Witherstone- Wings of My Legion

by Elizabeth Holland

“You’re strong-willed, my Lady,” Markus sneered. “Not quite strong enough!”

  “He isn’t your son,” I muttered. The idea that Markus never knew about Elliot, never realized that the thing he had to do in order to gain his eternal crown, was actually possible, made me giggle. “You could’ve killed him all this time,” I kept on.

  “What?” Markus’ brow tightened. “Rylan?”

  “No, you idiot! Elliot!” I laughed. Well, I tried to laugh, but I was still a little weakened by the hawthorn. I glanced around and could see my sister and Bryn leaning up and rubbing their heads. It seemed that they had recovered from whatever spell Markus had placed over them. Caleb was alright, too, but I couldn’t see Elliot or Julian from where I lay. “You could’ve had your stupid kingship,” I settled as Markus’ grip tightened in disgust.

  “That’s not possible,” he shook his head. “I am the father of a Lord,” he refused to believe my words. “I would never kill my son,” his words were softer now as he turned to find Elliot. Calling his name, Markus crawled off of me. When I sat up, I realized Elliot was gone. “I loved him as my own,” Markus spoke, his words broken as he frantically searched the landscape. Rain poured over us, thunder rages. Every few seconds, a bright bolt of lightning hit the ground or the top of a building, sparking light into the darkness. We were covered in black marks, wet, muddy.

  On my seat, my knees up at my chest, I welcomed my sister to my side. I hugged her tight, and then did the same to Bryn. Caleb and Julian were watching Markus as he paced around to find Elliot. The little blade tight in his trembling hands, I realized his weakness was never his thirst for power, but the love for a son he envied and most likely regretted having. A son that wasn’t even his.

  “Put down the blade,” Julian advised, nearing Markus as the man turned circles to evade the coming attack. His legion had been slaughtered at the hands of my Lord. Whatever dragons he had helped escape had chosen to no longer follow him. The man was alone. “It’s over now,” Julian rushed close to end the madness, gripping the blade tight as the men struggled to take dominance over one another. Growling and grunting, they continued to tug. I got to my feet, anxious and eager to see Markus finally die. It might sound cold, but I was over it. And if Julian didn’t do it, I would. Staring over them, taking a step closer as my sister held my arm, I watched the men force the blade down, shoving it through one of their chests. I could hear the peak of a struggled breath, the gasping for air. But it wasn’t just a lung this time. Julian, grabbing his chest, fell straight to the ground.

  All the anger in me came right to my fingertips, but before I could act, my Lord, a beast of the night and rain, wielding a smoke that incinerated all those who crossed its path, came down from the heavens and engulfed Markus entirely. I shoved Charlotte back as Elliot’s mighty wings fanned the smoke over the area, killing the bushes and the vines that somehow grew in that desolate place. Rising high into the violet sky, Elliot let out a roar that shook me from my feet to my lungs. Wings out wide again, he came down fast, speeding to the ground as his feet hit the dirt. Thunder—a thunder from his scaled, massive body—raged in our ears.

  I checked over Charlotte, seeing that both her and my arms were dusted in specks of blood. Elliot’s smoke must have grazed us, but it wasn’t enough to kill. Julian, though, was in direct contact with the deadly mist. I scurried over to him and pulled his body away from the decaying, curling vines. He looked terrible, but my aunt had given me some medicine to counteract Elliot’s nature. Charlotte, without hesitating, took the knife from her ankle strap like a ninja and cut her palm in an effort to heal Julian.

  “That won’t do anything,” I grabbed her wrist tight to stop her.

  “It helps a little,” she nodded to convince me. “Aunt Cressa said that I can use my blood to nullify the effects of hawthorn. Since it doesn’t hurt me like it hurts you guys.”

  “Good to know.”

  My Lord, thunderous and violent, came crashing to the ground in a rush of air. Charlotte and I ducked away as the pile of ash that was once Markus, collapsed into the wind. And Elliot, transitioning into his human self, fell to the ground as the gash in his chest leached sparkling, hawthorn-tainted, black blood.

  FOREST OF SOULS

  “What do we do?” Charlotte panicked, getting up from the ground with ash on her face and arms. Spitting and cursing, my sister tried to get her fingers through her tangled hair. It wasn’t just the ashes of Markus that had blanketed everything in sight, but the dead plants, bushes, trees, anything living that Elliot’s dark smoke had touched.

