Chapter 11
The long grass slowed their pace as they left the camp.
It was getting lighter, although the sun had yet to rise. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. She wouldn’t think of what would happen to them if they were caught, especially Ruven.
She scanned her surroundings, searching for a sign of where she’d entered this world. The grey light of the morning muted the colours of the forest.
They followed the treeline until she came to something that looked familiar. She stopped.
“Is this the way?” Ruven asked. He turned, checking for pursuit. The fading night was still.
“I think I came out this way,” she said, “but I was being chased, so I was distracted.”
“Let’s find out.”
They placed each step carefully to avoid disturbing its inhabitants. She headed deeper into the trees towards the mountain. Once they reached the base of the mountain, they could follow it until they found the opening.
The forest was still dark under the shadow of the trees. Not even the birds were awake yet.
Once again, she was fleeing. She pressed her teeth into her lower lip. She hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye to Casyl.
They reached the base of the mountain, and she looked around for the familiar tree. It was there in the distance.
“This way,” she said. “This is it.”
The large, gnarled roots spread across the forest floor like tendrils. As they drew closer, she recognised the hole she’d crawled from. It was barely bigger than a badger’s sett.
She knelt, pushed back her hair and peered into the hole.
“This is where you came from?” Ruven asked.
“Yes, there’s a tunnel that leads underground.” She paused. “But the cave collapsed. How am I going to get back?” She’d have to follow the tunnel back into the cave system and see if there was another way back.
“That hardly matters,” a voice said from within the trees.
They both jumped.
The king stood there, Tharos by his side and the army behind them.
How had they not seen or heard them approach?
The king’s cool gaze swept from Ruven to Amelia. Would he kill them both? She was suddenly sure he was going to kill her.
“This is the place?” the king asked Tharos, who nodded.
An army had stood in plain sight, and she had missed every trace of it. Was Tharos powerful enough to hide them all?
“Break the veil,” the king commanded.
When Amelia didn’t move, he repeated the order louder.
“I don’t know what you mean!” she yelled, confused. “I came through this tunnel.”
“It isn’t just a tunnel,” Casyl said, walking out from behind one of the trees. “It’s a rift, a weak spot in the magic. Close your eyes and let your other senses feel it.”
The man before her wore Casyl’s face but none of the conflict she knew. She stepped back.
Who was this person? She wouldn’t have let this person touch her.
At that moment, he looked just like his father. She closed her eyes against the sight of him and tried to sense what he meant.
Faint vibrations surrounded her. She followed them with outstretched fingers. The closer to the mountain, the stronger they became.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
Her eyes snapped open, and she glared at him. “Why?” she asked through clenched teeth. What would happen if she did this? Why had they gone to all this trouble to get her here?
“That magic you feel, block it, Amelia, and you can go home.”
“Why don’t you just do it?” she asked them.
“Because our magic feeds it.”
This was wrong.
She turned to the king. “No. I won’t do it.”
Casyl signalled to the guards, and eight of them surrounded Amelia and Ruven with their swords drawn.
He walked over to Amelia and stood unflinching as her eyes pleaded with him.
“Do it,” he commanded. His jaw tightened.
“No.” She didn’t know why, but she was sure that something terrible would happen.
They would force her. She could block his power if he tried to hurt her with it, but physically she was at his mercy.
Casyl turned to Ruven. The guards restrained Ruven while Casyl placed a hand on his head.
Amelia stood rigid as Ruven screamed.
His eyes rolled back in pain, and blood poured from his nose. He hadn’t tried to resist Casyl’s power.
She tried to stop Casyl, but it was too late. He now held a sword to Ruven’s throat. “Do it now before he bleeds out,” Casyl said.
“Stop! I’ll do it,” she cried. “Tell me how.”
“When you sense it, block it as you would someone else’s power,” Casyl said.
She closed her eyes again, her hands clenching into fists. She focused on the vibrations surrounding her and attempted to block the energy.
