“I can also see her when I’m awake as well.” Dracyrus smiled. It was a mean, sadistic smile that made Jag prickle, but a smile nonetheless. “Can touch her across distances as well.”
“You bastard,” Jag growled, lunging for him. In the same moment, Dracyrus unsheathed his sword, drawing its tip toward him. He stopped just short of the blade, neither one of them moving.
Light had drawn an arrow, knocking it towards Dracyrus. The three men were at a standstill, none of them moving, none of them wanting to make the first blow. Once this began, it would only end when one of the opposing sides lay dead.
But, perhaps most surprisingly, Dracyrus lowered his sword, the first to stand down. The haughty expression did not leave his scaled face, however, as he said, “I cannot change what is. Be jealous all you want; I care not. I only care about getting her back.”
“Back,” Jag echoed. “You never had her in the first place.”
The growl that left Dracyrus’s chest then put all the growling Jag did to shame. His was primal, almost like an animal’s growl. “We beg to differ on that, then.” He was slow to sheath his blade, glancing at Light, who still had an arrow cocked and aimed. “I do not want to fight either of you, but if you attack me, I will have no choice.”
Light questioned, “What do you want?”
“The Harbinger,” he answered, holding his head high. In a moment, his eyes were closed, as if he was busy remembering her. “Faith.”
“You want to kill her, yeah, we know,” Jag said, shooting him a glare.
“No,” Dracyrus spoke, drawing out the word. They’d been through this again and again, and Jag still didn’t understand it. “I don’t want to kill her. If I wanted to kill her, I had chances to. I don’t want to end her life—I simply want to be in it, whether she keeps you two around or not.”
Jag didn’t know what to take issue with first. The whole thing was just plain old wrong. Faith would never be with him in a serious capacity. He was her enemy. This whole thing must be an act, he decided, for the Dread King would never want to play house. He wanted to wage war and stuff, right?
“This has to be some kind of trick,” Light said, easing the tension he was putting on his bowstring, only a little. “You’re the enemy here. You two were born to—”
“We were not born to be enemies, we were cursed,” Dracyrus cut in, frowning. His scowl would put anyone in their rightful place, even Light. Even Jag. If Finn was here, even he’d be shut up. “I am done playing the role of the antagonist in this story. I will find Faith, and then I will find Yulena and make her pay for the misery she has caused us.”
“You truly think Faith would want you?” Jag asked, still clinging onto the hope that this was all some kind of twisted, sick nightmare. Dracyrus couldn’t have genuine feelings for Faith, could he? It was so out there, he didn’t know what to call it. It was more than crazy. It was…
It was the most insane thing he’d ever heard.
“Are you nervous that she would?” Dracyrus shot back. “If she did, would you desert her?”
While Jag was quiet, Light answered, “I would never leave her. I love her.”
Jag looked at his friend, watching as he slowly lowered his bow, sliding the arrow back into the quiver on his back. He loved Faith too, but could he sit by and watch her be with the enemy? Finn was one thing, he supposed, since they had a history—and Finn wasn’t nearly as annoying as Jag had thought, now that he’d spent some quality time with Dracyrus—but knowing she was with Dracyrus would be a different thing entirely.
Could he handle it?
“If,” Jag said, “Faith wanted to be with you too…I guess we’d have to go from there.” He had no idea where they’d go, how they’d find Cam and Finn, but one thing at a time. He wouldn’t linger on the possibility Faith would want to be with Dracyrus. Right now, it seemed so far-fetched it was improbable.
But if they shared dreams, if they spent time with each other in private…
No. Jag couldn’t lose himself in his thoughts. He had to focus on getting her back. Like he’d said, they’d get to it when they got to it. If it came to it. He hoped with a willful heart it wouldn’t.
Before anyone could say more, a giant shadow swept over them, moving between them and the rising sun, ominous in its appearance. A foreboding dread crept along Jag’s spine. All three men turned to look in the sky, watching as someone approached them on a flying creature.
