Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Icursed Bane and Islasees as I ducked behind the shelter of the Great Elm’s coiling branches where she sheltered me from their ferocious battle.
I had no hope of defeating either of them and claiming their amulets for my own.
If Bane would offer his up then perhaps I’d have stood a chance but of course he wouldn’t.
And I couldn’t even blame him. He ached for the boon just as I did.
But what he desired was death when I wished only for a life which had been stolen.
A life which should have been. And I couldn’t give her up no matter how much I could see his pain nor feel empathy for his wants. I’d die first.
A scream almost strangled me at the hopelessness of it all, at how far I’d come and how much I’d achieved. And now at best I would be killed by the monster I knew, at worst by the one I’d watched cheat and murder his way to this place.
It wasn’t fair. I knew that was a petty, pointless, childish sentiment to cling to but it was the truth.
Rissa had been a child when the Fae had thrown her to the forest. Her life was worth saving so much more than any immortal would ever be able to understand. But they were going to take her from me again.
Despair threatened to devour me but then a voice slunk into my ear as the Dragon swept down from the canopy above and placed itself on a branch between me and the Fae who would so gladly part my head from my shoulders.
“You really are far too human for your own good,” it grumbled, feathered tail swishing from side to side like a vexed cat.
“What?” I breathed, blinking tears of frustration from my eyes.
“Haven’t I given you the answer to this problem already?”
“What problem? Stop speaking in riddles, please. I have no mind for puzzling them out in this moment.”
“Fine,” the Dragon huffed. “Then plain I shall be. Spirit singer I named you because that is what you are. Part human yes – much to my disquiet, but born of our kind too and able to speak our language well enough to coax us to your side.”
“What good does that do me with spirits which have already been claimed?” I begged, my eyes moving to the Tiger and Bear which were engaged in a furious battle at the will of their masters.
The Dragon scoffed in disgust. “Claimed? By brute force and violence. Does that seem to you to be the best way to make a bond with our kind?”
I stared at this creature of wonder and magic, everything I had done to get me to this place rushing through my mind in a blur. Everything I had attempted, everything that had failed and far more importantly, everything that had worked.
My gaze snapped to the Tiger and locked there, air filling my lungs as I sucked it in deep and pushed myself tall.
Madness. This was madness. But it felt more right than almost everything else that I’d ever done before. The Great Elm seemed to sense my need and the branch I was sheltering on swung down to the ground once more so that I could leap free of it.
“Join me,” I called, though as I listened to my words I realised the Dragon was right, mixed in with the language I had spoken all my life was a tumultuous song.
A song which couldn’t be heard with ears or felt with any human sense.
It was a song of magic. A song of the spirits.
And as the Tiger heard my call, it released a roar and spilled away into a cloud of vibrant smoke.
An amulet dropped to the dirt at my feet and I gasped as I snatched it.
Power flooded through me, the Tiger’s mark appearing on my skin, a twisting pattern on the back of my right hand, but I had no time to waste on admiring it.
Islasees cried out in horror as he realised what I’d done, the Phoenix circling around his head then shooting straight for me with flames erupting from its beak and talons of molten metal aimed straight for my heart.
With a single request spilling from my lips, the Phoenix burst into smoke too, its amulet dropping before me only to be joined by the Carp, Rat and Stag as I called them into my grasp as well.
The heady weight of so many connections joining to my soul struck me with wild brutality but somehow I managed to remain on my feet and endure it.
All of their marks stitched themselves onto the flesh of my right arm, merging with the rest, painting my skin in an intricate pattern which I only wished I had time to study.
Magic rushed through my flesh and a scream of rage and anguish escaped the Fae warrior. Bane swung his sword, almost decapitating the male he hated so much but years of battling had Islasees ducking aside in the last breath, a slice opening across his side in place of cutting him two.
He turned and bolted for the labyrinth with a howl of fury and I was left staring at Bane as the truth of what I was and what I would do next settled between us.