31. Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Alyssa
M y eyes surged open, and I gasped for breath, feeling like I’d been underwater even though I was still lying on the dry forest ground. Every cell in my body was filled with a power I couldn’t contain. It was wild, untamed and it revolted at my audacity of trying to bend it to my will.
My ears rang and my mind was hazy from the pain that still ran in waves through my body. I pushed as much of that foreign magic away as I could, but fragments of it clung to the power inside me. Twisting and warping, trying to invade where it didn’t belong. My muscles seized and I rapidly blinked my eyes as if it could save me from letting this magic pull me apart from the inside out. I couldn’t keep lying here. I had to rally no matter how much it felt like this would be the end for me, I had to push through for the others.
As I tried to clear my head of the disorientation, I realised I was somewhere I’d never have expected—in Rhidian’s arms.
His concerned eyes stared down at me, and I quickly pulled myself free. I saw the flicker of hurt, but he had to know I could never be with someone who wasn’t my mate.
I quickly took in my surroundings, already knowing that my mates weren’t here. Even if I hadn’t been conscious enough to know how I was creating a path for them to make a move for Damon, there was no way they’d have stood by and let Rhidian hold me if they were here.
“They’re coming,” I told Rhidian just as he opened his mouth to say something. We didn’t have time for feelings right now. We were in for a fight we could very possibly not survive. Even if we did, I was pretty sure I’d damaged something at the very core of my magic. “The Endless waiting out amongst the trees are about to make their move.”
I quickly climbed to my feet, taking stock of our numbers as my hand went to the hilt of my sword, preparing for battle. But as I gripped the pommel, I hesitated. This wasn’t a fight that would be won through force alone. I’d touched the magic of the land and it stayed with me. I could feel it running beneath my feet, the way it connected every single living thing around us. If we were going to survive this, then I needed to use the most powerful weapon available to me. I released the sword, gripping my hands into fists as I moved between our confused looking fighters to take my place at the front. My body screamed in agony, and I couldn’t believe I was considering doing this again. But what choice did I have?
“I won’t stand behind you and expect you to shield me with your lives,” I told them as I braced myself for the fight to come. The Spring magic of the Court and the ocean of power that was building out here amongst the trees reached for me. It floated free from the confines of the earth and flowed to wrap around my arms in beamed ropes of glimmering light. It burned every inch of my skin that it touched, but I gritted my teeth and bore it. This was power. This was what it would take to win. “I am with you every step of the way. Now prepare yourselves. We fight for our court, for our lives, and most of all, we fight for our freedom.”
There was a murmur of agreement behind me, and I could feel the charge in the air as the fighters gripped on to what magic they had, looking for any advantage they could find. Rhidian stepped to my side. Flames wrapped around his hands as he prepared to fight.
“We’ve got this,” he murmured. “Let them come. This fight has been a long time in the making.”
I shook my head because he had no idea of what was waiting for us out there. It was only a fraction of the forces Arik had under his control, and already it felt so impossible. But we weren’t powerless, and we were done cowering in the shadows, waiting for Arik to decide it was time for us to die. These people deserved to have a home they felt safe in, but more than that. They deserved to have a leader who actually cared for them. Someone who was prepared to put everything on the line to protect them.
And I was finally ready to step into that role.
Spring magic flowed through me so easily as vines burst from the ground, weaving between the trees and creating a wall of thorns between us and the advancing forces. It cut off our view of the impending danger, but it also cut off their access to us.
I remembered what Dean had said before, and as I wove the barricade as thickly as I could, I left a single gap, wide enough for one man to walk through. Their only access to whatever Arik wanted to achieve here.
Of course, they’d eventually cut through. I could keep reinforcing the barricade, but eventually they’d break it. In the meantime, this was our chance to thin their numbers more.
I tuned out the sound of nervous shuffling feet surrounding me and reached for the magic that didn’t come naturally to me, but was there nevertheless. Pulling on the threads of water that wound through the ground, I flooded the area in the barricade's gap, softening the ground and creating the first layer of a trap that I hoped could save at least some of the men around me.
A flash of grey hair had my heart surging as a wolf galloped into view, and just before his paws could touch the quicksand I’d made, he leapt, sailing through the air and cleared the pit by inches at most.
