by Laney McMann
King Elethan chuckled. The 'fans' began infiltrating the lower rows of seats, leaning against the barbed wire fence, pushing it in toward the arena, threatening to collapse it. Maybe they were a threat after all.
"Let's not be too hasty attacking anyone, Samuel." The King walked down the stands, coming into full view. "The Demon Gods need my son." His head inclined toward me. "But you." He shrugged. "I can destroy the Otherworld, free the Morrigan, and release all the angels of their curse by killing you. You didn't believe you had a chance when you came here, I hope? I thought my letter made it quite clear. The Battle was simply a means to get you into my grasp. MacKenzie knew, as well—you do not need to continue lying to the girl, Son. We can tell her the truth."
What? I glared at Max. He didn't move any closer to me, or look in my direction, but his voice chimed in my thoughts.
"He's lying to you, Layla. Don't listen to him."
"You can kill her, Samuel," the King continued.
Sam glanced toward Max, and there was pain in his deep blue eyes. "I'm sorry." He stepped forward, toward me—all the angels inched closer. Max took up position in front of me. The fire in my veins heated to boiling. The taunts in my head screamed. Vortexes formed at my back, hard, stiff wind blowing sand and slush everywhere—and Benny stepped from the blustery snow, her white-blonde hair twisting into a mass around her head.
Sam's eyes widened in what I took as horror, and all the angels stopped. Tristan landed on my left, nothing but a blur striding out of the vortex. He came to stand next to Benny. Justice's monstrous, gargoyle form, swords strapped across his back, stepped out last. I had no idea how he'd made it out of the Fomore guard's hold, but an immense sense of relief fed through my veins. The voices in my thoughts stopped as he took up stance directly in front of me, separating me from Max. Justice's hand gripped a sword at his hip, and he winked over his shoulder at me. A low rumbling crept out of Max's throat.
"Oh, shut up." Justice squared his shoulders and faced Sam. "You really want to do this?"
Sam's expression darkened, and he didn't answer. Instead his gaze swept toward Tristan, laden down with his own variety of armor. The dark circles that once stained the wells underneath his eyes were gone. He stood tall and proud, no crutches. Sam tilted his head, gaze shifting up and down Tristan's body. "Thought you were dead."
"Don't think so much." Tristan smirked. "Just look how far it's gotten you."
Sam lifted an eyebrow. Nothing about his stature assured me that he wanted to attack any of us, instead it was the exact opposite.
"Might want to rethink your plan," Max said, and he nodded toward me.
The earth split in a circular fashion all along the arena, stopping the crowd from attempting to break the barrier surrounding the stands as the fissures snaked out. Fiery plumes of lava and smoke gushed upward. I might have wanted to strangle Max, but I wouldn't let anyone else hurt him.
"Layla's not big on threats." Max shrugged. "And she's a little hard to control when she gets mad."
"So am I." Benny stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with me. "I'm Layla's sworn guardian. You'll have to come through me to get to her." She crossed her arms over her chest, and a sinister stare set her features as she glared at Sam. "I trusted you." Her form blurred and shifted between the Benny I'd known all my life and hundreds of other forms I'd never seen. Fairies in all shapes and sizes—a troll, a dragon, a gargoyle, a dwarf, a chimera. She kept shifting.
Sam glanced toward the stadium and back. "I'm not fighting you, Benny." He gazed at the ground. "I ... this isn't our fight."
Laughter erupted from the depth of my soul again, spilling from my throat and mouth. Eyes rolled upward into my head, knees weakening, and the dagger that had fallen from my hand was again gripped in my fist. A quick flash of steel glittered under the grey skies.
Justice shouted. Max swerved to the side, but the blade had already left my hand of its own will. Like an angry wasp, it tracked Max’s movements. It sliced across his throat, spraying blood over his face. Scarlet splashed down his clothes and spattered the snowy patch of land under his feet .
The crowd screamed. Max's eyes widened, mouth opened. His hand went to the gash on his throat, and he staggered back, blood seeping between his fingers.
"I warned you, my love," Teine said in my thoughts as the knife flew back to my hand like a trained attack dog. "Now give me my MacCoinnich back."
Max dropped to his knees. The sword fell from his grasp.