“Who is that?” Jag asked anyone who would answer.
“I don’t know,” Light said, once more drawing an arrow. “But let’s be ready.” As he aimed at the incoming figure, Dracyrus drew his sword once again. Jag spread his fingers, his muscles tensing. He would tear someone apart if he had to.
Whoever it was, it wasn’t Cam, and it wasn’t Finn. Who it turned out to be was not someone any of them expected, Jag knew—mostly because he was someone none of them had seen before. A stranger riding a winged, scaled beast. A stranger with horns.
Another Dracon.
Chapter Ten
Faith could not get the dream out of her head the next day, mostly because she was upset with herself. She might not have had her memories, but she was fairly sure there should be no canoodling between her and the Dread King. He was like the motherload of all bad guys. He was the bad guy.
Bad guys were kind of sexy, though…
No. Bad Faith.
The sun above Faith’s head warmed her, a comfortable temperature with a gentle breeze. Swift and Foresh walked a few feet before her. Though they’d been lost in their own conversation a few minutes ago, both of them had suddenly grown quiet. She wondered if it meant they were close.
As they headed over a hill, Faith corrected herself: they weren’t close. They were here.
A small village, nestled between hills in a canyon of pink grass and purple-leafed trees. The houses she saw were nothing but huts made of wood, their homes having no glass. Vines crept up the sides of every building, and as they neared, a peculiar scent filled the air. The closer they went, the weirder she felt. Like something crawled along her skin, ten thousand spiders all at once. When they reached the boundary of the village, the air seemed thicker, the sun less bright.
Faith turned her head up, finding a dense fog had appeared between them and the sun. Or had it always been there, waiting for her to see it?
“This place,” Faith broke the silence, “it doesn’t feel right.” She gripped her own arms in a hug, feeling cold all of a sudden, as if this place, this tiny village, had different laws of nature than the space outside. Nothing felt right here; everything felt off.
“It shouldn’t feel right,” Foresh said, shooting his green eyes to her. He looked sad, his mouth drawn into a thin line, his hands held behind his back. “This place…its memories are not good ones.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by it, but she knew he was right. Also, where was everyone? In the last village, all of the nearby Fae had stared at her; she might’ve been the first Human any of them had seen. Here, she saw nothing. No one. No one but Swift, Foresh, and herself.
Odd.
“This place used to be called New Hope,” Foresh went on as they headed deeper into the village, passing houses whose doors hung wide open. “It was the first new settlement after our castles crumbled and the Dread King’s armies killed most of us.”
Swift whispered, “And now you can see what happened to it.”
Walking along, Faith shook her head, her auburn hair flying in her face. “I don’t understand. What happened here?” She watched as Foresh paused before the closest house, moving to the door. It hung open, and he pushed it all the way ajar, like he wanted her to go in. “I can’t just waltz inside someone’s house.”
“Ignoring the fact I do not know what a waltz is,” Foresh spoke grimly, “I think it is something you should see. Hart wants you to understand.”
Well, how could she go against that? Whatever this Hart wanted, Hart obviously got.
Faith gat
hered up her courage, getting ready to be yelled at by whoever lived in the hut, and she moved past both Fae, entering the dark, dingy place. Though the hut had glass-less squares where air could flow in and out, the air still felt rank inside. Old. As if no one had breathed or even stepped foot in the house in ages.
She took another step, noticing the furniture was covered in dust, pollen, and dead insects. Whatever had made its way through the windows. A feeling of unease grew inside her as she went further into the house, finding the bedrooms. Three Fae sat, huddled in the corner of the biggest room, clutching each other as if they were about to die.
“I’m sorry,” Faith instantly said, taking a step back. “I shouldn’t have walked into your house—” Her apology fell on deaf ears, she realized. The three Fae in the corner weren’t alive; they were nothing but stone.
A beautiful dark black with purple veins. In her heart of hearts, she knew: aether.
