Stone Blood Legacy: A Shattered Magic Novel (Stone Blood Series Book 2)

by Jayne Faith

  “I know you’re upset about how I left, and I admit it wasn’t the most mature thing I’ve ever done,” I said to Marisol. “But Jasper and I spoke to Finvarra. You and I both know that it could have taken days or weeks to get an audience with him through bureaucratic channels. And after speaking to the Unseelie High King, I can almost assure you that he wouldn’t have granted you an audience at all. I hope you’ll see that it was better we came by the information sooner rather than later.”

  Her eyes tightened, but I got the sense that she’d moved on from being pissed at me, and her focus had turned to anticipation of what I would reveal.

  I proceeded to tell Oliver and Marisol everything that had happened, including my strange interlude in the wintery mountains somewhere in Faerie. Oliver stopped me at that part and made me repeat it.

  He and Marisol exchanged a long look.

  “You’d just nearly bled yourself to death,” he said.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “But it wasn’t a dream. It was no hallucination. I felt the bitter cold and the snow against my skin.”

  I wasn’t completely sure they believed me.

  “Are you absolutely positive you weren’t in the Earthly realm?” Marisol asked.

  I nodded. “Great Ravens can’t pass out of Faerie, and I was definitely still riding a Great Raven at that point.”

  For a few seconds, it was so silent I could hear a pop from the fire in the office’s anteroom through the closed door.

  “There had been whispers of autumn in the very remote regions,” Marisol said quietly. “But none from reliable sources.”

  Oliver stared openly at her. “You never mentioned it.”

  She turned to him. “I didn’t believe it,” she said simply.

  They shared a long look again, and the concern on both of their faces deepened.

  “Oliver said Finvarra is moving on the High Court, trying to take King Oberon’s place,” I said. “Isn’t Titania doing anything to try to stop him?”

  I knew the Faerie High Queen was pissed at Oberon but couldn’t imagine she’d be so stupid as to allow Finvarra to take over the High Court.

  “She is,” Marisol said. “But it may be too late.”

  I was ready to pass out with exhaustion, and they must have recognized I was out of juice. Marisol paged one of her errand runners, and not long after, Emmaline showed up to take me to my quarters. Oliver stayed behind with Marisol.

  I walked painfully slowly, with Emmaline holding my elbow. Just putting one foot in front of the other required my full attention, so when someone came up behind me and scooped me up, I was so startled my knees buckled.

  “Got you,” a voice said in my ear.

  I blinked into Maxen’s blue eyes. He was carrying me.

  “It was going to take about a week to get to your apartment at the rate you were going. It was too pathetic to watch,” he said. His tone was bemused, but his face was drawn.

  I didn’t have the strength to protest.

  “Being weak sucks,” I murmured.

  “You’re not weak,” Maxen said. “You just need some R and R.”

  He got me inside my place, where Nicole was sitting at the counter of the kitchenette writing in a notebook. Her eyes widened in alarm as she took me in.

  As Emmaline ran a bath for me and helped me peel off my disgusting clothes, Maxen stayed in the living room. I could hear him and Nicole speaking in low tones. My assistant gave me some privacy while I soaked for about ten minutes, during which I kept dozing. Then she took me, wrapped in a towel, to the bedroom. She turned away while I put on clean underwear, a shirt, and old cutoff sweatpants.

  She turned on the light to examine my sliced-up arm.

  “It’s deep, but it’s already starting to knit back together,” she said.

  “I’ll be good as new in no time,” I mumbled. The bath had eased my pains, but I was exhausted.

  She gently pushed me back on the bed. “Rest. I’ll be back when you wake up.”

  I might have tried to mumble something resembling gratitude, but I was pretty sure I passed out before she even left the bedroom.

  I awoke to a bright shaft of daylight slanting through the blinds and landing across my face. For a moment, I just stared at the slice of window I could see, watching the patch of blue sky at the top part of it and a swath of a juniper shrub poking up from below. My entire life and generations before, Faerie had been graced with summer—sunny, warm days and flowers that seemed to bloom forever. But winter had arrived in some part of Faerie, and according to Marisol, no one had seen it coming.

