Chapter 28
Amelia
She fell to the ground, clutching her chest. Pain spread throughout her body, unlike anything she’d ever felt. The rift had shrunk. The window into the fae’s world was folding in on itself, sealing the two worlds apart.
The world wavered, reality anchoring itself.
She fought to stay conscious.
Tharos ran over to her and sank to his knees.
“Amelia, stay with me,” he said, holding her head.
Darkness washed over her. Then there was nothing.
Amelia lurched upright with a violent gasp, air tearing into her lungs.
“Amelia!” Tharos yelled. “You were dead! You had no pulse!”
She ignored him. The dagger still protruded from her chest, causing pain. She pulled the dagger out as Tharos yelled at her to stop.
“You’ll bleed out!” he yelled.
But she didn’t care. It was the only way to stop the pain. She only wished that Casyl’s face had been the last she’d seen, not Tharos’s.
“Why are you still here?” she whispered.
The wound had stopped bleeding.
“Not all of us made it through the rift,” he said.
She turned towards the remaining men trapped on this side of the rift, and something peculiar began to happen.
They all watched in terror as their limbs started to vanish, slowly turning to dust, falling away as the closing rift inhaled their remains. Some screamed; others stared in disbelief, turning to their comrades to see who would be next.
As the rift winked out, it took their scattered ashes with it. Those who remained stood in shock.
Tharos stood and shakily inspected himself to check that he was still all there. The sound of the approaching army grew louder.
Tharos had said her pulse stopped, but she was alive and the rift was closed. Her death must have severed her connection to the rift long enough for it to seal.
“Tharos, you have to hide us,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
He lifted her into his arms, and she winced at the pain as he carried her to his horse. “Follow me,” he yelled to the remaining men.
They descended the mountain and travelled as fast as they could, the cavalry slowing so that the infantry could keep up.
Tharos held her against him with one hand as he held the reins of his horse with the other. Every jolt of the horse sent pain shooting through her.
She drifted in and out of consciousness.
When her eyes opened, she recognised the land in front of them. They were heading back towards the capital.
“Why are we going there?” she croaked.
“It’s the safest place I could think of,” Tharos replied.
“Are we being followed?”
“Not yet, but the farther we travel, the less likely the illusion is to hold. They’ll be able to see our tracks on the ground.”
She glanced down at her body. Her top clung to her skin, soaked with blood. She tentatively touched the wound in her chest, wincing. The skin was sore, but she could no longer feel an opening where the dagger had pierced her.
She wasn’t in as much pain as she had been. What the hell was happening to her?
“Did you do this?” she asked Tharos.
“Do what?”
She gestured to her chest, but he struggled to see from his position.
“The wound, it’s healing. Why am I not dead?” She was so confused. “Did it not work? Did the rift not close?”
“It definitely closed. Or did you think that I’d chosen to live with the round-ears?”
Perhaps it had been enough to stop whatever power was sustaining the rift.
The city stood exactly as they’d left it, silent and deserted, its gates hanging ajar. No soldiers guarded its gates; no humans walked its streets.
Tharos dismounted and helped her down. “Are you able to stand?” he asked.
She nodded but continued to lean on him for support.
“Close the gates,” he ordered the men.
He was in charge now that Casyl wasn’t around.
Her heart sank at the thought of Casyl. Where was he?
The rest of the army filtered through the gates before they closed them. She counted approximately two hundred men remaining. The rest had either gone through the rift or turned to dust soon after.
“Can’t you hide the city?” she asked Tharos.
He let out a short huff. “You have a great deal of faith in my abilities,” he muttered. “If they get close enough to the city, I could hold an illusion for a while, but not indefinitely.”
“What will we do then?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” He shrugged. “Can you walk?”
She nodded.
The pain had mostly receded, but her body was still numb. They went into the palace, where Tharos helped her to a seat. He gestured to her wound, and she lifted her shirt to show him.
“I don’t understand,” she said, running her fingers over the smooth pink skin that had formed over the wound. “This should have killed me.”
His eyebrows pinched together as he considered her. “Fae heal cleanly. Humans slowly scar. You do neither properly.”
“What happened to those fae back there? Why did some of them perish, but others did not? None of this makes any sense.”
She thought of how they had shattered and crumbled to dust as the rift winked out, dragging their remains with it.
“I don’t know why you’d think that I have all the answers,” he snapped.
Why couldn’t it have been Ruven who was stuck here with her?
She glared at him with unhidden contempt.
His face softened, and she saw a crack in his demeanour. He remained in this world with her. He’d lost something too.
Casyl was gone.
“I think that while the rift was open, its magic sustained us in this world. This isn’t our home anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time,” he said after a while. “When it closed, that connection was severed.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a theory, but the rift pulled what remained of them in as it closed.”
That didn’t explain how she was still alive. She thought about the accidents she’d had, how her body had always recovered from injuries that could have killed her.
Eleandor’s comment burst into her mind.
Her mother.
Was she still alive? Did she really have fae blood in her veins?
She tried to remember what her mother had looked like but couldn’t.
She was a feeling rather than a memory, a sense of warmth within.
Her father had told her that she was beautiful.
Every time she had asked about her mother, he’d changed the subject.
