by D. N. Hoxa
“Elo, wake up!” someone shouted, and I could have sworn it was Lola’s voice.
Was she alive? Were any of us alive?
My eyes opened to complete darkness. The smell of blood and dirt and ashes barely registered in my brain. Where was I? Why couldn’t I move?
My knees were planted on the ground, shiny with dark blood. I couldn’t tell if it was red or purple. My hands were being held up, somewhere over my head, and the night was as dark and angry as it had been the last time I was awake. I saw the skyline and the moon trying to shine its way through the clouds. I was in Gaena still.
I turned to the sides, trying to see better, hoping to have strength to stand, but it was useless. I was chained. My wrists and my ankles were chained to a wooden pillar behind me, and every time I tried to move, the metal burned my skin with magic. It wasn’t enough to keep me from trying.
“She’s alive,” someone said. “Elo, look at me.”
Julie.
I turned left to where the voice had come from, and I saw Charlotte first. She was on her knees, just like me, chained to the pillar behind her. Her eyes were open, and so were Julie’s, chained right next to her.
On my other side was Faceless, Daredevil, Lola and Mandar, all of them on their knees and chained, just like me—but that wasn’t all. There were more people in the line of pillars, and I recognized the Winter soldier barely a foot away from Mandar. He was the one who’d ran toward the castle and who’d encouraged the rest of the soldiers to run away to the Winter kingdom.
Next to him was his friend, but he wasn’t chained. His head was sitting atop a stick that had almost fallen to the ground, lifeless eyes staring into the distance. There were more on my other side, too. Heads of fae soldiers, and those who were still alive chained to pillars.
The Shade castle was at our backs. We were right outside of the Shade barrier.
“We need a plan,” Daredevil said. “How strong are you?”
I looked at him, and I saw him three times. I could feel my mind shutting down on me again.
No. I had to stay awake. This wasn’t my end. I wouldn’t let this be my end.
“I can…I can…” Words failed me. My neck wouldn’t support my head. Tears fell from my eyes, and I gritted my teeth to try again, but it was useless. All that fight, all that magic I’d spent, it was going to need time to recover.
“No one is coming,” Mandar said. “All the soldiers who were running away were caught. No one knows they’re even here.” He wasn’t panicked. His voice was ice cold. Did he not know that he was going to die?
“They’re in the castle, Elo. There are about fifty of them left, but I think I heard one of them say that they’ll be opening the Gateway for more to arrive soon,” Julie said.
“How many of them are there?” Daredevil asked.
I couldn’t speak at all. My eyes were closing, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep them open. I tried to get my magic around my chains, to break them just like I had before, but too much magic surrounded them. Terran magic.
“A lot. And Bo-bo and Ari are going to be here, too,” Mandar said. “We need to get out of these chains somehow.”
“Can’t you shift?” Julie asked. I barely heard her voice.
“Elo?” Faceless whispered, but I couldn’t even turn my head now.
“Didn’t you see them put fucking potion all over me? It won’t let me shift,” Mandar said, and he added something else, but I couldn’t make out his voice.
I was falling and I didn’t know how to stop.
“Hiss,” I tried to say, but I don’t think I managed. “I need Hiss.”
But Hiss was nowhere. The others called my name, but I couldn’t respond. I could do nothing but surrender.
Light on my face. It warmed my skin and filled me with energy. My eyes hesitated to open, but I pushed through the weakness anyway. It wasn’t as heavy as it had been. And my magic had finished healing me, too. Whatever wounds I’d taken during the battle, they were all gone now. I was still weak, but I could move. I could feel the rising sun on my face, and I could see.
“Who are they?” Mandar asked. His voice was tired, defeated. “Elo, can you see them?”
“Who?” I asked, but I almost choked on the word when I looked ahead and saw the men in the distance—an army of them.
They were too far away, but there was no mistaking that they were people—and a lot of them. Their silver armors shone under the new sunlight, and though most of them wore helmets, those who didn’t told me exactly who they were.
Elves.
“They’re elves,” Daredevil said. He sounded exhausted, too. I looked around at the others to see them all wide awake, except Julie.
“Julie?” I called halfheartedly, immediately thinking the worst.
“She’s asleep,” Charlotte whispered, but by then, Julie had opened her eyes. She was alive. The relief that washed over me was short-lived. My eyes went to the army ahead, and I was still too out of it to be able to tell if they were moving or if they were standing in place.
“Do you think they’ll attack?” Lola asked.
“What House are they?” said Faceless. “Can you see?”
“There’s no guarantee that we’ll survive if we’re chained here and they attack,” Daredevil said. “We need to get out of these chains. Elo, can your magic break through them?”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t look away from the army. My heart beat in my ears, hammering against my chest. Please, don’t, I said to myself over and over again. That army couldn’t be from House Heivar. Elid was not among those men.
“You have to try,” Faceless demanded. “Can you hear us, Elo? Break the chains!”
And she was right. I was wasting time here. I needed to break those chains right now so I could stop whatever was about to happen here.
