by Ella Summers
“He never could do it before. He’s never been this powerful.” Leilani’s eyes were wide.
Damarion’s brows lifted as his gaze settled on his former warlord. “Looks like you picked the wrong side, Leilani.”
He flicked his hand again. Magic punched Leilani in the chest, flinging her across the room. She smashed against the wall. Crumbled concrete poured to the ground around her limp, unconscious body. Her brother Makani was already lifting her in his arms.
“We have to get out of here,” Logan told Alex.
“We can’t give up now,” she protested. “We have to end this.”
“Now, Alex,” Logan said, his voice strained with urgency. “Or this will be the end of us all.”
Alex gazed, wide-eyed, at Damarion’s forces closing in on them. “This was supposed to be the end of him.”
“I know.” Logan offered her his hand. “But we have to go now.”
Alex and Sera opened a gigantic glyph, teleporting them all to safety.
35
Defeat
They were back at Kai’s parents’ place, trying to figure out just what had gone wrong. How had Damarion defeated them?
“It’s not good,” said Tony. “Our backup forces waiting outside Damarion’s estate–well, they never got away.”
“Where are they?” Kai demanded.
“They were covering our retreat when they just disappeared,” said Tony.
“A hundred mages, fairies, and vampires just don’t disappear,” Kai told him.
“I know, Kai. But they are gone.” Tony shook his head. “Damarion must have swallowed them up in some sort of spell. Who knows if they’ll ever reappear.”
A hundred people gone in one night. Alex hoped they weren’t dead—or that Damarion hadn’t found a way to enslave them to his cause, his self-serving, everlasting quest for strife and power.
Damarion was winning. They’d thrown everything they had at him, and he’d merely laughed it off. He’d tossed their spells aside as though their magic meant nothing. Like they themselves were nothing of consequence.
“Why did Damarion ever bother to try to drive a wedge between me and Sera?” Alex asked the group. “From what I see, our power isn’t any threat to him at all.”
“Indeed it isn’t.” Sera sighed. “Even together, our magic couldn’t hurt him.”
“If it’s true that Damarion feasts on the power of conflict, then as the world sits now, he must be stronger than ever before,” said Logan. “The escalation of tensions between supernaturals and humans—and all the in-fighting amongst ourselves—have fed him well.”
Kai clenched his fists. “And now he’s watching us all, laughing like he’s just come from an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
Alex looked down at the slice of pizza in her hand. She tossed it into the open pizza box on the coffee table. They’d ordered pizza because that’s what they always did for strategy sessions, but for the first time ever, her heart just wasn’t in it. Her stomach wasn’t in it either. She wasn’t hungry at all. A hollow emptiness had taken root inside of her, where hope should have lived.
So, no, she wasn’t hungry. Not after what she’d seen at Damarion’s house. Her dreams were dashed, her plans crumbling to ash before her eyes. She felt so completely hopeless, like nothing she could do would ever make a difference. Damarion had won. She couldn’t stop this. All she could do was sit back and watch war consume the Earth.
“Let’s think this through,” Logan said. He wasn’t giving up yet, and Alex loved him for it. “Sensibly. Without emotion. Without tears.” He took Alex’s hand. “There is a way. There’s always a way.”
“Agreed,” said Kai. “We’re not beaten yet. Damarion might have the magical advantage, but he is but one man. One man alone, without friends or willing allies. His power comes from hatred and strife and all the worst things in the world.”
“Whereas we are many.” Sera took Kai’s hand in one hand, Alex’s in the other. “Together. United.”
Alex connected to Logan, and together they linked with the commandos. With Naomi. Makani. Leilani.
“We’re a team,” Alex agreed. “Unbreakable.”
“All right. The basics,” Tony began. “Damarion has supernaturals sworn to him, mainly mages but fairies and vampires too. They all come from old magic dynasties.”
“As it is with an old tree, the roots of an old magic dynasty run deep,” Callum said. “To break those bonds, to turn a dynasty against one of its own members…there is great power in that.”
“Power which is feeding a parasite like Damarion,” Dal said. “It’s no wonder he’s grown so powerful. There is hardly a magic dynasty without at least one of its members indentured to him.”
“Which is why we cannot do battle against Damarion’s army,” said Logan. “We cannot do battle against any supernatural who is magically-enslaved to Damarion. Because it is that conflict which makes him stronger. When we attacked him with force last night, we made Damarion even stronger. Because his power is born from conflict.”
“True.” Makani stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Damarion set a trap, a way he could use us to make him stronger. And we walked right into it.”
“Yes, we did.” Leilani looked disgusted. “How could we have made such an error? We should have known better. I should have known better.”
Makani gave his sister’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “During Damarion’s last reign of terror, he was never as powerful as he is now. He was defeated long before things got to this point, before the world had torn itself so far apart.”
“Damarion learned from his previous failures,” Logan said. “He did things differently this time. He planned, long and patiently. He worked in secret over many years, obtaining favors from magical dynasties, binding their young, like Marek, with magical contracts.”
“So, in essence, we can’t defeat Damarion’s army because we’re only fighting ourselves,” Sera said.
