Chapter 34
T he terror in the arena was palpable.
Screams of fright permeated the air as hordes of dark ones filled the stands and made their way toward the pavilion. Thorny vines shot through the arena floor as some of the more gifted Earth Fae tried to quell the onslaught of the attack.
This wasn’t a horde of Fae. It was a battalion. This was going to be an all-out war.
The Royal Guards on the pavilion immediately sprang into action, taking their place in front of the king and queen, with Ruppert moving to stand in front of me.
“Get the king and queen to safety, now!” I ordered the guards next to me. “Ruppert, I need a sword!”
The last thing I wanted to do was use my daggers if I had other options.
“Princess Illiana, you will go to your room now, and I will take you there myself,” Ruppert replied sternly, but I knew worry laced the bravado he tried to portray. He had never been to war before.
None of the guards had truly, except those who had been sent away to monitor the spreading darkness. Most of them never returned to Ellevail.
Pushing past him, I reached for my mother, bringing her close. I would get to hug my mother one more time should anything happen to me today. “Get her to safety, now ,” I growled as the guards stood momentarily frozen, attempting to assess the situation unfolding before them.
A fireball streaked across the air, and I caught a glimpse of it from the corner of my eye. Storm was here, which provided some relief for Ian and Kade, who were in the thick of the dark ones in the arena below.
“Lana, my love, you have to get to safety, too. We need you to survive. To take the throne should something happen,” my mother pleaded with me, grasping my arm.
I was no longer a young girl. I was an adult. Trained and capable of taking care of myself. With or without magic.
“I will not stand idly by and let our people be killed by this darkness alone.” I reluctantly pulled the dagger hidden on my thigh since Ruppert had yet to relinquish a blade. “I will fight.”
“You are all we have,” my father tried to yell, but his voice faltered. He stumbled forward, trying to get to me. “You will stay with us, that’s an order.”
I cupped his face. “I will be with our people. I will protect Brookmere.” I turned to the guards. “Stop lingering, go,” I commanded.
“I will stand beside you, then,” he said.
My heart cracked. I fell before him, taking his hands in mine. My warrior father was being sidelined. When it mattered most. I knew how it felt, deep in my soul.
“You know you are not strong enough right now,” I whispered, tears forming in my eyes as I looked up at him. “Let me make you proud. Let me earn my place as Queen. Just as you earned yours all these years watching over us.”
I nodded as two guards took him and my mother by the arms more forcibly. I didn’t know when they decided to listen to me, but given the king's weakness, perhaps they knew it was the only choice.
My parents and their guards moved toward the back of the pavilion and down the marble stairs.
Looking behind me, I searched for Kalliah. Our eyes locked, and she pulled her own dagger from the sheath hidden beneath her dress. “You and Ian taught me well.” She smirked.
I couldn’t help but grin, vastly inappropriate for the horrors currently unfolding before us, but I’d been faced with the dark ones before. And like each time I’d met them before, I’d do so fighting alongside the people I trusted.
“We stick together and fight before they force us back to our rooms. This is why we trained so hard. Swords and magic today.”
Kalliah inclined her head, sending a rush of air up my back. “Give them hell, Lana. I’m right behind you.”
A brief moment passed between us. The pang of potential heartbreak threatened to overtake our better senses, yet we bowed our heads in silent agreement. Together. For Brookmere.
“Take the side stairs,” I said, running toward the edge of the pavilion where we could jump the railing and get to another set of stairs leading us down into the arena.
Before I descended, I took stock of the situation, no, the chaos before us. Spectators fled in every direction. Some trapped by the dark ones, some stood their ground, fighting alongside the guards. It was complete and utter madness.
The Royal Guards appeared from all pathways and assembled to form their battle lines. The general strode to the front and barked orders at his men while Ian shifted and flew high into the sky to assess the battle from above.
His pained cry reverberated through my heart. Something was wrong. With the sun blazing in the sky, it was hard to find him as I landed on the floor of the arena itself.
When I looked skyward again, I caught sight of him, locked into a battle with a Strox.
