Chapter 39
Luna works quickly, smudging the kohl across my eyes and the bridge of my nose. A rune of strength marked over my left eye, three slashing lines like a misshapen ’n’. Tyr’s mark, the arrow ’t’, is marked on my cheek.
“This will give you strength,” she says. “And victory.”
Her fingertips are soft, and her voice more kind than I’ve ever heard before.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“Are you ready?” Freya’s voice cuts through the throne room.
We’re all here, except for Evander, who is instructing Ramses on how to bring our warriors through the gates when they’re called. I rub at my medallion, the key that will open the gates for them, and tuck it under my chest plate.
“Ready,” I reply.
“Stick close together,” Freya responds. “The gate is finicky with this many people. When we hit the ground in Tuadanaan, stay in formation.” Her tone is commanding. A leader who has seen innumerable battles and has led her people each time.
My nerves are frayed. Trembling knees and sweaty palms, I force down a swallow to keep from puking all over myself.
I’ve been in this position before. Leading my small group of friends through the capital to take my throne back.
But this is a much grander scale of fighting. This will be all-out war.
Lachlan squeezes my hand and pulls me in front of him. Tane and Mathilda are to our right, and Evander, Luna, and Mina on our left. Freya, Harald, Odr, and Piominko are in front of us. We step as one right over the large golden rune etched onto the floor.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and hold it. The air around me tingles like a million snow flurries brush against my skin. A kaleidoscope of colors pours down from the ceiling before a flash of gold burns them away.
My knees sway as my feet hit solid ground—lush, verdant grasses. We’re no longer in the throne room. Screams of death and battle cries pierce the heavy air.
Explosions of fire drown out the screams and my ears ring. Dirt flies from a close impact and splatters my face and armor. Smoke chokes out all the breathable air, making my throat and eyes burn.
“Our scouts told us they have the palace surrounded and that they’re attempting to breach the walls!
” Freya yells, unsheathing her sword. “We’re going to attack their left flank and drive them apart.
We need to create a big enough opening for the Fae’s cavalry to drive a wedge between their armies. ”
I’m having a hard time focusing on her words. The world around me is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been dropped into a treasure chest. Jewel-colored forests lie behind the fairytale-like castle in front of us.
The castle is constructed of white marble that shimmers iridescently like pearls. Golden spires rise high into the powder blue sky that is swiftly being devoured by inky black smoke.
As far as my eyes can see, chaos reigns supreme.
Chaos and—death.
It sweeps across the land with invisible hands, plucking the souls out of warriors. Their bodies crumpled when struck by arrows or swords.
It’s a creeping black mass, leaving destruction and ruin in its wake. Like ink spilled onto a storybook page.
A white stallion gallops towards us and the male atop it is exactly what you’d picture as Prince Charming. His gold armor catches the light, reflecting rainbows around him. A long blade with a bejeweled pommel gripped firmly in his hand.
“Freya!” He yells, lifting his sword in greeting. Delicate pointed ears and sapphire eyes mark him as a fae, but the sword in his hand marks him as royalty.
“Alistair!” Freya answers. “We’re going to hit their left flank and drive a wedge. Have your cavalry come in behind us and you can split them in half.”
He nods, his eyes scanning our group before falling onto me and widening a fraction. “Queen Helena, it’s an honor to have you with us.”
I grimace and give him a dip of my chin.
“Let’s move out!” Freya barks and begins charging towards the mass of black frenzy.
A legion of black armor and black swords. A swarm of flies come to feast on a carcass.
Freya, Odr, Harald, and Piominko make up the first row. Followed by Tane, Mathilda, me, Lachlan, Mina, Luna, and Evander. Looks like the prophecy was wrong—I’m not the chosen of thirteen. With Alistair, we make twelve, and Freya is the one leading our charge.
My relief is fleeting as we charge headfirst into battle.
One heartbeat, we’re racing down a small hill and right into the enemy’s left flank.
Another heartbeat, Freya’s line hits the enemy head-on. Bodies fly, and crimson blood sprays.
So much death, so much carnage.
A soldier stands before me. His black scalelike armor is the twin to the smoke that devours light and air. The tips of his pointed ears are visible through the gaps in his helmet. He snarls at me, and I can see the delicate points of his sharp fangs.
I didn’t know the Fomorians had such sharp teeth.
The thought almost causes me to laugh. What does it matter what his teeth look like?
He wants to kill me.
The clang of swords against shields beat like a steady drum. My heart races in my chest. The male lunges at me and I bat his sword away before lunging with a killing strike.
It was easy—too easy.
A flash of a sword spearing for my head has me spinning around just in time to block it.
My visions come in a steady, decipherable stream.
The terrain we’re battling on is full of hills, and we work to gain higher ground. The main hill in front of us is actually more like a cliff.
I can feel my friends around me, each one of us fighting for the same position. Forward.
