by Kendal Davis
Auris lifted a hand. “Stop. All of you.” She glared at me and Lustre, and at Frost who now stood between us. “It’s time to end this charade. You three princes have disrupted our school long enough with your game. She knows you have strong feelings for her. But does she know what they are?” She looked at Arabella with scorn.
But the petite mortal surprised us all.
“I know that they all despise me, if that’s what you mean. I know that they consider me to be a hated duty, that they have to fulfill whatever prophecy you all think I appear in.” Arabella spoke simply but with a force I hadn’t heard before.
“You are too dangerous now for us to keep you,” Auris said. “And you are very intuitive. The princes were supposed to unlock your powers. Have they done so?”
“Maybe? Not exactly,” Arabella was cagey.
We three princes knew why. Although she responded to us now more than ever, we had not consummated the bond. I had thought we had more time.
Acharis, the Sister who taught physical education, stepped forward. “Your human ways are repugnant to all of us, girl. But what you now must admit is that your magic is dark. It is of the Darkness. No amount of effort can cleanse it. You must leave.”
Arabella held her blackened hand against her. “But what about the whole reason for my coming here? The Judge told me that I had to learn to control my magic, my Voice, so I wouldn’t kill again. Sister, I’m afraid that if I leave now, I’ll cause more trouble.” She obstinately refused to look at the three of us for help.
Auris shook her head with irritation. “Go elsewhere. Take your troubles away from us before you destroy us.” She raised her voice in one pure note, then let it die away.
In answer, a slender fae man stepped from the cover of the trees next to Arabella. I started forward, thinking she might need protection. Who would Auris summon to take Arabella away, if not one of the fundamentalists who believed she should be put down?
But Arabella turned to the man with enthusiasm. Without hesitation, she embraced him. “Martinus! It has been a long time. It feels like a million years since you dropped me off here.”
The man gave her a gentle smile. “And look at all you have accomplished.”
She hung her head for a moment. “I know, it isn’t much, is it? I did swear to you that I would come here and work hard. It has been more difficult than I expected.”
“Everything is,” he said softly. “You will need to find courage now, as you leave the school. The woods call to you.”
“I thought you were here to help me,” she gasped. “I can’t leave the Academy. My magic is coming apart at the seams right now. This is the safest place for me.”
Martinus looked around at the amassed students. “But safety is not your destiny. Haven’t you wondered why they all hate you here?”
She grimaced. “Every fucking day. Don’t you think I ask myself that all the time? I’m just here to work. That’s all.”
The tall man put his arm around her shoulders. I tensed, my body protesting the idea of sharing her with anybody else. But he was her Guide. It was clear that his purpose here was to show her along the path of her prophesied future.
“Arabella, my dear. I have watched you, and listened to you, for so long. Now that the moment has come, it is harder than I expected. But your place is in the battle now. The Darkness awaits you.”
“I’m the one who’s going to fight it? I’m supposed to fix your entire world for you?” Her mouth hung open in shock.
“You are strong enough. That is certain.” He jerked his chin at the phalanx of watching students. “They hate you because they fear you. They always have.”
“The princes, too?” Arabella whispered.
I caught her eye and I gave her a decisive nod. Frost and Lustre did the same.
And we watched the light die in her eyes.
She turned without a word and left with Martinus. Together, they slid into the woods, disappearing into black nothingness.
Chapter 17: Arabella
Panic drummed within me. There was no way I was getting out of this alive. These people were crazy. They had brought me here, to their magical and strange land, because they thought I was their savior?
I could have told them any day that I wasn’t, if only they had asked. As I walked with Martinus, I tried to make sense of it all. There had been so many times that I’d made a fool of myself in class by not even understanding the question, let alone knowing the answer. Everybody knew I was the worst student Fae Academy had ever had.
And, yes, they all despised me.
“When I agreed to come here, Martinus, it was because I thought it was a school.” I tried to keep the quiver out of my voice. “Not a prison, and not some kind of set-up for gladiators.”
“This is not a game,” he said firmly. “The prophecy is as real as we are. Believe me, this is for no fae’s entertainment.”
“So after all this time, when they’ve been so relentlessly unpleasant to me, they think I’m going to save their world with magic I don’t even know how to use?”
My guide grinned briefly. “That’s right. That’s about it.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to?”
“Arabella, my dear, I know you better than that. Your love of living creatures goes beyond that. Look at your arm. Can you feel your magic surging?”
“I can,” she gulped. “I just didn’t get that my powers would be dependent on my saying ‘yes’ to one of those princes.”
Martinus cocked his head at me. “It’s not that, exactly.” He changed the subject. “But they fear the Darkness. When they look at your mark, they see the greatest evil their world has ever known. You have always been tainted by it.” We had been hiking at a brisk pace through the woods, moving directly away from the Academy. Now, he stopped leading me through the forest and turned to point backwards. “Do you see what has happened to the spires of the castle?”
I noticed that he, too, called it that, rather than a school. Everybody was in on this, except for me.
When I peered at them through the night, though, I saw what he meant. The sparkling crystal of the Academy was flickering almost imperceptibly. A shadow was winding through the tall spires of the roofline.
