by Eve A Hunt
I leapt from the ramparts.
My legs were going to snap like biscotti.
A darkness flashed around me, and then Kaippa was lowering me to the ground.
“Flowers.” I bunched Kaippa’s shirt in my fists. “The people need to bring the Duke flowers for Lucilla.”
“The hell are you talking about, mage?”
“Lucus said—”
The Mage Duke roared in anger, and the courtyard exploded in light. Hekla, Kaippa, and I rolled away from the lightning strike. Heart pounding, I waved smoke from my face to see the castle’s small forest on fire. I stood to try a spell to help the rain put out the flame, but before I could come up with anything, the ground shook and I fell hard against the stone.
The demon’s great head appeared above the castle walls as lightning washed everything in white and indigo. Arms raised, the Duke shouted at the beast, which belched bright flames into the storm. Screams sounded from the crowd outside, and I rose with the lift spell to see my army scattering.
We were so screwed.
The Duke laughed like a coked-up psychopath and turned to face me. He flicked his fingers, and my lift spell disappeared.
I dropped to the ground, but there was no Kaippa to catch me this time. Before I could see where Hekla and Kaippa had ended up, my head hit the courtyard cobblestones, and everything went black.
When I came to, the storm had only worsened, and the noises coming from outside the castle gripped my heart and shook it hard.
Hekla and Kaippa were nowhere to be seen. Had they left to help our scattered army? Raising a cloud that tingled over my skin and against my legs, I rose above the castle to see what was going on.
My throat closed up.
Two streets away, the demon leapt high, wings spreading, then dove onto the street. Flames burst from his mouth as he devoured a van and two sedans. The surrounding traffic slammed together or veered off the road to avoid the demon. Rising high again, the demon wyvern flew toward Main Street at the command of the Mage Duke, who remained on the castle's ramparts, waving his arms like a conductor. I could see just the top of Lucus’s head, his horns black and his hair tangled. He must have been slumped against the wall up there, slowly dying.
I had to fix the Yew Bow, or we were all lost.
Blood in my mouth and heart in my throat, I ran for the casting chamber and the spell book that would have answers.
28 Coren
My hands shook like I was being electrocuted as I pressed them into the cover of the spell book. I pulled my palms away and the book flew open, pages flipping like a crazed bird’s wings, but they didn’t stop.
“Please! I need a spell to fix the Yew Bow. I’m the damn Yew Queen. You have to help me help them!” Hot tears flowed freely down my cold face.
Peace, Yew Queen. Find peace, someone said in my head.
I whirled to see the dark unicorn. “There is no peace here! Everything is going to complete shit!”
You want to repair your weapon.
“Of course I do! Stop being mysterious and either help me or leave me the fuck alone!”
The Bow is yours by rite, by blood, by the fated threads of the universe.
“Awesome,” I choked out, totally over this asshole. “Lot of good it does broken as shit.”
Have you held the Bow?
“What, like lately?”
The Bow is yours. Only you can destroy it.
I ran from the chamber, heading for Lucus’s bedroom where the pieces of the Bow sat useless. “Well, the Duke seemed to do a pretty damn good job for someone who supposedly can’t destroy it!” I called over my shoulder.
The clop of hooves on stone sounded behind me.
We rushed into Lucus’s room, then skidded to a stop. The oak, the pines, the roots—all of it had gone gray as the storm clouds.
I swallowed my panic and knelt to pocket the magestone and to pick up the two pieces of the Bow. “Nothing’s happening, unicorn. Are you just here to torture me?”
Peace, Yew Queen. Know that you are the most powerful here and now. You must find your peace. You must realize and rest in that knowledge, and it will be so.
I was getting real fucking tired of his wisdom.
But I took a breath, closed my eyes, and held the pieces in front of me, feeling like I was wasting valuable time when I could have been fighting, trying, doing something worth something.
Peace.
“Yeah! I heard you.”
The unicorn set his nose on my shoulder. Know your power here. Feel it.