It wavered, but then the weight of the power grew, surrounding and smothering her. It was too much. She could feel it. It would crush her.
The explosion of power scorched the air and drove her to her hands and knees, blinding her. The ground trembled, and as her vision returned, the world before her had changed.
At first, it made no sense. The world was white and bright. It was familiar. It was snow. She saw her world directly, as if a veil had lifted.
Home.
The cave hadn’t been the portal; it was the mountain.
“She’s still alive,” a voice said from behind. “All that power against a human.”
“Bring her. We may still need her yet.” The king’s voice shook with triumph.
Tharos came forward and brought her to her feet. She was too weak to protest. Her body tingled all over, and his touch was painful. A scream rose within her, but no sound emerged. Her body was spent.
Ruven slumped to the ground. Casyl walked forward, leading his army from this world into the snow. She kept waiting for him to turn around to see the regret in his eyes. Just once.
Her chest tightened around the breath she had forgotten to release.
He didn’t.
She was still as the world kept moving.
She had not belonged in her city or among the fae. And now, because of her, the door between both worlds stood open like a wound.
The army marched forward, some of the fae hesitant, others jubilant. They cheered as they walked through the open wound to her world.
“What’s going to happen?” she croaked to Tharos. “What will you do?”
“The king’s will,” he said. “You’ll see for yourself.”
They were leading their entire army into the human world.
She hadn’t ever considered that they’d become a threat to humans.
How naive she had been. She had lived with these fae for months and had even grown to like a few, but now they were heading to her world.
Her memories had given them a full understanding of it, and they were coming to wage war.
Humans, even with their weapons, would struggle against their powers.
They had annihilated the other fae army; they would find a human one laughable.
Ruven had not yet recovered. Blood crusted his face as the guards bound both prisoners’ hands and placed them on horses, leading them closer to the opening.
As they approached the opening, Amelia recoiled. It was unnatural, wrong. They passed through, as if they were walking through a doorway, and emerged on the snowy mountainside. The rest of the army trailed in the distance behind Casyl and the king.
Numbness swept through her. After a moment, the feeling subsided, yet her body no longer seemed entirely her own. It felt changed, almost alien. She could still move it, but her senses felt different. Her vision was altered. Everything had a strange vibrancy to it.
Their army marched forward under Casyl’s command, heading straight towards the nearest city. Tharos scouted in the distance.
Ruven moaned in the saddle next to her, regaining consciousness. He struggled to sit up.
His eyes flickered open, and he startled at his surroundings. “What happened?” he whispered. The blood around his mouth cracked as he spoke.
“What do you remember?”
“We were in the forest, and Tharos and the army were there, and then Casyl…” He paused, unable to voice what his commander, his friend, had done to him. His expression fell. “I’m so sorry, Amelia. I tried to get you out in time.”
Ruven was perhaps the only friend she’d made whom she could trust. He had earned that title.
“Why did they wait so long to do this? Why spend all that time training me? What was the point?”
“The army from the High City was there to stop us, or to try, at least. I don’t know why they wanted you trained. That was an order from Casyl, not the king.” He looked around. “Where are we?”
“The mountain behind us is called Mount Ryjul to us. I think we’re heading towards the first town in the kingdom. Why did they do this, Ruven?”
“They want the chrysonium.”
She paused. They’d said that the humans’ destructive mining of it was destroying the world. Why would they want that?
The first town bordering the mountain range came into view. Its buildings stood starkly against the dry, grassy steppe. She prayed they would see them coming and then remembered. They had Tharos scouting ahead.
“How many men can he hide?” she asked.
“Enough, but he can’t hold it continuously.”
It would be too late by the time they saw them.
Ruven maintained the facade of unconsciousness as the guards led their horses away. The army readied itself for battle.
It didn’t last long.
The town was ablaze, flames reaching high into the sky as the citizens’ screams travelled to her on the wind. The humans wouldn’t stand a chance fighting against fae such as Danae, a fire mage.
There would be no battle. Only slaughter.