“I’m scared,” I said. “Are you trying to tell me that I’ve infected the school with my personal darkness? Because I’m a killer?”
Martinus fixed a sharp eye on me. “Is that what the Sisters have been telling you. Amaris will not be pleased to hear that. No, that’s nonsense.” He shook his head irritably. “We are not dealing with spiritual constructs of good and evil right now. That mumbo jumbo will not help us. We are dealing with a creature of appalling ferocity. The Darkness is not a moral repercussion of your actions. It is far more. It is our ancient foe. And we have brought you here to kill it.”
“That’s nonsense. I’m not killing anything.”
“You have the ability. And we need you.”
I called out, in a singsong voice. “Do you hear that, you three?” I pivoted on my heel, turning to survey the forest behind us. We had been moving quickly, so we had put a great distance between ourselves and the shadowed castle.
Martinus watched me in quiet enjoyment.
“Come on! You princes have followed us long enough. Did you think I didn’t know you were there?” I tried and failed to keep the anger out of my voice. “Do you hear what my Guide says? He once told me that he is incapable of lying to me. He says that the fae need me.”
The three princes stepped forward to join us. Each of them looked recalcitrant in their own way. Not one of them looked humble.
Lustre spoke first. He never held back from entering a fray. “Perhaps we do.”
I felt my cheeks flush with fury. “You’ve all been telling me, over and over, that I needed you. Remember?” I was fairly dancing with anger. “How I’m nothing more than a duty to you, an obligation?”
“And so you are,” Frost said obstinately. “You are the focal point of a
plan that will never work. The prophecy is nothing more than the hopes of the Golden Council, dictated by Amaris on an ancient scroll.”
Varic met my eyes only reluctantly. “It is true. Our task has been to give ourselves to you, to try to dissolve the block that held back your Voice.”
I flinched. “That’s so gross. Like procurement. You were supposed to get me into bed to improve my magic?”
Frost shrugged in uncharacteristic embarrassment. “We told you a hundred times. We were supplying your need.”
“And now we’re all out here in the middle of the night, and the castle is in danger, and I’ve got more magic than I know what to do with. Great plan.” I would have punched them each in the face if it would have helped. As if to punctuate my words, the skies above us clapped thunder. In response, my arm seethed with power. When I jumped at the sensation, black streams of destruction left my fingertips and enveloped an oak tree ahead of us. It vanished in darkness.
Varic caught his breath. “Fine. You’re right. We’ve been telling you what you need, but not listening to you.”
Martinus nodded his approval, but stayed silent. After a moment’s consideration, he shifted his feet, stepping sideways away from me and my princes. Was he afraid of me?
“I need information!” I shouted. “What am I supposed to do to fight this enemy? Darkness is everywhere. It’s coming from me, too.” Terror grabbed my heart. “What if you’re right and I’m the source of the evil?”
Frost answered, truth ringing out to match mine. “You are not the source. Our enemy is a living man. Or a dying one. Both at the same time. King Regis was much beloved when he was king, long ago. He brought peace and prosperity to the land of the fae for centuries. But he became too fond of power. He would not step down when it was his time to do so.”
“You said he was dead,” I narrowed my eyes at Lustre.
“No, I did not,” the blond fae man said firmly. “I said that Darkness swallowed much of our land. But he was not a victim. Regis is the Darkness. He channels all the evil that the fae refuse to acknowledge within themselves. He is the source of all that threatens us.”
“So you brought me to your world so I could kill your king?”
“Yes.” Lustre was firm, always willing to be first in the spotlight.
“Yes.” Varic was thoughtful, a scholar to the core.
“Yes.” Frost was the general who weighed the possibilities and selected the best option. His word had a chilly finality.
Not one of the three fae princes elaborated on how I was supposed to accomplish this, or why I would help them when they had been unmerciful in making me unhappy at Fae Academy.
I took a long breath. “Sounds to me like you fae men need something from me.” I stretched the fingers of my blackened hand. It felt wonderful to drop any effort at maintaining my spell of concealment. I could bare my arm and hand, letting my fears loose. I was free, energized by renouncing my shame at being so different. “What will you do to make it worth my while?”
Chapter 18: Frost
We stared at her in shock. There was nothing we could do for her. Worse, there was nothing we could do to save her. She didn’t realize that yet.
I parted my lips to answer her. What was she after? Power, perhaps. It didn’t matter. We could promise her anything, and we would not have to fulfill our oath. She had so little time left.
“Arabella,” I began gently. “We of the fae beg you to help us. We throw ourselves on your mercy and ask for your forgiveness.”
She made a face of irritation. “Frost, seriously. There is no way I would believe that. It doesn’t even sound like you. You would never give up a strategic advantage unless you had to.”
“That’s the point. We must. We have no other choice now.”
Arabella stretched her arms above her, looking more at ease here in the dark forest than she ever had in the sparkling, crystalline halls of the palace of King Regis. She moved like a cat. It was impossible for me not to linger on the sight of her breasts as they pointed to the impassioned night sky.
