Chapter 56
SAPHIRA
The growl that burst from my lips as I stared at the scorched patch on Kaeleron’s shoulder and then Lorien where he stood beyond all those charred bodies was low and feral, carrying every ounce of the rage and disbelief that poured through me.
He had attacked his own men.
And the looks on some of the stunned faces of the males who had fallen back from that smouldering gash in the land told me it had shaken their trust in him.
All I saw was a path to the male I had vowed would die for what he had done to me, and he would do so before he could lay a hand on Meiryn.
I ran at him, twirling my dagger in my hand so the blade ran along my forearm, slashing at anyone who rallied and stepped into my path.
I cut them all down, running my knife across their throats or stabbing it through the gaps in their plate armour, finding every opening that I had memorised during my training.
Those I couldn’t cut down with my blade, I hurled away from me with bright blasts of solar magic.
Shadows tore down other males, ripping terrified screams from them as they were pierced by them or blanketed and suffocated.
The sky darkened to pitch as Kaeleron swept like a malevolent shadow through the throng around me, clearing a path for me rather than holding me back, giving me a chance to reach Lorien without exhausting myself.
Only when I reached where he had been, the bastard was gone again. Run off. Scurried away before my wrath could reach him.
I turned, scanning for that flash of gold among the white.
He had been a fucking idiot for wearing a colour that made him stand out from his men. His pride and conceit would be his downfall. Only one male wore gold in this battle, and I would be the one to cut his heart from his chest.
Jenavyr and Riordan fought nearby, making fast work of the right flank of the Summer Court army with their men, forcing the gap between the two sides even wider and allowing Shadow Court soldiers to fill it. Divide and conquer.
Malachi loomed like a shadow above the left flank, sweeping down to cut at the enemy, and he wasn’t alone.
A beautiful, stunning gold dragon arrowed from the black sky, the rain that began to fall shimmering on her metallic scales.
Neve.
She pulled up before she hit the ground, great talons snaring several of the warriors, and roared in victory as she flew up and up with them. Her huge fangs made fast work of them as she bent her head and ripped at them, their blood joining the rain as it fell on the battle.
“Can you see him?” I hollered above the noise, wiping what I hoped was water from my eyes as the rain began to fall in earnest. “Can’t you do something about this weather?”
Kaeleron pushed his wet black hair back from his face. “No. It is not my doing. Lucia is in pain. No battle has ever been fought in this land that has not brought her to tears.”
I tilted my head back towards that rain.
Her tears.
A shiver danced down my limbs as I reached for that connection I had always felt to nature here, sure he was just being melodramatic about the weather and it was his dark mood that had brought on this storm.
Only I could feel it.
A deep sense of grief.
A cold sort of creeping darkness.
The land here was steeped in it, and it brought tears to my eyes as I sank into it, finding myself swept up in it.
The goddess this realm had been named for was in pain.
Spilling tears of sorrow as she watched her beloved children killing each other.
I reached for her, not really knowing how I did it or whether it would work.
I reached for her, into that connection, pushing deeper than ever, some part of me aching to reassure her that it would be over soon, that I would somehow make it end as quickly as I could to spare her the pain of seeing her children at war.
One heart divided into two.
Children who weren’t so different, but fought so hard to be, refusing to accept they had been born of the same piece of the Great Mother’s heart. That they were the same.
Not seelie. Not unseelie. Just her beloved fae.
I offered her the comfort and strength she had offered me so many times, returning the kindness she had shown me. She had stopped me from breaking, and I would do the same for her.
Warmth unfurled in my limbs, the scent of nature filling my lungs, and I saw myself as a wolf and that mirrored tree Arianell had woven with her magic—one half in shadow and one in light.
That light bloomed in my right palm.
“Saphira?” Kaeleron’s soft voice held a note of awe as he moved closer.
I looked down at my hand as I lifted it before me, at the gold that tipped my fingers and the markings that tracked down them towards my palm.
Markings that shifted, whatever words were written upon my flesh becoming something else.
“What did you do?” he whispered as he took hold of my hand, opening it further, and then looked at me.
“Nothing. I just reached for the connection. I wanted to… I wanted to reassure her. She’s reassured me so many times.