The acrid stench of burning reached her, causing her eyes to water, but she could not look away.
She hated that she could visualise their remains. Her mind did it automatically, reducing people to bone and ash. Their charred remains would become artefacts to excavate.
There was nowhere left to belong. Not with the humans or the fae. Soon, she’d be left with the only thing familiar to her: ruins.
Through the flames, she recognised the army’s formation—the same people she’d fought alongside. She regretted saving them.
“They’re going to come and get you soon,” Ruven whispered to her. “You are their map.”
She knew everything. They were going to use her to destroy her own people. Her city would be next.
“We’ve got to get to the capital first and warn them. They could at least evacuate.” She ran through their dwindling options. Most of their weapons would be useless against the fae.
She studied the guards in front of them. Distracted, they watched the army ahead destroy the town and cursed their luck for being stuck with the prisoners instead of joining the chaos.
Ruven followed her gaze and understood.
“Do any of them have powers?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head.
Ruven wrenched his hands apart, the bindings breaking under his mighty strength. He climbed down from the horse, making no noise, and the first guard went down before the others had even noticed, and then knocked the other two unconscious. He ran over to Amelia and cut her bonds.
“Lead the way,” he said, jumping back onto his horse.
They galloped away as fast as they could and only stopped when the blazing city was like a candle in the distance. The snow disappeared the further they got from the mountain.
“How far until we reach the capital?” Ruven asked.
“Less than half a day’s ride, perhaps, if we push the mounts.”
“We’ll be able to travel faster than the army, at least, and we can hope their route isn’t as direct.” Ruven paused to look at her, his face serious. “Tell me about your army.”
“I don’t really know much about it; we haven’t had a war for a long time.”
“You do have an army?”
“Of course we do,” she said, suddenly unsure.
They had to have one. They had city guards and guards at the palace, but it had been a time of peace.
There hadn’t been war in Amelia’s lifetime.
They had weapons. They’d been experimenting with chrysonium-based weapons, but the lack of miners had caused a delay.
Her legs ached as she rode hard. She hated riding.
The sky grew dark as the stars became their only source of light, their reflections trembling in the stream where they stopped to water the horses.
Amelia knelt and splashed water over her face, trying to wash the ashes of the burning city from her body.
The smell of smoke clung to her hair, reminding her of death.
She was accustomed to what death left behind.
She often excavated ancient remains, but these weren’t ancient strangers. She’d heard them die.
Ruven crouched beside her. “Are you alright?”
“No. I opened the rift.”
“They forced you.”
“The dead will not know the difference.”
Ruven’s reflection shifted beside hers in the dark water.
“You had no choice.”
She turned towards him. His antlers formed a dark silhouette against the starlit sky, and fear coursed through her before she could stop it. She hated herself for it. Ruven followed her gaze. Something in his expression tightened, but he said nothing.
He had tried to save her; he’d suffered beside her, and she’d wanted to save him in return, yet she couldn’t shake the memory of all those fae who’d crossed the rift, their antlers silhouetted against the flames, like his.
Sometimes life gives us very little choice, she had told Casyl. Now the words tasted like an excuse.
“There is always a choice, and choosing still has consequences.”
As they travelled through the dawn and most of the day towards the capital, the air grew warmer. By evening, the green landscape had faded into muted browns.
When they eventually reached the enormous stone walls of the capital, they stopped outside them.
What was she going to tell them? Could she just march in there after being missing for the past few months and declare that they were under attack?
They’d think she was crazy. She hoped that Ruven’s appearance would convince them.
Their best option was to get to the guild and to Emin.
He knew what she’d been looking for when she’d gone.
He’d seen the unusual skull that she’d brought back from the mine.
Even if he doubted her then, he couldn’t doubt Ruven in the flesh.
“Pull up your hood.”
She couldn’t risk people seeing him before they got to the guild’s headquarters, and with his hood hiding his ears and antlers, he could almost pass as human—albeit an unusually tall and muscular one.
She held her breath as they entered the city.