Oh, fates.
The ancient battle bird hadn’t been seen in a thousand years, thought to be a mere memory from Queen Evelyn’s reign. Its sharp pointy talons pierced the skin of many fallen soldiers centuries ago, while its razor-sharp teeth could easily clean a battlefield by devouring an entire carcass, bones and all. Those beasts were a thing of nightmares, glimmering feathers a hue of blue, as deep as the night sky, perfect for hunting its prey in the cover of darkness.
The shouting on the ground grew frantic, and I knew I would have to worry about whatever was happening in the sky later. There were too many innocent Fae frozen in shock, left in the stands and watching the onslaught, unprotected.
They needed to get out now.
Running toward the nearest stand, I almost lost my footing multiple times. Roots and rocks had sprung from the ground as those who were choosing to take part in this battle used their magic to create their own advantages.
Thankfully, the trial today involved so many weapons, there were plenty to pick up and arm my people with along the way. I managed to grab a sword, another dagger from a fallen soldier, a quiver full of arrows, and a bow.
Kalliah ran right behind me, also making her way to the cache of weapons.
Halfway across the arena, I was forced to battle a petite dark one, dizzy from being struck by a fallen tree previously conjured by some powerful earth magic. The dark one swayed, and I didn’t hesitate, slitting his throat with my sword as I pushed him to the ground. A clang behind me stopped my forward movement, and I turned to see Kalliah engaged in her own fight.
Behind her, a dark one charged forward, and I dropped the sword, knocking an arrow in the bow. I paused, exhaling slowly as I released the arrow and struck the dark one in the chest.
A nearby guard finished him off as he fell to the ground.
I refocused on the stands in front of me. “Get out! Run!” I yelled to anyone and everyone who could hear me. The path to the exit remained mostly clear with Kalliah and I working the crowd.
Another tremor through the earth forced me to the ground as a heavy layer of darkness spread throughout the arena.
It wasn’t the darkness we feared, though, at least I didn’t. This darkness came from the shadows I trusted.
Kade’s shadows had overtaken the entirety of the left side of the arena, farthest from the start of the attack. Where the poorest of Fae had been seated, their magic unable to keep up with the battle, he protected them by keeping them hidden. Forcing the dark ones to move onto more accessible targets.
“Kalliah, we have to move, now,” I shouted behind me. “We have to help Kade.”
We raced toward the closest entrance, Fae desperately trying to leave the stands around us.
“Keep going, get to safety.” Kalliah ushered them along, helping those who had lost their balance where she could.
A dark one charged at us from the shadows, and I fired an arrow, then two. The Fae continued charging, undeterred by my strikes. I dropped the bow, out of arrows. Forcing myself to grab the extra dagger I’d stowed in my leathers, I fought hand-to-hand.
He shoved me to the ground without touching me, using his own magic blessed by nature, or whatever entity was fueling his craze. I screamed as a strange surge of power traced my skin. It was dark, cold.
If I didn’t move, he’d have complete control of my body.
My legs surged forward, and I twisted, ramming the dagger into his gut. He collapsed, twitching, arrows still protruding from his chest.
Kade’s shadows began to recede around me, and the battlefield came into view once more. Ian, now in Fae form, ran toward me, as blood trickled down the side of his face.
“Behind you!” I screamed as a dark one wielded a hatchet, ready to swing at Ian’s neck.
Ian ducked and engaged him, leaving me mesmerized with his swiftness and skill. Kade’s shout broke me from my trance.
“Lana, get down,” he bellowed as vines shot across the space above me.
Panting, I tried to collect my breath at the shock of nearly being taken out, when a tug at my foot knocked me to my side. I hadn’t seen the second vine coiling around and up my leg, and it clung to me, yanking me back and away from the fray. It pulled me closer and closer, back to the arena exit. Another vine chased up my body, wrapping around my chest, despite my struggling.
Harder and faster, the vines dragged me across the entire arena. I didn’t have my sword anymore, and the dagger I’d been using was lodged in the stomach of the Fae I’d just killed.
