“Fyrian, Fairy. Stay back. He is too powerful for you.” Gladius transformed into the iridescent dragon and soared into the skies.
The Forgotten King gasped. His face lit up as though he hadn’t just been impaled with dozens of poisonous weapons. “Gladius, you’ve come to welcome your master! Where is your golden armor? I will restore you to your former glory.”
Gladius blew a stream of white flames at the Forgotten King, freezing him from head to toe. The fairy’s wings tried to flap, but shards of ice fell with each movement.
“That’s it, Gladius,” cried Fyrian. “Get him!”
I clenched my fists. If he survived that much fairy iron, an attack like that wouldn’t be enough to stop him.
Gladius blew a stream of black flames into the ice, making the Forgotten King scream like he was on fire. My heart flip-flopped. If that was the attack Gladius performed on the spriggans outside the Ogre Senate, it might just weaken the Forgotten King enough for us to make a debilitating blow.
“Let’s go,” I said to Fyrian.
With an almighty leap, she launched herself into the sky, head up, and aiming for the screaming figure encased in frozen flames. Gladius had done his part, now it was time for me to attack.
I stood on Fyrian’s back, holding aloft the Lighting Rod. As soon as we reached an altitude level with the Forgotten King, she glided around the figure frozen in the sky.
“Keep steady….” I aimed the Lighting Rod at the Forgotten King’s head.
“Take your time,” said Fyrian. “You have to get this right.”
I gulped. Sending this much magic into the Forgotten King would either destroy him or empower him and turn him even more deranged. I had to pierce him through the heart.
Gladius drew back. “Now.”
I sucked in a deep, steadying breath and pushed my magic into the rod. It shot out in a stream of silver and pieced the ice, through the Forgotten King’s body, and out the other end. His silvery wings stopped fluttering, and he fell out of the sky.
Gladius threw his head back in a triumphant roar. “You did it!”
BOOM!
A crater formed in the earth where the Forgotten King fell, and clouds of dust rose several feet off the ground. Fyrian and Gladius stayed high, circling the crash site.
“Is he dead?” asked Fyrian.
“It’s doubtful,” replied Gladius.
“But at least he’ll be weakened enough to put back in the earth, where he belongs.”
Back at the wards, Evolene and King Magnar’s sisters raised their staffs and cleared the dust. A broken figure lay at the bottom of the pit, his wings a mangled mess.
“That beating we all gave him has to be enough,” said Fyrian.
“It took dozens of warriors from the Queen of the Fairies’ battalions to subdue the King Who Must Be Forgotten,” replied Gladius, his voice solemn. “We need to continue the attacks.”
“He’s twitching.” Fyrian gave me a visual of the fairy’s hand. His little finger trembled. “Come on Greens, let’s put an end to this villain!”
Green dragons rose to the skies and flew in a similar formation as they had during the Savannah Sky Commander tournament. Instead of a beautiful display of artistic fire, they each spat a stream of methol-scented venom into the Forgotten King’s pit. At first, the parched earth soaked up the liquid, then it pooled around the Forgotten King’s body.
“What are you planning?” I asked Fyrian.
“Red dragons might blow the hottest flames, but nothing burns with as much heat as our venom.” She added her own venom to the mix.
I swallowed hard. The fairy was already recovering from our attacks. The venom covered the fairy until only the ends of his platinum hair became visible in the pool of green liquid. Moments later, the green dragons covered every strand with their venom.
“You do the honors, Gladius,” cried Fyrian. “Use your hottest flame!”
“With pleasure!” He blew out a blue flame so pale, it looked nearly white.
The thinnest covering of fire spread across the surface of the pool of venom, then it spread up to the sky like a mountain of flames. Heat radiated from the burning venom, making sweat bead across my temple and gather under the collar of my flying jacket.
Fyrian flew high into the sky, out of its influence, with every other dragon either following suit, or disappearing and reappearing somewhere else.
