be out front with the rest of his army but there was no hint of his smug presence. A glance skyward showed only another wave of our halfling shifters divebombing to earth. No orbs.
Then it came, a tremble of recognized laughter. It rode on a tide of power and covered the camp.
How do I pinpoint him?
“Stay close to me,” Mike warned.
He cast a shield of protection around us and I fed it with my magic to keep him safe.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” I said as we jogged farther into the camp.
When I’d last been here, Dorian’s tent had a gilded peak at the center of it. I hunted for its telltale height now.
This time I snagged a group of five Unseelie in an invisible net, blocking my immediate path. I don’t want to hurt them.
But they wouldn’t give my people the same courtesy.
A thought lowered the air content around them. They failed to notice at first, trudging forward another few steps before stopping, the frontrunner clutching her throat. No amount of magic could break this spell.
I slammed them down into the dirt and Mike’s glow slashed across their spines to crack through bone.
Any hesitation on our part meant agony. Luckily he’d realized it.
Coral and Nexa blasted fire magic behind me, surrounded by a row of Fevar warriors. Together their flames lifted in a vortex, helped along by someone’s air magic. The awful cyclone of flame rose high and slammed through the camp, sending attacking soldiers back.
Pixies shrieked and cracked the ground, using the earth to batter their opponents.
I waited for the exertion to hit me. It never came.
Only more screams.
A line of Encantado in human form made their way into camp, blocking the river’s exit. Queen Ffione raised a sword overhead, a guttural command on her oddly human lips. Then they charged furiously into the fray.
A smile split my lips before another group of Unseelie attacked and I lost sight of our allies behind them.
“Watch out!” Panic colored Mike’s voice.
A direwolf reared over me with a howl of hatred trembling through his body. I ducked and slashed before his jaw clamped around my arm.
Then I sent power outward. A wave of white battered through the soldiers blocking our path.
It forced them down, stealing air from their lungs.
The direwolf made a valiant effort at recovery but a thought, a press of my palms, and he disintegrated.
Red mist filtered through the air and caked us in blood, the speckles dusting along Mike’s forearms.
Instead of gaping at me in horror like I was the creature to eradicate, he stopped. Stared.
And once again I was some kind of goddess.
“Stop looking at me like that and let’s go,” I urged.
A brief nod and we picked up the pace.
In the wake of my spell, Lesheno slashed his sword arm through a small faction of Unseelie soldiers. Two went down, the third pivoting just in time. When Lesheno lifted his arm again, in a mere blink of time, Fevar flames raced along its edges.
My heart leaped high, clogging my throat, but he brought it down like some banner of hell. The enemies fell.
Dryads certainly held their own in battle. And working in tandem with the Fevar, those nomads feared by so many—
A moment of panic caught in my throat. Please let this not be the last time I see them all.
Mike stretched over me to cut down another Unseelie. The attacker parried with a blade, which caught Mike in the side and he went down on one knee as a hole opened in his chainmail.
Shock shuddered through me when blood spouted free and dampened the long grass.
“Mike!”
“I’m okay,” he growled.
I stared at the blood pouring from the wound before another thought threw the offending attacker mercilessly into a group of Fevar. They pounced on him and drained the last bits of magic free.
Mike hissed when I dragged him closer to inspect the wound, releasing him the moment he waved me off. “Don’t worry about me.” He punctuated his insistence with a kiss. “I’m fine.”
My eyes burned. “There’s no way I can leave you alone like this.”
“Stop it. Find Jade and finish this. I’ll look for Melia.”
A curious scream cut through the air and my gaze lifted to a halfling shifter in eagle form sailing down from the sky. She shifted as she landed, slamming large talons into a soldier’s back and snapping it.
“Go.” Mike pushed me. “I’ll follow. I can handle myself.”
“You hold my whole heart in your hands, you know.” I indulged in a fierce kiss then watched him lift those hands to protect our backs.
Power writhed beneath my skin and I released the tight fisted hold I’d kept on it. Fuck this.
A low roar rumbled through my chest, and because I’d have to get used to this sensation of my heart ripping in two, I pressed forward. And blasted everything in my path.
Background screams bathed the camp but rebels pressed on from all sides. I crashed through whatever protective barriers Jade had put in place, demolishing them the way he’d done to our wards.
Another blast cleared the path and sent me straight into the beating heart of this fight. The center of camp.
I stepped into it, into the horrible clash of blades and magic. We were all trying to survive.
Weapons flashed and fire burned along the ring of camp.
They might have more to gain but we had more to lose.
I spread my arms at my sides and didn’t hesitate. I let it all go, sending the magic outward in a short range blast. Fire and earth, water and wind. I squinted against the blaze and kept it powered with ruthless determination.
Magic shifted within me, changing gravity in one beat, thickening the air in another. I put on a burst of speed and locked eyes with several would-be attackers whose faces I remembered.
Dorian had sent them to collect me once.
A moment of terror lurched as they closed in, not on me, but on a slight form sprawled in the dust.
Nora balanced on her knees, but the Unseelie soldier kicked her into submission and pinned her down with a sword through the shoulder, effectively cutting off her magic.
“Get the hell away from her!” I yelled out the command and sprinted, power twining around my wrists and cutting off access from any other soldiers rushing me.