  Caleb got to Charlotte to check her out, his troubled gaze frightful of the mist that now scurried back into my Lord’s skin. I quickly examined my arms for the source of the burning ache I was feeling. Little scrapes littered my skin, barely bleeding and not at all deep. The pain, though, I could feel it all the way to my bones. I stood slowly as the ringing in my ears filtered all the immediate noises into a singular, muffled blur. I got to Elliot, taking my sweater off to cover him, feeling his cold hands in mine.

  “Elliot?” I cried to him. I could barely breathe. The tears kept coming, burning my eyes and clouding my sight. “Elliot?” I wept. I put my head to his chest and could hear the struggling wheeze of air that tried so hard to exist.

  “Irene, let me help,” Caleb offered. But what could he do? Take the pain away? Blind my Lord from the inevitable? No. No way in hell.

  “Only I can help him,” I pushed up from Elliot’s chest and wiped my nose. My eyes traveled over the ground for something sharp, anything would work. A rock, a stick.

  “Here,” my sister rushed to me with a knife in her hand and a go on look in her eye. She never liked Elliot, it wasn’t something she was ever quiet about. But he was family now, he would always mean the world to me.

  “You can help, too,” I insisted.

  At first, she waved me off. “I can’t do that.”

  “But you can heal him,” I insisted.

  Wincing at the notion, my sister shook her head, then bit her lip. With a nod, she took back the knife. “Okay, but you’re telling him it was your idea.”

  “Fine, just do it.”

  Charlotte took a breath, then quickly slit her palm and let several drops of blood trickle down over Elliot’s wound. He coughed, drawing in deep breaths for a moment, then he settled.

  I took hold of the knife as I glanced down over Elliot once more. I wondered if he had seen me like this. If my eyes were as sullen and gray. If the delicate skin on my face was shadowed by the impending knock of death. My lips purple, nearly black in the darkness of the night. No warmth to my touch, no glow to my spirit.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered to him. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Without another thought, I cut into my palm, a deep gash that drooled blood over his chest. It was almost immediate, the way he began to breathe deeper, the way his skin brightened. The hawthorn, though, would stay for a little. His body would need to get rid of it in time. I could help him heal, help him begin the process, but I couldn’t save him entirely on my own. I wasn’t strong enough. He would need to mend and recover, and it seemed like it would take him a while.

  The blood came to a dripping stop as my skin sealed up with a little pink scar. I knew it wouldn’t last, but even if it did, I wouldn’t mind. Remembering the time I saved him would always be something to hold on to. After I wiped up the blood that had trickled down my wrist, I sat back to my heels and looked over the place. There was a lot left to accomplish, a lot that I didn’t want to deal with.

  “I can’t believe he’s finally dead,” my sister said as she stared down over the pile of ash that was Markus. “God, if he’d just done that months ago,” she crossed her arms. Finding my disapproving eyes, my sister stated her case. “I mean, he tried so hard to keep the whole dark magic thing a secret, but if he hadn’t—”

  “What?” I shrugged. There was no way she was making this out to be Elliot’s fault. “He would’ve killed him ri
ght then? Spared us all the trouble?” I could feel my neck tighten as I sat there next to Elliot, my back hunched, my elbows on my knees. “Don’t think for a second that we could’ve avoided this.”

  “Of course we could’ve,” she laughed at me. “What? Is it your cosmic timing crap again? Like how everything happens when it’s supposed to sort of crap?”

  My eyes slid from hers in a huff.

  “I’m serious, Irene! That darkness stuff is dangerous, but only because he never took the time to accept it.” Over near the stone fence, where we had left our bags when first coming to the park area, my sister went through some stuff I had packed. We had all prepared to be in the Isle for days. None of us knew how long the quelling would take, but we had to be ready for anything. Luckily for Elliot, that meant clean clothes. “I hope you don’t teach Amaya the same,” she spat at me as she came and threw Elliot’s clothes at my feet. I got up, ready to lay into her for all the crap she just couldn’t let be, when I heard Cole’s voice from the other side of the tree.

  “Guys?” he called. He must’ve heard us or saw us, but I could tell by his voice that our presence was unexpected. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is where Dune brought us,” Caleb said, pulling water from his bag.

