Chapter 44 #2
There was a warning in his tone that unsettled me. I nodded, slowly allowing him to help me stand.
“Why are you here, Eiryn?” I asked, my voice quivering. “How are you here?”
Eiryn smiled and shrugged. “I’m awesome, what can I say?”
Blake stood beside me, his everi flaring, and Eiryn’s smile faded.
“Why are you here?” Blake asked. “Fae do not come to this world.”
Fae? Like, Puck from Midsummer’s Night Dream fae? He was small for a guy, and quick-witted, but there were no pointy ears or wings on his back.
Eiryn smirked, his eyes flashing. “Dear Prince, though privileged you may be, you know nothing of the fae. Even if I wanted to explain, you don’t have the time.
The ash you saw was not an illusion—it is how they disrupted the barrier’s flow, enough to break it completely.
There are more, and they’re near Nightfall Castle. ”
Blake tensed.
“Why are you here? Why tell us this?” he snapped.
Eiryn’s gaze slid to me.
He gave me a look, the kind that said, you fucked up.
He snapped his fingers and beside him, exactly as I remembered her, was Katie. She looked at Eiryn, then down at the ice and straight to me. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
“What the hell?” she shouted, turning on Eiryn, who snapped again.
Katie vanished and I stared at where she’d stood, unable to process what had happened.
“You were supposed to write to her,” Eiryn said. “I’ve heard nothing except Anna this and Anna that, and I get it, you're mildly interesting, but Sairyn save me—I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought I’d come to find out, and of course, you’re in dire need of exactly the power I possess.”
Eiryn shrugged. “Fate’s a funny thing. Anyway, you two should probably get up to the castle. Unless you’d rather come home now, Anna? We can bring him along. I can keep him from leaving.”
Was he serious? His lips curved upward on one side, but his unblinking eyes made me uncomfortable.
He flicked his hands up, “Okay, okay, I get it. Mages always want to do things the hard way. That’s why I like the humans. They’re far more interesting than fae or mages. Well, see ya!”
He raised his hand.
“Wait!” I shouted.
He raised his eyebrows at me, his fingers poised to snap.
“You’re leaving?” I asked. “Won’t you come help us?”
His expression softened. “Sorry, Anna. This is your world, not mine. I gave you another chance to come home during the tasks, too, and that makes twice. The fae do not interfere. However, for you, I’ll break the rules once in a while.
But this choice, to return now that you know what they are, is yours.
I will, however, leave you with a parting gift. Watch your step.”
The sound of his snap resounded in my ears like a gun had been fired.
I stared into the empty space and realized the cold against my feet was gone.
Thigh high leather boots rose up my legs, laced tightly.
He wouldn’t stay and help, but he gave me boots?
This was mad.
A fae? And tasks? He didn’t mean he was there that day, did he?
A loud crack jerked me from my thoughts.
“We have to get off the ice,” Blake said. “Now!”
He grabbed me around the waist and threw me over his shoulder, moving swiftly across the ice as it broke apart.
It was melting rapidly, the bodies of the blood mages rising to the surface.
The fireflies returned, and the ivy glowed as it swayed in the breeze, but amongst the blood and bodies, it wasn’t as enchanting as before.
Blake set me down, and I let out an unsteady breath.
“I want you to get out of here,” Blake said. “As far from the rift as possible.”
I shook my head.
“No way,” I said. “I’m not leaving the others. We have to warn them!”
“Anna,” Blake snapped, “You have no idea how lucky you are not to have been captured. Blood mages who take prisoners are not kind to them. You would be better off dead.”
“I’m not running away,” I said.
Blake's irises flashed like fierce storm clouds as lightning struck. He ripped his gaze from mine with a grunt.
“Don’t get killed.”
I opened my mouth to clap back but a bolt of lightning streaked so brightly through the sky that I had to shield my eyes.
“We have to hurry,” Blake said.
I ran, the thunder seeming to shake the earth as it rattled my bones. When we reached the forest's edge, smoke filled my lungs, and I saw an orange glow beyond the castle.
It was as unnatural as the layer of ash across the gardens. As we moved, Blake took my hand and guided me. I soon realized why.
Beneath the ash were bodies.
Blake didn’t stop. He pulled me along, refusing to let me stop. I couldn’t look away. There were so many. How did this happen? The face of an Initiate I took classes with stared up into the darkness, his hand outstretched and fingertips curling inward.
A silent piercing bolt of lightning struck near us as Blake jerked me toward him.
The thunder that followed was immediate.
