Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
The moment Fieran saw her, framed in the wreckage of the destruction she’d wrought with the dust in the air glittering around her in the light of his magic, he caught his breath and fell all the more in love with her.
How could he do anything else when she stood there, petite and strong and wielding magic capable of blowing a castle door off?
Then she was running toward him, and he was still so love-stunned that he forgot he probably should run toward her too until she was only a few feet away.
He shook off his paralysis in time to drop his swords, take two steps to her, and sweep her into his arms just as she threw herself into his embrace.
He held her tightly, burying his face against her hair, and that knot in the pit of his stomach finally eased.
She was safe, and they were together.
And then they were kissing. Little breathless kisses punctuated by just as breathless words between.
“You blew off the castle gates!”
“I know!” Her squeal ended in a kiss. “And you’re blowing up…everything else!”
“Isn’t it great?” Another kiss. “I love you.”
“Good. I love you too.” Pip’s words were a murmur before she kissed him, this one less frantic and more lingering.
He kissed her back, wrapping both arms around her as he held her tightly against him, her arms around his neck, her hands in his hair.
The rolling roar of an explosion shook the ground beneath Fieran’s feet. Right. This probably wasn’t the optimal time to get lost in kissing his girlfriend.
Fieran pulled back as she did and set her on her feet, a twinge of pain flaring in his side from the healing gash. He pressed a hand to the spot as Pip grimaced and gripped a hand over her upper arm. He gestured to her. “Are you all right?”
“I was shot. Long story.” Pip pointed at his side. “You?”
“Sliced open by a mad scientist. Another long story.” Fieran tried not to think too much about the whole I was shot thing. She was standing and didn’t look like she was in a great deal of pain. Besides, they had other things to deal with. Such as ending the war.
When Fieran straightened, he turned to face Dacha. Inside of the high wall before them, people were flooding out of the government offices, running toward the front gate as they were chased by fizzling bolts of Dacha’s magic.
Dacha nodded a greeting to Pip before he looked at Fieran, not even having to say anything.
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll get on that.” He glanced at Pip. “I’m supposed to be chasing the Mongavarian royal family out of their castle so we can force them to surrender.”
“If it helps, we’ve already captured the crown prince.” Pip grinned and motioned back to the castle.
Two figures were picking their way down the slope inside of one of Pip’s shields, one appearing to be leaning on the other for support.
Strangely as they grew closer, it became apparent that Uncle Edmund was the one barely able to stand while his prisoner, the crown prince, was the one holding him up and hauling him forward.
Although, the knife Uncle Edmund held to the crown prince’s ribs must have provided sufficient motivation for the man to cooperate.
“That is helpful.” Fieran grinned at Pip before he retrieved his swords and focused more fully on his magic once again. His magic worked deeper into the castle, crackling down corridors, sparking against anyone he found to encourage them to flee.
As figures poured through the ruins of the castle gates, Uncle Edmund halted next to Pip, his gray-haired prisoner still holding him up. “Your timing is impeccable.”
Dacha flicked a glance at him. “You do not look well, shashon.”
“I thought I looked rather well for a week of torture.” Uncle Edmund grinned. At least, Fieran assumed that was the expression his uncle was attempting. “Your hair is short.”
“It was necessary and voluntary.” Dacha nudged the crowd of people gathering outside of the governmental offices closer.
“Voluntary? I’ll have to hear that story once we’ve finished here.” Uncle Edmund’s grotesque grin widened as a new, resounding boom—a naval gun rather than an explosion—echoed from behind them. “Our reinforcements have arrived.”
Fieran glanced over his shoulder, then spun around to better take in the sight of a column of Alliance warships, led by a heavy cruiser, as they charged into the mouth of the harbor.
The lead ship fired its huge guns nearly point-blank at one of the Mongavarian ships that was trying to get underway.
Other ships in the column fired on the outer defenses of the harbor, where the men had been so distracted by Fieran’s and Dacha’s magical display within the harbor that they hadn’t been paying attention to incoming threats from outside of it.
With the familiar whining whir, six aeroplanes with the red, gray, and green circles of the Alliance painted on their wings swarmed the airships. As the lead aeroplane turned to strafe an airship, the elf ear emblazoned over a tree became visible on the side of the nose.
