Chapter 13 Lana #2
The two carried on circling each other and taking small hits. They teased each other, both holding back, just waiting for the other to make a mistake.
Ian threw a jab-cross, aiming directly at Kade’s jaw.
To his credit, his shadows held back and didn’t attack.
They let Kade take the hit. His lower lip split open, and a small rivulet of blood formed on the skin.
“I know you owe me a few of those,” Kade said, wiping the blood from his face and then shaking it from his fingertips.
“If you want to hit me to deal with it, fine, but you need to talk about it.”
Ian’s lip curled. “I don’t know what you mean.” He shouted the last few words.
My body tensed, frozen as I observed the exchange. A sickening dread filled me.
Kade took a step toward Ian, hands out in a placating way. “Out of anyone, you know I would understand. You can talk to me.”
“Fuck all the way off,” Ian shouted, sprinting toward Kade in a flurry of fists and rage.
Kade let him get in another hit before his shadows snapped forward. “Listen to me—”
“No,” Ian said so coldly, my skin crawled.
“Ian—” I stepped forward, desperate to reach my best friend and understand what he was going through.
Kade’s demeanor shifted and he chuckled, again smiling at me. “Don’t worry, Illiana. This will be over shortly. I promise not to hurt him as long as he tells the truth.”
Truth? What would Ian need to be telling the truth about? More importantly, how would Kade know something about Ian that I didn’t?
“I am telling the truth,” Ian spat. “I have nothing to discuss with the likes of you.”
Ian punched again. Kade sidestepped and slammed a fist into Ian’s side. Then Kade swept his leg out and clipped Ian’s ankles, causing him to fall backward. “If you don’t get it under control soon, it will be too much. The darkness. It will grow and fester. You won’t be able to escape it.”
Kade’s shadows pinned Ian to the ground as he writhed beneath their grasp.
“You’re infected with the darkness, admit it.
I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in the way your body moves.
He got to you too.” Kade held him there for a moment as Ian panted on the ground before releasing him.
He stepped back, giving Ian room to compose himself once more.
“How fucking dare you,” Ian seethed, scrambling to get off of his back and onto his feet.
“Your body—it twitches, just like the dark ones.” Kade’s shadows lifted Ian’s shirt.
“And I bet if we look over here, you’re going to have a scar.
Just like Illiana. Just like me.” Kade lifted his own shirt to reveal the angry-looking scar on his side.
“You and I are one and the same.” Ian’s eyes went wide and he stopped fighting the shadows, wiping the sweat off his brow.
“The only difference is I’ve been living with this for years. I know how to control it. Do you?”
My heart dropped. “Ian?” I could barely breathe through the accusation.
Ian, my untouchable nothing-can-break-him best friend, infected with the darkness. Scarred from what? Andras? Just like me. I choked back a sob. I couldn’t let Thames and his evil take another one of my friends.
“Ian, is it true?” Raya whispered, her face pale and eyes wide.
His head moved on a swivel, looking at everyone watching him. “I—I…I don’t know.” His head slumped forward. “When I was in the dungeon, Andras stabbed me with a dagger coated in a black liquid. It looked like the same blade he used to attack Lana all those years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I ran to him, pulling him into the biggest hug. “We would have helped you.”
I may not fully understand my magic, but I did know whatever light I possessed helped with the darkness. I would make sure to eradicate it from Ian however I had to. Just as I would figure it out for Kade. Ian had suffered far too much on my behalf to endure this.
He straightened himself and took a step back.
“I’m sorry. I recognized the liquid from when he hurt you, but I didn’t understand the implications of it.
I’m just so angry all the time. I bit Kalliah’s and Corbin’s heads off the other day for no reason at all, just because I couldn't control it. Since we’ve been back together, I haven’t felt as angry and thought perhaps it was a fluke. ”
I grabbed Ian's hands, and mine glowed briefly as we touched. “Does it feel better now? Whenever Kade has his outbursts, my touch always helps him. I think it has something to do with my light magic.”
He opened his mouth to speak and stopped, eyes widening in shock.
“I feel it. That’s— How? I feel the darkness retreating within me.
It’s not gone, but it’s manageable. Thank you, Lana.
” He squeezed my hands, smiling, but then a look crossed his face I couldn’t quite decipher. “Wait, did you just say light magic?”
Jax, Storm, and Raya all chuckled.
“Hah, yes. Well, surprise!” I said sheepishly.
“Turns out I have some sort of light magic that helps to destroy darkness. I don’t really know how to use it yet, but I did kill a bunch of dark ones in a minor freak-out.
So…yeah. Turns out this magicless princess isn’t so magicless anymore. ” I raised my shoulders.
Storm called from the side, “It’s pretty incredible. She’s got some work to do, but she’ll get there.”
Ian shook his head. “You leave for a week to go to a forgotten kingdom for answers about a prophecy and come back with magic. What next?”
I glanced over to Kade, who was already staring at me. The smile from him sent shivers up my spine, and suddenly, I wanted everyone to know exactly what he meant to me.
“Well…” I held my breath for a minute, looking back to Ian. “Mates exist again.”
Ian’s eyebrows shot up as his mouth opened. His immediate reaction wasn’t to balk at my words though. Instead, his gaze flitted to Raya, and he frowned, then shook his head, looking back at me. I cocked an eyebrow, rethinking how many times I’d caught his eyes lingering on her.
“Mates?” he asked. He opened and closed his mouth a few times. “How did you find that out?”