I raised my flaming hand and waved it at the brave, green dragons. Each were civilians who hadn’t hesitated to do their bit toward defeating the Forgotten King. “Well done, everyone!”
“If all that doesn’t burn him to a husk, I don’t know what will!” Fyrian said.
Gladius let out a happy roar. “And when he is a charred husk, I will burn him again with my black flames.”
We all flew around in circles, watching the fire for signs of abnormal movement. The flames flickered and stretched toward the sky. Embers broke off and floated toward us, but none reached our altitude.
“Oh, no,” said Fyrian.
“Damn it,” muttered Gladius.
I peered down. The flames continued burning like normal. Could their enhanced dragon vision see something I couldn’t? I raised my head to ask Gladius a question and found a ball of flames floating up into the sky.
My jaw dropped. How could he rise from so many attacks?
“How dare you?” said a voice from within the fireball cold enough to freeze burning venom. “I made you, nurtured you, gave you power beyond imagining, and this is how you repay me?”
The ball of fire stretched across the sky into dragonfly wings of about thirty feet in width, and still burned over his skin and armor, obscuring his features. In the middle of his chest was a hole the size of my fist.
My stomach churned. He looked like the most dangerous flying insect in the Known World.
“A-Alba,” said Fyrian. “Now’s n-not the time to bring up your strange fascination for winged insects. You’re making the skin beneath my scales crawl.”
“I-I’m not.”
Gladius flew up to the flaming King, a curl of black fire between his jaws. The Forgotten King slashed his arm across his body, creating a wind that slapped Gladius across the sky.
“Gladius!” cried Fyrian.
“I will recover,” he said in a pained voice. “Keep your distance. He is stronger than we thought.”
My heart sank. I’ll bet the spriggans stole Gladius’ power that time they’d trapped us in the dreamscape. It was the only explanation for this abnormal strength. I unsheathed the foghorn and blew it with every ounce of breath in my lungs. White mist poured out and raced toward the fairy. It meandered around his wings of fire, dousing them at the edges, and making the Forgotten King tilt forward.
The fairy’s eyes bulged, and he clutched at his throat. “What is this?” As the mist made his fiery wings flicker, he lost altitude by a few feet.
“We need blue dragons to put out those flames,” I said. “That’s what’s keeping him airborne!”
“Hold on,” said Fyrian. “I’ll call for help.”
Seconds later, a purple dragon appeared on the ground with two blue dragons.
“Tell them to wait until the mist has done its job,” I said to Fyrian.
The Forgotten King continued coughing and spluttering and clutching his throat. The fire around his face thinned, revealing mangled flesh that was a mess of red welts. I held back a wince. This was the fiend who had created dragons out of simpler creatures, bending, twisting, and torturing them until they became the weapons he needed to murder other fairies. He had imbued them with the essence of beings he had abducted and experimented on. Monsters like him didn’t deserve sympathy.
With a sharp intake of breath, the Forgotten King froze, his burned face contorting like twisted and weathered wood. His head lolled to the side, and the rest of his body fell limp.
“They can douse his flames, now,” I said.
The blue dragons soared up above the dangling
figure and blew jets of water at his wings. Menthol-scented steam filled the space he occupied, and as soon as the blue dragons extinguished the last flame, the Forgotten King fell out of the sky.
This time, he hit the ground with a small thud.
“I hope that was enough,” I said to Fyrian.
“He isn’t moving… yet.”
“Keep your distance,” said Gladius. “This isn’t enough to kill him.”
Fyrian flew over the second crash site in a wide circle along with the dragons who had participated in the battle. We had burned him, pierced him through the heart, strangled him with poisons, attacked him with fairy iron, and doused the flames powering his flight. What else did we need to do to defeat him?
“The last time he fought the fairies, it was with me as his steed.” Gladius flew in a circle behind us. “Back then, they overwhelmed him with numbers, fighting him until exhaustion.”
“Fairies get tired?”
“They can deplete their magic, but it will take time.”
“How long did they fight in the final battle?” I asked.
