by Janeal Falor
As we move forward, so do the guards. My spell is the first to fly, a bright yellow splattered with orange fury, like a lightning bolt across their front lines. Some of the guards block it with different types of spells. Others do not, getting zapped with the bolt of electricity.
Spells are flying all around now, a plethora of deadly colors. Someone cries out behind me, but even more cry out in front of me. The battle pricks my heart, making me ache for the guards who defend the Grand Chancellor. If only they wouldn't support him, we wouldn't have to fight them.
“On your left,” Tawny cries out.
I throw a hastily shield together on my left side just in time for a burgundy spell to smash against it. Hexes continue to fling toward our group, but not as many as we're sending out. The battlefield is an array of colors, reds blues, purples, blacks, yellows, every color I can think of, and more are stretching toward us and our enemy.
I think we're winning. Nathaniel said these would be the only guards. If we can just get past them, we'll only have the Grand Chancellor to deal with. The thought spurs me on. I flash a burgundy spell, filled with rage at how the Chardonians have been treated. The spell hits a guard who falls to the ground and doesn't get back up.
The guards are growing few and far between. We're making headway toward the house. We've got this. We're winning the battle. Soon, victory will be ours.
Quiet descends. Not a peaceful sort of silence, but one that leaves a chill in the air. The guards who have not fallen part and move to their knees. If it weren't for the parting, I would think they are surrendering. But this is no surrender. They are honoring someone. There's only one someone that could be.
The Grand Chancellor.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Moments later, the Grand Chancellor strides out onto the field, Chancellor Ryan on one side, Chancellor Stephen on the other.
“I want my son,” Stephen shouts.
How did he know? I glance at the girls, all of whom have gone pale.
“You only have daughters,” Cynthia yells.
“Not anymore. And I want him. Now.”
We must have a spy in our midst. How else would Stephen know? We've known all along it was a possibility. But who would possibly betray us. Phyllis. One of the few people who refused to come fight. Of course it's her. Only it's Theodore that steps forward. “Your son is back at their hiding spot in the caves with the mother and daughters. I'll take you to him if you promise my safety.”
Immediately, I want to zap the traitor with a hex. To think I healed him. “How could you?” I yell.
He smirks at me. “You didn't really think I'd want to free a bunch of women, did you?”
Stupidly, I did.
“You have a deal,” Stephen says, ignoring me.
The traitor walks over to join the Chancellors and Grand Chancellor. I want to hex all three of them with the most powerful spell I have. But the way the Grand Chancellor carries himself like he has no fear of our entire rebellion stays my hand. Why does he not fear us? Or…is it possible? Could he be about to surrender to us?
But then why is he grinning?
He raises his hands, and I just barely have time to throw a shield up before a black with crimson and gold streaked spell flies at our entire group. It slams against my protective spell with a burst of black, darkening my world.
My power wanes fighting against his, becoming weak inside me. I need rest. We all need rest.
The Grand Chancellor smiles, a viscous, hungry smile that says he wants all our deaths. He holds both arms out to the side, and his Chancellors step forward, one on either side of him.
My throat chokes up, but at least he's sending Ryan and Stephen, though I can't help but wonder how the girls will handle fighting against their own father, even if he is a jerk.
Several hexes fling our way, crimson light smashing against our shields. I shove a cutting spell out, straight at Stephen. His shield is thrown up a little too late, leaving cuts on his arms.
Ryan spits a hex out, glittering with red and black. It's headed straight for me. I don't have enough energy left for a shield. No time to move. Then something slams into me, knocking me to the ground with a painful thud.
Chadwick lays next to me, groaning. He just saved me from Chancellor Ryan. Ryan! I jump to my feet and cast a vicious burgundy hex toward his heart. It misses, hitting the side of his shield instead. He laughs and aims his hand at me.
Cynthia flashes a black spell straight at Chancellor Ryan. It smashes into him, and the whole field goes silent as he falls to the ground.
I run to Chadwick, his leg twisted wrong. He coughs.
“Just hang on. I'll heal you right up.”
He coughs again, this time with some blood. “It's too late for me.”
“No, it can't be!”
He puts a hand on my cheek before I can start to heal him, drawing my gaze to his. “Be happy with Jack. He'll treat you well.”
“But you have to stick around to fight with me.” My tears run onto his hand.
“I love you.”
His hand goes slack. I check his pulse.
Nothing.
Chadwick is dead.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The world grows dark. Cold. Without Chadwick, it will never be the same. Zade will be beside himself when he finds out his best friend died to save me. I want to shrivel up into a ball and never come out. But there's not time to think of it. The Grand Chancellor is raging toward Cynthia.
She stares him down like he's nothing more than a bug in her way.
He raises his hands, but before he can cast a spell, Nathaniel comes running out of the house. “Wait! Father, wait!”
