20. Delphine
Deimos was ready,waiting.
But so was I.
The high king of the Afterworld had made a show of using his powers before, hidden his true ability in the theatrics of shadow. So, could I.
Not a single beat of my own heart passed before I’d wrapped the first row of soldiers in my own shadows, tightening my noose around them before I dragged them right back down to the Afterworld from whence they’d come. I made a point to let out a breath as I did, letting my shoulders rise and fall as my footsteps wavered slightly, a show of my own that didn’t go unnoticed. Even as that first line of soldiers disappeared, I saw the slightest smile start to play on Deimos’ lips, and I knew he was watching me as closely as I was him. And he’d seen exactly what I wanted him to.
The game had just begun. I needed Deimos to fear me, but not so much as to retreat. I needed him to think the battle was still his to be won. If my plan worked, by the time he’d realized there was even a chance he could lose, he’d already have lost.
The first row of soldiers was not enough to catch the eye of the encroaching army, but the next one was. I took a few more this time, made a show of drawing a cloud of shadows from the air to swallow them up, just enough to make the first soldiers nearing the entrance to the courtyard falter in their steps as they saw them disappear, but not enough to stop Deimos’ smile from spreading ever so slightly wider. Even from where I stood, I could see a slightly manic look light in his eye as he raised his own hand and called his own shadows to draw them right back up.
I sought out a familiar-looking face, eyes scanning the recalled soldiers until I spotted my first. And then another. And Another.
It was all I could do to keep my own, smug smile from pursing my lips.
It was just as I suspected. Deimos would recall the same soldiers, his best soldiers, first. All I had to do now was start pushing him until he started calling up new ones, those fae he’d not prepared to draw out of the depths of the Afterworld.
Only then would the true work begin.
For now, it was all smoke, all shadows.
All show.
The sight of Deimos’ magic, the return of his soldiers, was enough to revitalize the charge of Mordrigal’s men. They raced to the edge of the courtyard with a new vigor, pouring into it just as, at last, I gave my first signal.
Armene, Caldamir, and Nereus raced into the courtyard, swords and faces fixated on Mordrigal while I focused my own attention on Deimos. The rest of the Sand Court remained watching, hands on weapons at the ready, but still they remained as commanded, their own confidence bolstered by the sight of my next wave of glamour, this time snatching some of Mordrigal’s men away too, before they had time to engage with the princes already locked in with the massive golden figure of the high king of Avarath.
Nyx, no longer his own, charged in too—focused on fighting the princes he once considered his own brothers. Unlike his brothers, however, his was not a court prepared for battle. His attempts to thwart Caldamir and Armene and even Nereus were foolhardy at best, distracting at worst. He was under Deimos’ control, but Deimos was distracted. Without much to draw of his own magic source here in the Sand Court, Nyx was rendered little more useful than a human lost in faerie. The princes refused to cut him down, and so did I. I couldn’t bring myself to take hold of him, to hold him tight enough to feel the pain and fear that my magic inspired in him. Not again. But even more than that, I didn’t want to feel how he’d changed, I didn’t want to know just how much Deimos’ shadows had poisoned him.
I just had to keep Deimos distracted enough that he didn’t notice. I needed him to think I didn’t have this kind of control over my shadows. Not yet.
So, I followed the others’ suit and took my own first step towards Deimos, and he did the same. We remained locked together like that, me pulling one wave of soldiers from the courtyard at a time, only for him to pull them right back up. I made a show of picking them at random, of selecting the fae that I took either in rows or so randomly that it appeared I had little control in the midst of the increasing crush of soldiers. In reality, I kept careful watch over the soldiers that grew close to the princes and their battle so they could focus their own, actual, attentions on Mordrigal.
They, in turn, kept him occupied enough the high king of Avarath didn’t seem to notice that his own soldiers were disappearing from the courtyard behind him almost as quickly as they could rush in. Deimos didn’t seem to notice, either. He was still pulling the same number of soldiers back up, his back to the slowly disappearing wave of gold.
I took only the smallest second break to pull Sol close so I could whisper in his ear, ordering him to take hold of my belt and not let go, no matter what. For what was about to happen next, I needed both my hands to be free. I didn’t need both hands. I just wanted Deimos to think I did, for him to think I was already reaching the limit of my powers.