He paused. “Three months.”
“What?” I cried into the bond. “There aren’t nearly enough people to—”
Something sharp, something hard, something not entirely metal skewered me through the heart. I gazed down to find gnarled fingernails sticking through my chest.
“Who are you?” asked a rasping voice. “We have the same color hair.”
I turned my head to find a burned and mangled face grinning at me, eyes shining as bright as the full moon.
“Alba!” cried Fyrian.
The Forgotten King wrapped his arm around my middle. “Are you the child my spriggans told me had bonded with a dragon? Yes, you are.”
“What?” Blood bubbled from my throat.
He stamped his foot and kicked Fyrian out of the sky. “Your magic… is exquisite. I feel my influence and much, much more.”
The pain was worse than the damsel disclaimer, a piercing, wrenching sensation. Accompanying it was the feeling of my life-force draining like quicksilver rushing toward a slab of magnetite. I struggled in his grip, but he was too strong.
Gladius flew after us, but the Forgotten King slashed his arm through the air again, knocking him out of the way. The iridescent dragon disappeared and reappeared close, but the King punched the air, hitting him so hard on the snout that he somersaulted away.
“I will deal with you after I have fed,” he rasped.
If I’d had the energy, I might have been disgusted at the corpse-like creature feeding on my life-force. But I closed my eyes and focussed on my bond with Fyrian. If I could block it completely enough or even break it, she might have a chance of life.
Instead of drawing clouds over the silver moon of my landscape, I encased it in a sphere of fairy iron. Then I wrapped it in another and another. The Forgotten King jerked his nails as though shaking more life-force from my body, sending shards of pain through my innards and a whimpering gasp from my lips.
Time was running out. Soon, my own stores of energy would be depleted, and he would come after Fyrian’s. After encasing the sphere in another shield of fairy iron, I drew clouds over it so black, they became indistinguishable from the darkness.
The Forgotten King sniffed my hair. “Ogre, human, high and low fairy with a touch of dragon. What a fascinating mix. I will be sure to create more beings in your image.” He held me by the neck, making me dangle like a rag doll. “Goodbye, my beautiful descendent. You will not be forgotten.”
He retracted his nails, and I fell through the air.
Gladius appeared above me and wrapped a claw around my middle. He might have said something, but I’d obscured my bond with Fyrian so much, his words drifted into the ether.
“Aaah, my dear Gladius.” The Forgotten King appeared on his back and placed a helmet of gold on his head. “We are united at last. I even remade your favorite battle-cap.”
A roar of outrage tore from the iridescent dragon’s jaws.
“No, no. Don’t sound ungrateful,” said the Forgotten King. With a wave of his hand, the gold helmet spread across Gladius’ body, encasing him in armor.
Gladius uncurled his claws, releasing me to fall through the sky.
As I plummeted to the ground, the last thing I heard was the Forgotten King’s parting words. “I will return shortly to claim the rest of my dragons.”
Chapter 20
A blank darkness engulfed my senses as I plummeted through the air, and all I could think about was keeping my bond with Fyrian closed. With barely enough life-force to survive the fall, it was the best I could do not to drag her into death with me. The ache in my bones, in my dry, tightened skin, and through my chest overwhelmed any potential nausea from the fall. I couldn’t even open my eyes to catch a final glimpse of the sky.
Before I hit the ground, magic cushioned my back and wrapped around my body with the gentleness of a cloud. I exhaled a whimper of relief. This was Evolene’s magic, tinged with someone else’s. My own was so depleted that traces of her power seeped through my skin and warmed my bones. I relaxed into her magical embrace and let the darkness take over.
I awoke to the sensation of warm tears falling onto my cheeks. I let my eyes open a fraction.
Niger stood over me, his face twisted with anguish. We seemed to be within the external walls and close to King Magnar’s dung hut. Around him knelt Evolene, Stafford, Eyepatch, and Phoenix. Evolene must have asked Phoenix to fetch Niger, so he could say goodbye.