I picked at my nails, sending my nervous energy somewhere besides my voice. After his fight with Kade, I wasn’t sure how my news would be received. Steeling myself, I answered. “Kade is my mate.”
Ian inhaled slowly, not reacting at all. He blinked a few times until a smile crept across his face. He took a step toward me, then another before wrapping me in a hug.
He was accepting this, accepting us. I glanced over at Kade, who grinned so warmly I felt it heating my skin like sunlight.
Ian pulled away, looking at me, and laughed. “Well,” he said. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you would be the one to find a mate.” Taking my hands in his, he didn’t break eye contact. “I am so happy for you, Lan. A mate and magic.” He chuckled, shaking his head again.
I grinned up at him, grateful that the foreign look of rage on him had dissipated and instead, joy shone through.
“I know. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it too, but like always, we’ll figure it out together.
Now can you and Kade get your shit settled so we can actually make a plan to get to the Southern Forest? ”
Kade walked over to Ian and extended his hand surrounded by shadows. “Truce?”
Ian cocked an eyebrow before reluctantly sighing and shaking Kade’s hand. “Truce. Not sure I have a choice if my best friend is your mate,” he added. “As long as I’m coming with you to the Southern Forest, we’re good.”
Kade looked at me. “Of course,” I answered immediately.
Ian gave me a soft smile before rubbing the back of his neck. “What do we do about what’s inside of us then?”
Kade sighed. “That’s what we need to figure out. In the meantime, control is easier around Lana and her light, but I don’t mind sucker punching you when it flares either."
“Prick,” Ian muttered under his breath, but I didn’t miss the small smile tugging at his lips as he tried to hold it back.
Though everyone made their way back toward the inn, Kalliah hesitated, staring out in the direction of Ellevail.
I looped my arm in hers, resting my head on her shoulder. “I worry for him too,” I said. “I swear to you, I do. But even then, I know it’s nothing compared to how you feel.”
“I spent so long pushing him away. Wanting something but being too scared to grab it,” she said softly. “And now?”
I wrapped my arms around her fully as she let out a sob, turning in toward my body. “If he’s gone, I’ll never forgive myself. What he did, not even thinking twice in that moment—I can’t breathe thinking about it sometimes.”
I ran my hand over her hair, whispering words of reassurance. “We’re going to get him back. We just need to make sure we can get to him and get him out so that he’s never in that position again. The moment we can accomplish that, he’ll be back with us. He’ll be home with you.”
She nodded, pulling away as she regained her composure. “Is that an official proclamation from our queen?”
I smiled, taking both of her hands in mine. “As my first official one, I had to make it good.”
Kalliah took one more breath, looking toward home before returning to the inn beside me, hand in hand.
“Thank you for everything,” I said to one of the Fae hammering away at a stack of weapons in our forge. “Make sure to let Raya know if you run out of anything.”
The man bowed his head. “We’ve got everything we need, Your Majesty.”
Though time was a luxury we weren’t sure we had, I wanted to personally thank as many of the Fae I could who’d answered my call for help.
I needed my people to know how grateful I was for their time, energy, and willingness to fight for our kingdoms before I disappeared again on our journey to the Southern Forest.
My father and mother would have loved to have seen so many of their constituents persevering toward a common goal: peace. I wondered, not for the first time, if they’d be proud of me.
So many stories were shared with me about how the king and queen had helped them throughout the years.
Tales I’d never heard before. While in the last few years I had stepped up as the Hidden Henchman, thinking my father had done nothing, it was evident that for a long time he had been there for his people.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Andras’s mind magic had convinced him to stop so the dark ones could grow their numbers.
“Once, the king sent a healer to my home when my daughter was gravely ill. Without her aid, my daughter would have died from infection. She saved her.” The man cleared his throat, visibly upset as he recalled the tale.
My heart clenched, but not merely with grief.
I was grateful that others would remember not only my father, but Elisabeth too, just as I did.
Bowing low, he returned to growing the grain needed to make bread.
An older woman recalled a time when the queen invited her to tea after learning she’d discovered a new kind of flower.
“We talked for hours in her garden about flowers and other plants. It was the most genuine afternoon. She truly appreciated our conversation and made me feel like my contributions to our kingdom, no matter how small, mattered. I will never forget how she spent so many hours with me, as if we were friends instead of ruler and commoner.”
Storm and Ian worked alongside the Fae here, taking stock of the weapons inventory we had amassed over the last few days.
Fortunately for us, so many brought their own with more to share.
The metal wielders worked overtime to create weaponry with vast options of blades, knowing the inevitable was upon us.
“You can never have enough weapons, Your Majesty,” a burly metal wielder named Carl told me earlier this morning. “Better to have five weapons per person than no weapons per person. Just in case you drop one. That’s what I always say.”
None of them complained about the tight living conditions or long hours. Not one. Pride swelled to new heights within my heart. My people were worth fighting for, no matter how dark things became. They were worth it.
Every time I thought I had finished meeting with everyone, more would appear. The endless stream of support for fighting this evil, for standing up for our world against those who threatened to destroy our very way of life, reaffirmed what I needed to do.
We would not be able to continue to amass the number of people we were without going unnoticed for much longer. Andras would come for us. Thames would not be far behind.
The time had come.
To face the darkest beasts of this world.
To find the journal I prayed held all the answers to our questions.
The time had come to go to the Southern Forest.