I twisted, reaching toward another dagger, hidden on my leg, but I couldn’t move fast enough before it had been overtaken by the vine. All I could do was scream.
Debris dug into my skin, sharp and painful, as I bumped and slammed across the destroyed arena. My body marred with scrapes and scratches the more the vines tugged me away.
Desperately, I clawed at the vine, trying to rip it apart and break it with my hands and nails. “Help! Kade! Ian!”
My cries for help went unanswered as they were both locked in ferocious battles of their own.
I searched for Kalliah, only to find her slicing at a hedge of holly bushes blocking her path toward me. “Hold on,” she shouted as she battled the thorny leaves to come to my aid.
The vines stopped. I jerked my head over my shoulder, and the smile which haunted my nightmares for years appeared before me.
“Playtime is over, Princess.”
Andras.
Andras had me against my will. Something I vowed to never happen again. My screams became even more frantic, trying to get anyone’s attention. I couldn’t let him take me again. My attempts to get my dagger and free myself from these vines grew frenzied, more desperate.
Andras grabbed the trail of vines holding my legs and dragged me the rest of the distance toward him.
I struggled, clutching at the dirt of the arena floor, as if it could somehow give me purchase to free myself.
A small roar echoed behind me, and I watched in horror as Lucien flung himself at the vines held by Andras. He breathed fire onto the patch so fiercely, I felt a wave of heat on my ankle.
“Stupid beast.” Andras grabbed Lucien by the tail and flung him backward.
“No!” I shouted as his body hit an outer wall of the arena before crashing onto the grass.
Boots thudded , storming forward on the ground.
Casimir walked toward me, inching closer.
Thank the Fates.
“Lord West, help!” I screamed. “Casimir, please!”
He stifled a laugh and stood by Andras’s side. “This was easier than I thought.”
My body went rigid. What?
Andras grinned at him, his eyes brimming with a bold, deceitful darkness. “Soon, Lord West, you will be the only contender left alive. We can put these ridiculous trials behind us and let the kingdom grieve for the loss of its Fates-forsaken King and Queen.” Andras’s body hummed with excitement. “And then, perhaps in a week or so? We can let the kingdom rejoice with the marriage of Lord West to Princess Illiana, the new King and Queen of Brookmere.” He practically hissed my name as he spoke.
“I will never marry him!” I spat at the ground.
This man, this traitor, had the audacity to laugh at me. “Oh, but, my dear, you will.” He flicked his wrist, and one of the Royal Guard’s walked forward, carrying Kalliah in his arms, passed out. “Or your precious lady's maid here will die.”
I gasped. “Kalliah!”
Andras bent down, crouched before me as he savagely grabbed the back of my head. “Trust me when I say I’m not using my power of illusions to enter your mind. This is real and there is no one to save you.”
Illusion magic.
Mind Magic.
My entire twisted childhood suddenly snapped into place. How the torture in the dungeons seemed so real. It was why I needed Ian to tell me if things had actually happened or I’d dreamt them. Almost all of it had been a figment of my imagination.
Put here by this man blessed with a magic unheard of due to its dangerous nature.
“My parents never knew what you were doing to me, did they?” I asked, as I continued to fight against the vines overtaking my body. I had been using my nail to cut through one of them while Andras had been speaking. I was nearly there.
Andras threw his head back and cackled. “Ignorant girl. No magic and no brain. The kingdom will not miss you. The darkness will thrive, and your kingdom will be lost, while Fae who deserve wealth and power will reign.”
“I will never do what you want.” I seethed. “Never.”
Andras cackled again. “You will, or your time in the dungeons will seem like child's play for what I have planned. All of your insolence throughout the years will not go unpunished.”
A tingle down my spine, and the warmth of a familiar shadow cooled my panic, soothed it despite the impossible odds. I looked up to find Kade armed to the teeth, anger seeping from his very being.
His shadows pooled at his feet, agitated, and ready to fight.
“Remove those vines from her now, or death will seem like a mercy compared to what I have in store for you.”