Chapter 38 Remember
REMEMBER
Lark ignored the fresh pain in her side and tugged on the line anchoring her to the fae realm.
A rush of power flooded her whole being.
It spread from her necklace, swelling out, and warming the rest of her body.
Dark energy sped from her palms, slamming into a stone wall and breaking through.
Barrik summoned stone slab after slab from the ground, using them as shields to block Lark’s power.
“We’ve been through this before, Ella,” Barrik said.
He muttered a quickly worded incantation.
The ground under her feet began crumbling away.
A dark abyss opened up, forcing Lark to scramble away.
Pain flared through her arm as she ran to escape the earth falling away behind her.
She called again on the fae bond and forced a bolt of black lightning down over Barrik.
Barrik shifted focus, quickly summoning a ward shield. The lightning struck, sending dark fissures across his energy shield. The shield held.
“Your powers from the dark fae aren’t going to defeat me, Ella,” he shouted. “I’ve been there, faced the rulers of the dark fae at the Night Court before. You would know this if you would just remember.”
Lark escaped the chasm, nearing Hardin, Venrick and Sasja.
“Lark,” Hardin called. He had the brismil scabbard in his hand and threw it to Lark.
She caught it with her good arm and forced herself to ignore the pain from her injuries.
She drew Stormbreaker, power clearing her vision and giving her the energy to continue.
Hardin fumbled with the scale, attempting to get it to Lark.
Before he could, however, Barrik attacked.
He came in fast, angling his spear to deliver a blow. As he did, a hazy afterimage appeared, like a second spear, trailing past the first. The image doubled, multiplying as he arched the spear around to the apex of his wind-up.
Lark met his brismil spear with Stormbreaker.
The initial exchange hit hard, sending vibrations into her hand.
Her block was enough to dispel a single strike, but the afterimages collided one on top of the other, passing their energy into his swing.
The added momentum of a hundred spear strikes carried through, slamming into Stormbreaker.
Lark cried out as the strike knocked the blade from her hand and sent her flying. She hit a stone wall that appeared out of nowhere, summoned into existence by Barrik’s control over the earth. Her back crushed into the earthen wall. She slid to the ground in a daze.
She was seeing double as Barrik approached, his brismil spear pointed toward her. “Remember this, Ella? Remember why you gave up fighting? You could never defeat me.”
Barrik whispered an incantation. Granite vines shot out of the ground, clasping around her legs and arms to pin her in place.
Venrick and Hardin streaked across the dais.
Venrick slammed his sword into the back of Barrik’s helmet.
The blade shattered as he carried through with a war cry.
Hardin pushed past Venrick, shouldering with the weight of the brismil armor into Barrik.
Barrik stumbled, tossing Hardin down. Barrik summoned his power.
Hardin rose and Venrick wrapped his arms around the rider’s armor.
Barrik spoke another quickly worded spell, summoning his power.
Venrick and Hardin sank into the earth up to their knees. The ground hardened, trapping them.
Barrik walked unharmed away from Venrick, leaving him and Hardin struggling to break free. He held the spear tip level with Lark’s chest, looking at her thoughtfully.
“You enslaved Nix,” Lark growled, blood weeping from her side, her broken arm so swollen the skin felt like it was going to split.
Despite the pain, she kept fighting, calling on her powers.
“You killed her!” she shouted, forcing the dark energy to form around the granite vines that bound her.
Tendrils of black seeped out of her to form around the bonds he’d created.
Her power squeezed the stone, cracking it apart.
Lark pushed through, forcing her limbs free.
“Think harder, Ella. I didn’t enslave Nix, you did. You were the one who hauled her from the Night Court to our world kicking and screaming.”
“No,” Lark insisted, rising to her feet. Feeling the Night Court’s magic channeling through her. “That’s not true,” she said, casting a line of energy like a black stave at him.
Barrik blocked the strike, letting it lodge into a stone shield.
“You were the one who taught us how the dark fae can be used like tools. You showed us how to raise the rimeshade with the coming Flashover. These rimeshades are ancient beings capable of more magical agility than any magi, elf, orc, or dwarf. You showed us the rimeshade aren’t just frost wielding shades.
In numbers, they’re capable of taking over this realm. ”
“Lies,” she hissed.
“The motivations of their kind are not as evil as you’ve been led to believe.
