Chapter 48
I hold my breath, waiting for someone, anyone, to answer.
To my surprise, it’s Wren who speaks first. “You wanted a new story,” she says to Sigurd with a soft smile. “And you know I like happy endings.”
His sharp exterior breaks as he stares at her, true love and vulnerability showing through. He sighs. “I’m doing this for you.”
She lets out a small giggle. “You know that’s not the only reason.”
And damn if the King of Air doesn’t blush a little.
All that softness fades as he says to Riven and Lysandir, “I’ll agree if you will.”
Lysandir hesitates for the briefest of moments, then nods. “I will. I have never liked war.”
Riven looks over at Lia, who gives him an encouraging smile. Then he says, “I agree.”
Mira has come around to me and takes my hand. “Stay with me. My shield will keep you safe.”
“We all will,” Riven says.
“Aimee.” Matt looks on the verge of tears as he clings to my other hand.
“I’ll be okay,” I promise him. It’s a damn good thing humans can lie. I don’t feel the conviction in my words at all, but I’ve had too much practice putting on a strong face around my brother. “Stay safe until I get back.”
I slip my hand from his and step away.
Selena slides into the space I vacated and takes Matt’s hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. I half expect him to pull away, but he doesn’t.
“We’ll be here. I’ll watch over him, as I promised before. Now go stop this war,” she says.
Sigurd wraps us all in a wall of wind before we shift onto a hilltop near the battlefield.
My head is still spinning from the journey when the wind dies down, and I finally get a good look at our surroundings.
The sounds reach me first—distant yells and cries, clangs of metal, crashing.
The sight unfurling on the flat planes below us is enough to make my stomach roil.
We’re at the edge of the Court of the Forest. Tall grasses brush my calves through my tights.
Lush green trees dot my periphery. Woody scents punctuated with sweet floral notes flood my senses.
But a few hundred yards away, that liveliness abruptly ends in a literal line that gives way to yellowed grasses and almost barren trees.
A charged, tingling sensation clings to my skin, like standing in a lightning storm. Every instinct tells me to duck for cover, to hide, but that’s the last thing I came here to do.
Figures clash just inside the forested line of the border.
Metal gleams in the light. Bursts of magic erupt here and there in a flash of flame, short trees that seem to fight on their own, or the snap of vines lashing out like massive snakes.
A group of Unseelie is pushed back by an invisible force—wind, I assume, from a warrior of Air.
The Seelie are distinguishable by their armor, green, blue, and red, mostly grouped together with other members of their court, fighting alongside each other, but only barely, like three discordant groups that don’t quite know what to do with each other.
They have a common enemy, but there’s little to no mingling among their ranks.
The Seelie outnumber the Unseelie by a small margin, but it doesn’t seem to be helping as the Unseelie visibly advance, moving the Seelie forces back in the mere moments since we’ve arrived.
“Do you see him?” Riven asks. He’s not asking me but one of the others.
Still, I search for Elias. At the thought of him, I reach for the mark on my hip, needing to feel it, to be close to him.
The moment I slip my fingers under my shirt, a jolt goes through me, like a needle shot through my hip, the thread tugging me unerringly in one direction.
I follow its pull and find him instantly.
My heart lodges in my throat. Of course, he’d be right at the front, in the thick of things. Elias swings his sword, knocking several Seelie back at once and sending them sprawling. His long pale hair swishes behind him like a cape against his fearsome black armor.
A burst of flame hurtles straight for him. I barely choke back a scream, my hand flying to cover my mouth, as he raises his sword, flicking the ball of fire away as if it were nothing. Dark lightning cracks through the air a moment later, sending nearby Seelie flying back.
My reaction catches Mira’s attention. “You see him?”
The kings turn at once. The others stayed behind, to guard the queens—or in the case of the Court of Fire, Selena—should things go poorly.
“Yes,” I gasp. “There.” I raise my hand, pointing into the thick of the fighting.