It had its intended effect. The next round of soldiers Deimos pulled from the Afterworld was larger. More feral. Less refined.
I pulled them back down as I moved closer to Deimos, making a show of struggle. I faltered a bit, lost control of my shadows just long enough for one of his new soldiers to barrel dangerously close to me before I pretended to just barely get ahold of my powers again in order to drag him away at the last second.
We began working our way towards each other, one step, one cast of the glamour at a time, our footsteps locked in nearly as intricate a dance as our battling glamours were. I let the soldiers get closer and closer, each time sparking just a little more confidence in Deimos as he did. But that was when I switched.
I began pulling more and more soldiers from the battlefield. Not just a few here and there to keep up with Deimos’ own magic, but more. Just a little more, just enough that I saw the change register in him. His smug smile shifted a bit into surprise, and unless I was mistaken, for a brief second—however brief—he might have even been impressed.
Just a little.
I wondered if he would be impressed, still, if he knew the hardest part of what I was doing right then, in that moment, was holding back.
That second didn’t last long enough to make him falter, however. It was just enough to make his own stance shift, his own draw on the glamour strengthen. His next round of soldiers was even bigger, even less refined. The battlefield became a mess with their sloppy footwork, the flash of their untrained swords.
Which was just what I wanted.
Deimos was starting to draw out the dredges of the Afterworld. He was starting to reach for his reserves. My moment was coming.
I could feel it.
The battle between Mordrigal and the princes, between him and Caldamir and Armene and Nereus, waged on as if they alone stood on the battlefield of the courtyard. Nyx continued to flit among them, his own small magic under Deimos’ command doing little but serving as a distraction. At the far end of the courtyard, Mordrigal’s army was waning. They continued to pour towards the entrance to the courtyard as their high king had commanded them, but their footsteps had slowed.
The rest of their army was missing, disappearing as quickly and silently as if they had run through an invisible wall, a vertical version of the Starlight pools leading into another realm.
Which, in a way, they had.
I was distracted by it, the sheer size of this disappearing wave of soldiers, so much so that Deimos noticed, too. For the first time, he glanced over his shoulder, and this time it was not a hint of surprise that I saw turn his body rigid. It was enough to make him falter, to forget for a second to pull up the soldiers of the Afterworld. In that moment, I reached out with my own power, and as he watched, I wrapped his men in shadows so tight that by the time he’d turned back to me, the courtyard fell into an uncanny near silence. Something shifted in him again as he met my gaze, more than a small spark of fear lighting in his eyes, and this time when he raised up his hand and pulled up his army and the first wave of Mordrigal’s fallen soldiers with it, he’d truly begun to fight.
Something shifted in me then, too.
I dropped all pretense, all showmanship pretending what I did was anything other than the most natural thing to me now. I let that glamour pour out of me without restraint, wrapping around the fae of Deimos’ army and pulling them down faster than he could call them up. He grew sloppy, reaching for any and all souls to keep up with me. He’d been distracted again, this time enough not to notice that the souls I was pulling away from Avarath no longer returned to the Afterworld.
With each pull of Deimos’ magic, he was emptying the Afterworld. With each pull on mine, the bodies stacked higher and higher at Icarus’ feet, in Luxia.
I pulled the fae faster and faster, more ruthlessly, more violently, so that their bodies barely touched the sand before they’d once again vanished from his realm. I moved so quickly, lashing out with the shadows that flowed from me like an extension of my very being, moving so quickly that Deimos didn’t have time to choose exactly who he was pulling from their rest to fight in his stead.
Not until it was too late.
I knew my plan was working, finally really working, when even Mordrigal became distracted. Not from the fight, but by it. I felt a twinge in the glamour as his eyes turned away from their focus on the fae wielding magic and iron against him, and instead, they landed on me. I saw in there a glimmer of confusion as he watched me sweep my hand before me in a long arc, and as I did, all the soldiers still streaming with fresh shadows disappeared between us.
He looked away from his own battle too long, looking at me with a little too much understanding. Caldamir took his chance and lunged towards him, landing a staggering blow on Mordrigal’s helmet. The sound of it reverberated through the momentarily empty courtyard again, the sound tolling like a warning bell as Mordrigal stumbled back—actually stumbled back—for the first time. His massive frame teetered for just a second as he doubled over, one armored hand lifting to shield his head as Caldamir once again lifted his blade.