Crowds of people pushed against the barbed wire fencing containing them, muscling through it, over it, running down on the pitch, through the flames and leaping over the gaping fissures, toward where I stood—me, but not me, staring at Max lying in a pool of blood on the ground.
I tried to move toward him, but my legs refused to obey. Instead, my arm lifted without volition and fire erupted from my palm, washing the people running down the stands—who were trying to free themselves of the barbed wire fences—in a blaze of orange. Visions crashed in my thoughts. I had to be dreaming, hallucinating again. Nothing was making any sense. I did that to Max? My hand?
No, Teine's hand. She did that. The dagger did that. Just like it sliced me. Same way, same spot on my neck. Justice told me to do it, to attack Max with the Demon blade. It's his fault. I glared at him, standing, staring, doing nothing. Why wasn't anyone doing anything? He wanted me to even the score. Justice did. To maintain balance, but ... that was before. Before he knew Max wasn't one of the Shadows, before he was positive he wasn't, and besides, I'd just left the woods with Justice minutes ago. Only minutes ago. Right?
Why are we here?
I glanced at the dagger in my hand, smeared in Max's blood, doing nothing but staring while he lay on the ground. Not moving. Bleeding by my own hand. No, Teine's hand, not mine. Never, ever mine. He needs help. Move!
The blaze continued to feed through the stands, across the pitch, one canon blast after another. Embers cascaded across my one unbloody hand. Screams cut over the devastation. I'd done that, too. Thrown fire at innocent people. Crazy, but still innocent. The brand on the side of my neck moved, squirming and rotating on my throat. The two voices in my head continued laughing, but I still hadn't moved, no one had, and my legs wouldn't work. How long has it been? Seconds? Minutes? Why isn't anyone doing anything?
Agrona's voice chimed in my thoughts, reminding me that I must behave as a Queen would. How can I if I can't move my legs? My focus shifted toward the angels, frozen and staring like everyone else around me—as if we'd all been thrown into a trance, and time had stopped. I glanced at Justice, Benny, Tristan, all motionless, and back to Max's body.
The Coat of Arms writhed on his throat, the mismatch of spears converging into a single point. Green vines climbed across his jaw and over his arms and hands. The caw of crows screamed above, black wings crowding the sky, and the voices from before rattled in my head again, arguing, shrieking at each other, but I still stood, not moving, not understanding what they were saying, what was happening.
Fire blazed, black smoke choked me. Shouts called out from the stands, but I couldn't make them out, didn't care to. The bloody dagger dropped from my hand, and heat spread through my body with too much speed, too much force. As if my skin was pulled too tight over my bones, too thin. The vines climbing my own body, feathers tipped in blood, multiplied and spread like a second skin. Max shifted his weight on the ground, the smallest of movements, and underneath him, the snow was tainted red—all of his color washed white.
Oh, god, what have I done? I forced myself to move, one unsteady foot after the other, made the screams in my head stop, blocked the voices out and all the chaos around me, the caws overhead and the fire destroying the stands. I rushed to him.
"Max." Hands touched the freezing earth on either side of his head, a shudder rolled through my body, and the ground exploded underneath us.
19
LAYLA
The force of the eruption threw me backward. Ash and dust infiltr
ated my eyes, smoke filled the arena. Moans cried out, yells for help. I lay on my back, the breath knocked free of my lungs. The ground rumbled again, and I scrambled to my hands and knees, crawling through the scorching wreckage, bits of broken stadium seating and metal railings smoldering, burning my hands. Bodies, broken and twisted, lay throughout the ruin—angels I recognized from REBELLION, gargoyle wings, ripped, skin charred, eyes wide and blank. I didn't see Max anywhere.
Oh, god, no.
Someone screamed my name from somewhere in the haze of smoke. Justice.
Pushing to my feet, I ran toward the sound of his voice, tripping through the destruction, searching—afraid to yell his name and alert anyone to my location.
What am I doing? "Max!" I skidded to a stop and ran in the opposite direction, the place I must have been when the ground exploded. "Max!" I struggled to see, blinded by smoke. "Where are you?" Tears fell down my face. "Max!"