What happened here? These people—was this whole village dead? Were they all stone like this? New Hope was not full of hope anymore, clearly.
Faith quickly left the house, shooting both Fae outside a glare. “Explain that,” she said. “The family was…they were stone.” Even the child, whose size meant he was no more than ten, at least in Human years.
God, how they clutched each other, holding onto each other as if they knew they were dying. What horror they must’ve felt in that moment. Faith wished she could help them, but it was years too late. What monster could do something like this? This was magic—it was not the Dread King’s actions that did this.
Instead of answering her, they simply led her deeper into the village, to a large stone pit where it looked like the village had bonfires, where they cooked their big catches, and maybe where they just had fun, as Fae were prone to do. Faith wanted to be sick. All around them, at least fifty Fae stood, cowering, their faces frozen in fear.
Though the air was thick, though the sun was mostly blocked out over the town, Faith could see these ones better than the family in the house. She didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to know what each Fae looked like, how the terror was absolute in their final moments.
“This is awful,” Faith spoke, feeling a heaviness in her heart. She didn’t know these people, but she felt for them all the same. “Who could do this?” It was so freaking sad, she could hardly find the words to say.
An entire Fae village, a new village, one that had sprouted up after the fall of their kingdom, gone. Abandoned but not forgotten.
“The Lionheart will have your answers,” Swift said, sounding oddly serious. “He only wanted us to show you this place, to make you understand.”
Faith didn’t know what she was supposed to get out of this, besides an aching heart. “What’s that? What is this supposed to make me understand?” She shook her head. She had a hard time thinking while surrounded by so many frozen Fae, all black and purple. Even the grass below their feet was dead, its pink length withered and shriveled.
“Everything has a cost,” Foresh whispered. “Everything. Nothing is free.”
Cryptic, and a bit of a non-answer, but Faith would take it, mostly because it was the best she would get out of these two. She knew she wasn’t from this world, and even though her memories were gone, she knew in her world nothing was free, either. But this? This was so much worse than a price.
What could be worth this? What could be worth all of these lives? Judging from the sheer number of houses, how big New Hope was, there were at least two or three hundred Fae here, locked away in their homes or frozen in the plain light of day.
Faith’s eyes fell to a small child, curled on the ground, cradling his or her legs to its chest. The fetal position. The terror the child must’ve felt—surely these Fae were aware it was happening when it took place. They wouldn’t be so frozen in fear if they didn’t know, if it was instant. No, if she had to guess, this took time, and they were all well aware they were turning to stone. How horrible.
“I wish I could help them,” Faith said, glancing to Swift and Foresh. Both Fae men were busy surveying the open space, the bodies around them. Stone tombs. “I’ve never seen—” Faith’s mind was thrown from her body, plucked and pulled, transplanted somewhere else.
“No,” her voice left her, but it was a man’s voice, deep and gruff. And…sad? She felt so intensely sad, she couldn’t bear it. She could hardly keep her eyes open. The castle, the prize of the Aetherium, crumbled before him, fires burning away the inside. She’d failed at keeping them safe.
While she was off playing war with the Dread King, his agents had infiltrated the Aetherium and helped destroy it from the inside-out. What few Fae survived the battle would have no king, no queen, to come home to. This changed everything.
And it was all her fault. Or…his fault?
Faith was not in her body. It was taller, wider, manlier. She ran a hand down her face, feeling the growth of a beard. She was a man indeed. This was not something she could change; it had already happened, and it was set in stone.
She…he knew this was the end. As everything burned around him, as the stonework crumbled and fell, collapsing in heaps of dust and fire, smoke and decay, his mind had made itself up. He’d beaten the Dread King, slew him as he was meant to, but the lives that had been lost, his love…how could he live with the destruction he’d seen? The bodies, the corpses, being picked at by the birds…
No.
No one could live a life after witnessing all he had, so the Harbinger did the only thing he could think of. He straightened his back and walked right into the doors of the castle, into the burning flames. He couldn’t go home and pretend none of this happened. He’d failed the same people he vowed he would protect.