  A glance at the clock on the bedside table showed it was past noon. I tossed back the covers and headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. My mouth tasted like day-old beach scum. Still feeling weak, I decided another soak would do me good. I ran a bath and sat in it until the water cooled.

  There was a knock at the door. Wrapped in a towel, I went to see who it was.

  Emmaline stood there with a pile of fresh clothes in her hands and her tablet tucked under her arm.

  I raised a brow at her and swung the door open so she could come in. “I don’t think your squire duties extend to tucking me in at night and making sure my laundry gets done,” I said.

  I was glad to see her and appreciated everything she did for me, but lately worried that her time might be better spent doing something more engaging or challenging.

  “Actually, nearly everything I do falls within the job description,” she said, passing me and going into the bedroom, where she left my clothes on the bed. She looked over her shoulder. “Besides, this is about a million times more fun and interesting than being a regular old page. Trust me, this is a big promotion over what I was doing before.”

  “If you say so. But I want you to be honest with me when the time comes that you want to move on. You have aspirations of your own, and I don’t intend to be here in the fortress full-time forever, anyway.”

  She emerged from the bedroom and gave me a head tilt. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the Earthly realm and the Guild, eventually,” I said.

  She gave me a strange look, something between confusion and amusement. “If you say so,” she said, echoing me.

  Before I could respond, the apartment phone rang.

  Emmaline picked it up. “You’ve reached the residence of Petra Maguire and Nicole, uh,” she stuttered, clearly not sure what surname to give my twin. “This is the Champion’s Squire speaking.”

  She listened for a moment and then glanced at me and said, “Certainly. We’ll be there.”

  In the short span of the conversation, a knot had begun to form in the pit of my stomach.

  “Something to do with King Finvarra?” I asked, already pulling the towel off my head and heading to the bedroom to get dressed. I left the door cracked so we could still talk.

  “He didn’t say,” Emmaline said from the living room. “But the Stone Council is meeting in ten minutes.”

  Had to be Finvarra.

  I quickly finished getting ready and grabbed my scabbard. Emmaline accompanied me to Marisol’s office but stopped in the anteroom while I continued on to the Council chamber.

  I went to stand near Oliver while the others filed in.

  Marisol took the lectern, and Jaquard closed the door.

  “Finvarra has breached the Summerlands with the aid of the Undine. His coup is underway,” she said, not mincing words.

  The Summerlands was the name for the Faerie territory where Titania, Oberon, and some of the other Old Ones resided. It didn’t belong to any specific kingdom—it was its own realm within Faerie—and in the past many decades of Oberon’s reign, it had become the seat of the High Court.

  “Why aren’t we sending forces to aid Titania?” Jaquard asked above the murmured reactions.

  “That’s the purpose of this meeting,” Marisol said. “Oliver has proposed sending half our fighting legion to the Summerlands.”

  “Only half
? This is dire, a disaster,” Amalie, Maxen’s young cousin called out. “We can’t let Finvarra unseat Oberon and Titania. This should be our top priority.”

  “The Stone Order is our top priority,” the lady of the fortress said, her voice carrying with authority. “That’s true at all times.”

  I leaned over to my father. “You should just take half the legion and go,” I whispered. “Otherwise the battle will be over, and we’ll still be standing here arguing. If they decide more can be spared, additional forces can join you later.”

  “I’m tempted, trust me,” Oliver said. “But I need to give the process a moment.”

  “I’m going with you, right?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave the fortress vulnerable. Neither does Marisol. We need leadership here, too.”

  “But I’m not part of the Order’s battle ranks,” I said. “I can’t command them here. Let me go with you.”

  Just the thought of getting a shot at Finvarra gave me a nice jolt of adrenaline.

