“What the hell? Madel get help!”
She blinked into her sprite size and shot out of the room. I pressed against the shield and moved to stand on a chair as the dark mist covered the floor. When the last of it escaped his lips, Malcolm slumped over. The black mist swirled around, rising like a tornado. My magic sparked at the tips of my fingers and I blasted the base of the funnel. The mist still on the ground solidified, then broke away from the rest of the spinning demon as it screeched. I fell over the back of the chair and onto my ass as the shield collapsed.
The mist charged towards me, and my arms came up but so did my own shield and it pressed against it, rising up and hitting the ceiling before swirling around to come at me again. After being deflected by my magical bubble yet again, it charged towards the window on the opposite side of the room. The glass exploded out and the mist disappeared through it. I crawled to the window, peeking up over the sill. It wasn’t there. I could see all the way out to the cobblestone corridor, but no trace of the demon.
“Desmoree?” a familiar sweet voice called.
“Malcolm, are you okay?”
“What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” I asked, climbing to my feet and standing between him and the shattered window.
He leaned to his left to see around me. “Did you do that?”
“What? No!”
“Did I?”
“No sweetie, you didn’t. It was something else.”
“A demon.”
“You remember?”
He shook his head and tapped the side with his pointer finger. “They told me, silly.”
“Ahh, so what else can they tell us about all this? Do they know how they got in?”
He looked off into space for a moment before his brow furrowed. “They came through your portal.”
“My portal? No way, we folded back here, besides they had already attacked before we came back.”
“No, your portal to leave, they came through to here when you went through to there.”
“How is that even possible?”
He shrugged.
Madel flitted back into the room, the on duty head sage right behind her, a blue light emitting from a staff in her hand.
“Where is it?” she asked, looking from Malcolm to me and then to the window. “You let it go?”
“Hey, I didn’t exactly have a choice,” I said, trying to get a better look at the staff in her hand. “What’s that?”
“Ah, this is the chief sage’s new staff. She hasn’t arrived yet so when your friend said there was a demon, I grabbed it quickly, hoping to seize it. Some of us have been given elfish gifts to aid in protecting the fey. This staff is supposed to capture a sinister being.”
“Cool, I should totally get me one of those.”
“I thought you could destroy a demon all on your own?” Madel asked, flitting to her child-like size and moving to climb up onto Malcolm’s bedside. “Why didn’t you kill it?”
“I tried. It broke some of it off, so I hurt it.”
“But you didn’t destroy it?”
“No.”
You brought the darkness. You let it go. What good will you be if you can’t defend them? You already lost your mother, your mentor, your friend. How many more will die because of you?
“Desmoree,” Malcolm called, and I rubbed a pulsing ache behind my right eye.
“My head just started pounding, do you guys have anything for that?”
“Sorry, that’s probably from helping me. They have tarontie tea, it will get rid of it straight away.” Malcolm smiled, seemingly back to normal.
I looked to the head sage. “Down the hall, last room on the right. We keep a fresh batch brewing in a pot on the stove. As you can imagine, headaches are frequent in this place. Plus it will give you a little energy boost too. If you can stand the smell.”
“Thanks,” I said, then looked back to Madel. “Madel, go to the Nazieth, tell them there is still a demon in the realm, they need to find it before it takes over someone else.”
She nodded and took off out the broken window. I smiled as best I could and left the head sage with Malcolm. He was a tough kid, powerful too. Not many would survive a possession, let alone the pain of being burnt so badly by the demon first.
I was almost at the end of the hall when the queen equillis popped her head out of a nearby room, “Do you think you could give me a hand? It appears that the equillis tears are not enough to heal burns such as these. I can heal all other injuries they have presented with, but the scorched skin, it will not heal. It’s quite unusual.”
“Sure,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
You caused this after all.
I entered the room behind her, expecting a room similar to Malcolm’s, but I was way off. This room was the size of a school hall and it was filled with fey laying on stretchers in four rows of at least twelve across.
“All of them have burns?”
“They do, yes. Most are minor, but still quite painful.”
“Are any of them Nazieth?”
“Yes, those over there,” the queen nodded towards the furthest wall. “Why?”
“I can’t help them. They took a potion I made to secure their magic. Are you sure there isn’t anything you can do for them?”
She shook her mane, the golden flecks glistening in the light. “Perhaps a topical application of something the elves have brought will allow them to heal better, but I expect they will scar in the least if you’re unable to help them.”
“I’ll start over here,” I said, heading towards the bed closest to the door we came through. A small woman lay sleeping, her legs black from the knees down.
“She is sedated,” a nurse said, promptly scaring the crap out of me.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“Over there, I saw you come in with the queen. She has been rather helpful, what we have here is not enough to help them. The burns... they are something else.”
“That they are.”
“So, you’re going to help?”
“I’m going to try,” I said, kneeling beside the woman’s bed and placing my hands over her legs. Her skin was rough like old leather and though she was sedated, she flinched a little at my touch.