The last thing he heard was his own screams, joining the cacophony of shouts into the blazing night. The last thing he felt was the heat of the fire on his skin. He wasn’t too far in; they’d dig him and the Ageless Blade out once the flames had settled, once the body count was completed.
And dig him out they would, because this wasn’t the end. The Harbinger and the Dread King would fight until the end of time itself.
“—anything like it,” Faith finished, her breath catching in the back of her throat. Her eyes fell to her hands. They were her hands, small but useful, tattoos on her inner wrists. Her hands, not that man’s. Not the Harbinger’s.
There was a price for everything, even victory.
Faith curled her fingers into fists, feeling something settle in the pit of her stomach. No, she decided. Nothing was worth this. All these lives, whatever vision she’d had—nothing was worth it. Not even victory. If she was the Harbinger, she would not waste thousands upon thousands of lives in a war that would never end. What was the point? Soon or later, there would be no more bodies. No more people left to take a stand. If the Harbinger and the Dread King were fated to fight…why couldn’t one surrender?
“Are you alright?” Swift asked, moving beside her, placing a hand on her lower back.
Foresh motioned with his head. “We should get out of here. This place is probably giving her the creeps.” He looked around them, at the frozen, stone Fae and their various forms of agony. “I don’t blame her. I don’t like it, either.”
She nodded. Yes, she’d very much like to leave this place.
As they went, she kept the strange memory to herself. She wasn’t sure what it was or why it had surged into her brain, unstoppable, but maybe it was the key to her past, to knowing the truth. Maybe her memories were tied up in someone else.
Chapter Eleven
The scaled beast landed on its two feet, its clawed hands located on its wings. It shook its scaly neck, lowering its side to allow its rider the opportunity to slide off its horned back. Light readied himself, for he was not certain whether the Dracon before them was an enemy or not. Things were confusing enough with Dracyrus.
Could the Dread King truly have feelings for Faith? Light didn’t know what to think. It seemed so unlikely, he wanted to la
ugh, but the expression on Dracyrus’s face had been utterly serious in every way as he discussed her. Wanting to be with her.
Enough of that. First they had to figure out who the new Dracon was and why he was here.
The Dracon was not as impressive as Dracyrus in that he was not as tall or as horned. His horns were more like pointed stubs, his hair a sheer, shiny black, cut short to his scalp. Dark scales lined his face, his eyes a vivid golden hue, reflecting the sun overhead. His features were not as hateful as Dracyrus’s, but he looked young. Maybe he hadn’t grown into his sneer quite yet.
Turning his eyes to each of them, studying Dracyrus the longest, the new Dracon spoke, “So it is true. You have banded together.” He reached for his hip, unsheathing a long blade, worlds more decorative than Dracyrus’s. “Or you have fooled the tribe of Malus into believing you work with Faith and instead have switched sides to follow the Dead King.”
Jag growled, “Who are you and why should we care what you think?”
“I am Vyserous, first son of the High Queen Fryce. My mother received a summoning of sorts from the Elves, stating the Harbinger of mankind had arrived. There was much arguing and a lot of time wasted. I decided to come myself, to see if it was true.” His golden eyes turned to Jag. “Imagine my surprise when I flew to Alyna and tried to meet with the Court. The Harbinger was not only a female, but also an alleged criminal. I was told that if I saw her, I was to bring her back to them to stand trial for the murder of one of their Court Elves.”
Vyserous went on, “Before I left their kingdom, I was stopped by an Elf named Tarnel. He told me where the Harbinger was going. But it seems I am too late; the Malus chief spoke of the girl being taken by two rogue Fae, and that her fellowship was split up, that Dracyrus was with half of them. She told me Dracyrus had a change of heart—I know not what you told her to make her think you’ve changed sides, but I grew up hearing the history. I was too young to be an advisor to my mother during the last war, but know that I will not stand for any more Dracon lives lost for your ridiculous cause.”
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