The Unseelie turned sideways to stare and a flash of pain twisted his features before he went down, his throat slit. Professor Marsh stood behind him, a short blade dripping with blood as red as her hair. She pulled the sword free from Nora’s bleeding shoulder.
Before I could move, Mike collided with my back as the howl of a direwolf filled the air. In a blink, a ring of them accosted us. The glow around Mike’s palms transformed into whips, blazing with the promise of death.
Mike took down one of the wolves easily.
I handled the rest, throwing up a shield of thickened air around Marsh as she and Nora stumbled into my periphery. A direwolf slammed into the shield and the force knocked Nora to the ground again.
Mike was there to drive those whips against the creature’s snout. A howl shook the foundations of the camp.
Nora was on her feet fast with Marsh’s help.
From here, it was impossible to tell the tide of the battle. More and more Unseelie fighters kept pouring into the clearing. We were quickly being surrounded. I glanced at Mike and told him to focus on a shield of protection around us instead of continuing to fight.
It was time to test my full power again. Dorian and his warriors must be stopped. I was going to make them pay.
I raised my arms above my head. Fire and earth, water and wind. A fierce white glow burst to life between my hands. Then I clapped my hands together, sending the magic outward in a radial blast.
I squinted against the white-hot glare and kept it powered with ruthless determination as it battered our enemies, dropping them like bowling pins. A flex of my fingers and bodies fell.
The hit gave the rebels a moment to recover as healers closed off the first round of wounds. Screams died away.
But the respite didn’t last. Soon more Unseelie moved in to attack. Words of power blistered on the tip of my tongue and I used them with the lights, adding my wolf’s strength into each hit.
Let it go.
Power skidded across my skin and burned whoever it touched. I held on to it, barely, allowing fury to do the work for me.
When the attacking numbers seemed to actually be dwindling, I fed my lust for blood. I stole air and cut throats. A raised hand, a word, and then nothing. Power skidded across my skin and burned whoever it touched. I held on to it, barely, allowing fury to do the work for me.
Who needed a sword with this kind of power? Soldiers fell all around me and my muscles were barely warm. I was only half aware of my surroundings. Half aware of the way my feet sank into the ground as one of the Unseelie Fae manipulated the landscape beneath me.
Half aware that I was about to unleash the most devastating blow my power had ever summoned.
A tremor cut through the earth, same as the one that had split our camp earlier. Only this time it came from me. As the ground split and shifted, the resulting crevasse cut the camp in two, a chasm so deep that nothing but darkness seeped from it.
A complete void of light.
This was entirely too much power to give to one person. I shuddered to think of what could happen if I was in full control. Terror spiked.
For the first time in my life, I felt terrified not because of something or someone else. What terrified me was me.
I was afraid of myself.
“Tavi!” Mike was at my side, gripping my arms hard enough to bruise. “Hey, are you okay?”
I could barely nod. My body was paralyzed. “I’m fine. We need to keep moving.”
“I see right through you and now isn’t the time for you to lie to me.”
His observation was a slap in the face.
“I’m scared! Okay? I’m scared of what I can do.” And what I was becoming.
Mike glanced over my shoulder toward the rest of the camp, at the rebels staring in awe and wondering what might happen next. He gripped me harder, his hatred for Dorian clear.
“We’re all counting on you, Tavi. On what you can do.”
I yanked him against me as another wave of strange magic rode the tide of mine. It clung to the edges of the crevasse and rose to devour the nearest rebels.
Several of our people were knocked down and never got up.
He was right. My throat tanged with a howl and I let the magic spill free. Horrible heat sent the Unseelie mage back from the inferno.
The others looked at me at the helm of this fight.
If they were scared of me...at least I’d be able to cut down our enemies.
A scream sounded from behind us and my heart swelled as I turned. A cone of water cascaded down on Nora and Professor Marsh. Not from the Encantado. This was slimy, algae-filled.
“Not this time!” I sent a blast of heat to evaporate the water and the spell released them, sputtering.
Mike cast his whips of energy into the chests of whoever was stupid enough to get close to us.
“We have to finish this,” I said. “We have to find Dorian.”
A wave of our rebels followed behind us with cries of Prophet on their lips.
Wherever Dorian hid, he wasn’t through with us. Shadows writhed around us, summoned from another round of his awful laughter. Black beasts twisted and reformed, torn free on an unnatural wind.
Marsh glanced at me, her lips moving with words I couldn’t make out. Then—
Run.
She was still telling me to go when the shadows struck her and Nora. I sent a spell out to counter the shadows but it was too late. Those black wisps twisted and when they flew free, there was nothing left of either woman for me to grieve.
A gasp caught in my throat, another wave of agony threatening to cut me in two.
“Tavi, get the hell out of here now!” Mike shot in front of me, holding tight to the shield of thickened air.
Shadows battered against it. Overtook and shattered his spell. And drove straight for the wound in his side.
Mike’s blood spilled free once more, and the racing shadows reveled in it. One landed on his torso, tensed to strike.
I screamed his name again and again, and flexed my fingers like invisible claws tearing at the dark mass crawling its way up Mike’s chest.
He doubled over, groaning against unbearable pain. My light shot through him—please, Faerie, not him—before I drove those shadows away.
His head tipped back to the lightening sky and I watched in horror as he went down.
Alive…but for how long?