by Laney McMann
Benny's form shifted completely, staying in my unfocused sightline, from the human girl I knew and loved, had fallen in love with so many years ago, and told no one, and into a small yellow Fairie.
Her voice, high and tight, repeated words in a chanting rhythm I didn't understand. Over and over again. The language of the Fae filled my ears, but it was too late. It was too late for all of us. We shouldn't have come. The last thing I heard was Benny's scream, as her tiny yellow form exploded in a blinding spray of white light, her broken body falling next to mine.
31
LAYLA
A scream, accompanied by the sensation of my heart being ripped, stole my breath away. As I stood just inside the gates of the Afterworld, alarm crept up my spine and heightened to an unbearable degree. A thousand memories flooded my thoughts, rushed through my brain. My life, a life I only remembered in pieces, knitted itself back together, and all the recollections, everything I'd ever known, Teine had ever known or experienced, flashed through my head. Deep blue eyes came into clear focus, pristine white wings, spread wide and proud, and Teine, as a little girl, dressed in her fine clothes—the same yellow dress I remembered from the vision I'd had—stood on the gleaming steps of Mag Mell's castle, smiling up at an angel who stood next to her.
"I will always watch over you," the angel said. "In every world, every life, even if death takes me, I will always be with you."
The words sung in my head, words I remembered from a lifetime ago, an oath said to the first me as a child, to Teine. A promise made before the King and Queen of Mag Mell.
Justice.
Oh, god.
Another memory sped through my thoughts.
"So, I’m here," Benny said from the threshold. "At your service. Whatever." She made an outlandish and sarcastic bow toward me, a large duffle bag hanging over her shoulder. "We don’t have to talk, or be friends, but I am your guardian—something I apparently can’t get out of."
Benny.
An uncontrollable urge to rush the Ancient city, mow everyone around me down, overcame me, and in that split second, the Fomorian guards went up in flames at my back, one by one, from the front of the column all the way to the end—down the mountain path. People screamed from all around, falling from the mountain ledge. Elethan shouted, not having crossed the threshold of the gate, seemingly afraid to. I turned toward the castle in the distance.
32
MAX
At my back, the Ancient city rose into the heavens. Its crumbling structures were dilapidated ruins of what I knew the kingdom was before the Crone had destroyed it all, leaving everyone dead or cursed in her wake. Silence still pressed in the same way it had when I'd come with Sam, as if the ruin had been its own tomb—all except for the one who continued to roam its desolate walls.
I was positive the Morrigan was stuck in the Afterworld, and the true Fire Born, Layla and I, were her only means of escape. A small smile touched my lips. After everything she'd done—all the lives she'd destroyed out of spite and greed—in the end, she still had to succumb to the rightful rulers of the city. Proof that although she might have been skilled at Accursed Arts, they hadn't given what she wanted most. She still had to bow to me. It was a strange sort of revenge.
In the distance, the procession eclipsed the sun momentarily as a long line of bodies crept up the side of the mountain. Underneath the mist, Layla's hair blew like a yellow fan in the stiff, cold wind, and the sight made my chest ache. Sitting in the throne on my right, the Morrigan was bedecked in what I assumed was her finery. Black stones shimmered like dark diamonds at the hollow of her throat and in her long, dark hair, and her black gown hugged her hips and chest. She held her chin high and proud. With her pale, unblemished skin, and stern, bright eyes, it was hard to believe the woman was thousands of years old.
As the Fomorian guards swam into view, nothing more than flesh colored pillars walking through the mist, my father's form also took shape a few steps behind Layla. Posture straightening, my hands gripping the arms of my throne, I sat in wait. Pristine golden robes threaded with silver draped my shoulders, fastened with a gold brooch of the Arwen against my throat, and the sword I'd had during the Battle was slung over my back. With a deep intake of breath, I remained seated, still, but my heart was likely to rip itself from my chest at any moment, or the moment Layla saw me sitting in the throne at the top of the crumbling castle next to the Crone.
"My MacCoinnich, I can hear your heart beat from here," the Morrigan chuckled. "You must relax. Remember our agreement?"
"How could I forget?" Through clenched teeth, I drew in a tight, shallow breath. "I'm sitting here am I not? At your side as you requested."
Her chuckle grew into a light laugh, white teeth gleaming behind red lips. "Let us not pretend you are here for me. It makes our arrangement seem ... unethical."
"Right. Sleeping with you to keep my girlfriend alive is completely ethical."
She laughed harder. "Ah, you mustn't think of it so. There are many tasks I demand of you that will maintain your beloved's life, you speak of only one."
The one I'm dreading the most.
"Besides, you have already been unfaithful to the girl, and of your own free will. Our arrangement should not be anything too unfamiliar for you." She rested her hand on top of mine, and I resisted the urge to yank mine away.
"You don't know anything about what happened with me and Ana." In her own twisted way, Ana cared about me, and even though I'd hated to admit it after all she'd done, I'd cared for her as well. I had no idea what had happened to her after the ground erupted during the Battle.
"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't, but I do remember how your lips felt against mine the first time you kissed me. I am sure the Vampyre felt the same."
I yanked my hand away. "Sorry?"
"Ah, you have forgotten." She grinned. "You can touch me now," she whispered, and the memory of Layla saying those exact words after she'd basically attacked me in my bedroom over a week ago, rang like an awful, sick echo in my head.
"That was you?" I swallowed hard. "You were the reason Layla didn't know what had happened between us—why her shirt was off, my shirt was off. She wasn't the one kissing me ... you were." I wanted to vomit and was suddenly on my feet. "You sick, twisted ..."