“Stay with us, Alba,” he said, voice breaking. “Dr. Duclair has given you infusions of every elixir she can find. General Thornicroft says there is something wrong with your bond with Fyrian. F-fix it. It is the only way you will survive.”
A breath wheezed out of my lungs, but I couldn’t form any words. If I opened that bond, Fyrian would die. All fairies, even less powerful ones like Mother, could inflict cursed wounds. They were the type struck with malice and would form permanent scars or fissures. It was how the librarian had been covered in such deep pockmarks. Mother and her fellow puka fairies had pecked and scratched him and the other alchemists with their beaks and claws. No level of witch magic could fix a wound inflicted by the Forgotten King.
Niger’s long hair brushed against my cheek, filling me with his familiar, ozone scent and making me sigh. There were so many things I wanted to tell him. That I’d first noticed him at the opening ceremony and had thought him the most exciting person I’d ever seen. That his presence made every moment of my life thrilling. And that it had been an honor to fall in love with him. But the Forgotten King had stolen all but the last vestiges of my life-force, and I couldn’t even muster the energy to say goodbye.
“Out of the way.” Someone, possibly Healer Alabio, placed his hands over my chest wound and infused me with his magic. Warmth spread through my body, only for it to seep out through the wound in my back. He glanced up at a person out of my line of sight. “She isn’t retaining any power. We’re going to need to fix the rift…”
I drifted away, comforted that I hadn’t let Fyrian’s life-force drain away with mine.
The next time I awoke, King Magnar had pushed his way to the front of the crowd of well-wishers. Even with my vision this blurred, I could still recognize his short, blond hair.
“Princess Alba, you may not hear this, but I wish to apologize. For everything, especially my heavy-handedness in my pursuit of your hand.” He paused, as though gulping. “I meant to release the damsel denial earlier today, but events got the better of us and I put the war effort to the forefront.”
I couldn’t even make a tiny noise in my throat to tell him that I understood. Mother had been right about him. Everything he had done had been in the protection of his empire and his sisters. I still wasn’t fond of the arrogant monarch, but I could understand his motives.
“T-they say you might die, and I couldn’t stand for you to reach your end still bound to me against your will.” His voi
ce cracked. “Perhaps if I hadn’t treated you so deplorably, you might not have attempted to fight the Forgotten King.”
He was wrong. I’d fought to free the dragons who had given me purpose in life. Without them, I would have been the unwanted bride of a King who had wanted to marry a warrior… Or stuck in the dollhouse with Piper and the others.
He cleared his throat. “I, King Magnar of the Savannah Empire, release Princess Alba of Steppe of all obligations, returning her freedom to marry whomever she pleases.”
The band of magic around my heart and lungs unwound, and I sucked in a huge breath of air.
Niger elbowed him in the stomach, making him double over. “You should have done that the day she saved you from that burning hut!”
I would have laughed, but he’d said the last few words with a sob in his voice, and an ache spread across my chest.
The pale, green scales around Fyrian’s mouth came into view, making my heart twist. Was she trying to kiss me goodbye? Or begging me to open our connection? I didn’t dare try to speak to her in case whatever prevented me from healing affected her.
A little, feathery body nestled in the dip of my collarbone, making my heart skip a beat. Mother had arrived. She let out a chittering sob. “A-Alba, my baby! You have to fight this. Open up your connection to the dragon.”
My eyes squeezed shut, holding back a well of tears. Poor Mother would have to watch me die.
“Where is she?” bellowed Father’s angry voice. “Make way for Dr. Streamer!”
I let out a pained sigh. Aunt Cendrilla’s personal physician was a witch who had spent a year in Elphame learning about fairy magic and physiology. She probably couldn’t heal the Forgotten King’s attack.
The older witch knelt at my side and threw up a bubble of yellow magic. Its warm energy seeped through my skin, into my muscles, and penetrated me to the marrow. “A cursed wound.” She shook her head. “Cast by an extremely powerful fairy.”
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