Justice yelled my name again, closer, but I didn't respond. The angels could be anywhere, listening, looking for me. "Max!"
"He cannot hear you," the Morrigan chimed in my head. "I told you I would win. One will kill the other, stupid, weak girl."
"Shut. Up!" I ran faster, hit something, and fell face first in the dirt.
Laughter infiltrated my brain. "Weak, weak girl."
Something moved beneath me. A svelte figure came into blurry view, legs sprawled out in an awkward bend under a broken body. Her face was ashen, scorch marks burned down her arms and legs, and the side of her neck.
"Ana?" Hating her or not, whatever she'd done, I couldn't bear the sight of her dying at my feet. I touched her cheek, felt for a pulse at the base of her neck, wondering if Vampyre Fae even had a pulse.
Her hand grabbed mine and squeezed. "He didn't ..." she breathed, choking on a weak cough.
"Don't talk. You'll be okay." I tried to cradle her up, get her off the charred, hot ground, but her right side was burned badly, and she screamed.
"Cursed fire." Her voice was so weak I almost didn't hear her. "Kills us." She gripped my hand harder. "He didn't ... do anything. He didn't."
"Who?"
She shook her head slowly, dirty snow caking her shiny gold hair, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. "I tricked ... him. He's good. Always ... good. I hated ... that." She grinned a little, and her teeth were red, covered in blood. Her hand went slack on my arm.
"Ana?" Tears welled up. I couldn't stop them.
"He didn't ... do it. Tell him. He ... didn't." Her eyes rolled, and she sputtered a cough, more blood bubbling from her mouth. "Loves ... you. Always ... you. Hated that ... too." Her head fell to the side.
"Ana." Fires scorched everything in sight, consuming the arena, the stands, black smoke blocking out the grey sky. "Ana."
"Layla!" Heat drained from my face at the sound of Benny's labored scream.
I sprung to my feet and took off in the direction of her voice. Her hand rose beside me a few yards through the haze. I grabbed it, and Benny yanked me down on the ground beside her, hard. Blood seeped from her forehead, and her body was draped over Sam, dead at her side.
I let out a stifled cry.
"Sam ... he's," she choked, shock setting in her staring, fixed eyes. "He's okay." Her voice shook in her throat. "He is ... he'll be—he'll be okay." She tried to straighten his tattered shirt, twisted around his charred torso. "We just need to get him ... home." She nodded. "That's all." Tears flooded her face, her hands trembling so bad I thought she might faint.
"Benny ..." I touched her shoulder, and she flinched as if I'd electrocuted her.
"He's okay, Layla. He is. He—" She sniffed and cleared her throat on another stifled sob as she scooped her unsteady hands beneath his lifeless body. "He was just trying to do the right thing, that's all." She nodded to herself. "He wanted us to be together, and I ... I said no. After he found me ... in the castle, I said no, because ..." She managed to get him into her arms. "I ... I couldn't tell him yes. I wanted to, but ... I couldn't, because I ..." She shook her head. "He's okay, Layla."
"Benny ..."
"No! He's fine!" She clutched him harder, and his arm fell with a thud against the ground. "He's fine! He is! He is!" Choking, she sobbed as she pulled his body against hers. "He has to be!"
"Layla, thank god." Breathless, Justice appeared through the clouds of smoke. Cries grew louder around us. "Oh, god." Justice's eyes zoned in on Sam, and he swayed, his body moving like he’d been struck.
"He's fine!" Benny's face crumpled. "Stop looking at him like that!"
"Benny ..." Justice's voice remained even, which I was thankful for because I'd lost my ability to speak. "We need to get Sam out of here. Everything is burning. Tristan will help you. I have to stay with Layla." He crouched down beside her. "Let me help." She nodded with a jerk of her head. "Tris!"
Tristan was already there, staring down at the person who used to be his leader and his friend. "Ben ..." His voice cracked as he held his hand out, his eyes not shifting from Sam's body. "Hold my hand and we'll spin out. Can you do that? Hang onto me?"
Benny cried harder, nodding, as Tristan crouched down beside her and wrapped his arms around her. Her breaths staggered in and out, and she let go of Sam and clung to Tristan, bawling.
He made eye contact with me. "Grandma Mac's. Meet us there. Understand?"
