by Laynie Bynum
The guard…
I looked to the ground where we had just walked over his body… but he wasn’t there.
My scream was too late and Hudson Frost was too focused on Xander and me to realize the guard had made his way behind him, too late to see the silver blade in his hand that guards used in emergency situations when magic wouldn’t suffice.
Frost’s eyes rolled into his head as the blade cut clean through his chest, blood dripping from his lips as his body slumped to the ground. The guard, coward that he was, didn’t stay, but instead ran from us, either worried that the emotions of two unstable mages would be his undoing or thinking he’d get far enough away to find reinforcement in time to stop us.
Neither mattered as I ran to Hudson, gathering him in my arms as he coughed up too much blood.
“No, no, no,” I whispered, trying to gather whatever remained within me to attempt even a simple healing spell, but his hand rested on both of mine, keeping them in place as his glazed eyes looked up at me.
“The wall… both of you…”
“No, you’re going to be fine,” I lied. “You’re going to come with us the rest of the way and tell us what we need to do and—”
“Autumn,” he said through another coughing fit. “Your mother…”
“Please, don’t,” I begged.
“She loves you.”
“No…”
“She loves you. Very… very… much.”
I felt my eyes burn from tears as the light disappeared from Hudson Frost’s. His words made no sense. My mother was dead. She couldn’t still love me— there was nothing left of her that could love.
Commotion on the other end of the yard snapped my head up fast enough to see the guard had, in fact, found reinforcements.
“Autumn,” Xander hissed. “We have to move.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder and I batted him away, violently. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
“I can explain,” he insisted. “I can explain all of it if you’ll just let me—”
I stood up, brushing off my pants not because they were dirty, but because I needed a distraction. Because I needed to think. And because my own hands were now bright red with the blood of the fallen Guild Mage who had betrayed his own to help us to freedom.
I wasn’t going to let that sacrifice go to waste. “Right now, we need to get out of here, and then I’m done with you.”
Xander had the audacity to look as if he was hurt.
The shouting grew louder. We ran fast and as far as we could until the hum of the magical barrier that surrounded the prison could be felt as deep as my bones. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, and I knew this was the wall Hudson Frost had mentioned. The one that needed both of us.
“Dammit,” I whispered.
After all we had been through…
Slowly, I looked over to Xander. His focus was on the invisible wall before us as he fruitlessly looked for a way through. But I already knew the answer.
“It needs both of us,” I said, defeated.
He looked to me, hope lingering in his gaze.
I felt hollow. “Dark and light. You and me. This one last time. And then we go our separate ways.”
“Autumn, please…”
He moved away from the wall and towards me but I stepped back. Our time was running out and he was going to get even more people killed by stalling.
“Do not let Frost have died in vain. Do not let Kai have put her life on the line for nothing. If killing my sister meant so little to you then try to make up for it now.”
“But I—”
I shook my head. “There’s not time, Xander. Do something right for a change”
I knew my tone was harsh, and the words were bitter on my tongue, but I was hurt, and I was desperate.
Xander seemed to finally understand, or at least he did a fine job of feigning understanding. The thought of how much he was able to fabricate flitted across my mind only for a moment before I moved my hands towards the barrier, willing my power to rise to the surface, to come forward and help me as it had been meant to help so many others in the past.
Next to me, I saw Xander follow my lead, closing his eyes as he concentrated on the wall that separated us from our freedom.
We may have once had something. There may have been a chance for us.
All those thoughts crumbled with the magical barricade before us. If not for the surprised and horrified gasps behind us, I would have been uncertain that it actually worked. But the guards and mages who sought to stop us clearly saw something we hadn’t, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out what it was.
I ran.
Chapter Thirteen
I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. Xander kept pace close behind but didn’t dare speak. Every time we turned our heads to judge the distance of the guards following us, the prison became more microscopic against the horizon behind us. Ahead, there was a clear split in the path. One way held dense, dark woods. The other a shoreline with another body of land far off in the distance.
“There’s no way we can swim that far,” I said as I stopped running, bent over with exhaustion, my breaths coming in ragged gulps. “We’ve got to go to the woods.”
“It isn’t as far as it looks. And anyway, with all the planning Kai put into this thing, don’t you think she’d have water sprites ready to help us?”
I stood and crossed my arms. “I think we don’t have the time to find out. The woods are our best shot at losing them.”
“Just trust me, please.”
The sardonic laugh that exploded out of me made him jump slightly, although he should have expected it. “Trust you. The man who murdered my sister. Who knew from day one who I was and what he’d done but let me live with this grief and confusion anyway? Yeah, let me tell you. You, Xander Williams, are the last person on earth I trust right now.”
The barking of the hellhounds grew louder as they closed in on us. The light coming from the guards following us shone bright against the dying sun.
“Autumn,” he began, but I held up a hand to stop him and it sparked with magic on its own accord. Surprisingly, he flinched.
Good.