The warmth of his touch calmed my breathing, and the Yew Bow hummed louder in my hands. The vibration buzzed under my fingernails. A spot between my eyebrows grew warm as I imagined myself raising the Bow and drawing it back.
“I am the Yew Queen. I will defeat this evil.”
I breathed in the lingering scent of Lucus and the sweet perfume of the unicorn. The Yew Bow pieces clicked together in a quick, jerky movement, and my mouth fell open. It was whole and humming.
Turning, I grinned at the dark unicorn. “Oh, it’s go time now.”
It is. He knelt, and I mounted up like a complete badass. I ducked as we sped through the door and toward the chaos, I summoned every ounce of power I had stashed away during my time with Lucus. His fae magic cooled my blood and gave me a level head while my mage power flashed through my body like lightning.
“First stop: Getting my man back.”
I called up a churning cloud of lightning-washed magic, and the unicorn and I galloped through the air toward the castle’s ramparts. The Mage Duke ignored us, his focus on the demon and the destruction of the town, which he seemed to be controlling with spells and arm movements. When he did turn enough for me to see his face, his eyes were shut and his skin had gone ashen. He was not himself. All the better for Lucus to escape.
Lucus braced himself on his knee to stand. His horns flickered in the storm’s erratic light, and his wings spread wide. He took off beside me, and I couldn’t fight the grin that spread over my lips at the sight of him just as healed as the Yew Bow, humming with his own version of magic and gloriously fierce in the dark sky. The wind tore at my hair, and rain pelted us as we flew into battle.
The dragon had eaten its way through Main Street. My other favorite sweets store, Kilwin’s, was a mess of bricks and crushed copper pots. The sidewalk looked like it had been peeled away by construction equipment.
Our bakery was in complete ruins.
A fire blazed from the area that had once been our kitchen; my baking show trophy glittered gold under what was left of the painted letters of the glass window. Sirens screamed, and red and blue lights fought with the bang and crash of the storm. People were everywhere. Running. Shouting for help. Shooting at the dragon. Throwing freaking rocks. So much for pleasing the Mage Duke in exchange for mercy. The man had lost his mind, and his maniacal laughs echoed supernaturally over the chaos.
Kaippa, Hekla in his arms, landed at the end of Main Street at Five Points. Kaippa rushed from person to person, handing them something.
Hekla cupped her mouth. “Get in a line! Speak the spell and drive the demon toward Coren!”
The people were actually listening, and they were taking what I realized were vials of Hekla’s blood and smearing their hands. I saw Dain, Evan, Titus, and Ami, and even that group of Vandy students who had once ogled Aurelio. My heart surged seeing their courage and the way they protected the kids hiding behind the Civil War cannon in front of the museum.
The moment they began to shout the spell, the demon lurched and roared like he was in pain. His wings failed, and his crash to the earth rocked the broken street and collapsed the Irish pub into yet another pile of rubble.
“Keep it up!” I shouted as the unicorn and my lift spell moved under me, shifting under the direction of my legs. I focused on the space directly behind the demon’s head and pulled the cold magestone from my pocket. The crystalline stone warmed under my touch.
Spreading its f
leshy, gray wings, the demon began to take off.
“Louder!” I called to the humans speaking the spell and cloaked in Hekla’s shifter blood. “We can’t lose him!” If he got up high enough or decided flames were in order, we were literally toast.
Lucus shouted in the fae language, his eyes flashing emerald and his bare torso coiled for action. Vines burst from the rubble beneath the demon to snare the creature’s legs and neck.
But the spell wasn’t working nearly as well as we needed it to, not like it had in the casting chamber. I had an idea.
I urged the unicorn and my cloud of power toward the humans, then swooped low as I heard the blast of dragon fire behind me. Heat seared my back. Pain dug at my flesh, burning through my clothing, and we whirled straight up to avoid a second blast of flame.
Hands wrapped in sparkling emerald fae power, Lucus tugged at his vines magically and yanked the demon backward. It whipped around and blew fire directly at him.
I screamed a warning.