I brought both the fabled and fey magic forwards, it tingled at the tips of my fingers like it had the first time I successfully combined the powers. Then I sent it forwards, it went freely. Both of them this time.
Was the demon in Malcolm the reason the fabled magic wouldn’t go last time?
After my magic moved through her and returned to me, her legs were not fully healed, but looked more like she had spent a little too long in the sun one afternoon.
Surely the sages, can help with that.
“Nice work, on you go then, the next one’s over there,” the chief sage said, pointing to the next bed down where a young girl sat holding her arm bent and close to her chest. Her arm healed just the same, leaving the sunburnt pink skin to heal on its own. The next was Gerald, his face was half black from the burns, and his legs were suspended in some contraption to keep them still and elevated.
“I’m going to try to help you, okay?”
“Demon came,” he breathed out in raspy breaths.
“I know, they told me. It’s okay, the Nazieth will find it.”
“It didn’t go for the fey, it wanted the tree.”
“The tree is gone too. Look, let me heal you, there are others who need help too, we can talk about this after they are healed.”
His head relaxed back onto the pillow and dropped to the side to look at the beds of fey lined up, weeping in pain. “Help them first.”
“Okay, that’s enough. Just lay there.” I was done waiting. I pushed my combined magic out and his body jolted with its entry into him. It circled his own energy, illuminating to its full brightness before returning back to me. “We can discuss the rest later, I have others to help,” I said, twisting to face the next bed i
n the long row.
“Thank you,” his recovered but tired voice said. I nodded without turning back and then laid my hands on the next patient.
I went from one to the next until all but the Nazieth were pretty much healed. The balms the elves and sages made, soothed what remained of the wounds.
I walked slowly towards the Nazieth’s beds. They saw me coming and though it must have hurt like hell, they all stood to greet me.
“Sit, please, you need to rest,” I tried to tell them, but they stood tall beside one another.
“We will be ready to continue the hunt when you are, Desmoree,” the male on the far right said, following curt nods from the others.
“What do you mean? You can’t. I can’t heal you, and without help those burns will take forever to heal enough for you to return to duty.”
“The painkillers will arrive soon, we will return to the hunt. The chief Nazieth has already recalled all members of the Nazieth. We are to rejoin the others fighting.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me? The council can’t allow this, they didn’t want you to go on the hunt in the first place, they aren’t going to send injured fey out there now.”
“The council don’t get to decide. With Harold dead, Gerald injured, and Grace missing, there can be no vote.”
“Grace is missing?”
“The council went to battle the darkness surrounding the tree. No one has seen her since.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. I turned on them and ran through the rows of mostly healed fey. Once outside, I phased and rose high above Sayeesies. I could see the crowd of fey had halved surrounding the tree, the equillis were still weaving their way in and around those left. I closed my eyes and searched for Grace’s magic the way I had searched for Ava’s. Grace was my family, connected to me, so essentially I was searching for a piece of myself.
How many more will pay for your mistakes? How can you claim to want to help them, when it is you that is causing all of this pain?
A power illuminated in my mind’s eye and I opened my eyes, zooming in on it. It was Max, talking with Tai. I closed my eyes again. The light from Max’s power shone brighter and brighter the harder I pushed, but nothing else appeared.
She really was gone.
9
MORE BLOOD ON YOUR hands. More fey lost to a darkness you created, you released onto them. How will you ever get clean?
The thoughts echoed in my mind as I stared down at the fey wandering about. A faint voice called my name and I turned my head, slowly trying to hear it over the voice booming in my head.
“Desmoree, what are you doing up here?” my father asked, coming to hover in front of me in the sky. “The hunt will resume, if you want to return to the human world you must leave now.”
“The hunt,” I repeated, not recognizing my own words.
“Yes, Desmoree, the hunt. What is up with you?”
“Grace,” I replied, still watching the fey move about below us.
“What about Grace?”
“She’s gone, I can’t see her, feel her. She isn’t here.”
“I haven’t heard anything about Grace being hurt. Desmoree, snap out of whatever this is,” he said, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. The fuzz surrounding my thoughts cleared a little and I focused in on his face.
Strong, three day regrowth sprinkled over his jaw, his thin lips were pressed tight in concern. Soft, sad eyes stared desperately at me.
“Dad, I can’t find her.”
“What about a Hytersprite? You know one of them already, don’t you?”
“You’re right, Madel. I can ask Madel to look for Grace. Dad you are a genius.”
“We need to call a council meeting, but if Grace is missing and with... well we need to appoint stand-in members. I asked the chief Nazieth to stand in for Harold.”
“Yes, you’re right. The rest of the council, where are they?” I asked.
His gaze fell to the fey below. “Tai has just sent word to the others, we meet at the Sage’s clinic. Who can stand in for Grace until we find her?”
“Wait, Tai? Why is Tai sending word?”
“With Marx... well, Tai wanted to help and he is great at getting around unseen. He also has an excellent memory.”
“But his parents? Surely they don’t approve?”