It shook the ground beneath my feet, reverberating through my chest and down each limb.
I shielded my eyes from the smoke, letting Blake pull me along with him, the shock still coursing through my body.
Then the downpour came.
Thousands of cold raindrops struck like bullets, drenching us. The steps to the ballroom’s balcony were slick. Dark spots were being rinsed away in the water as it gushed down the stairs. My stomach twisted in knots as my hand slipped from Blake’s.
So much blood.
It was hard to hear above the wind and downpour of the storm, but as we neared, screams and blasts were coming from the ballroom. There were many still inside, fighting cloaked mages. I was about to run in when Blake grabbed me around the waist, stopping me.
“We have to help them!” I yelled over the rain.
“Look!” he shouted.
I followed his gaze and saw it—a lone mage, cloaked and hooded, stood at the top of the grand stairway with his arms lifted high.
His hands radiated with everi that burst from his hands toward the windows, connecting in sheer bolts of energy briefly.
For a moment, nothing happened—then a fissure in the glass appeared.
Then another, and another. It was spreading quickly like a spider’s web being woven by the wind.
CRACK.
“Run!” Blake shouted into the ballroom, but it was too late.
Blake’s everi surrounded me as he grabbed me, shielding me from the initial shockwave, but it wasn’t coming our way.
Glass flew like sideways hail into the ballroom, twisting and slashing like sharpened razors in the wind. The sound was sickening. My gut twisted as the smell of blood overcame the rain.
The only screams now belonged to the wind.
It caught my dress, extinguishing the chandelier’s flames.
It surged through the ballroom, whipping the white gossamer curtains to shreds.
Screams barely pierced my mind, the hollow sound of the wind deafening.
Everything was happening in slow motion but I couldn’t move.
Nothing was working and nothing made sense. Was I still alive?
Death was everywhere and the cold was seeping into my bones again as it had that night in the cabin. I felt them, their pain, their thoughts, their fear. It was still present, and yet, as if it were on the other side of a veil that I couldn’t see.
“Anna!”
Blake snapped into my field of vision.
He swept me over his shoulder, knocking the wind out of me as he slid through the glass and into the ballroom. Over his shoulder, I saw a person in a long black cloak wearing a hooded mask land where I’d been standing.
Adrenaline flooded my being as Blake flexed his arm and quickly tightened his fist, his attention fixed firmly on the blood mage before us.
He faltered immediately, clutching his chest, and fell to his knees.
Blake approached him and took the sword from his hand, striking him against the side of the head with the hilt. He keeled over, unmoving.
“Anna,” Blake called, and tossed me the blade.
I caught it in my right hand, the blade shaking in my unsteady hand.
“Focus,” he said. “Or we are both dead.”
I nodded, scanning around us.
Blood mages dressed in billowing cloaks and hooded masks were everywhere, seemingly shielded from the storm of glass.
Bodies—by the dozen: students, professors, and blood mages—covered the floor.
Still, some students survived somehow, perhaps with quickly thrown everi shields or by being near the blood mages.
One of them was dragging a student, dead or unconscious I wasn’t sure, from the ballroom.
A flash at my side made me jump.
It was Blake.
I couldn’t keep track of where he was. Suddenly, blood mages around the ballroom were falling where they stood.
“Anna! Behind you!”
It was Isabella. I ducked, feeling the everi flashing over my head. I twisted, holding the blade tightly in both hands and angled the blade away from my body, driving it into my assailant's chest.
I rose slowly, shaking as I watched the cloaked mage fall. Blood ran down the blade as I pulled it free. It took more effort than I expected.
“Get down!”
Caelan.
A loud explosion sounded from the center of the room as I was lifted from the ground. For a moment I was weightless. There was no fear or foggy senses. There was just me, with no control, at the mercy of those who were senselessly slaughtering my friends.
I didn’t feel any pain. The bodies caught my fall.
I found Ji-Han staring back at me, the light from his eyes gone.
Fury sparked at my core as I looked at him. He’d come here with such potential, his path, his own goals, for this. What gave them the right to decide?
“I tried to teach you this—training is nothing like real combat.”
I got up, my hand steady and tightly gripping the stolen blade.
Commander Everson was there, his cloak billowing to the side, his boots crushing the glass as he approached me.
His uniform and skin were pristine. There was not a speck of blood on him, though it pooled like ink on the marble floor where Blake and I had danced.
The pale moonlight caught the shimmering garments of students on the floor, now torn and twisted. It caught his eye.
His bright red blood-colored eyes.