Every time I might have broken… she’s been there to comfort me and guide me.
I just wanted to comfort her in return. I wanted her to know that not all her children are divided.
We’re not. We’re together. And then I saw myself as a wolf, and I saw that mirrored tree Arianell wove for me—the canopy made of light and the roots made of shadow. ”
The dark slashes of his eyebrows lowered as he lifted his silver eyes from my hand, locking them with mine.
“Not roots. Ley lines. The flow of magic through the land. Half in shadow. Half in light. Both accessible to the fae. Lucia does not withhold her power from her children, no matter which side of the land they are from and which they roam.”
Because she wanted them to be united. Not divided.
I looked at my hand, at the markings that were shifting, sure it was the goddess’s doing.
Kaeleron murmured, “Lucia guides you.”
The reverence in his voice had me glancing at him, and the light from my palm cast gentle warmth across the sculpted planes of his fascinated face as he watched my hand.
New markings appeared at the points where the lines of them down each of my fingers met the edges of my palm, not stopping until they reached close to the centre of my palm, where a ring of them appeared.
“What does it mean?” I whispered, feeling a little awed myself.
Feeling as if the goddess of this land really was guiding me.
Kaeleron’s shadows tore through someone who dared to run at him while his back was turned and his focus was on me.
He pointed to one set of markings, near my index finger.
“Cleave moon.” He moved to the next, translating them one by one until he reached my little finger. “Howling goddess. Tear shadows. Sever blade.”
In the centre of the ring, a final symbol appeared.
He stroked his fingers over it and murmured, “Fenrys.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
I whispered, “Wolf.”
“A blessing.” He took my blade from my other hand and pressed it into the marked one. “One I have never heard of before… one I am sure has never been gifted by the goddess before. One I would not waste. The goddess guides you. She chooses you as her champion, my little wolf. Do not fail her.”
“I won’t.” Power flowed through me, not from the land, not from the goddess, but from my heart, from my soul as those words she had gifted me spoke to it. I was a wolf. She was right about that. I had been looking for my power in all the wrong places.
“Duck!” Malachi yelled and I pulled Kaeleron into a short teleport just as several blazing beams of golden light merged into one and shot towards us.
Dirt exploded outwards from where we had been, showering the warriors we had left behind as they clashed and bellowed, grappling with each other. Several were flung through the air as the spell impacted, one of them coming straight at us.
Kaeleron’s shadows swept around the male to hurl him towards the Summer Court forces. The male hit them with enough speed that he ploughed a line in them, one that ended close to the one who had summoned that magic.
Not Lorien.
“Warlocks,” Kaeleron growled, his silver eyes gaining a crimson corona around his pupils.
He looked for his sister, and I did too.
She fought over forty feet away, a sea of warriors battling between us, stumbling over fallen foes as she took on a male I recognised as one of the commanders of the Summer Court. “Go to her. I will deal with them.”
I gripped his arm to hold him in place and blasted two males away from us. “Where are you going?”
“To the northern reaches of Wraith Wood, to the border there to bring my own warlocks to this battle. We will need them. We cannot hope to fight those males without them. Even my magic cannot match theirs.”
“We need you here,” I bit out and looked around us, seeking some sort of inspiration as I struggled to come up with a plan that would prevent him from abandoning this battle for even a second.
His men needed to see him here, fighting alongside them.
I found what I was looking for flying above the enemy, swinging a great broadsword with breathtaking efficiency and skill. “Does Malachi know where they are?”
Kaeleron nodded and hollered, “Malachi. Warlocks.”
The big demon paused in the air, his black leathery wings beating hard, and then he plummeted into the ground, grinning as he dragged an unsuspecting Summer Court warrior down with him into the dark abyss of his teleport.
“Go, I will hold them off. Reach my sister.” Kaeleron pushed me forwards as another brilliant bolt of magic came at us.
He swept his hand upwards, summoning a wall of shadows that shattered under the blast, only serving to split the single magical projectile into several that lanced people all around us, filling the air with their garbled screams and the scent of their blood.
I refused to run, turning to face the warlocks and running through everything I had learned, both from him and from Meiryn.
Another magical missile came at us.