The fire caught Lucus’s wing, and he began to fall.
We were going to lose.
“Say the spell together! As one!” I shouted.
Lucus shouted in fae, and the maples planted along the ruined street lifted their black roots and stalked toward the demon.
Drawing the stone back, I called up the arrow. The sparkling line of power crackled and sizzled, ready to fly. The dragon lurched toward Hekla, Kaippa, and our little army. Fire rippled from the beast’s mouth, and its many horns glowed orange with heat. The metallic stench of its great body overpowered me, and my lungs spasmed with coughs, causing my arrow to fizzle away.
With another blast of fire and the demon closing in, the army broke apart, people shrieking and scattering.
Kaippa flew from the chaotic crowd and aimed straight for the demon’s face.
29 Hekla
Hekla’s blood went cold, skin tingling as she pushed past Titus and Ami. “No!”
Ami snagged her sleeve, but Hekla jerked free and dashed toward the demon and Kaippa.
She couldn’t lose him. Not before they’d had a chance to see what might happen, to discover the possibility of them.
The demon raised its head and let out an ear-splitting shriek. Hekla crouched and held her hands to her ears only to realize their tips had gone furry.
“Not now!”
She couldn’t turn now. What good was a tiny fox?
Kaippa slashed a clawed wing tip at the demon’s blunted snout. Drawing more trees into the brawl, Lucus shouted fae words that jumbled inside the cacophony of noise. Riding the dark unicorn, Coren’s face lit up with purple light as she drew her magestone back once again.
Snowflakes blurred Hekla’s view, and her body shivered, shifting into fox form.
The world was suddenly so much larger. And painted in those strange shades of pink and blue.
The demon had hated her bite before, so she’d dig into its flesh again. Or die trying.
In fox form, she was so fast. All she had to do was think Jump onto that walking tree and then she was there, high and already leaping toward the demon’s outstretched wing.
Kaippa was a blur of bright blue movement to her left as she dove toward the demon, mouth open to the cold night. Her teeth sank into the demon’s wing, and bitterness flowed across her fox tongue, the creature’s blood foul as rancid butter. The wing gripped in her jaw jerked hard, and she was thrown into the air. She slammed into one of the trees as it grabbed for the demon’s leg, and she slid to its roots. Using the tree’s forward momentum, Hekla pushed off and leapt toward the demon, sharp fox teeth bared, but she missed and rolled across the chunks of chewed up street.
“Together!” Coren shouted from the lightning-washed, purple sky. “Shout the spell together!”
Their small army had gathered and reformed their line. They held up hands that were dark with Hekla’s blood, and she felt the magic of their words, spoken now in unison, shoot through her like the magic was tugging the power from her own body.
Gasping, feeling like she was being turned inside out, her body shifted into her human form without any suggestion from her. The grit of the street bit into her bloodied palms as she pushed herself up.
The army’s spoken spell grew to an echoing chant, and the air around the demon seemed to implode.
Kaippa was thrust to the ground beside her. She blinked, trying to see through the crackling lightning. Was he alive?
30 Coren
The spell casters’ words were a song that became power, and the magic sucked all the air from the area around the demon with a sound like a massive anvil dropped on glass. A sparkling darkness engulfed Main Street, then the dazzling black threw the demon backward. Spiraling in the air, wings tangling, the wyvern soared past the first hole it had emerged from, then landed directly in front of the last building standing, Landmark Booksellers. The creature's maw hung open and its eyes narrowed to slits as smoke spun from its nostrils and a low snarl rumbled in its belly.
I jammed my heels into the unicorn and shouted to my spelled cloud, then we were dashing over the rubble alongside Lucus. Lucus’s bright ivy wings beat the cold, smoky air against my face before he veered toward the fallen beast to distract it.
The unicorn and I rushed behind the demon, and I pulled the magestone back.
But my hands shook. I would miss my shot.
Remember who you are. The Bow knows the truth. Feel the truth, the unicorn said in my mind.
