23. Quit
The castle still had some creatures to fight, as well as some illusioned staff that Killian disabled as gently as possible as he made his way up the floors. He slowed near the top of the third floor, panting and grasping his side where he had been hit by the ogre and thrown down hard onto the stone. His wrist ached, and his muscles were quaking with fatigue. His forearms were stinging at every cut that hadn’t fully healed from the thorns, weakening the strength of his grip.
Yet his greatest challenges lay before him. Defeat Zalina, rescue his father, and wake Raela somehow. The tasks seemed impossible. Closing his eyes, he inhaled slowly. All he could do was move forward. And try. And fight. And not quit. Focus on only taking the next step.
If only his father could see him now.
Rolling his shoulders back, he regripped the pommel of his sword. It was time to find Zalina. He burst out from the landing and swept down the hallway toward the balcony where she had been and where he expected her to lie in wait for his arrival. A cat to his mouse.
But as he turned, he abruptly halted and backpedaled. He had come face-to-face with his father. Recovering, Killian rebalanced and was about to relax his stance when the skin on his neck prickled. Something was wrong. His father’s normally sharp blue eyes had dulled like melting frost on the window, and his mouth hung slack and loose. Killian stepped to the side, and his father stepped to the side with him. Killian went through the quick motions of a soldier’s warm-up with his sword. His father mimicked every form smoothly. Each movement showed his hard-earned skill, honed from a life of combat, but was also not quite right, like an echo distorting his original voice. His training was evident but altered. Unlike disabling a butler with a candelabra, his father might actually be able to fight back.
Killian frowned. His gaze caught two glowing eyes in the shadows. Zalina crouched in the corner of the room, her malformed body curved forward and her jagged wings tucked close behind her. She smiled, and her finger-long thin gray teeth glistened in the torchlight. Her red eyes watched him.
Killian tried to step toward her, but his father matched him fluidly.
“Stop this now, Zalina,” Killian called.
“I have no more distractions—thanks to your helpful little fairies meddling with the goblins and the people. I am free to focus. Your father and I are of one mind.”
Killian’s sword slashed downward. “Leave him out of this.”
Her laugh of many voices slithered around him. “He was always part of this. He’s a tool at my disposal to get me what I want. If you would only consent to marry me, this whole thing would be over. We could reign. Together.”
Killian’s shoulders stiffened. “I will never marry you.”
Zalina rose to her full height, still bent on her dragon-like legs. Spikes from her skull met in the back and continued between her wings in a single set of spikes down her spine. She paced the far hall. “You must. I deserve this. My mother is queen. I deserve to rule!”
“Every ruler must serve their people and fight for them, Zalina. No one deserves the role. To serve as a leader is a gift. A challenge. A fight to do what is right for all the people. Not just for yourself.” Killian pointed his sword out the window. “Manipulating and battling your people is not the way to be a good ruler.”
She spat on the ground. “I had no choice. First, the fairies meddled with the princess, then your mother used her star-forsaken blood magic. They made me this way.”
“Zalina, you are responsible for yourself. You chose your own way. You can choose now to stop. To turn. To change.”
Her eyes darkened as her maw opened in a growl. “I choose you. I choose marriage by coercion.” She splayed out her clawed hands. “I can’t kill you directly. I need you to overcome the magic over your throne. I will threaten everything you hold dear until you marry me. Then you and I can rule this land together. You could be the leader you always wanted to be! Even better than your father!”
Killian scrutinized the slack face of his father—a face he hadn’t looked at in a long time. Not really. Looked around, looked down on, avoided, but not observed. The king’s face looked so wrinkled and vulnerable now. It wasn’t lined with criticism or disdain, but neither was it the laughing face he remembered from his youth. Now, he was just a man. A fallible man who perhaps had been trying his best. The vulnerability was startling. Perhaps he and his father weren’t so different after all.
Killian sighed, his right arm relaxing the tip of the sword on the ground. “I won’t marry you, Zalina. Stop this here, before anyone else gets hurt. This isn’t the right way.”
A cry, more rage than pain ripped from Zalina. She raised her hand, and his father flung himself forward, thrusting with his sword. Killian parried and sidestepped, the blow much harder than those of the smaller creatures. His ribs burned from the ogres’ attacks, but he pushed the pain aside. He searched for a way to incapacitate his father without hurting him. But it wouldn’t be easy. His father swung his sword, spinning and cutting down on him. Killian leapt aside and danced backward, guarding the pummeling hits that his father landed. His father’s sleeve fell back, and Killian glimpsed the glowing purple mark on his forearm. Killian ached to free him and glanced toward the balcony to see if a fairy would bring magic water. But the fairies were too far away.
In his distraction, his father landed a slicing blow on Killian’s leg, and he fell to one knee. His father lifted the sword. Killian surged forward on the other leg, trying to tackle his father, but the king turned at the last moment and Killian missed. He landed on the ground again and scrambled backward.
“What I see is a boy.” His father stepped toward him slowly, his voice stilted and monotone. “A boy that is happy when the sun is out. But when things get hard, when you face a struggle, you quit.”
Killian froze, those words all too familiar. The king struck down, and Killian rolled away.