Their strength is born of the fae. They’re capable of go beyond the limits of what a dragon can bear, even with a rider to help them control their magic.
If you need proof of what the dark fae’s powers can do look no further than what you’ve done tonight without your dragon bond. ”
“Don’t listen to him, Lark. You’re stronger than he is,” Venrick said.
“Venrick,” Barrik tsked. “You’re a pathetic replacement for Tel Roan.
Now there was a Paragon who posed a real challenge.
One who was truly of the old order and believed in what Lamar was fighting for, freedom from the oppressive Northern Kingdoms. His desire for Lamar to control the Everburning Forest was misguided, but pure. ”
Lark shot another spike at the rider. It glanced off his shields, digging into the ground near Venrick’s feet. When the energy faded, Lark noticed the hole it left at Venrick’s feet. Lark switched her focus, peppering the ground around Venrick.
“Ella!” Barrik shouted, sending one of his ghostly extensions out at her. The hand gripped around her throat, lifting her off the ground.
She punched at it. Her fist passed through, the earthy debris collecting, becoming more solid by the second.
Venrick tore his feet from the stone around him.
He grabbed the Morsythian blade laying discarded on the dais nearby.
As he did, Barrik slammed the butt end of his spear into Venrick’s side.
Venrick doubled over. He stabbed weakly, limping on his battered thigh to catch himself from falling.
Barrik caught Venrick again in the ribs with the blunt end of his spear.
Venrick dropped to all fours. Venrick struggled to rally another swing.
Barrik planted his foot on his back, rolling him with an effortless kick.
He pinned Venrick there, his armored boot resting on Venrick’s chest.
Lark struggled, coughing to be able to breath. “Let him go,” she rasped. She struck at the arm with her fae power, tried to send tendrils of the energy around it as she had before, but each time they slipped off. Barrik now shielded them with newly formed wards.
The rider spun his spear, driving it down and stopping the tip of the brismil a hair before entering Venrick’s neck. Barrik turned his helmet toward Lark and said, “Remember, Ella. Remember and I’ll let him live.”
“I can’t remember anything,” she shouted.
“Yes, you can. Focus on the bond with your dragon and remember.”
“The bond with my dragon? He’s not…” Her line of thought went to the other times when she had used magic. Each time ended with a different result. She had to speak to cast it, like Barrik did by wielding the earth. This fae power, however, required no verbal commands.
“Your dragon is alive. He has suffered greatly in the knowledge that you chose to use the bond you had with him to form a bond with another dragon. Riders were meant to share their powers with only one dragon. If I were to put Killaborden through that kind of misery, he would want me dead. He would kill me himself rather than let me share our bond with another dragon.”
“I didn’t know,” Lark whispered.
“It’s not your fault,” Venrick shouted.
The rider pressed the blade down, cutting through his light armor with ease.
“No,” Lark said, her throat closing. She struggled to focus. Struggled to search for a connection to that dragon bond. She was slowly suffocating. Barrik was going to kill Venrick if she didn’t remember.
“Search yourself, Ella; find the truth, or you both die.”
“Help me,” she gasped.
“What was that?”
“Help me remember,” she said.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, lowering Lark down to her feet and loosening his grip on her neck.
“I’ll let you uncover my lost memories, but not before you let my friends go free,” Lark said.
“You were always prone to showing mercy. I thought I drove it out of you, yet you always seem to come back to it,” he said.
Barrik lifted his spear, allowing Venrick to rise. Hardin removed the brismil armor and was struggling to squeeze his feet from the stone. Sasja helped him, the cut on her neck still trickling blood. Barrik spoke, manipulating his control over the stone and Hardin came free.
From outside the fortress, they could hear alarms ringing. It the sounded like fighting, again. Red Lodge was summoning a force to fight…
Cheyanne is here, she realized.
A bellowing roar sounded overhead and a moment later dragon fire splashed down around Barrik. Venrick, Hardin and Sasja backed away, toward Lark. Barrik’s black dragon launched, colliding with Ingamar. They snapped and snarled, clawing at one another as they crashed down near the dais.
“Stop!” Lark cried.
Barrik’s dragon pinned Ingamar to the ground, though he refrained from delivering a killing blow. Slowly, Killaborden released his jaw, backing away from Ingamar.
“Let them go,” Lark said, clutching the stab wound in her side.