“Give me a moment,” I whispered and squeezed my eyes shut. I gathered as much magic as I could carry in my chest. It buzzed inside me, setting my blood on fire. It was full of energy from all that pain in the battle, but my body was still weak. I’d rested my muscles while I’d been unconscious, possibly for a few hours, but I was still weak from blood loss and excessive magic use.
Still, there were no chains that I couldn’t break, and those around my wrists and ankles were just steel.
I pushed my magic onto them.
My eyes popped open the next second when I heard the footsteps approaching us fast. I looked back as far as I could, just like the others, and I could see sidhe, at least twenty of them, walking outside the Shade barrier and toward us.
They were dressed in armor. The armors of the Winter soldiers they’d slaughtered all night. Now, they wore their clothing—and the leader of the sidhe was ahead of all of them.
He walked proudly, with his shoulders wide and his chin raised, as if he wasn’t wearing the armor of a dead man. His silver eyes gleamed as he looked ahead, and he didn’t even stop to look at us while he passed us by, and his soldiers followed. I sent my magic into him instantly. I remembered every line of his face, his wicked smile, and the way his heart beat. My magic had been inside his body, and it remembered. It remembered how much strength it would take to shut him down.
But then I felt coldness against the sides of my neck. Sword blades pressed against my skin. My heart all but stopped beating.
“If my hands so much as tremble, you lose your head, Pain Seeker,” the leader of the sidhe said before he even turned to me. When he did, he was already smiling.
Gritting my teeth, I held back my magic. What were the chances that I could kill him before the two sidhe at my back killed me?
Minimal. I’d need time to stop his heart—he was no ordinary man. He was far too powerful, and his magic would fight me every step of the way. By then, my head would no longer be attached to the rest of me.
Desperation filled me once more.
“Stop this. Whatever you think you’re doing, stop it. You have no chance here. Ev
ery fae and elf soldier in Gaena will fight you. You will not survive it,” I said. The anger that I could do nothing to this man when he was right in front of me gave me a false sense of bravery, and I took advantage of it. My voice didn’t break.
“Oh, I beg to differ,” he said and slowly squatted down until he was eye level with me. The sun at his back reflected on his armor plate and on my face, robbing me of clear sight again. I was glad I couldn’t see his eyes properly. They terrified me more than anything else in the world, and I couldn’t afford fear right now. Not when I’d guided my magic to my chains again. “It’s only a matter of hours before the rest of my army arrives. Then, you will all be wishing that you were never born.”
My magic pushed against the chain. It met resistance—a lot more than I’d ever seen before. But my magic was determined, and it kept on pushing. It would until whatever spell protected the chains broke. Then, I’d be free.
“You don’t have hours,” Daredevil said. “If I were to guess, I’d say there are about three thousand elves that we can see.” He nodded his head forward. It was an exaggeration—there were a little over two thousand elves in that army. “You can’t take them on your own. You barely have fifty men left.”
The sidhe laughed, throwing his head back, and then stood up to go closer to Daredevil. “And who are you to make such predictions? A fae who dyes his hair green?” the sidhe said, leaning closer to his face. “You are a disgrace to Gaena.”
It happened too fast for anyone to see it coming. Daredevil’s head moved forward, and his forehead connected with the sidhe’s nose. Purple blood exploded everywhere. The sidhe fell back and almost lost his balance before he came up again.
“You’re the disgrace here,” said Daredevil, and the mad man that he was, he laughed. A sidhe soldier unsheathed his sword and went for him, rage burning in his eyes, while his leader wiped his blood from his face.
Daredevil pushed forward with his magic, and the sidhe’s arm slowed down. Spring magic could do what my magic did. It could put its subjects to sleep, but the sidhe were powerful. More so than any other species I’d come across, very resistant to magic, perhaps as much as elves. So, the soldier didn’t stop all the way. He brought his sword close to Daredevil’s neck, and even though he was slow, he’d get the job done.
Cursing under my breath, I redirected my magic toward him. The chains could wait. Daredevil couldn’t.
The sidhe soldier collapsed on his face right in front of Daredevil’s knees, his sword no longer in his hand.
The two sidhe standing at my back drove their swords deeper into my skin. Pain spread down my body fast, and my magic began to search for damage to fix.
“I warned you—” the leader said with a grin, his face still smeared with blood.
“Then kill me,” I cut him off. “You want my head, take it.”
I kept his eyes. His friend, whoever he had been, that had led the sidhe before had told me that he needed me. That I was the key to everything. I’d killed him before he could answer questions for me, but if he had needed me for whatever they were planning, so would this man. It was the reason why I was still alive, and if I could make use of it, I would.
The sidhe’s smile spread. “But I need to showcase my first victory. You all have a purpose here,” he said, spreading out his arm. “To show whoever comes what fate awaits them.”
He was a liar. I could see his left eye twitching. “We do that, too. We celebrate victories with the heads of our enemies around our dining tables,” I said. “As we will do with yours.”
He pretended to be confused for a second, then pointed his thumb behind his back. “You really think they can stop me?”
“I know they can,” I forced myself to say. “And they will kill you if you don’t leave now.”