“Actually, now Tai has magic and can protect himself, they were more than happy to have him assist me with things like this. So who will stand in for Grace? We need a full council Desmoree.”
I tried to think of who would be able to make the best decisions for the fey—all the fey. “The chief sage, they have a stake in this too.”
“Umm, Des, Maylea is now the chief sage. One of the possessed killed Nol Gray.”
“Oh, that sucks.”
I had a hard enough time remembering the fey I met on a daily basis, I think I met Nol Grey once and struggled to picture him in my mind now.
“Oh, I just thought of something,” I said to my father’s raised brow. “Maylea is going to love being on the council, and you can be the one to tell her. I’ll meet you there.”
I didn’t give him a chance to object. I dashed through the sky to the pool of light where the sprites played with the children. But when I got there, there was no one in sight. No children, no sprites. Disappointed I headed to the Sage clinic.
The others were already inside, surrounding Gerald.
“Good, you are all here. Where is this chief Nazieth I’ve heard so much about then?”
“That would be me,” a stocky woman said, stepping out from behind Maryella. “Bella Crow, chief Nazieth, and all round badass at your service.”
She held out her hand. I didn’t take it.
“So you are the one who wants to send hurt Nazieth back into battle then?”
She kept her hand raised, waiting for me to take it. “I am.”
“You get how stupid that is, right?”
Finally she lowered her hand and her eyes became slits. The corner of her mouth twitched a little as she hissed back a breath. “All Nazieth are called to join in the fight against the demons you let into the human realm.”
“You will leave the Feydom completely unprotected. The elves are helping in the human realm, other fabled too. Leave the bulk of the Nazieth here to defend the fey. Leave the injured to recover, so that when they are healed they can stand a chance against a demon.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
Wanna bet, bitch?
The council all moved back a step, except Gerald, who sat up in his bed staring at my hands. The magic of the fabled and the fey sizzled at my fingertips in rainbow sparks.
“Desmoree,” Maylea’s voice brought me back to my senses, and allowed me to regain control. “Why am I now a member of the council?”
The others whispered to each other, but I shot them a glare and it silenced them quickly.
“You are the chief sage. You have as much invested in this as the rest of us. The council needs to stand so that decisions are voted on, not made by individuals.”
She looked from me to Bella Crow and back. “Very well then, what is it you wish the council to vote on?”
“Bella wants to send the injured Nazieth back into the human realm to hunt demons, I want them to stay here and recover.”
“How do we vote, there are no chairs?” council member June asked.
“Raise your hand if you wish for the injured Nazieth to remain in the Feydom to heal,” I continued, and only just realized this would have been far easier than standing and sitting again all the time.
Maylea was my deciding vote, the issue was passed.
“Any other business?” Gerald asked from his bed. “I’m still quite tired.”
“I’m sorry, but yes, there is. There are six Nazieth teams left, at least four of them should stay within the Feydom to protect the fey and find the demon that came out of Malcolm.”
“And the other two?” Maylea asked, rounding the bed and picking up a clo
th from a silver bowl on the bedside. She wiped Gerald’s forehead before raising a brow to me.
“They can join the elves in the human world fighting what is left of the demons there.”
They began to bicker back and forth with one another about my request, Bella actually on my side for this one. It figured, seeing as she wanted all teams to go hunting. Maylea didn’t say anything, she continued to rewet the cloth in the bowl and wipe it over Gerald’s face. His eyes closed each time the cloth made contact and he let out a little sigh.
“Look! Can we just vote? Hands raised for two teams join the hunt.”
Again Maylea was my deciding vote, two Nazieth teams would return to the human realm.
Bella stepped closer to me. “If I’m a member of the council now, I call a vote of my own. “I choose the teams to join the hunt.”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care who went, as long as it wasn’t the injured. The Nazieth were all trained fighters, they would all be worthy on the hunt for demons in the human realm.
“Okay, raise hands if you agree with Bella Crow’s request,” I said ,half-heartedly. This time Maylea didn’t raise her hand. She didn’t look up and at first I thought maybe she didn’t hear me but when I opened my mouth to ask her, she held up one single finger.
“No,” she said, without raising her gaze from Gerald.
“What do you mean no?” Bella asked, turning from me to Maylea.
“No, you are to stay here, as a part of the council you must not be on the team you choose to send.”
I bit back a smile. Great catch.
“That... I wasn’t...”
“Raise your hands if Bella may choose the teams, but she must remain in the Feydom as a member of the council,” Maylea asked, still not looking at the rest of us.
The vote passed.
“But Desmoree is on the council, and she is the deciding vote. I should get to fight alongside my nazieth soldiers.”
“The council should not need a deciding vote, besides, her magic is needed in this battle. You can lead your teams from here, you can best protect the fey from here,” Maylea continued.
“Fine, we better get that barrier up the second they are through this time.”
Max held up a hand. “Now hold on, we did have the timing perfectly, the demons came through as you left, not after.”
Destroying the Fallen Page 15