Freya spurs us on. A wrathful goddess, come to conquer.
She spins and lunges. Like a dancer on the dance floor. Such grace and ferocious power.
Her magic must be working—all I feel is rage. It consumes every part of me, except one small part. Lachlan.
Slash, lunge, block.
Harald falls back, acting like a shadow to Mina as she lifts men out of her way and slings them far and wide. Where she misses one, he’s there cutting them down. She seems strong still, not flagging yet.
Mathilda and Tane work in synchronized precision. Where she steps, he steps. A steady wall leaving corpses in their wake.
What’s surprising are Evander and Luna, side by side, battling a swarm of black armor. She blips back and forth like a murderous phantom. Disorientating any opponent that approaches them.
My eyes scan the battlefield, checking on Lachlan’s position. But he’s far in front of me, nearly at the top of the hill, surrounded by at least four males.
He cuts down one. The tip of his blade protrudes from the man’s back. It drips with gore.
But as that opponent falls, two more take his place.
A shadow moves in front of me, blocking him from my line of sight. No, not a shadow. The small figure is a female. Her dainty fingers elongated by pointed nails, she flexes and releases against the hilt of her needle of a sword. The tip of it is outstretched in front of her. Pointed at me.
She seems too small, too young to be here.
Her black, scale-like armor swallows her, but there’s a gleam in her eye. A bloodthirsty gleam. She’s seen many battles. She flips her sword from hand to hand, her eyes narrowing on my face.
With lithe steps, she moves to circle around me. But as she moves, Lachlan appears and then vanishes from my view, falling off the edge of the cliff.
Fear seizes my chest, shooting ice through my veins.
My wings burst from my back, the silver gray of my feathers reflecting the light that spears from above through the smoke hanging like a shroud over the field.
I shove past her and take off running.
Racing up the hill.
I weave through swords and spears. Streaking like the wind through the trees.
He’s not dead. He’s not dead. I repeat over and over in my mind.
I work to control my breathing, but I pump my arms and legs as fast as they can go.
The air in my throat burns as I inhale smoke and ash.
A spear grazes the side of my neck and pain rips through me.
I pull my wings in tight to my body, shielding them as best as I can, and push up and on.
Fighting blurs as I sprint by. My eyes locked on to the top of the hill.
I breathe in. 1,2,3,4.
I hold it. 1,2,3,4.
I exhale. 1,2,3,4.
My feet crest the top of the hill, but my body keeps going as I hurl myself over the edge, stretching my wings out wide.
The drop is much further than I thought it would be. It’s a deep valley below.
I catch the current, surging upwards and into the clear blue sky that exists beyond the wall of smoke. Flexing my abs and back at the right moment, I manage to stay in the current long enough to glide, and when I drop lower, I flap my wings. The air stirs, holding me aloft.
There is no fear. No worries about flying. Just him.
The land from this high unfolds before me. Fighting in the emerald valley is thicker than anything I could have imagined. Black armor looks like specks of night stretching across the battlefield.
Deep valleys and rolling hills cover much of the land before they collide against a thick wall of forest. Jewel-colored trees stand like sentinels around the land.
I feel a tug in my middle. A rope cast out to a drowning man. The silver of his armor catches the light and I angle myself towards him.
He’s moving, he’s upright.
Until he’s not.
His shout of pain rings in my ears as I slam into the ground. My legs bend to absorb the impact, and my fist strikes into the ground to hold me upright.
Lachlan pulls himself back up. He’s unharmed. The blood on his armor is not his own. A sigh works its way out of my chest.
His opponent rises, his sword angled to strike down Lachlan. My axe whizzes through the air, embedding itself into the man’s chest. He crumples to the ground in a heap of black armor.
Lachlan’s eyes widen. “Key!” He lunges towards me and envelops me in his arms. “Did ye just fly?”
But the silence is deafening.
He spins around, his sword held at the ready beside us, but no one moves to attack. There must be thousands of enemy soldiers mixed in with the Tuadanaan warriors, yet they stand frozen, motionless.
All eyes are turned beside him—to me.
Slowly, so slowly, as if time crawls. They all drop to one knee.
Enemy and ally.
Stalks of wheat in the wind.
Lachlan lets go of me and my wings spread as I prepare to launch safely back into the sky.
“What is happening?” I ask, drawing my father’s sword.
“I have no idea,” he murmurs, and wrenches my axe free from the dead man beside us and hands it to me.
“Helena!” a voice calls from the bottom of the cliff. The small black-clad figure from before, the female, races toward me, warriors part as she races through them. “Are you Helena?” Her voice is soft and lovely. Quite the contradiction to the murderous glint I had seen in her eyes earlier.
“It’s Lena,” I answer, tucking my wings into my body.
She pulls the black helmet from her face.
Black as night hair, and eyes the color of the sea.
My father’s face.
“I’m Eira, Queen of the Fomorians, and your father’s sister.”