She had assumed it was because it was too painful to talk about, not because he was hiding something.
And now her father was dead, and her mother could be alive in the fae realm. It was sealed. She’d never find out.
The sealed rift turned the possibility into another loss.
Eleandor had known and had kept this from her. Who did he think he was to decide what she should know? She had so many questions, and now she’d never have the answers.
“What about the creatures, the ones trapped in the pit?” she asked, suddenly remembering them.
Tharos frowned and rushed off. She followed at a slower pace and joined him on the city wall as he sent men to inspect the pit.
They’d gone.
At least they now faced only one enemy.
*
They waited inside the city for the inevitable approach of the human army.
She spent much of it sleeping. Although her body had healed unusually quickly, the injury had taken a toll, and a scar remained on her chest.
Tharos mostly avoided her company, preferring to spend time with his men. If the rift was closed, they were stuck here, and this walled city was the safest place for them.
She found him on the city walls, looking out over the land.
“Any sign of them?” she asked him.
“They arrived last night.”
She squinted into the distance but couldn’t see them.
“They’re camped a few miles away. That’s where our tracks will have vanished for them.”
His eyes were ringed with dark circles. He’d been here all this time, maintaining the illusion that concealed them.
“How long?” she asked.
He knew what she meant.
“Not much longer. They’ll be here by nightfall.”
“And then what?”
“Well, I’m hoping these walls hold them off for a while, but it won’t be indefinitely. We’ll just have to convince them to leave.” He smiled without mirth.
She spent the next few hours nervously pacing beside him. Her anxiety grew with the darkening of the sky.
Tharos readied the men. They would fight if they had to. Even if they were outnumbered and mortal.
What would she do? Those were her people out there. She didn’t want to see any of them die.
The army came into view before it was completely dark. They spread across the land like a wave of darkness, their ranks merging with the horizon.
She decided. “I’m going out to them,” she announced.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“They might listen to me; it’s worth a try.”
“And what will you say?”
She paused. She didn’t know.
“I’m going out there, Tharos.”
He stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “You will stay behind these city walls. That is an order. I am in command here. He would want me to keep you safe.”
A lone rider trotted ahead of the others.
“I’m General Atwood. I come in the name of King Solace of Alderstrom.” His voice carried up to them.
That was their neighbouring kingdom. Word must have reached them from the escapees. The smoke from the mine would have alerted them to their position.
“Surrender and open your gates,” Atwood called.
“Their king is dead,” Amelia yelled in answer.
“Yet they remain. They destroyed your capital.”
She looked over the soldiers beside her. Some had followed Tiryn willingly. Others had obeyed because disobedience meant death.
“Killing those who remain will not restore it.”
“No,” Atwood replied. “But it may keep them from destroying Alderstrom.”
The earth quaked.
It had been happening more frequently. Amelia assumed the immense army had caused it, but they were here, and still the earth shook. Horses whinnied, but the men kept their composure, fighting with the reins to keep the horses calm.
Everything became still. Then came another rumble. The shaking began again, more violently this time, and shouts from the army travelled on the wind. Men screamed and fled as the army split down the middle, its ranks scattering to either side.
The envoy turned back to gape as his men scrambled away.
“What’s happening?” she yelled to Tharos over the chaos.
The earth was still shaking. This was the longest they’d experienced it.
His knuckles whitened around the stone. He stared at the scene unfolding below him, unable to avert his gaze.
“The ground, look.” He pointed. “Something’s happening beneath their army.”
As the men scattered across the field, the ground beneath them became visible. Right down the centre of the army, a crack in the earth had formed. It stretched almost the entire length of the gathered army and joined the chasm opened earlier by the bombs.
Amelia yelled as the chasm grew.
It opened. Like a hungry mouth ready to feed. It swallowed the earth and men alike, dragging them into its darkness as their screams echoed from below. The shaking stopped, and the remaining army stood still, watching, waiting for any further movement.
The screams of the fallen men had stopped, and all was quiet.
A black mist rose from the abyss. It spread out, covering the ground like morning fog.
And then a tendril slithered out of the darkness.
Amelia looked to Tharos to see if he was seeing the same thing. He met her gaze and glanced away, but in that moment, she’d seen pure terror in his eyes.
Her gaze followed the end of the tentacle back into the chasm as the smoky creature heaved itself out of the darkness and released a spine-tingling shriek.
It had not ended. She’d closed the rift, yet terrors still entered her world.
The men below scattered in every direction, fleeing from the horrifying form that lurched towards them.
She watched, transfixed, as one of its tendrils wrapped around a man and the black smoke consumed him. When it passed over his body, only a husk of his form remained.
The surviving soldiers on the nearest side of the chasm ran towards the gates. They pounded on the doors, screaming to be admitted into the safety of the city.
Amelia wasn’t even sure if they’d be safe there.
“Let them in!” she yelled.
Tharos stood unmoving, staring down at terrified soldiers.
He hesitated as he looked down upon the rabble desperate to get in. He could leave them out there for the smoke monster to consume, or he could let them in, save them, and risk regretting it.
Every moment felt like an eternity as she awaited his decision.
“Open the gates,” he yelled down to the men at the gate.