“So…” She relished the moment, we could all see it. And how could we blame her?
“You are right,” Varic said thoughtfully. “We have not treated you well since you came here. But you have to understand. It was part of our mission.”
I turned to glare at him. He must not give too much away.
“I refuse to believe that you had a mission to make me unhappy. That’s just cruel. Do any of you understand how hard it has been for me to be here at Fae Academy? I had to put all my normal life behind me and adjust to a new...a new everything. Nobody helped me learn your customs. All you three ever did was let me know that you could manipulate my feelings at any moment. Not in a good way.”
Lustre coughed. “Perhaps in a good way?”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t ever have trusted you.” She ignored the look of hurt on his face, which was present only momentarily before he masked it.
I looked up at the sky. The powers that were roaring up there, bringing down sparks and ash now, were not hers alone. “Arabella. You have to focus now. We tormented you because we needed you to be angry. The prophecy requires that you bring great force of fury against the Darkness. Against the fae.”
“And for the fae. You’ll have to owe me.” She was such a small mortal, but she did look willing to fight.
And it was not a moment too soon.
The world caught fire.
Arabella whirled around, searching desperately for her foe. Her features were contorted with fear. No. She was growing angry.
As the dark flames and wind battered us all where we stood in the woods, she shouted out. Her fair hair whipped around her face. Her perfect lips taunted her adversary. “Where are you? Show yourself, if you aren’t afraid to!”
Martinus was still a few steps away from the rest of us, but I caught his questioning glance. I nodded back with a curt precision. Yes. She was ready to face the Darkness.
Arabella raised her right arm. It was darker than the blackest night. Magic emanated wildly from her. She strained upwards, trying to find the spot in the sky that looked the worst. She was going to try to send lightning upwards to it. It was a reckless move, but I didn’t try to stop her. We had nothing else but her as our weapon. She could make her own tactical choices.
Yet, before she launched her attack on the sky that overhung us in a potent threat, a figure materialized in front of her. It was King Regis.
He looked just the same as when he had ruled the land of the fae. Our legends lauded his height, his handsome features, his wise gaze. He had gone mad and embraced the Darkness at the peak of both his magical and physical abilities. Now that I looked closer, his eyes were not like any fae’s. It was impossible to tell whether he was insane or genuinely, terribly evil.
Arabella lowered her hand of magic. “King Regis, I presume? I challenge you, here and now.” She spoke calmly, but let her defiance be known in her refusal to bow her head. The Sisters had tried hard to teach her about royal fae protocol, but she never listened.
The mass of magic that was King Regis answered bitterly. “And you are the abomination that has come to meet me. A human with fae gifts. How do you dare it?”
Arabella waited a beat, then appeared to realize that the question was not academic. “I decided to stop being afraid of the fae when they cast me out. Every one of you can go to hell.” She included all four of us fae men in her words, as well as the ancient King Regis.
“You do not know? They are using you to do their dirty work. They will throw you away after you kill me.” Regis somehow absorbed all light and hope. Not a moment of this ruffled him. He was toying with her.
Martinus cleared his throat with diffidence.
As he did, some reminder, some thought passed between him and our beautiful mortal.
Arabella looked stunned. “You won’t even have to, will you? Discard me, I mean.” Varic, Lustre, and I all remained silent. We could not meet her
eyes.
She actually stamped her foot. “Every time I think there’s no way that you could have set me up any more, there’s something else to take in. You made me swear that I would not take another life, not ever.”
Martinus kept his eyes averted from hers as well. “It is to be regretted, my dear girl, but it is true.”
Arabella’s eyes bore into him, until he had to meet her gaze. “You didn’t tell me everything, though, when I swore that oath. Remember, Frost?”
Of course I did. “Yes, I do. It was the day you first arrived to Fae Academy with me. Before we entered the gates.”
She spat out her words over her shoulder, still facing the monster that was King Regis. She could not afford to let him have the first strike. “Frost, you gave me more information than Martinus did that day. Some Guide he was. You told me that if I broke my word and ever took another life, I would forfeit my own. Is that still true?”
“Yes,” I said hoarsely. She would know that we had all walked to this spot with that knowledge.
She did, immediately. “So you all thought I would save your world, your precious land of the fae, by killing your scary monster. And you were prepared for the fact that I would die for it.”
“We have no other choice,” Varic said woodenly. “This is what the prophecy tells us. If we do not destroy the Darkness, then it will overtake the castle, and all of our existence.”
Arabella looked at each one of us, still focused on Regis. He was unmoving, watching her with fascination.
Lustre licked his lips nervously. “We never knew what you would be like. Nobody expected you to be so…” He looked at her without guile. “So beautiful. So strong.”
“Well, you can flatter me all you want, but I won’t do it.” Arabella rubbed her hands together. “We’ll find another way. There is, to put it as bluntly as I can, absolutely zero chance that I’m going to do your magical pest control for you at the cost of my own life. Definitely not going to happen.” She was loose, relaxed, mentally churning through ways to solve the problem. I loved her mortal perseverance, even when it was hopeless.