  But Oliver’s attention was on Marisol and the debate flying around the room. True to his word, he let the conversation continue for another minute or so and then strode up to stand beside our leader.

  He raised both arms. “Enough. I’ve heard your arguments. The decision has been made. We can’t leave the fortress defenseless. We’ll leave thirty percent of our soldiers behind.”

  I quickly did the math. That was fewer than a hundred battle-trained New Gargs to remain in the fortress.

  As the group began to break up, I found Maxen and snagged his sleeve.

  “What’s really going on in the Summerlands?” I asked.

  “Finvarra’s got several battalions of Queen Doineann’s trident bearers,” he said. “I don’t know how he persuaded her, but it looks like he’s borrowing the Undine army.”

  “And what does Titania have?”

  “Her magic and the aid of most of the other Old Ones,” he replied. Then he turned away as someone else caught his attention.

  I hoped Melusine was going to help. If the Old Ones banded together, they might be able to hold off Finvarra and the Undine.

  The next hour or so was a flurry of activity as Oliver and his soldiers prepared to leave. I found Shane, Maxen’s frequent sparring partner and the man who’d be the second-ranking officer, after Jaquard, in charge of the soldiers left in the fortress once the others departed. He was younger than me and doubled as a weapons instructor for teenage New Gargs going through training.

  “I know I’m not one of your soldiers, but don’t hesitate to give me orders if there’s anything I can do,” I said.

  He nodded, his yellow-flecked brown eyes intent under drawn brows. “Just keep an eye out,” he said. “Let me know if you see anything that seems off.”

  We were standing at the edge of the training yard, which also served as an area for the battle ranks to line up. As one of the older trainees, Emmaline had changed into a uniform that matched the legions’ grays and blacks, and she wore an Order-issued short sword on her hip. Everyone who had any weapons training would be armed until Marisol gave the all-clear.

  I beckoned to Emmaline, and she trotted over from the group of teenagers she’d been speaking to.

  “You allowed to leave the yard?” I asked.

  She nodded. I saw her eyes move over to Shane and linger there. When he looked up and they locked gazes, she bit her lower lip as if hiding a smile and looked away.

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s stalk the hallways. I don’t like so many fighters being clustered here like this.”

  Maxen and Marisol were still on site, but Oliver’s absence left me edgy. Jaquard was the most experienced fighter who’d remained behind. The rest were fairly young, like Shane. Maxen was a skilled fighter, but his primary role was that of diplomat, so he didn’t hold an official position as an officer in the battle ranks.

  I started us in the lobby, intending to trace a circuit around the fortress that would take us past all the doorways. Pairs of soldiers from the battle ranks were already patrolling.

  “Shane’s your instructor?” I asked Emmaline.

  She flicked a glance at me and then away. “Yeah. The past two years.”

  “He’s quite a bit older than you are.”

  Her fingers moved to fiddle with the moto-style offset zipper on her jacket. “Um, yeah.”

  “He’s pretty hot,” I said. “Not that I’m interested. Just, you know, an observation.”

  “I guess . . . he’s . . . yeah, not bad.” She turned her head as if suddenly very interested in what was going on in the courtyard beyond the windows we were passing, but she couldn’t hide the slight pinking of her cheeks.

  I chuckled softly and decided not to torture her any further about her crush. For the moment, anyway.

  Then her boots scuffed to a halt, and she went to the nearest window.

  “What the . . . ” she trailed off, tilting her head. “Does that look right to you?”

  I went to peer through the window with her. We were looking out on a garden courtyard with some rose bushes, gravel paths, and a large cement fountain in the center. The water feature was about ten feet tall, with four cascading tiers and a pool to collect the water at the bottom.

  But something odd was happening with the water. Instead of trickling down from one tier to the next, it was squirting out of the top with enough force to send the stream about five feet in the air. It was spurting wildly, as if the pump had gone haywire.

  As we watched, the water gathered itself into an orb at the top of the fountain, as if collecting in an invisible globe-shaped vase. It grew larger and larger. Then the cement fountain began to fracture, cracks chasing each other up the structure.