  “Where is he now?” Cole asked. We all kind of shrugged in response.

  “Why are you here?” I asked him. “Did you locate the stone’s origin?”

  He nodded. “It’s here.” The faerie turned and faced the tree, taking a step closer as he studied it from the roots to the tips of the upper branches. It was a massive monument of nature, a never-ending icon of life and death.

  “Right here? In this ground?” I looked around at my feet.

  Cole shook his head as he continued to near the tree. The further he walked away from us, the lower the branches hung over his head. Dipping down, as if to touch him, the tree began to emit an echoey, deeply sinister murmur that was suddenly giving me the chills.

  “Cole,” I called to him, worried he’d get hurt. “Don’t touch it.”

  “It’s fine,” he shook his head, but I could see that his gaze was somehow locked to the tree. That nasty oozing that had been flowing like a slow creek when we first arrived, was now pouring out like a rapid waterfall. Filling the mud around Cole’s feet, the goop slithered out across the land like it knew where it was going.

  “Where’s the stone?” I asked, frantic that he answer me quickly. Cole, though, was starting to fall deeper into his curious trance. “Cole, the stone! Where is it?” I shouted at him, finally getting his eyes to meet mine. “You can’t give it back to the tree yet,” I advised him. “We don’t have Samira, and we haven’t found Nerissa,” I pleaded.

  “We have found Samira,” Iliana corrected me, coming along from the far right of the landscape, a place with orange clouds.

  “Where is she?” I asked quickly; we had no time to waste. The tree was alive, that was obvious. It didn’t bother me, though. No, what scared me, was how it beckoned for the Elysian stone with no regard to the wearer or his safety. That oozing sap, I was betting, wasn’t going to feel like a tickle once it hit Cole’s skin. It would probably burn and sting, and it might even kill.

  “There’s a forest,” Tristan told. “It’s full of these strange trees. Some are old and robust, others are fragile.”

  “They’re all fragile,” Iliana added as her hand plopped on her hip. “They’re the lost souls,” she said with her know-it-all tone. “And until you return that stone to its birthplace, they’ll keep withering.”

  “They can’t… die, can they?” I wondered. It sounded ridiculous, but I had to know.

  Tristan shrugged.

  Cole didn’t say anything. He was still standing near the tree with his hand in his pocket.

  “Cole, get away from the tree,” I demanded. “If you jump the gun, you’ll kill Samira.”

  That got his attention.

  Stepping back to where we all were, Cole pulled his hand from his pocket and looked at me like he needed more directions. I rolled my eyes.

  “Wait, where’s Lorcan?”

  “He stayed with her,” Iliana was looking over her manicure. “He has the casket and he found her tree.”

  “How did he—”

  “Don’t ask,” Tristan told.

  “Okay,” I nodded in thought. Taking in the entirety of the situation, I realized we had a problem. “The quelling will happen here,” I pointed to the tree and the park area with both my hands. “But the forest of souls,” I couldn’t really believe my words, “is… how far?”

  “About five minutes back that way,” Tristan glanced back in the direction they had come from.

  “We can’t move the trees,” I gathered. “It would kill Samira before the quelling.” Cole nodded. “We have to split up again. This time, some of us have to stay here, the rest have to go there. If we don’t line this whole thing up, it’ll fail.”

  “And my brother won’t be the king he’s promised,” Tristan crossed his arms.

  While we stood there contemplating our next moves, I could hear some moaning coming from where Markus was killed. My first thought was one of terror. That somehow, in some wildly, magical way, Markus was alive. I leaned around the fence and scanned the area for the cause of the moans, to find Bryn struggling to get to her feet.

  “Are you okay?” I knelt at her side as quick as I could, my sister and Caleb right behind me.

  “Yeah,” she spoke like she hadn’t had water in days. Her voice was brittle, her words choked back before completion. “My head hurts.”

  “Here,” Caleb gave her some water and we helped her get upright.

  “What happened?” she asked, squinting in the lingering ashy haze. “Did I hurt someone?” she asked as though she was remembering.

  “It isn’t important,” Charlotte cleared. “You were being used.”

  “Where’s Julian?” she asked, suddenly worried as she tried to get to her feet. Weak and unbalanced, though, Bryn fell into me as I helped her back to the ground. “Markus poisoned him,” she kept on, again taking on the gaze of someone who was remembering things they wished they didn’t. “He… he poisoned me.”