But now I’d grown distracted, too, and Deimos took his final chance.
Deimos saw his opportunity and, in a flash, a great shadow erupted all around him. It filled the courtyard, blinding everyone in darkness for a moment. When his shadows cleared, thick black tendrils like the wild arms of some great sea creature somehow transported to the sands, a massive army filled the space. The last of Mordrigal’s own men poured into the courtyard, packing every inch of the space with a sea of bodies so thick I couldn’t see where one ended and the other began. They spilled out into the desert, masses of them. It didn’t matter that what was left to drag up had been unarmored, untrained, and bewildered at their sudden call from the darkness. The sheer amount of them was overwhelming.
Suffocating, even.
Deimos met my eye again and smiled, smugly.
He’d won.
Or so he thought.
Perhaps if he’d looked away from me instead of relishing in his own pride, he would have seen that however overwhelming the size of his army was, it was nothing compared to what it should’ve been. What he thought it was.
He didn’t know, yet, that he’d played his last card—and that I was about to play mine.
I reached back to unhook Sol’s hand from my belt. For this, at least, I needed utter concentration. I felt my glamour writhing in excitement, boiling in my blood once again at the mere thought of a true challenge. I’d not emptied out my glamour yet, but I could feel the strain on it when I reached for it this time.
I closed my eyes, feeling the mass of bodies and souls, letting them overwhelm me with their presence. I wrapped my glamour around them, unleashing it until it poured out of me like unfettered waters, a raging river of power that didn’t stop until it had emptied me completely, wrapped around nearly every body in the courtyard and beyond. Only then, when I felt the very last of my power drain from my ready veins, did I open my eyes to see the other high kings’ undoing.
For the first time, my own shadows were so thick their true form took hold—because they really weren’t shadows at all. The dark emptiness sparkled, glittering with power as it wrapped around every last fae of Deimos and Mordrigal’s army, pulling tighter and tighter, those sparkling pinpricks of light growing denser and denser until there was no space between them, until the void between them had squeezed away and only light remained. The light of the stars from which I drew my power glowed brighter and brighter until it was nearly blinding. And then, for a moment, as I tore out the last drops of my own power, it did. That brightness of the stars flashed as I dragged every last one of Deimos’ army into the dust and sand.
In the void of Deimos’ army, Seren called in the rest of mine.
The pools opened, and from them poured the courts of Avarath and Elysia. They rushed in with a thunder greater than the rolling of Mordrigal’s own, their bodies filling the outer edges of the courtyard and sweeping out into the streets and the desert, surrounding the other high kings where they stood in the absence of their own armies.
All five armies of Avarath stood at my back.
Deimos stood before me now in the midst of his empty courtyard, chest heaving from his own exertion. I, however, remained still.
I was exhausted. Empty. But more than that, I was proud.
I didn’t know, for sure, what was about to unfold—I just knew I’d given my throne, Avarath, and all the realms the best chance I could.
I stood at the very edge of the courtyard now, level with Deimos. He summed me up as a true equal for a moment, the momentary fear I’d witnessed however briefly on his face turning smug again as he looked at the soldiers gathering at my back.
“You may have your armies for now, but before long I’ll have all of them. Have you forgotten, already, that every one that you lose is one that I gain? We might be tired, but I’ve been at this a lot longer than you, Delphine. I can feel your power waning already. But me?” Deimos’ smug smile turned into a wicked grin. “I can do this forever.”
That, however, was where he was wrong.
Deimos held out his hand, and I felt the tug he made at his power—and then I felt the pause.
“Are you so sure of that?” I asked, in the still moment that followed.
Something about the tone of my voice made that smug smile falter as he felt it, too.
As I watched that smug, wicked grin, turn into disbelief—then panic as he reached again, and again, found nothing.
His eyes glazed over for a moment, darkened as he searched the empty realm of the Afterworld. His disbelief turned to fear as he found nothing, that look on his face, his hesitation enough to make Mordrigal stumble yet again—and this time, Caldamir’s sword struck true. This time, his blade didn’t just strike the high king’s armor, it slipped between the plates and deep into the center of his chest.
