Chapter 57 #2
He hissed as he turned on me, an unholy light filling his hollow eyes, and grabbed hold of the spear, smoke rising from his hand as he closed his fingers around it.
He didn’t even react as he shoved it towards me, the scent of his charred flesh filling the thick air.
Raindrops sizzled along the length of it, spitting and hissing just as he had as I swung it again.
This time he blocked it, pulling a blade of pure darkness from the air to strike the shaft of the spear, driving it towards the ground.
I let it fade as I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and leaped backwards, clearing the area before the first shadows shot from the wet earth to lift him into the air. He frantically tried to claw at them, hissing and snarling like a trapped animal.
I summoned solar light into my hand and hurled it at him, a thick bolt of it that slammed into his head and silenced him, and then turned on his comrade.
Growling as I saw Lorien driving Kaeleron backwards towards him.
Kael blocked each swing of Lorien’s sword, his shadows lashing towards him at every opportunity. He withdrew the ones that had been holding the dead warlock aloft, but didn’t turn them on Lorien.
Because he hadn’t withdrawn them.
Another growl rolled from me as I heard the warlock.
As I felt the ward sliding over my skin.
Kaeleron disappeared, not in a swirl of shadow but one of light, and Lorien grinned at me before he winked out of existence with him.
Fuck.
I snarled and lunged at the warlock, a blade of solar magic and my dagger making fast work of him as rage poured through me, as that darker side I had wanted to suppress came to the fore, painting my fingers with gold again.
But killing him didn’t undo the ward. I could feel it still, coating my magic, dampening it.
Kaeleron reappeared with Lorien halfway between me and the battle.
I shoved with all my might against that ward as I fought to summon the teleport that would carry me to him, as I watched him battling with only blade and claw against Lorien’s sword and solar magic.
I would not lose him.
I would not.
By the Great Mother, I would not.
I looked at my hands as I ran, as my boots flew over the slick grass that separated us, something inside me clicking into place as I heard Kaeleron’s voice in my mind and saw the markings on my palm.
I was a wolf.
But I was more than a wolf and I had been from the moment Kaeleron had brought me to this land.
To this court.
Kaeleron turned with Lorien, each fierce blow of his sword meeting with Lorien’s blade, none of them hitting his target.
I knew why as he came to face me, as he glanced at me, his eyes leaving his foe for only a second, not long enough for Lorien to notice as he constantly fought to block Kaeleron’s wild, violent swings.
He was creating an opening for me.
I weighed my dagger in my palm, aware it wouldn’t be enough.
I needed magic.
But the ward dampened it.
No, it dampened what I had.
I drew down a breath and reached for that connection that came more easily this time, unfurling within me like a flower, filling me with light and warmth, and courage.
I thought about those markings on my palm and that symbol they embraced.
I was a wolf.
Born of mountains and snow, of the north.
Forged in shadow and starlight.
Blessed by the moon.
My words were not those of the Summer Court, of solar light and the awakening of life.
I closed my eyes and let them form in my mind and fall from my lips, feeling every one of them.
“By the howling goddess of the north. With your claws, cleave mountain and moon. With your fangs, tear shadows from light. With your heart, bend stars to your will. With your blade, sever all between you and eternity.”
Power surged through me, a wave that stole my breath and lifted me up, swirling in my veins and my soul, and I gasped as it filled me, as that ward that had been an impenetrable barrier between myself and my magic just seconds ago became nothing more than a thin veil that I tore down with my claws.
I sheathed my dagger and brought my hands before me as Lorien clashed with Kaeleron, gaining the upper hand, and my king stumbled backwards, in danger of losing his footing on the slippery ground and his life soon after.
I would not allow it.
Power built between my hands, crackling blinding light that swirled and condensed, and became threaded with shadow as Kaeleron swung at Lorien, and Lorien leaped back, narrowly avoiding being struck by him.
Lorien summoned a whip of solar magic.
I growled low at the sight of it, my wolf side battering the cage of my body as the scars on my back burned with the memory of it.
He turned towards me, noticing me at last, and grinned as he flexed his fingers around the grip of that whip and drew it back to lash at me with it.
“I am the wolf that stalks you.” I snarled each word as if it was a spell of my own making as that power built between my hands, so hot it almost seared my skin. “The shadow that brings the dark end of your life. The light that burns all that remains to wipe you clean from this land.”
I raised my hands and surrendered to that oily darkness that had awoken in me the moment I had set foot in Lucia, no longer afraid of it, because now I knew it was me.
I was the darkness.
Born for it.
Born to love it.
Born to rule it.
“I am wrath!”
I bellowed those words and power surged through me, blazing from my hands towards that inky black sky, a blinding bolt of solar light entwined with shadow.
Lorien laughed at me as the light sputtered out. “You truly are pathetic, sister. You cannot even hit a target that is right in front of you.”
He drew his arm back, raising it high as his whip burned hotter, glowing like the fires of Hell.
I didn’t move.
I stared him down.
“I did not miss, brother.”
A brilliant bolt of golden lightning threaded with onyx shot down from the clouds, forking across them at the same time, illuminating the whole of the battlefield for one blinding moment before all that power was pulled back into the fork that shot towards Lorien.
It slammed into him just as he disappeared, turning him visible again as it surged through him, his body jolting as all the power in me poured into it.
As it pulled everything from me.
All the anger and darkness, and the hunger for vengeance, and the need to protect everyone I loved—my king, my people, my friends, my pack and my sister.
I let it all flow into him until his body could take no more, until it tore him apart and exploded outwards from him, escaping him to lash at the earth around him.
Shadows swept around me as I shut off the flow of power, strong arms catching me as my legs gave out beneath me, not strong enough to support me.
Kaeleron cradled me to him and dropped a kiss on my brow, his voice like a breath of life inside me, keeping me with him as he murmured a sweet promise against my skin.
“It is over, my love. It is done. Our court is safe, thanks to you, my beautiful, wrathful little queen.”
But it wasn’t over.
Not yet.