He runs right up to the Grand Chancellor like he doesn't care that he's the most powerful man in the county, maybe even the world.
“You can't harm them.”
“What?” The Grand Chancellor's voice is low, but threatening.
“They are just trying to get their freedom. You can't hurt them over that.”
“You should be out here helping me, not stopping me.”
“But—”
The Grand Chancellor throws a silver spell at his own son. Someone nearby gasps as Nathaniel is raised in the air, wrapped in that silver spell, and flown back into the house out of sight.
The Grand Chancellor turns back to us, his expression disturbingly calm. “I don't tolerate disobedience. Not from anyone.”
A spell the color of an angry cloud flies from him. Cynthia blocks it as best she can, while we help. Tawny is too close to the battle. Too close to the Grand Chancellor. The Queen is going to have my head and hers. If the Grand Chancellor doesn't get us first.
My power is so weak. Faint. No one else must be doing much better as another spell crashes into our shield. The pure wall cracks.
“Retreat,” I call, heart heavier than our loss.
As one, we move backward, working to escape while still maintaining the spell. The spell grows weaker. As I look around, I realize that not everyone retreating is interested in helping us all retreat. They're already gone.
My power is weak. So, so weak. And though Cynthia is stronger than me, she can't be doing much better after this fight. “We have to go.”
Cynthia nods.
“Run,” I say.
We all turn and run.
Chapter Fifty-Four
My legs ache with the movement. Around us, people are falling to the ground, but there's no stopping to help them if we want to make it out of this alive. Jack's suddenly at my side, arm around me, pushing me forward.
“Faster,” he yells.
We meet Lukas up ahead in the forest, and he springs the trap as soon as we cross. Us, the last ones left standing that hadn't already made it out.
The trap was a backup plan. Something we should have never had to use. And yet, here it is, whistling up in bright colors. It should make anyone who tries to cross it fall asleep and do the same thing to any spells crossing it's path, making them heavy
and slow until the spell wears off, long enough for us to get away.
We keep running, eager to be away from this place. My body is bruised and broken from the fight but not nearly as bad as my heart. How could we have failed so miserably? At least we're safe for now. Those of us still alive, that is. I glance back to make certain the trap is doing its job.
It's not.
“The Grand Chancellor has broken through it,” I yell, panic overwhelming me.
The best we can do now is keep running.
Cynthia zaps a few spells behind us as we go, a track-erasing spell, a wall spell. Lukas adds a few of his own. I want to add something, but I'm so drained, I don't think anything would help at all. At least they can offer something to slow the Grand Chancellor down. They must slow him down enough, because he doesn't appear in sight.
We run and run and run. We keep going until my lungs are on fire and my legs burn. When we can't run anymore, we change to a hurried walk, followed by more running. We put several miles of forest between us and the house.
“Are we far enough yet?” I gasp out.
“I don't…” Serena gasps out as well, “think we'll ever be far enough.”
My heart burns with how true that statement is.
***
After more running than I have ever done in my life, we make it to a far off clearing and don't see any signs of being followed, so we head home. Or to what used to be home. I'm thinking with this new fall of our rebellion, that's going to have to change.
“Is everyone here? Who's missing?” I say.
There are many from the six hundred that are missing. More than I want to think on. Nelly among them. I can only hope she's somewhere else and not dead or captured.
Other than Chadwick and the treacherous Theodore, our group of leaders seems to be coming together. Except, “Where's Tawny?”
“I haven't seen her,” Jack says.
“Neither have I,” Cynthia replies.
Sick dread weighs down my heart as I remember seeing her on the field too close to the actions. I fall to a sitting position, ending on the ground. I have lost one of the heirs to the throne. She's probably dead.
My heart aches as I begin to cry. It's all too much. I wanted this war to save lives, to save an entire people. Instead, I've lost more than everyone had to begin with. I have utterly failed not just myself, and the crown, but all of Chardonia.
Someone puts a hand on my shoulder. I glance up to find Jack, his own eyes filled with tears. We have lost everything.
Chapter Fifty-Five
After some time, I pull myself together. I have to do what I can for the people left. After all, we have a traitor who is probably, even now, telling them where we are.
“I think we should have everyone we can moved to Envado.” I say to those left. But I know what that decision means. Know who we're leaving behind. My words are clogged with tears. “I don't want to, but I think it would be for the best.”
Serena is crying now, even harder than I am. “We can't leave Zade. We can't do it.”
My own tears come harder, the ache in my chest a giant hole of agony. “We have to.”
Cynthia and Bethany gather us both in a hug, tears on both their cheeks as well.
“We'll try again,” I say. “We won't just leave him there. We'll try again and again until we get him out.”
“We will,” Serena says, though it almost sounds more like a question.
“We will. Somehow, we'll make it so you two can have that wedding you've been waiting for.”