“Yes,” replied Logan. “Every move we make against Damarion only makes him stronger.”
“Ok, so we know the problem,” Alex laughed darkly. “But what is the solution? How do we fight Damarion without fighting him?”
Her question was met with only dead silence.
Until Logan spoke. “Actually, I have an idea about that.”
36
The God of Strife
Logan’s plan involved playing with others, which, to be honest, had never been Alex’s strong suit. That was especially true when some of those ‘others’ happened to be her sworn enemies.
They’d gathered the families of the mages, fairies, and vampires indentured to Damarion. Together with these old magic dynasties—united—they marched on Damarion’s estate.
That alone wouldn’t have been much of a problem for Alex. True, she wasn’t overly fond of most of the uptight, arrogant dynasties represented on the Magic Council. But ever since the Council had decreed that the Dragon Born weren’t actually abominations to be hunted down and slain, she’d at least tried to get along with them. She, who had always been an outsider on the fringes of civilization, was part of the mainstream magic now. Well, she had to get along with these people anyway. Her sister Sera was even married to one of them. Granted, Kai was much cooler than most of the others on the Council.
So Alex didn’t have a problem with joining hands and singing kumbaya with members of the magic dynasties for the greater good. No, her problem was with the Convictionites. Logan had recruited them to this final battle. At least what remained of them. His mother was here. His father had been killed when the organization had imploded on itself and fractured into many warring cells.
Somehow, miraculously, Logan had convinced his mother that their common enemy, Damarion, was far worse than the prospect of joining in unity with people of magic, people they hated.
Well, Alex hated them too. They’d killed so many people. But she had to put all that hatred aside, or none of this would work.
So here they all stood toget
her: the old magic dynasties of the supernatural world and the human hunters who’d sworn to slay all supernaturals. Two factions who’d been at war for many millennia—and who now needed each other to survive. To defeat Damarion, they would need to put aside all of their differences and bloody history. They needed to move forward together, or not at all.
But magic was a tricky thing. Not only did they all need to stop fighting each other; they needed to stop hating each other too.
It was with this unlikely army that Alex and Sera returned to Damarion’s estate. This time, Damarion himself greeted them on the front lawn, surrounded by his horde of followers.
“Back so soon?” He looked amused. “So what will it be this time?”
Alex and Sera didn’t confront him. They didn’t unleash their dragons, prime their spells, or draw their swords. They just stood there, still, as a mixed bunch of supernaturals and Convictionites closed in beside them, forming a line that soon surrounded the entire property. They all locked their eyes on Damarion, the god of strife.
“What is this?” Damarion asked, his lips curling up into a smirk. “Lining them all up, so I can knock you all down?”
“We are not going to fight you at all,” Alex told him calmly.
With that said, she and Sera joined hands. As did everyone else in their circle. Alex felt the light pressure of Logan’s hands on her shoulders. He and everyone else in the circle behind theirs had connected to the person in front of them. And the same for the circle behind that. And the next. And every other circle.
They stood there as a single web of sometimes-opposing interests but, for once, a single unifying goal. Friend and foe, supernatural and human—for the first time ever they were at peace.
“This isn’t going to work,” Damarion said dismissively.
Sera countered with a smile. “Then why do you look so scared?”
Damarion’s eyebrows twitched with indignation. He waved his hand forward, summoning his forces into battle. Alex and Sera just stood there, linked with friend and foe, hundreds of them. One web, unbreakable, enclosed the entire estate.
Alex and Sera, joined and now more powerful than ever, channeled the shared unity toward Damarion’s army. The stream of friendship, goodwill, and love swallowed the indentured supernaturals.
Alex focused her thoughts on the time she’d seen Marek and his mother in their house in London, on the love she’d witnessed between them. She focused on her friendship with Marek. And she knew everyone here was thinking of their loved ones and allies. There was no room in her heart for hate or anger or strife. That was how Damarion grew stronger, how he gained power. They could overpower his forced servitude with love.
Damarion gave them hate, and they countered with love. With understanding. Compassion. That love swallowed the stream of destructive spells, transformed them, and sent them back at Damarion’s forces.
However, instead of harming his soldiers, the newly shimmering stream of love magic broke the magical chains of servitude, forged in dark magic and nefarious intentions, that bound them to Damarion. Love broke them free of Damarion’s control. One by one, the newly-freed supernaturals turned their backs on their former master and walked toward the web of love. They joined the ranks, adding their unity to the rest.
When the plume of love had set everyone else free, it had knocked Damarion back. He rose from the ground, surprise flashing in his eyes. Surprise that his millennia of meticulous, maniacal planning had crumbled at his feet. That the victory he’d held just moments ago had since slipped from his fingertips.
He waved his hands over his head and a blast of magic shot at the web. Some in the army of unity were knocked aside, but others came forward to take their place. They faced Damarion with love in their hearts. Damarion kept knocking them down, and they kept standing back up. They didn’t fight him. They unleashed no spells upon him. They drew no swords. They just stood there, united. One. The missing one hundred mages, fairies, and vampires from last night had reappeared and joined the web.