Dean’s wolf quickly moved, interestingly not pushing himself between Rhidian and me, and instead, opting to stand on my other side. My hand dropped and brushed through the hair on the top of his head as he gave me a reassuring nudge in return. I prayed he and the others couldn’t feel my pain through the bond, and I locked it down as tightly as I could to try and prevent it.
I had no idea why he’d come back. I just had to hope it was a good sign. Because there was no time to talk as the first of the second wave of Endless stepped through the gap in the barricade.
There was something wrong about watching the heavy suit of armour sinking into the ground, quickly disappearing from view without even struggling. It was almost as if it was empty, and I pushed down the wave of nausea of just how aware the person trapped inside could be.
They came quicker then. Rushing the gap and sinking from view as they tried to push through to reach us. But this wasn’t a bottomless pit, and macabre as the thought was, it wouldn’t take long for it to fill with the bodies of the fallen, allowing the rest to walk easily across.
I was out of ideas, and the overuse of magic was making my mind run slower than I wanted it to at this moment. I was losing my grip on the wild magic, leaving only my own in its place. The relief was welcome, but even as the burning pain slipped away with it, I panicked because what if I couldn’t do this without it?
There was no other choice, and I reached for my sword, pulling it free, letting the last of the magic that clung to my arms flow down the blade instead.
As the first of The Endless clambered over the quickly filling pit, Dean dived forward, colliding with the suit of armour as his jaws wrapped around its sword arm and dragged it to the ground.
There was no time to worry for him as I moved, seeing the second soldier closing in next to him, and I raised my sword, ready to engage with everything I had.
A sadness slammed into me at the same time as our blades met, knowing that, if I wanted to keep my people safe, there was no other way but to kill the person in front of me. The people inside these suits of armour weren’t there willingly, and they were just as much victims as the rest of Nymeria.
I hated every moment of what we had to do here. The one person who deserved this fate was miles away, probably safe and warm in a palace that should never have belonged to him.
The magic lining my blade flared, surging into the Endless in front of me and seeping into the armour through whatever crack it could find. I felt it touch his soul and the darkness that clouded it. The blue light in his eyes flickered, and then he collapsed to the ground.
I had no idea what I’d done. I didn’t even know if he was down for good, but I couldn’t bring myself to drive the blade of my sword through his helm and make sure that he never moved again. Praying it wouldn’t be a mistake I regretted for the rest of my life, I turned to face the next soldier who was already upon me.
The sounds of violence crashed around me as everyone surged into battle. There was no time to stand on the sidelines here. We were all fighting for our lives and every single soldier knew it. Or at least those who still knew who they were.
I did what I could to help, and the vines of the barricade whipped out, grabbing any Endless that got close and dragged them into the depths. I wanted to do more, but it was splitting my focus from the next Endless coming for me. I couldn’t afford to die in this forest, not when I still had so many to save. So, reluctantly, I pulled my magic away from the vines and trusted our fighters to follow their training.
But as the next Endless moved towards me, I saw the way he stumbled. The way the blue light flickered in his eyes.
And it wasn’t me doing it.
My mind flashed back to another occasion I’d seen the light dim in the eyes of The Endless, and as it did, he pulled back his sword arm, and instead of slamming the blade into mine, twisted and rammed it through the neck of the soldier behind him.
Falling to his knees, the blue light completely dimmed in the eyes of the soldier. He dropped his sword, his hands coming up to grip the helm as a groan of despair flowed from hidden lips.
Dean moved at the same time as I did as we both dived to take down the next Endless that had followed this one through. We needed to buy him enough time to see if he could fight the control Arik was holding over him. If this was the same soldier we’d seen before, he was potentially the only one who could do it, and the information he could hold would be priceless in the war to come.
I drove my sword through the soft vulnerable spot in the armour's underarm and pulled on the last reserves of Spring magic that were still clinging to me to wrap vines around the soldier as Dean forced him to the ground.
As I glanced back at the soldier on the ground, I could see the struggle he was going through, trying to fight for control, and Rhidian’s fighters were moving to form a distant circle around him. It said a lot about how well Rhidian had trained them, that even in a fight like this, they still had enough wits about them to see that this soldier wasn’t entirely their enemy.