“Rezan,” a sidhe soldier said, and the sidhe leader looked up, before he looked behind him. There, in the distance, I could still see the army of elves. I could see that they’d been standing still until then because it was perfectly clear to us now that they were moving. In our direction.
“Leave, now, while you have the chance,” I all but begged Rezan.
“This is my home,” the sidhe spit. “And neither you nor they will take it from me. Prepare yourselves!”
The sound of footsteps coming from behind me, from the castle, filled my ears. How many sidhe were coming? I couldn’t bring myself to look. Focusing my magic on my chains again, I attacked the spell that protected them one more time. It cracked but not all the way.
“Let me show you how you win a battle, elf. You and your friends can enjoy one last show before I take their lives in front of you, and then I make you mine,” he said, the sick look in his eyes burning itself in my memories. He breathed in deeply and turned his head to the sky. “What a beautiful morning, indeed.” And he unsheathed his sword.
I wanted to tell him to stop again, I wanted to beg him to just leave, go away, disappear—but it would be useless. He and his soldiers were already running forward to meet the elf army.
There were no more swords around my neck. My wounds healed while my magic still attacked the chains until all of the spell that had been wrapped around them broke. My hands shook. Sweat dripped down my brows. Sidhe soldiers ran, passing right by me, some wearing armor, some plain clothing, and they followed their leader. My magic searched for the lock of the chains, and when it clicked in place, I had to hold my breath and wait for the last sidhe to pass us by.
I was free.
The chains fell on the ground, but I doubted the sidhe could hear the noise. I looked behind me, at the castle, to see if there were more coming, but there was nobody else there.
“Elo, quick!” Julie shouted, and I raised up my shaking hands to guide my magic better. I attacked all their chains at the same time while I searched the elf army in the distance. They still hadn’t met with the sidhe, but they had started running, too. There were many of them, but there were more than fifty sidhe that I could see. How much damage did they think they could cause?
By the time everyone was free of their chains, I was ready to fall to the ground again. There were no weapons anywhere around me, but it didn’t matter. I still had my magic to fight with.
“Go. I’ll meet you on the way,” Daredevil called as he rushed back toward the castle.
But I raised up my hand. “You wait,” I told the others. “Without weapons, you’re all as good as dead. Wait for him to return, then join me.”
“Not me. I don’t need a weapon. I am the weapon,” Mandar said with a smile, but his voice was strained. I could see why the next second when he began to take off all his clothes and throw them away as far as he could. Then, the skin of his chest ripped apart to leave way for dark brown fur. He was finally able to shift.
“If you want to leave now, you know the way,” I said to them. “Until next time.”
I turned around and started running after the sidhe.
Chapter 24
Chapter
* * *
I didn’t want to believe my eyes, but there was no point in wishing now. I saw the army, and I saw their armors now clearly, and I knew those armors. I knew those elves.
They were the House Heivar army.
My army. The army that Fidena had told me I needed.
When the sidhe clashed with the elves, I was nearly convinced that Daredevil was right. There was no way fifty sidhe could defeat two thousand elves.
But then came the light. The sun shone east, but it did nothing to diminish the sidhe magic’s power. It still took away all of my vision, making me feel like I was walking on clouds. Like I was surrounded by them and nothing else existed beyond. My body gave up on me, and I fell to my knees with a cry. If the light turned off, I couldn’t tell for a long time until my eyes adjusted to the darkness again.
By then, elf soldiers had already died.
The sidhe held a different formation this time. They stuck together in a tight circle, and by the time I’d started running again
, they were completely surrounded by elves. But it was a mistake.
This time, I saw it coming. I turned my back to the battle and hid my face with my arms a second before the light came. That was their strategy. Gather as many elves as they could around them so they could render them motionless with their magic before they cut through them with their swords.
Mandar’s wolf ran forward and passed me by before the sidhe shot out their light again. Mandar didn’t stop to turn his head. He didn’t need to see to know where the sidhe were—his sense of smell would guide him perfectly. Their light didn’t affect him as it did the rest of us.
I was close now, so close. I could smell the blood, I could see the elves, I could hear their screams and their cries. My magic shot out of me, searching for wounds to heal. Mandar’s wolf howled into the night, and I saw him bite the entire head of a sidhe off before he kicked another with his back legs. Dead elves all over the ground, but I didn’t have a second to spare to mourn for them. I could only search for swords, and when I found two, I didn’t hesitate. Even if my body was weak, I could still fight. I was elf—and now, I had two Heivar swords in my hands. My father wouldn’t want me to forget that.
Redirecting my magic toward the sidhe now, I wrapped it around the two closest to me, just as they raised up their arms to the sky, ready for another flash of light. I squeezed my eyes shut and used my swords without looking. I’d already seen where they were. Their hands never got to light up before I stabbed them with my swords on the backs of their neck.
Another battle. I’d spent my whole life avoiding then, and now I’d fought two in one night. I didn’t think about whether I’d survive this or not as I took lives that I’d once thought wasn’t my right to take.
And maybe it still wasn’t, but Mace had been right. Those sidhe had given me that right when they’d decided to attack my home, my people. If I was going to feel remorse after, so be it.
Right now, I just needed to find Elid.