Chapter 43 #2
My head thrashes back, to the canopy of green leaves above my head, blocking any view of the sky.
Someone’s calling my name.
I don’t know who.
I barely even know who I am.
I am nothing but flesh and blood…
And power.
That’s what this fire inside of me is.
It’s power rushing violently through me. Down my spine, through my arms and legs, into my head. I’m blinded by the golden magnificence of it, and time loses all meaning. Everything loses meaning.
Until that golden vision fades, leaving my eyesight so sharp that I can see millions of shades in the leaves that had once simply been green. My hearing is just as heightened. I hear the ants on the ground around me, the beating of wings in the air, the cries from the village we left behind us.
I’ve barely gotten enough control over my extremities for me to push off the ground and stand on unsteady legs when I hear the skip of a heartbeat, then the sharp intake of breath, then the soft grunt.
The woman fighting Derian has leveled a blow so intense it knocks his head back.
Just like the blow that Seraphina dealt me.
My legs are moving before I even know what I plan to do.
“Huntyr, no!” Roland’s voice is the epitome of panic, and I spin to face him, only to realize that those precious few steps have taken me right next to the woman he fights.
She rushes towards me, arms outstretched, and I take a panicked, stumbling step backwards.
Just as Roland grabs her forearm and yanks her from me.
I feel her snarl in my bones as she turns to him, knocks his sword away with a rush of shadow, and takes his face between her palms. Her eyes turn pure black, and her jaw unlocks into an inhuman gape as she inhales.
Roland falls to his knees, and I watch, wordlessly, as shimmering magic seems to leak from him, drawn out of him and into her. That inky darkness spreads down her cheeks and chest.
Somehow, I know what’s happening. I know what she’s doing and how this will end, but it all happens so quickly. Far too quickly for me to regain control of myself fast enough to act or to stop it.
I hear the click of his jaw breaking echo sharply in my ears as I watch his eyes dry and shrivel, leaving darkened, hollow holes behind.
She smiles widely as she drops his dead body to the ground.
Roland is dead.
Just like that man in the village.
Just like my father.
That power sparks down my spine once more, and there’s no room for any logical thought once it takes hold of me. I don’t know what I’m doing as I move forward, pushing myself towards her until I press my palm against her forehead and let that magic erupt.
It bursts out of me like an explosion of shimmering, intense light that is both intensely violent and filled with unspeakable relief. Her eyes widen slightly as I push that light out of me and into her, until it erupts from her eyes and ears, golden, warm, and intense.
It feels like home. Like Tyla. Like warm nights spent together by the fireplace reading books and sharing wine. Like the quiet moments with Derian after we’ve brought each other to the highest forms of bliss. Like the touch of Kristona brushing my hair aside and kissing me goodnight.
Like the moment before I kill someone, when I know that I alone control death itself.
She falls.
Her body falls next to Roland's. Both hollowed out. His left dark, and hers left golden.
I lose all control of my body as I heave forward and retch.
After what feels like an eternity, my hearing and vision fade back to their normal intensity, and I don’t register when the fighting stops. I don’t even sense the footsteps nearing me until a gentle hand pulls back my hair.
I tense, swinging my blade, but a hand wraps around my wrist and stills me.
“It’s me,” I hear Caldren say behind me.
No. I don’t need Caldren.
Rocking back on my heels, I bring my hand to my mouth, wiping away any remnants of what just happened as I look for him.
Derian looks more like a beast than a man as he drops his sword to the ground and comes to me, crouching before me and taking my face in his hands.
Then, he looks at my hands. Hands that are still streaked with that golden light. I hold them up in horror, staring at the glittering light that flows under my skin, fading away ever so slowly.
“I—” The words don’t come out easily. “I don’t know how I did that.”
“It’s okay, Huntress.” He brushes away my hair. “You did good.”
I want to look to my side, to the bodies next to me, but he holds my face firmly.
“Roland.” I don’t know how to apologize. I don’t know how to explain that I didn’t keep his friend safe.
Derian wets his lip, looking to his friend over my shoulder. I would have forgotten Caldren was there at all if it wasn’t for the reassuring circles he was rubbing along my back.
“Cal is going to take you back to the village. I’ll take care of this.”
“No!” I’m protesting before I’m even thinking it through, grabbing onto his wrist sharply.
Derian leans forward, resting his forehead against mine. “I need to bury my friend, Huntyr. Go with Cal. I’ll be right behind you.”
Caldren rises, bringing me to my feet with him.
I don’t have it in me to protest as he puts a hand on my waist and starts guiding me back to my village.
“Caldren, what were they?” I whisper once we’re out of Derian’s earshot.
Cal glances down at me, a strand of copper hair falling over his brow before he breathes deeply and quickens our pace.
“Those, Lachlan, were Velkai,” he tells me, his voice grave. “And I just held your hair while you puked your guts up, I think you can call me Cal now.”
I don’t acknowledge him. I can’t. I’m too busy turning over those words again and again.
Velkai.
Not Fae.
The Fae hadn’t killed my father.
Which meant…
That meant that my entire life had been built on a lie. Every horror I’d seen living in Kristona’s house. Every brutal beating I’d taken in the name of training. Every atrocity I’d committed.
It had all been for a lie.
I’d spent my life turning myself into a bigger monster than the ones who had taken my father from me. My entire life had been leading to the moment that I could get my revenge on the Fae.
And it had all been for nothing.