It was only then that I realised how quiet it was, and when I glanced around I saw all our fighters looking confused as no more Endless came through the gap in the barricade. There wasn’t even a sound of them trying to break through in any other spot. The only thing in the forest now was silence, apart from the panting breaths of the weary fighters around me.
I quickly took stock of our side, and apart from a few minor looking injuries, everyone seemed fine and still on their feet.
“We might not have much time,” I told Dean, even though I knew he couldn’t respond to me in his current form.
He gave me a wolfy huff and then took up position between me and the gap in the vines The Endless had been advancing through.
I didn’t waste any time and quickly rushed to the soldier, hunched on his knees as he clawed at the helm that didn’t seem to want to come off.
Grabbing his shoulders, I pulled him straight to look at him. I knew I could help him. I’d found a way with another before him. The problem was, I wasn’t entirely sure how I did it, and I wasn’t sitting on the verge of magical burn out then. I’d used too much too quickly here, but I wouldn’t let it cost me the opportunity to save the person in front of me.
“Kill me,” he begged. “Please, I beg you. I can’t take any more of this.”
My mind flashed back to this exact same situation. This wasn’t a coincidence. Those didn’t exist in Nymeria. There was something we weren’t seeing about The Endless. Something Nymeria was screaming at us to notice and we’d passed it by before.
“This is what I deserve,” he whispered. “The things I’ve done, the things he made me do. Please, save me from this torment. I can’t… I can’t…”
He screamed as the light flared brighter in his eyes, and I knew he was close to losing his grip on what little control he had.
Perhaps I should have done what he asked. It would probably have been the kinder thing in the circumstances. I’d never know what these people had been through. But… I couldn’t.
I couldn’t give up on them.
I couldn’t let Arik win.
Not even over just one more person.
“Can you see me, you fucking bastard?” I seethed, gripping the helm as I glared into the blue light that came from the one man I hated the most in the world.
“Kill him, Alyssa.” Arik’s slimy voice practically oozed from the man in front of me as he exerted his control over him once again. “You know you want to. Kill them all.”
Arik’s laughter echoed around the forest and the men around me stumbled back in shock. Perhaps now realising just how much the pretender king could really do.
This was nothing but parlour tricks, though.
And when the smile spread across my lips, his laughter stumbled to a halt.
“What makes you think I’ve killed any of them?” The satisfaction of knowing how much this would piss him off was more than enough to make me latch onto that magic that was growing deep into the forest, even when I was frightened of what it might actually do to me. “I’m taking them, Arik. I’m taking these people back, and then I’m taking back the Courts. One. By. One. Don’t worry, I’ll save yours for last. I want you to sit on your icy throne and watch while I strip away every single thing you’ve fought for. This world deserves better than you. Even if I have to die doing it, your time on that throne ends.”
And I pulled on the magic blooming in the forest, drawing every single bit of it inside of me. It felt like pure fire flooding my veins, and a little piece of me burned away in the process. A piece I didn’t know if I needed, but right now, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how much I lost, because he was about to lose more. This was madness, but what part of war wasn’t? Battles were won at the cost of your soul. I was just setting mine ablaze before the darkness of what I’d done could seep inside.
Then I set it free.
The magic surged into the Endless in front of me, burning through the darkness that was trying to rip him away and flooding the connection he shared with those around him. Strangely, it didn’t fight me this time. It didn’t try to punish me for bending it to my will. Instead, it fled me almost happily as it burned through the darkness of Arik’s magic like the afford to Nymeria that it was.
I heard a distant scream as Arik scrambled to close the connection, and satisfaction burned through me. It was about time that he felt a fraction of the pain he’d inflicted on the fae.
My head swam in the silence that followed. My body felt heavy and far too light all at the same time.
The Endless dropped to the ground in front of me, and no one moved. They stared in awe at what they’d just seen. The impossible blossom of hope finally taking root inside of them.
“Strip the armour from him,” I murmured, my mouth feeling like it was filled with cotton. “Start stripping the armour from them all. They shouldn’t have to wake up in that life again.”
With that, the trees and the vines slowly moved. The branches creaked as they lowered the Endless back to the ground, bloodied but not broken. Those in the pit bubbled up to the surface of a world that wasn’t quite the same as when they’d been sucked into the depths.
And then my eyes fluttered closed, and I sank into the unconsciousness that seemed to keep visiting me like an unwelcome stranger I couldn’t quite shake.