"Yeah." My voice barely came out. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Sam. "But not without Max."
Justice turned on his heel, facing me and the billowing wall of smoke surrounding us. "No one's found him yet?"
My heart dropped.
Screams still tore through the field. Fomorian people ran in all directions, fleeing the fires. Justice tapped Tristan on the shoulder, and a quick buzzing sound hit my ears as Tristan nodded and spun out with Benny and Sam. A familiar cackle rang like a chorus around me.
"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Elethan's form manifested out of the black haze, dark robes swaying around him, untouched by the blaze. "I am not so easy to elude. And I plan to ensure that my sweet friend, the Morrigan, has her day."
Sweet ... friend? I backed up a step, and Justice stood in front of me, each hand gripping a sword slung from his hips.
"Don't come any closer, or I'll drop you." Justice grinned, a devilish smile that warped his already monstrous face.
"Ah, the alliance of angels. So loyal if you find the right one. Sort of like a dog, really." Elethan kept his distance a few feet away. "You do not wish for freedom, Fallen one? To be freed of your bonds?" He tilted his head, and his eyes were identical to Max's, light, crystal grey. I wanted to vomit. "It would be such a simple thing if you would align with us. All the angels have. They see it is their only choice. The Morrigan alone may set you free, not the girl you protect. She only keeps you trapped within that horrible guise. Is it painful for you, I wonder?"
Justice's knuckles whitened, gripping the sword hilts. "She's worth every ounce of pain this form might cause me. You trying to convince me otherwise will only get your head dropped on the ground faster. Might want to shut your mouth."
The King laughed. "I admire your tenacity. I do. An avenging angel, one might say." His focus swung toward me. "But the girl you protect, you shield her for the wrong reasons. You do not see her true nature, as I do." He grinned, and laughter erupted in my head, a cackling raucousness that didn't stop. "I see it—everyone sees it—the anger that resides in you." The King's gaze penetrated mine. "The blood that sustains you is a ... darker variety. Our people have intermingled for centuries. Why—you and I might actually be related." He laughed.
"Shut up." Justice took a step forward.
"The darkness within you is of my world. This world." The King raised his arms, gesturing toward the ruin surrounding us and his people that no one seemed to care about or want to help. "The Realm of Shadows is where the niece of the War Goddess belongs. You are one of us. The true Goddess of the Fire."
"Shut. Up." Justice's hands were white, alm
ost translucent where he gripped the swords.
"You weren't born of this world," I said, eyeing the King. "You chose it. Your people were decent once. Lesser Gods of the Ancients. You chose the Shadows."
"Now, now, we chose to stay among the darker things of these Realms, but your mother, your former Queen, cursed my people to the Shadows. Perhaps your blame is misplaced." He lifted a brow.
"My mother cursed you because you killed my father."
He shrugged as if it were nothing but an oversight.
"Look at your people now," I said. "Your guards. What are they? What have you done to them? Turned them into mindless slaves? Doing your bidding? That's what it looks like. I'm not one of you." I stared at him, not giving a damn about anything else he might say. I wanted to find Max. Nothing else mattered.
Even still, heat was crawling through my veins like worms, feathers itching across my shoulder blades, my neck, and I knew at any moment I would snap. I knew that the ability inside me, Teine, or the Morrigan, or just my true self—the ability to turn into something evil—proved he was right about me. I'd always known. With or without my split soul or insane great, great aunt, I'd always known something dark lurked inside of me. It was never Max who belonged among the Shadows of the Realms—it was me. It had always been me.
"MacKenzie was never strong enough to truly become one of us," the King said, with a smug grin as if he'd heard my thoughts. "This I have always known. So have you. His love for you is his weakness. You are the one I need. And I knew you would come, I only needed to persuade you a bit. Join us, and I will give you everything you want—anything. The freedom of your people, their safety. I will give you your love, MacKenzie." From the black haze, Fomorian guards stepped forward, a united front, setting up a protective wall on either side of the King. The remaining angels lined up as well, ravaged and burned, and although Elethan may have wanted me alive, I knew the angels didn't. I wondered how some of them were still standing, much less living, after the ground had erupted. "It is your choice." The King bowed his head.