  “Just drink,” Caleb urged. “You have nothing to worry about now.”

  Bryn’s eyes met mine in curiosity.

  “Markus is dead.”

  “And Julian?” she wondered.

  “Healing,” I spoke gently. None of us knew if he’d survive just yet.

  “Where is he?” she got to her feet again, this time nothing would keep her down. Rushing around to find Julian, Bryn called for him. She never had a problem with creatures who weren’t like herself. Caring for others, no matter their background, especially in a time of need, was something I’d expect from her.

  “You don’t want to see him like this,” my sister got in Bryn’s way and held her still. Crying out for Julian, Bryn gripped onto Charlotte, gazing over a silent Julian. We had covered him in a salve to help him heal, but it was going to take time. Luckily, that man was full-blooded and improving already.

  Shifting my attention to Elliot, I saw that he was sleeping soundly. His blood was a little dark still, but I could see the bright crimson starting to take hold. I brushed back his bangs for a minute, smiling over him as I remembered how I felt the first time we met. That wind over the prairie, taking his dark golden hair in all different directions. And the sun, gleaming off his blade while he threatened to rectify something ill-natured that was done against me. Those crisp blue eyes. That stance.

  “Irene,” Cole called to me. “We don’t have a lot of time,” his eyes took me to the tree, and the pooling sap that was starting to come out to the brick pathway. I hurried up and got Elliot’s clothes on him, then Cole and Caleb carried him up a little hill and into one of the buildings. I thought then about all the people who had once lived in the homes and worked in the shops. Where did they go? It wasn’t like they could save their home village; I knew that. But it
was sad to see how desolate the place was. How the enchanted people of Isle Lore abandoned their ancestral home. I could imagine it wasn’t easy. There’s no way something like leaving home is ever easy. I guess it can be necessary; it can be required. It was sad, though.

  Laying my Lord into an old weathered cot, I tucked my sweater around him like a blanket. He was safe there. The sap wouldn’t reach him for a while, if ever. I kissed his forehead and told him I loved him, then I went down to finish what we had started.

  “I think this is where you guys come in,” I said to Scarlet and Lucas. They both eyed me with confused glares. “Cole and I have to perform the quelling here,” I said. “But Lorcan needs to be with Samira, to unfreeze her the second the stone is put to sleep. Any lapse in time will kill her.”

  “But there will be a lapse in time,” Scarlet understood.

  “There’s no way around it,” I confirmed. “One of you will have to stay with me, the other will have to go with Iliana and Tristan back down to the forest.”

  “But I need them both,” Cole told me. “It’s part of the spell.”

  “What part?” I asked, coming close to look inside the little brown book Erik had given him. I examined the page, which was mostly written in Swedish, or at least I thought, and resorted to studying the illustrations. Sure enough, there was a drawing of two people, standing on either side of the stone, holding the air as though nothing could move. I was at a loss. How could we make sure Samira would survive? “Can I see the forest?”

  Caleb, Lydia, and Lucas stayed back with Bryn in the house where Elliot slept. It wasn’t easy to walk away from Elliot, to know that he’d be minutes away as he continued to heal, but letting him heal was crucial. And, since I gave him my blood, I could feel him clearly. The pounding of his heart as it strengthened, pumping fresh, clean blood to his organs and skin. Ridding the toxin from his veins. Easing his mind as he dreamed of beautiful things.

  Following Iliana and Tristan, we went toward the forest. A couple of minutes into the walk and I could see the front edge of the place. Trees sat scattered throughout but not touching. There was plenty of space for each to spread out and grow, and many had. The stone had been in existence for years. Who knew how many trees—or, souls, I suppose—there actually were? Or how old the first one was? Why trees were there in place of the resurrected, I wasn’t sure. The sky here was brighter, almost yellow. It felt like an early evening in summer, like when Dylan would grill burgers and we’d play bags. The air wasn’t riddled with ash like in the village, which led me to believe it was coming from the tree. The mother tree. It was calling to the sap it had lost, the sap that was taken from its core… its heart. Like a mother to her child, the tree couldn’t resist persuading Cole to come near. Reaching out with all her hands to take back what she had missed.