Chapter 49 The Trade
The Trade
“Make sure you’re in physical contact with me the whole time—no matter what, Kaelun,” I said, giving him a hard look.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” he asked for the tenth time with fear in his eyes; the same fear that jolted through me as I let the horde of hellhounds break our barrier.
“Gods, I hope so,” I muttered, which did nothing to assuage his doubt. “Just remember—”
“Hand on you at all times,” he finished. “You’re sure your magic won’t hurt me?” His mocha eyes searched mine for any reassurance I could offer him.
“Honestly?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I’d really appreciate it if you just lied to me right now,” he said with a straight face.
“We’re gonna be fine. Trust me.” I winked.
“Gods, they’re getting really close,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
My heart pounded in my chest, the tremor of seemingly endless beasts bounding full-tilt toward us was deafening.
This was a stupid, stupid plan, I thought, suddenly overwhelmed.
Well, it’s too fucken late to change your mind, the other side of me chided.
Taking a deep breath, I put my hands out to the sides, closed my eyes, and like I’d done under the protection of Endymion’s dome, I allowed the spark to stir from where she slumbered.
The weight of Kaelun’s hand on my shoulder was welcomed as the full well of my power flooded into my veins, infusing every cell with pure, raw, untapped, arcane magic.
“Wow,” he breathed in awe.
At first my hand tingled just enough to tickle, but as it pooled—readying for a command—it shifted to a sharpness until my fingers were painfully numb.
“Lady Ny—”
“Not yet,” I gritted, staring down the horde of beasts now only twenty paces away.
My power continued to build.
Fifteen paces.
More power.
Ten paces.
Then, just as the closest one launched off its hind legs, its deadly canines mere feet away, I brought the power hands together in a quick, decisive movement.
Magic burst like a shockwave and as if in slow motion with Kaelun and me at the epicenter of the unbridled power unleashing in every direction.
The warm breath of the lunging beast hit my face like a hot, damp summer breeze carrying the scent of carrion, and as my magic radiated through it, that scent was the only thing left as it turned into silt.
Row after row of abominations disintegrated, floating away with their dead companions on the autumn wind until only Lothar and Njal remained.
I was numb by the time they were forced to throw up shields which nearly buckled under the strain.
I wobbled, and Kaelun caught me, steadying me by an elbow.
“You okay?”
“I think so. Just light-headed, is all. And a little weaker.”
His brows furrowed, but our focus snapped back to the treeline.
“Ny-leer-i-aaaaaa!” Lothar bellowed.
“I think he’s pissed,” Kaelun mussed.
I raised a bow. “What was your first clue?”
“The vein popping out of his forehead.”
I laughed despite myself, which did nothing for my light-headedness—or the commander’s temper.
Our humor quickly faded when they valenned twenty paces away. Instinctively, I stepped back from the dark power radiating off them in sinister waves.
Kaelun and I shared a worried glance, and the hairs at the back of my neck prickled.
They stood, features hard, hands out to the sides as dark mist poured from their hands like waterfalls. The grass where the slate met fertile ground hissed as it turned black and shriveled, the unnatural mist creeping toward us.
I swallowed hard. It felt… wrong in a way I could never adequately describe. Hand still on my elbow, Kaelun took us back a step, then another, until we were close enough to the cliff’s edge to see what lay below, and I knew what he was thinking.
Brow raised, he said, “Think we’ll survive?”
“As a human, definitely not.” The highest cliff Eithan and I had ever attempted to jump was thirty feet.
We were only stupid enough to do it once, and only because it was into a lake.
This cliff on the other hand was at least three—if not four—times higher than that, and while the river below was wide and slow, that didn’t mean it was deep.
We held each other’s gaze in silent conversation—last resort only.
Refocusing on the sinister magic, Kaelun and I tried throwing magic at it, to no avail. If anything, it moved faster with each strike. I’d even tried one of Endymion’s blades, but the second it hit the mist, it was lost—and I mourned the empty spot where it should’ve returned.
“Can you use the spark?” Kaelun asked.
Pulling for it, white spots stole my sight, and I swayed.
“Stop,” Kaelun ordered.
“I’m sorry,” I said, needing to hold on to him until my vision cleared.
“It’s okay. The amount of power you just called on was no joke. We’ll find another way.”
With the mist less than ten paces away, we were running out of options.
“The offer still stands, little mouse,” Njal called out. “Come willingly and we’ll spare your friend.”
Spare my friend.
The offer repeated in my mind, and something about it had me squinting at the mists’ shape—which wasn’t symmetrical. It came at us like a horseshoe, Kaelun’s side filling in faster, making it more of a deformed J.
Whatever this magic did, they didn’t actually want it touching me.
“Come on,” I said to Kaelun, then bolted for the hole to our left without warning.
We cleared the mist as Lothar spewed curses our way. I glanced over my shoulder to check that Kaelun was right behind me before I put my head down and ran with everything I had despite how weak I felt.