“Hmm,” Lysandir muses. “There’s no clear area to shift to.”
Sigurd rubs his chin. “We can shift there”—he points to an area just to the side of the fighting—“and advance on foot.”
“What if we go from behind our lines?” Riven proposes.
Their voices are urgent yet still way too calm for the panic rising inside me as every second ticks past. I can’t tear my eyes away from Elias as he continues to fight, but from the corner of my eyes, I see Lysandir shake his head.
“No. Then we’ll be caught in the thick of it. A side approach will let us get behind the first of the Unseelie lines. See there?” He points. “Mira can shield us while Aimee gets the Unseelie King’s attention. We can counter any Unseelie who attempts to ambush us from behind.”
“It may give our armies some respite too, if the attention shifts to us,” Sigurd adds.
“And then we can shift out if the press is too thick,” Riven muses.
“Aimee.”
Lysandir’s use of my name forces me to finally look away. It’s only then that I realize how hard my heart is hammering.
“Are you ready?” He holds a hand out to me. Mira has already slipped her hand into my other.
I will never be ready. How could anyone feel prepared to step into a warzone?
Still, I say, “Yes.”
The shift is so quick that it passes in a blink. All at once, everything is more intense. The sounds of battle are louder. The ground rumbles with the impact of war and magic. And most horribly, an unmistakable metallic tang taints the air.
Shimmering magic erupts from Mira’s staff.
It races across my skin in a tingling caress before forming a dome to cover the five of us with room to spare.
I stare at her in wonder. Months ago, she was a normal human, just like me, but now she’s a queen of Faery, wielding magic on a battlefield.
She looks so strong, her chin raised and eyes clear.
But then I feel a shiver in my arm and the clench of her fingers laced through mine.
She’s scared too. But she’s here. She’s putting on a brave face and standing strong next to the man she loves and the kings of the other courts.
It gives me the courage I need to do the same.
But the man I love is not here at my side.
Not yet. I reach for my mark again. That same jerking tug returns, and I wonder if Elias can feel it, if he knows I’m here.
I hope so, yet at the same time, such a distraction could be deadly.
I whip my hand away, determined not to distract him more than necessary.
“That way.” I point toward the thick of the fighting, as if our destination wasn’t obvious.
The kings have unsheathed their weapons, though their magic is more potent than any blade.
We move as one, first nearly running then slowing to a jog as the fighting thickens.
The kings dart in and out of the shield, moving to intercept the enemies that come for us.
I try not to think about what’s happening on the other side of the glowing, shimmering dome of the shield.
It’s hard enough to ignore the trampled, blood-spotted terrain under our feet.
Mira and I keep our hands linked, silently supporting one another.
I try to mute my ears to the cries of pain and fury, but some slip in anyway.
“They’re using poison!” someone yells. It must be a Seelie because Sigurd curses, and Mira’s grip on me tightens.
Of course they are. They need something to level the playing field. With the waning magic, the Unseelie have had to turn to more tangible methods.
My gaze drifts to the ground. As gruesome as that is, it’s worse than seeing beyond. Much more, and I’ll panic.
Elias. Must find Elias. This will all end if I can get to him. That’s all I focus on as we advance. I think of his face, of saving him, of stopping the fighting. Nothing else.
I can’t think of anything else.
We have to be close. We must be—
Mira gasps and lurches to the side, dragging me with her.
“Aimee!”
I whip my head toward the unexpected voice. “Katiya?”
It’s like something out of a dream, one that quickly dissolves as I note the blood on her twin short swords and splattered on her armor. Her stance relaxes, that pink tail flickering behind her.
“How?” I start to shake my head, lost for words. No Unseelie should be able to enter our shield.
Her pink ears twitch. She wears no helm to conceal her face. It dulled her senses, she once said, wasn’t worth the extra protection it offered when it hindered her so. She grins. “I’m a null, remember?”
I start to smile back—when the tip of a sword punches through her chest from behind.