“You have quit your whole life.” The king approached again. This time, his sword pointed at Killian’s face. “You quit. You will never be ready.”
The words struck deep. His father spoke his words from their argument. Was Zalina there that day? Or was this just a pattern of her puppetry, to reuse memories?
“You’ll never be king.”
Killian’s face crumpled. He shuffled back, unable to rise, trying to get away from the king, anything to gain distance. He kept one side toward Zalina, unwilling to let her slip out of sight. But he already felt defeated. The words were just as crushing today as they were the first time he’d heard them. He rolled out onto the balcony to avoid his father’s next blow.
But … wait. Killian frowned. That wasn’t what his father had actually said. Killian had gone over the moment a hundred times since then. What had he actually said? Killian struggled to remember. He could picture the two of them in the office, at the end of the table. His father’s true voice rang in his mind.
“I hope you will be better than me … but … not today. Being king is about endurance, patience, and wisdom … you must fight for every victory and never give up in the losses. Not run. Fight … you are not yet ready.”
His father had said exactly what Auntie Shou had said, but Killian hadn’t been ready to hear him. Killian hadn’t been listening.
Yet.
Fight.
Get up.
His muscles burned. His broken ribs shifted and ground against each other.
Get up.
His father approached, sword raised. With a grunt, Killian rose and staggered to his feet, gripping his sword pummel tightly.
Killian turned slightly to Zalina, pointing his blade at her. “Leave my father out of this. My fight is with you.”
Zalina pushed off the wall, her sashaying walk discordant with her monstrous body. “Very well.” She waved a casual hand at the king, who dropped his sword. With a quick pull, she grabbed the king by the lapel of his jacket and flung him over the balcony edge.
Screaming, Killian dove after him, but was too late. The king was airborne. At that moment, Zalina released her mental hold on the king. Killian watched, frozen in time, as his father’s every feature blanched in terror. They held each other’s gaze, then the king fell out of sight.
Killian whirled and rushed toward Zalina.
“You killed him!” he yelled as he slammed the sword at her, but she blocked it with the scales on her forearm.
Hissing, she slashed back with her claws. “If only you would consent! You bring this upon yourself. Just marry me already!”
He slammed his sword, bashing her backward a step. “Never.”
“Phineas will be next. Then Jax.” She growled, her vicious face pinched taut. She pulsed her wings, moving backward before landing and throwing herself at him again.
A coal of anger ignited to flame in Killian’s chest, and he cried out as he leapt forward. He threw nearby vases and a tapestry at her as he ran, ducking under her claws. Slipping a dagger from his waistband, he stabbed her tail, pinning it into the wooden floorboards. He flipped around, still on the ground as she turned to free herself. He feinted, and she fell for it in her haste. Lunging, she threw herself at Killian, and the sword in Killian’s hand slid into her chest.
Zalina gaped at the sword hilt-deep between the scales in her breastbone. Her voice was gargled. “I will end you. I will kill them all!” Blood speckled her lips as she laughed. Wrenching the sword down, Killian pulled it free and held it above his head.
He called for the light. A solid beam pierced through the swirling clouds, through the balcony opening, and onto his sword. The whole weapon seared his palm and with a cry, Killian swung downward. In an explosion of light and purple smoke, the monster collapsed to the floor.
Killian held his sword at the ready, waiting for some final curse or magic to revive her. He regretted the need for violence to stop her, but there was no other way. The light brightened as it landed on her sickly form, and with a sizzle and a sudden snap, her body collapsed into a pile of ash.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. Killian stood, sword drawn and muscles ready for another attack. But it never came. The ash remained. Slowly, Killian relaxed his sword and softened his stance. Zalina was defeated. He only wished he had ended this in time to save his father.
Killian slowly approached the edge of the balcony, afraid to look over and see the sprawled body of the king. Afraid to take account of the losses his men suffered. Afraid for Phineas and Jax and the aunties. But if he were king now, it was time to bear up under the weight of truth. So he looked.
On the far side of the gardens, the wall of vines shuddered and faded like a storm that had passed. Illusioned soldiers and servants were recovering. Some shook their heads while others held their heads in their hands, finally released from Zalina’s spell. The swirling clouds above dissipated, revealing a deep blue sky. The light of the sun flooded the land. The goblins all looked toward the light and, as one, closed their eyes and faded into dust.
Auntie Toru stood with her arms out, protecting the awakened servants by the orchard, and Jax and Phineas stood beside the fountain with some of his men. Phineas glanced up at him and smiled. In the fountain behind him, a very wet, very grumpy king emerged sputtering from the pink waters.
His father lived.
Killian laughed, which drew the eyes of the people of his castle. Even those who had not been submerged in the magical water had been freed by Zalina’s death.
He raised his sword to the sky. The magical light fixed on it and reflected out in a thousand beams.
“We’ve done it! Zalina is defeated!” Killian shouted. The people below cheered with raised fists. Auntie Mo grabbed the waist of an embarrassed-looking soldier in a massive hug. Auntie Toru grabbed a kitchen girl and spun her around as she danced. Sauntering to stand by Phineas, Auntie Shou held onto his arm as she nodded upward, her gaze flickering up toward the central tower.
Raela.