  “This is not good,” I breathed.

  A second later, the fountain exploded outward in a blast of cement chunks. The orb of water, temporarily disrupted, began to reform again, growing and stretching downward to the base of the ruined fountain in a sheet.

  As the sheet of water began to part like curtains, I drew Mort and launched myself toward the nearest door leading out into the courtyard.

  Chapter 22

  “GET JAQUARD AND Shane!” I yelled at Emmaline.

  She’d started to follow me, but at my command she wheeled around and sprinted off. I heard her yelling at a couple of Order soldiers who were patrolling down the hallway.

  I burst out into the courtyard just as the curtains of water shaped themselves into an arch. I grasped my magic and then pushed it through my hand into Mort. Violet flames of power sprang from the blade. I sent more magic over my skin to form rock armor.

  I stood there, poised and ready to fight, staring into the arch of water. I couldn’t see anything through the arch—it was like looking at the shimmering sun-dappled surface of the ocean. Blinding and distorted.

  Glancing back at the noise behind me, I saw the two Order soldiers, a man and a woman, pound out into the courtyard.

  “What’s going on?” the woman asked, coming to my right side with her broadsword grasped in her hands and her weight shifted forward, ready to attack.

  “I don’t know,” I said in a low voice, my eyes glued to the shimmering area under the water arch. “But I think we’re about to find out.”

  They flanked me.

  “What the hell is that?” the man asked.

  “I think it might be a doorway,” I said. “I don’t suppose either of you know magic that will close it.”

  “Unfortunately, no,” the woman muttered.

  There were shapes moving behind the shimmering curtain. I shuffled forward, gripping Mort tightly. Whoever came through first was going to wish they’d picked another spot in line.

  As a man began to emerge from the mirage-like screen, I lunged and swung. I had just enough time to recognize the trident the man was holding before I sliced through the arm that held the weapon. He fell forward to his knees with an ear-splitting scream.

  More figures loomed behind
him, and another and then another came through. They were the Undine Queen Doineann’s men. Did that mean Finvarra was coming here, too?

  I managed to bat away one of the tridents, but Undine men were pouring through the other side of the arch, too, and the two soldiers and I couldn’t fight them all.

  Where the hell was Jaquard with the rest of the Stone Order’s legion?

  I took out a few more trident men, but they just kept coming. Three of them cornered me, took aim with their weapons, and let loose with an electric barrage. I braced myself and managed to deflect some of the zaps with Mort, but I couldn’t keep my muscles fully under control as the crackling bolts hit me. My rock armor was almost useless against it. The electricity just seemed to pass right through.

  My teeth clamped hard as one of the trident men attacked from the back, sending lightning magic into the vulnerable unarmored spot at the back of my neck.

  Spots danced in my eyes as I whirled to defend myself. I caught a glimpse of a man—not an Undine—coming through the arch.

  Oh, shit. It was dear old Dad. Not Oliver—Periclase.

  Just as I was about to succumb to the trident attack, it suddenly stopped. I went down to all fours, gasping. My muscles were still twitching from the remnants of electricity flowing through me.

  Order soldiers had begun storming into the courtyard, but there were trident men at every door ready to electrify them into submission. As I watched some of the best-trained fighters in Faerie fall to the ground under the influence of lightning magic, it struck home that rock armor was almost useless against some types of weapons. The Undine men were ruthlessly barraging the soldiers. I began to fear their hearts would shut down.

  “Stop,” I croaked at King Periclase. “Call them off.”

  He peered down at me, recognition flashing in his eyes.

  “Hello, Princess,” he said, drawing out the word. He crooked a partial smile at me, the stone-encased side of his face remaining frozen. “As you wish.”

  He raised a hand, and the tridents were withdrawn. The courtyard was suddenly eerily quiet in the absence of the crackling of electricity. Groans of pain rose from the Order soldiers.