Rothilion. Fieran whooped and sent a burst of his magic skyward. He didn’t think Rothilion would even see him, but the aeroplane waggled its wings before it zoomed over the airship and dropped several bombs. The airship exploded with gouts of flames.
How had Rothilion and the other aeroplanes gotten here? Fieran hadn’t heard of the Alliance developing aeroplane-launching airships like Mongavaria had. But this mission was top secret.
With the Alliance Navy and Flying Corps destroying whatever Fieran and his dacha hadn’t already blown up, Fieran turned back to the gathering of Mongavarian government officials.
An old woman with white-gray hair picked her way down the castle’s causeway, leaning on the arm of a middle-aged man.
He bore somewhat of a resemblance to the older gentleman Pip and Uncle Edmund had captured, making him likely also in line for the Mongavarian throne. Probably the crown prince’s son.
The woman halted before them, barely taller than Pip and filled to the brim with both affronted dignity and an intense spite as she glared from Dacha to Fieran to Uncle Edmund.
“Empress Bella.” Uncle Edmund took a step forward, pushing away from the shackled man. “I am prepared to accept Mongavaria’s surrender.”
“I will never surrender to you.” The empress spat the words, her gaze flicking over Uncle Edmund, dismissing him.
When her gaze landed on Dacha, her mouth curled slightly.
“And especially not to you or your half-breed spawn. The age of elves is long over. It’s time for humans to rise and take our rightful empire. ”
Dacha’s hard gaze didn’t change as, in the distance, something exploded.
She wielded the disgust in her tone like a weapon, but her intended blow didn’t strike. It couldn’t, not after the way Fieran had spent this war embracing his dual heritage.
He could tell her he was stronger because he was a half-breed, and the Alliance was stronger because they weren’t just humans. There was so much wrong with her words. With her thinking. But he wasn’t going to convince her.
Fieran was so done with that prejudice. It was something they were still fighting within the Alliance. The elves had it, as demonstrated by Capt. Rothilion’s family. The trolls had it. The humans had it. It wasn’t right, no matter where it appeared.
But to wage a war that had cost tens of thousands of lives because of that prejudice? That was a level of hatred Fieran couldn’t begin to comprehend.
Behind Prince Edmund, the crown prince drew himself straighter, although he didn’t wear dignity quite as well as his mother did. Having his hands shackled behind his back didn’t help. Yet he spoke with a haughty assertiveness. “Mongavaria will never surrender to the likes of the Alliance.”
The words and the twin looks of hatred burning in the eyes of the empress and her son ignited something deep within Fieran’s chest. He hadn’t fought for months, shed so much blood his soul was stained with it, lost friends and family, crashed, watched his best friend come back after losing a leg, crossed half of Mongavaria, and exploded all this armament only to be told no.
He was absolutely done with all of this. The war ended now.
For the sake of all the Alliance men and women who had died fighting. All those fighting still.
For the sake of the ogres who had been ruthlessly exploited and experimented on.
And for the sake of the Mongavarian citizens like the woman who’d helped them and who wanted to believe that her kingdom could be better than it was now.
Fieran’s magic burned in his chest and through his veins in a way it never had before. This was a soul-deep righteous fury unlike anything he’d ever felt. Hardly knowing what he was going to do, Fieran shared a look with his dacha, finding there the same burning anger. “We need to end this.”
With a firm nod, Dacha stabbed his swords into the ground at the edge of the road, kneeling as he did so. His words were a declaration, a death knell. “Then we will end it, sason.”
Dacha’s magic burst outward, crackling down his arms, over his swords, and into the ground. Fieran caught his breath at the sheer force of Dacha’s power as it pummeled his chest.
Fieran copied his movements, kneeling and stabbing his swords into the dirt.
Closing his eyes, he sank deep into the storm of his own magic and released it.
All of it. He didn’t try to hold back or control it in the ways he had before.
Instead, he embraced the magic and let it take over until he was subsumed into the scorching force of it.
This was the full force of the magic of the ancient kings, only unleashed by the depth of the wrath Fieran felt.
At that moment, he very likely would have registered as a 20 on the Marion Scale.
He could only guess how high Dacha’s magic would register.
The taste of it seared against his in an immense power beyond anything Fieran had sensed before.