“Fine, you go to the ocean,” I conceded. “I’ll go through the woods. We only needed each other to get through the gate. Nothing says we have to stay together now.”
“Autumn.”
“I don’t need your protection Xander. I don’t need you. Can’t you see that you’re the reason all of this is happening to me? If you had just learned to have a backbone and stood up against the Guild one kill earlier…”
I knew I’d gone too far. I felt it as soon as the words left my lips. But how could I possibly have sympathy for this man after all that he had done to me, my family, and many other families before mine...
Yet, despite all logic, despite my intense desire to hate him, some part of my heart still ached as I watched his face fall.
Without a word, he turned away from me and headed to the shore. I watched as he retreated, taking in what I knew would be the last moments I ever saw of him.
There was no returning to the way things used to be before the Grey. That much was obvious. Both with the Guild hot on my trail and the way it had changed me, even if I returned to my house in Boston, it wouldn’t be home anymore.
But one thing was certain; if and when I ever saw Xander Williams again, I’d be strong enough to get justice for my sister. I’d do what I needed to. An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
I heard the crunching of leaves and the snapping of sticks in the surrounding wood and knew I had to stop. I was thinking myself into a fury, and what I really needed to be doing was running. They were gaining in on me. I’d lost precious moments of my head start.
My muscles throbbed with effort as my feet pounded against the hard ground. I wasn’t in great shape to begin with, and then the time in isolation, feeling like I was dead, not wanting to move, not eating—it made this infernal marathon even harder.
>
The grassy field soon gave way to a dense underbrush as I pushed through the edge of the forest. I had to slow my pace to avoid the roots, branches, and jagged rocks in my path, but I kept moving.
There was no choice. Despite the scratches my face and hands were taking from the various limbs I was doing a horrible job of avoiding, the only way out of this was through it. Turning back wasn’t an option.
My jumpsuit withstood the beating the woods were giving it. Thorns and splintered wood brushed off the material as if it was made of indestructible steel, and for all I knew it was.
Leaves crunched under my boots as I ran forward, hoping that I was headed away from the Grey and toward whatever else was waiting on the other side.
I had no idea what I would do when I got there. Even earthbounds would know that the tell-tale uniform stood for something they didn’t want to get mixed up in. Asking for help would be out of the question.
Somehow, I’d have to find an open entrance to the underground tunnel, the portal that would be my escape route. From there I could get home, no matter how far the Grey was geographically from Boston.
Sunlight broke through the trees ahead of me as if I’d reached the end of the forest. I pushed my muscles forward one last time. My last bit of steam. The very last of my energy.
When I broke through the forest line, my heart sank as I realized it was just a clearing. On the other side, the deep woods resumed.
And in the middle of the clearing stood a familiar skeletal figure dressed in all black.
It was too late to turn around. I’d run into the clearing at full-force and had gotten too far into it before I saw him to retrace my steps without being detected.
I stood there motionless, staring at the black eyes and goateed face of a man who might as well be death incarnate.
“Lovely to see you again, Ms. Quinn. Though I’d rather it had been under different circumstances.”
I scanned the woods behind Drevan Arthur, searching the clearing for anything I could use. I was once again an animal in a cage. Cornered and scared for my life.
There would be no point in dueling. If he wanted to, he could flick his fingers and my life would end. The only reason I was still alive was because he was sick and liked to torture his prey.
I didn’t know much, but I knew people. You don’t work as a healer for years and not learn what true evil looks like.
“Now, now. There’s no need for that look of fear. I swear on my honor that I will not lay a hand on you.”
He didn’t have to. His magic would do all the work for him. I’d seen what Xander could do, saw what he had done to my sister. And this man taught him all he knew… I took a step back.
I ran the calculations in my head. The only way to get out of here was through the forest. The problem was I had to keep going forward but there was a dark mage assassin standing in my way.
Trying to skirt the edges of his magic’s range would take too long. The clearing was wide and the edges were too far from the break in the trees behind him.
I had to just run, throw spells, and pray to whatever or whoever would listen.
He advanced slowly as I lowered myself into a crouch, summoning up whatever power I had left.
“Autumn, you’re making a mistake. You could join us. You would be royalty. People would worship at your feet like a goddess. Why give all that up because dear ol’ pappy liked to tell entertaining bedtime stories to you and your sister?”
My lips curled over my teeth as I snarled like an angry cat. The pulse of magic beat against my fingertips, ready to launch as soon as I gave the command.
“I’m warning you, Draven, let me pass.”
His eyebrows lifted as he let out an easy, unbothered laugh. “Or what? A Level Four white mage is going to hurt me?” He lifted his hands to the sky and black smoke billowed out, blotting out the sun before the cloud shifted into a skull. “Do you know who I am, child? I am the bringer of death to all who cross the Guild. I am the judge and the jury. With these hands I have brought down kings and gods.”
I took a deep breath, holding my panic at bay and drawing on my anger and frustration for power. “If you’re all those things, then tell me, who ordered my sister’s death?”