If Damarion gained power through strife, they’d cut off his magic at the source. They’d weakened him with their love. And he was weakening. Alex could see it in his shaking hands, even as he blasted spells their way.
Damarion’s power still lingered. The strife in the world had been great. He was shooting off his magic left and right. Desperation was all that remained of his once-calm facade. Even Nightstar, his only willing accomplice, had left his side and made a swift escape into the night.
It was just Alex and Logan holding hands now. Damarion’s spells had scattered the others all across the property. But though their hands weren’t joined, their hearts were still united.
Alex and Logan stood side-by-side, loving each other. She didn’t hate Damarion for all that he’d done. No, she felt sorry for him. Sorry that he was all alone.
“Fight back!” Damarion snarled, hitting Alex with another spell.
It hit her hard in the stomach, nearly knocking the wind right out of her.
“No,” she said.
He flung his magic at her. Logan held on to her. She squeezed his hand, gave him a smile, and they faced Damarion once more.
“We will not fight you.”
“You want to stop me. Fighting is the only way,” Damarion told her.
“No. It’s not.”
“Don’t you hate me after everything that I’ve done to you?”
“No. I feel sorry for you. Sorry that you’re all alone and everyone else is together and happy. Can’t you feel it?” She closed her eyes, inhaled, then smiled. “The love filling the air. The song on the breeze. A song of unity.”
Damarion rubbed his head as though it all hurt. Like it was pure torture, purely toxic to his soul, to feel this love. They were winning.
There was a loud crack. The crack of Damarion’s power. It had finally broken. Love was poison to him. He had fed too long on hate and conflict; he could not weather a storm of love. With his magic gone, he was nothing but an empty shell, stripped of all power and prestige, crumbling in the sunlight of all their unity.
Naomi stepped forward. She opened up a portal to the deepest, darkest circle of hell. Alex and Logan lifted the pale, skeletal Damarion from the ground, a powerful force no more, and they pushed him through the open portal. As Naomi began to seal the portal, they saw a large demon closing in on Damarion.
“Voron,” Leilani said. “They have a history. The demon is not a fan of Damarion. Damarion has wronged him before.”
The demon was already attacking Damarion as the doorway closed, and someone who died at the core of hell, with no part of their soul outside of hell, with nothing to bind them to the Earth—they were gone forever.
And so it was with Damarion. This was his end. They’d defeated him not through conflict or magic or power. Not through quests for mighty artifacts or spells. They’d defeated him with love and unity. The world that had torn itself apart was finally once more united.
37
Brunch
Several weeks later, on a very sunny Sunday, Alex stood in her kitchen, making brunch.
“You cook?” Logan commented, leaning back against the wall as he watched her work.
“Of course.” She poured oil in the frying pan. “Well, kind of.” She grabbed a spatula. “I’ve been watching lots of cooking shows. And reading cook books.”
Logan’s gaze slid across the platters of fried chicken, steak, and lamb.
“That’s a lot of meat,” he said, amused.
“I’m following Tina Ray’s advice.”
“Who is Tina Ray?”
“She has a cooking show on the internet,” Alex said. “And her advice is to always know your audience. Kai and Makani will be over here later. And the twins too. They all love meat. And so do you, Logan.” She blew him a kiss.
“It’s a good source of protein. Good for maintaining muscle mass.”
“Exactly.” Alex kissed him quickly, then flipped over the chicken pieces sizzling in the
pan. Through the window, she saw Sera and Kai heading across the lawn. “Oh, they’re early.” She handed Logan a stack of plates. “Hurry, distract everyone while I finish up in here.”
She quickly flipped over the chicken pieces in the second pan. Then she hurried over to the oven to check on the lamb. She peeked into the second oven to check the rolls. Then she returned to the stove to stir the peas.
“Easy, Alex, or you’ll set the kitchen on fire,” Logan said.
“I’ve saved the world. Multiple times.” She smoothed down her apron. “I can handle making brunch.”
“I’ll leave this fire extinguisher with you, just in case.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Very funny.”
Now Alex could see Naomi and Makani walking over from their house too, carrying the twins. She hurried to the tray of hot muffins and dumped them all into a bread bowl. She started cutting bananas.
As Logan left the kitchen, chuckling, she muttered, “Saving the world is much easier than cooking for eight people.”
Alex did not, in fact, burn down the house. Or burn the brunch either.
“The food is actually good,” Naomi told her as they all sat around the table outside, eating.
Alex smirked at her. “Try not to sound so surprised.”
“They’re sure getting big,” Sera commented. She watched as the twins jumped onto their growing dragons and flew across the lawn.
“The boys nearly burned down the shed last week,” Makani said proudly.
Naomi rolled her eyes. “Only you would brag about something like that.”
“You squealed in delight when it happened,” Makani reminded her.
“In terror, my love, not in delight.”
Makani continued to watch his boys, his proud grin growing wider. He leaned back in his chair, perfectly relaxed. They were all relaxed. They’d just had several peaceful weeks without any sinister villain trying to take over the world.