For one, brief moment, time itself seemed to stand still. In that brief moment, where nothing moved, nothing even dared to breathe, I believed the war might actually be won. But then Mordrigal broke that stillness as his legs gave way beneath him and he fell to his knees, his helmet falling to the ground to reveal his face.
It was a sight to behold, the great behemoth of a fae, the all-powerful high king of Avarath, brought low. Not just brought physically to his knees, but completely. He had no army. No supporters. No court. The five courts he drew his power from were stolen, and his own court—dragged up to fight us—was now lost in another realm, under another fae’s command.
In one moment, one glorious final sweep of power, I stood alone as high king with power still at my command. It was empty, now, but unlike the power of the fae now cowed before me, mine would return.
And even more so, unlike the fae before me, I was not alone.
Mordrigal sucked in a deep, whistling breath that rattled through the courtyard like a wind from between the mountains of the court the fae who stood before him ruled. He looked dead into Caldamir’s eyes, their heads level in his humbled position.
The high king bared his teeth at the fae once bound to obey his every command, now holding the end of the sword lodge firmly in the middle of his chest.
“You’re mine, Prince of the Mountain Court. You and your fae, you belong to me. How dare you defy me like this?”
Caldamir met his gaze without wavering. “Not for long, high king.”
Mordrigal steeled himself in anticipation for the next blow that did not come. Instead of drawing out his blade to make the final blow, Caldamir stayed in place, sword wedging Mordrigal even more surely into place as Armene stepped up to his side. In his hands was the gleam of a familiar collar, one that had once wrapped around the neck of another king.
Mordrigal’s eyes widened in surprise. “Surely, you jest. Do you not know what will happen if you put that on me?”
Armene answered without hesitation.
“Yes,” he said, his chin jutting forward as the light of his own new crown glimmered atop his dark locks. “All the glamour of Avarath flows through you. We’ve learned, once, what it was to lose it. It would be a worthy loss to lose it, if it meant binding you again.”
“Except …”
Another voice rose above the crowd, the sound of it making my heart flutter as none other than Seren stepped forward from the crowd. The mere sight of his silver hair and dark eyes made an all-too familiar tingle race down my spine. I felt a small burst of energy, a spark of glamour returning with the regent of my own court. My own realm. He looked exhausted, the ebb of his glamour little more than a whisper of a spark after he’d spent himself the last days. He’d gone back to our realm, but he’d had even less time than us to recover. Even less time to prepare for these final, crucial moments.
Moments that had left us with the upper hand, an actual army to face Deimos and Mordrigal and force them to hold our audience.
“Except,” Seren said as he stepped up to stand beside the other princes, “if we kill you, your heir will only take your place. The glamour will flow through her, next. Avarath doesn’t need you anymore, Mordrigal.”
The high king’s eyes slid over to the collar again, this time eyeing it in horror, like a nightmare come to face him from his wildest, darkest dreams.
His gaze slid over to Deimos, next. “You told me they knew not about the heir.”
Deimos didn’t answer.
Mordrigal’s voice grew deeper. “You told me they didn’t know about the heir.”
The words were spoken in wonder, but also in dismay. It had begun to dawn on him how truly dispensable he was, but more than that, how deep his vulnerability lay. He had no power. No leverage. Only a sword stuck deep into his bones and blood and sinew, and a collar drawing ever closer that would bind any chance he had of regaining that power he so needed.
And we knew it.
Deimos, too, looked horrified as Armene advanced on Mordrigal. It frightened him, actually frightened him, that we’d figured out a way to use this heir against them so quickly.
I couldn’t help but wonder, had he truly come this far so unprepared for battle? Had he really thought so little of me, of my powers, of the princes, and the courts of Avarath, that he’d underestimated us this greatly?
It had worked so devastatingly to our advantage, but I couldn’t help but feel a little offended.
I felt Deimos reach for his magic again, scrabbling for scraps of it in desperation this time. I felt the slight draw, the last wisp of his own magic, but so did I.
Seren had brought with him the last fragments of glamour that I needed to wrap Deimos in my own power and hold him in place. There would be no escaping me. Not now. Not right at the end.
I felt my own glamour fighting his, but despite the ages, he’d lost his strength just as he’d lost his own court.
Both high kings were now well and truly at our mercy.
Just as we had planned.