I already knew Xander had acted on Draven’s orders, he’d said as much although part of me knew I shouldn't believe anything he had said. But if Draven had any part in my sister’s death, I wanted to make him pay.
I wanted to make them all pay.
“Oh, who spilled the beans about your lover boy?” he quipped as he took another step towards me. “I bet it was that traitor Frost. He never could keep a secret.” He rolled his eyes and continued to chuckle at his own sick joke. “Winter had to be culled. It was the only way to stop the poison of rebellion. You cut off the gangrenous foot to save the leg, you see? I had no choice.”
Rage boiled inside of me, each thump of my fast beating heart fueling the power building in my hands. “She was a person, you despicable psychopath. A person with people who loved her. People who needed her. I needed her!”
I lunged forward, launching the full force of my magic straight at his chest.
He held up a single finger and the magic fizzled out inches from his face.
“Cute, but I have grown bored with this now.” His fingers started to bend and twist, forming the magical patterns that brought forth his power. The black smoke began building around them like the clouds of a thunderstorm.
As he cast, I ran back toward the coverage of the woods but I knew it wasn’t going to be enough. This was it. Everything that had happened was for nothing. I would die here, alone in a clearing in the middle of the woods, wearing these horribly ugly coveralls and leaving Draven to weave some tale about his valiant efforts to save the Grey from its prisoners’ rebellion.
I turned back long enough to see Draven send a swirling vortex of dark magic directly toward me. I dived down, falling to the ground as I covered my head and braced myself for the impact. Readying myself for death. Preparing to see my sister again, my father, my mother...
Moments passed and nothing happened. Death must have come quickly and spared me pain. I laid where I was for a moment, feeling the breath come and go from my lungs before I tried to open my eyes.
When I did, the tips of black shoes crushed the grass right beside my head.
“Get out of here, Autumn. Run,” Xander said between gritted teeth as he held his arms straight in front of him—his magic in a losing battle with Draven’s.
Xander, who should have been to the shore by now, who I had told I never wanted to see again, who I swore to end the next time I saw him…
He was there. And he had saved my life.
Chapter Fourteen
A strained shout snapped me from my reverie as Xander grappled to keep the dark power at bay.
“You know better than this, boy,” Draven snarled from across the clearing, his expression alone exemplifying his frustration. “Now get out of the way or you’ll be next.”
“This has gone on too long, Draven,” Xander hissed, but I could see his struggle. The effort he was exerting, the strain in the muscles of his neck, the sweat running down his temple.
He was going to fizzle out, and it would be all because of me.
Xander could have left. He could have gone and never looked back. But he didn’t. He came back. He saved me.
For that…
Slowly, I picked myself up. I stood on my own two feet and I walked next to him.
We would do this. Together.
Draven actually laughed when he saw my battle-ready stance. “Well, this is almost adorable. Fighting together to the end. The assassin who killed the white mage, the healer who actually thinks she’s worth something.”
But I was worth something. I was worth more than a mage Level and a name. I was more than someone’s sister or daughter.. I could be who I wanted to be, what I wanted to be, regardless of what some upper power may have decided was my predetermined pa
th.
I thought about my past conversations with Xander and Kai. I thought about the lessons Winter had taught me. I remembered what my father had tried to instill in us. I knew there was more to a mage than a color. I knew there was more to us than what we were told to believe. I knew, deep down, that we could be taught to harness that power that already lived within us.
At the end of the day we were all the same.
And I held onto that belief as I raised my hands, standing next to the mage who not only caused my strife, but saved me.
Together we were going to end this. End the oppression. End the violence. End the hierarchy that determined one mage was better than another. Once and for all.
The overconfident smile on Draven’s face seemed to falter as he watched me. Watched us. As I gathered power not with my mind, but with my heart. As I reached deep within my soul where I had been afraid to reach because I was told I would never have been good enough to do it. To that prickling power that lay just beneath my skin that would have brought my sister back from the beyond. To a magic that lay dormant but now awoke with a vengeance.
I was in the Grey for Winter, and for Winter I would challenge everything I knew and sacrifice everything I was.
I focused on Draven. At the force between him and the mage beside me, and I focused my energy on that power. I searched for Xander in that magic, and I entwined myself around it, enforcing it, making it grow hotter and brighter with each beat of my heart.
I heard yelling, shouting, protests to stop, but I didn’t know from whom or why— all I knew was that I needed to help Xander and make Draven pay for the lives he had taken.
It all ended in a flash of light, brighter than the sun, with a force that knocked me back to the tree line surrounding the clearing. My breath was short and my head pounded. My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest and my legs wouldn’t move.
But I felt… at peace.
Something warmed within me, and I knew I had done the right thing. And I did it on my own. Not because Winter had told me to. Not because my father had warned me about the consequences. Not because Kai had held my hand and walked me through. Because I decided on my own that it was the right thing.