Her tears slow as she brushes them away, and she nods.
“Now, to the cave so we can start evacuating people to Envado,” Cynthia says.
“To Envado,” I say. To my home that's no longer home but all I have left.
Chapter Fifty-Six
It's dark and lonely just outside the cavern. I can't bring myself to go in, though. To face my failure. To know lives were lost because I pushed us to go. Loneliness seems a small repayment for that but not nearly enough of one to make up for Chadwick.
My chest gives a painful squeeze. How can he really be gone?
“What are you doing out here all alone?” Jack asks.
His company is already a soothing presence, but one I don't know if I deserve. “Just thinking.”
“Anything you'd like to talk about?”
I rest my head on my knees. “I don't know. It's all so jumbled and painful.”
“I wish things could have turned out differently.”
“Who knew the Grand Chancellor would be more powerful than all of us put together? There's going to be no stopping him.”
“Then we'll get away from him.”
“But what if he follows us to Envado? What if he tries to take over my country as well?”
“Then we'll have an even bigger group to fight against him, yes?”
I nod. “That is true.”
“And sooner or later he's going to take on a group that is too big and powerful for him to handle.”
“I only wish that would have been us today.”
“So do I.”
“How do you feel about Chadwick?” Jack asks.
Those tears start to well again. The last couple of days have been horrid to get through. “Guilty. I think I'll always feel guilty. But grateful too. I'm not ready to go. Something about him, though. He almost seemed ready. He loved me, but knew I could never return those feelings.”
“I'm sorry it had to end that way for him. He was a good man.”
“The best of men.”
Silence descends as I remember him and the life he gave for me.
“He wanted me to be happy, though. He knew that we could never be. That's what he gave me. The ultimate sacrifice so I could live and be happy.”
“Do you think you can be happy after his loss?”
“It will take time to mourn him. Not just him, but our loss. Everything we were trying to gain but failed at. Happiness seems like a very distant thing right now.”
“I know what you mean,” he says. “As far as I've come as a person, I wanted us to come farther as a group. As a nation.”
“And yet, here we are, running.” I sigh.
“Just think if you weren't here, though. All these people we're getting to Envado. Would that happen without you?”
“Someone else from Envado would lead them.”
“But would they have led like you did?”
Lead everyone to failure? Or maybe not. This is a loss. One harder than I know how to deal with. But when I think back on everything that happened. Everything I've accomplished, maybe it's not so much of a failure.
Women know more magic, know what they can do magic. The lower class knows there is a better way of life, even if I couldn't give it to them. Jack is a perfect example of this. He's grown so much, and there's no knowing that someone else would have been able to do that. The people I've helped, the lives I've touched. No knowing at all if someone else could have done it. “I suppose not.”
“So you being here might not have turned out like you were expecting, but it’s still critical to saving a lot of people's lives.”
“When you put it that way…”
“You are great, Waverly.”
“I want you to know something,” I say, and then take a deep breath, steeling myself to say what needs to be said. “I love you, Jack.”
Instantly, his arms are around me, warming me. “I love you too.”
And then we're kissing. There's much sorrow and pain in the kiss, but it's healing too. Like all the pain we had knows that love is just what it needs to help it feel better. The kiss deepens, and it's like a flood of emotions pouring through me. I never want it to end.
His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer, and mine tangle in his. Pulled together like this, it feels as if we can do anything. Conquer anything. Win anything. Even if we can't, at least we have the love of each other.
My heart pounds as his lips move with mine. If only it was as e
asier to heal all our problems as Jack is at healing my heart.
***
It's time to get us out of here and go to Envado. Everyone else is gone. It's our turn. If it wasn't for the love I have for Jack, and my girls and littlest new baby boy, I'd feel hollow. My chest is threatening to feel hollow anyway. For all we've been through, it just wasn't enough, and we've lost good people during the process. And I still don't have Zade.
None of this was how it's supposed to be. The Grand Chancellor has taken away everything. Our home is no longer safe. The lives we lived were taken away. Our loved ones stolen through imprisonment or death. Our hopes and dreams have been stolen, whisked away by a man more powerful than one man should be.
Other than having each other, nothing is ours.
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Other Books in the Mine Series
Mine to Tarnish (Mine Prequel)
You Are Mine (Mine #1)
Mine to Spell (Mine #2)
Mine to Fear (Mine #3)
Sacrifice of Mine (Mine #4)
Acknowledgments
There's so much to be grateful for when a book is complete and this one is no exception. I put a lot of heart and quirkiness into this book. I just love Waverly and the people that helped me make her better.
Thank you to Karen C. Eddington for being not only an incredible sister, but for always helping me make my books better. Lori Hall, thank you for your last minute checking and always being there to bounce thoughts and ideas. I don't know what I'd do without you.