The Yew Bow sang in my ears, an echo to the power in the townspeople’s casting, and the arrow sparked and smoked its way into being, a line of crackling lightning stronger than any of the magicked arrows I’d nocked yet. The heat of the arrow focused my thoughts.
“I am the Yew Queen, and I wield these weapons by right of destiny.”
I took aim at the back of the demon’s wide, scaled head, then released the lightning.
With a blast that hit my ears like ten thousand gunshots, the amethyst arrowhead exploded against the demon’s skull. Glittering flesh and white bone flew into the air as the creature dropped to the street in a sudden silence.
Lucus rose above the wyvern, his eyes, arms, and hands bright with emerald fae magic. “All hail our Yew Queen! She has defeated the monster!”
The Mage Duke hadn’t shown up to see his cursed creature die. Was he still at the castle? With the way he’d gone ashen and the wild look in his eyes, I didn’t know what to expect if we returned to the ramparts.
Those still alive and able to move came running, Hekla and Kaippa in the mix. A shout of joy went up, and I set a hand against the dark unicorn’s ebony neck.
“Thank you, friend. Without you, I couldn’t have done this.”
You could have, but you would most likely have lost a limb or two along the way.
“Well, thanks for legs and arms, then.”
On the ground again with the crowd and Lucus coming close to offer congratulations, I dismounted and held the Bow string tucked under an arm, my fingers curled around its now familiar heft. “So you’ll leave now?”
I’m waiting on one event.
Some of the crowd called out shouts of thanks while others went to tend the injured.
Hekla ran to me and hugged me so hard my back popped. She turned and grinned at the dark unicorn before taking a pumpkin muffin from her pocket. The unicorn whinnied, then, with fervor, ate the treat from Hekla’s palm.
Lucus settled beside me, the last of his wingbeats cooling my hot skin. “I told you it’s always your pumpkin muffins.”
“Don’t mansplain, Lucus.”
“Don’t what?” His bunched eyebrows were adorable.
I patted his gorgeous chest. “We can chat modern dos and don’ts later.”
“As you wish, my queen.”
Hekla and Kaippa stepped back as Lucus swept me into a rough kiss that told me exactly how afraid he’d been that we would lose and how much he feared we might still. Who knew what the Duke was up to? We had to get back to th
e castle.
“Hey,” Kaippa drawled. “Surely I can get a kiss for my work here today too?” His mouth tipped up at one side as he looked Hekla over like she was a frosted cupcake.
Hekla sniffed and crossed her arms. “You still have some amends to make, vampire.”
“Whatever you ask, it will be done.” Kaippa gave her a bow that actually appeared respectful.
“Was that the first time in your life you agreed to something without sarcasm?” I asked.
“There is a first time for everything,” Kaippa said, “or so you modern folks claim.”
Lucus glared at him. “We’re going to heal and set broken bones, vampire, and attempt to make amends for the horror we’ve caused in this place. But first…”
“It’s time we make sure the Duke isn’t a problem,” I said.
“Agreed.” He took me into his arms, and we flew over Franklin’s newest battlefield toward the cursed castle with Hekla and Kaippa not far behind.
On the ramparts, the Mage Duke stood, silent and unmoving, overlooking an array of color.
“What is that?” I twisted in Lucus’s arms to try to see.
Heaps of yellow, pink, orange, blue, and green blanketed the ground around the castle walls. The scent of lilac, rose, lily, and phlox drifted on the October breeze.
“Flowers.” Lucus set us down not five feet from the Duke, who just kept staring down at the multitude of blooms. “So you did hear my suggestion?”
“I did. And I told Kaippa to spread the word.” It was beautiful and also achingly sad. The people who hadn’t been out casting the spell with Hekla’s blood must have been busy ravaging florist shops and neighborhood yards for this bounty. I swallowed and faced the Duke. “This is in honor of Lucilla, who forgave Lucus and spoke to me during my first casting.”
The Duke’s head jerked like we’d surprised him, even though we hadn’t been stealthy on our approach. His eyes filled with silver tears, and he raised his dimpled chin. “During your first casting…”