A scream rang out behind me before a loud thud sounded, and my veins turned to ice as I came to a screeching halt. Whipping around, I saw Kaelun fall to the ground, his legs covered in barbed vines.
“No!” I cried.
I raced back to him, throwing fire at the vines with him, but they grew faster than we could keep up. “You need to valen us, Kaelun,” I said, panicked. “I don’t care where, just get us out of here.”
“Grab my hand,” he said, looking down to where the vines held them at his sides.
I dropped to my knees, and just as I was leaning forward to reach for him, a wall of thick ice formed between us.
No. No. No. No.
I pressed my palms against it, calling upon my fire magic, but like the vines, I couldn’t get through it as faster than it reformed.
“You know…” Lothar’s voice taunted from my side as he stepped through the dark mist with a self-satisfied smile. “You could’ve avoided all of this.”
I wobbled as I pulled for the spark.
“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk,” he said, then threw his hands out, trapping me in a dome of ice.
The sharp cold threw me back to those panicked moments with Amos—only this dome was solid ice, at least a foot thick, and forced me into a crouched position so that I could barely move.
My cage was remarkably clear, as if I were looking through a window, but with what came next I wished I’d been blind and deaf.
Kaelun lay on the ground helpless, the side of his face pressed against the hard slate as he struggled to breathe from the barbed vines wrapping around his entire body.
He looked up at me, eyes full of fear and apology, and he couldn’t even see Njal slowly approaching him, a ball of blackness poised to kill.
“Valen!” I screamed at him. “Kaelun, you need to valen yourself away. Please!” I pleaded, banging my hands against the ice. “Please, Kaelun. Now!”
“I can’t leave you,” he choked out through a strangled breath.
Njal made to deal the killing blow.
“Noooooooooooo!”
Fear and grief flooded my veins, and I lost all sense as the world collapsed in on me.
Kaelun screamed and writhed in his prison of vines as Njal’s dark magic burned through the back of his leathers. More pressure pressed against me as I screamed and cried and begged for the gods to save him.
One second I was banging against the ice; the next, a shadowed figure tackled Njal from the side.
Kaelun’s screaming ceased only to be replaced by mine as pressure—so intense I thought I’d collapse in on myself—crescendoed until it finally burst from me, shattering the ice dome into a massive, billowing cloud of mist.
Under the cover ice mist, I took out Eithan’s dagger and lunged toward Kaelun, cutting away the vines, only to find another set of hands helping.
“Tarrin!” I cried out, stopping myself from throwing my arms around him in favor of getting our fae friend free.
Tarrin winked at me. “Didn’t think we’d leave without you, did ya?”
“My brother?” Kaelun croaked, still too bound to move.
“He’s alive. Dealing with Njal as we speak.”
“Thank the Mother,” Kaelun breathed.
We worked fast, freeing him from the vines. Tarrin helped him up, and as the remnants of my cage burned away from the sun, I wished more than anything that Kaelun had just valenned himself away.
“Sidrick!” Kaelun called, lunging forward. Tarrin put an arm across his chest, stopping him.
With blackened grass underfoot, Lothar and Njal stood tall, and I stopped breathing. Between them, hands bound and eyes filled with sorrow, knelt Caius’s third-in-command—the fae I’d grown to admire deeply.
I realized then that we’d just traded one brother for another.
“Oh, Sidrick,” I whispered, my heart cracking.
“Unfortunately, we can’t kill this one,” Lothar said, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun.”
I didn’t care how drained I was when I pulled for that primordial power, the cost be damned.
“Stop,” Kaelun said.
I looked at him in shock. “What do you mean?”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “If you attack now, they’ll kill him and claim he got caught in the crossfire. The rules are different in battle versus capture,” he explained.
“Smart kid,” Njal said, sounding disappointed.
“So, we do nothing?” I hissed.
“No, Ny. We get the fuck out of here alive and get help,” Tarrin said.
My attention snapped back to Sidrick, who nodded almost imperceptibly, then mouthed, Be brave. Kaelun stiffened beside me, and I knew the words were meant to remind him of his orders—that no matter what, I came first.
I love you, Kaelun mouthed back, then went to slip a hand in mine to valen us away, until nearly a dozen arrows barreled toward us from the ether.
Instinctually, my magic began to throw up a shield, only a balmy hand grabbed me, killing it as we started to valen, and just as the world began to wink out around us, Kaelun screamed, his grip slipping from mine.
Everything was thrown into chaos.
Kaelun and Tarrin’s figures fuzzed, then snapped back into place.
Blood leaked from Kaelun’s shoulder on the side closest to me—but worse than anything else was how they lost their balance and toppled backward off of the cliff, tumbling with no sense of direction through the air.
“No!” I screamed reaching for them, only for a crack to ring out as something wrapped around my neck, and yanked me back. My arms flailed, and my feet kicked as I reached for Kaelun and Tarrin.
My back crashed against the obsidian surface, and Tarrin screaming my name was the last thing I remembered before everything faded.