"Ah, ah. I would not keep going if I were you. I would also sit." Her head tilted toward the gates in the distance.
The procession had halted on the other side of the golden gates.
"Now we shall see how powerful the girl is. Will the Ancient city remember her?" The Morrigan lifted a brow. "Allow her entry? Or will she and all her cohorts burn where they stand? Unfit to enter? Will she remember the words?"
"Excuse me?" My focus swung back to Layla in the distance, her blonde hair the only beacon of light through the mass of bodies hovering outside the gates. "She's a true Ancient Fire Born, like I am—she'll get through."
"As I said, we shall see." The Crone's gaze remained stately, unconcerned. "This will be the first test."
"Test? You didn't say anything about any tests." I started down the crumbling steps.
"Go to her, help her enter, and I will kill her now, from here where I sit, without so much as a thought."
I halted.
"You still underestimate the power I possess, the extent of my reach. Soon you will not have your doubts."
I reluctantly sat back down, and her hand resumed its position atop mine.
"Good. We understand one another better now. These things take time. We have time. Let us watch and wait as all good rulers do." She smiled, an evil smile, her gaze centered toward the gates. "What happens now, I cannot control. If the girl is true, she will remain unharmed."
I exhaled. She is, and on the off chance she isn't, Teine definitely is.
Holding my breath, the gate squeaked, grumbled a low, grinding moan, and slowly opened.
"You see?" The Morrigan grinned. "Nothing to worry your handsome face about. And I must say again, your face, now wit
h MacCoinnich's true presence, is much more handsome indeed."
I paid no attention to her comment, trying to ignore her compliments. They made me sick.
The procession cautiously moved forward, Layla leading the charge. Without warning, the guards who began to enter the Ancient city behind her screamed, horrible shrieking sounds, their massive, wax-like bodies bursting into flames. The Morrigan laughed at my side as the screams and shouts continued throughout the column, and some toward the back rushed to the front of the caravan. The King yelled out, but the crowd was pushing its way forward, trampling those in front as though something prodded them on, The procession turned into a mob scene.
Layla stood frozen, blonde hair flying like a kite against the smoke fouling the skies overhead. The people of the Fomore castle, ones I recognized—maids and servants—the kitchen lady who reminded me of my grandmother, ordering me out of bed every morning and making me blueberry pies, ran screaming, her long slush covered robes tripping her up. The burning pillars of guardsmen raced her down, fire spitting from the heads of those who tried to flee the consuming blazes, tackling anything and everything between them and the gates.
I was halfway down the steps before the Crone yelled after me, but I didn't care what she said—only heard some of it—and that lack of knowledge didn't stop me from running to those who needed help. Those who had been nothing but good to me, a detail I had so easily forgotten, thrown away like a piece of trash when the Battle had begun. Forgetting that all those who screamed and jeered within the crowd at Battle, egging me on to kill the other Fire Born, weren't the Fomorian people's I'd gotten to know, the ones who seemed to care about me, the ones who fed me, cooked for me, and were kind to me. The ones who, by no fault of their own, had followed their King to a place they surely believed was safe, a place where they were currently running for their lives.
"Did you think the Lesser peoples could simply enter the gates of Mag Mell?" The Morrigan yelled through her raucous laughter as I made my way down the crumbling ruin and took flight over the remaining stairs. "We are the Gods here! We are the rightful ones! No one may enter the gates of the clouds, except those worthy of residing within their midst!"
I was already on the ground, unable to understand the last of her rantings, hordes of people, screaming, running in all directions down the trail. Some fell from the side of the mountain as though they weren't sure which way to escape the fires threatening them, shrieking in terror as they went. Others rushed the gates, surely believing it was the safe way, only to be engulfed by a new blaze.
Layla still stood, staring, and I wasn't sure if she was herself or Teine—the real Teine who would likely relish in the chaos, or Layla, who I knew would likely be in shock. Most of these people hated her, jeered for her death during the Battle while they cheered me on. They wanted her dead, but they were the ones dying—not by her hand, but by an invisible force standing guard, holding the 'unworthy' away from the Ancient city.
Slowly, she turned, and our gazes met, and it was as though the entire world flipped. Something inside me burned with a heat so hot it was likely to engulf my insides and leave me in ashes. Layla's eyes were still off, one green and one steel blue, but as her gaze stayed on mine, my knees went weak—I loved and missed her more than I knew until that second. She ran, rushed me. Her hair knotted in my hands as I drew her into my arms, the sweetest sounds of her voice whispering my name over and over again warming my soul. Her hands roved my body, my face, fingers trailing over my mouth, across my jaw as if she hadn't seen me in years and had forgotten the way my skin felt under her fingertips.
Teine's voice chimed inside my head, MacCoinnich's answering her, their words so sweet and sad that tears threatened to spill down my face. I realized Teine hadn't seen MacCoinnich in several lifetimes. She needed him as much as I needed Layla, and that was as much as I needed air to breathe, to control and wield, because it was a part of me. Layla was a part of me, and for the first time in my life, I understood why.
Layla continued whispering my name, saying she was sorry, her gaze searing into my own, fingers trailing the cut on my neck, her arms wrapping so tight around me, I'd likely suffocate. Glad to suffocate as long as I could keep her there, never let her go. But the fires continued blazing behind her, and I had to remind myself where we were.
The gates of Mag Mell seemed to have a mind of their own. Fire spewed from the metal like gunshots, and as much as I wanted to make the flames stop, to stop the cries and screams, the rules of the Ancient city had been set many millennia ago. I couldn't change the fate my father had led his people to—innocent or not.
At that moment, I understood the Morrigan's plan.
It was a simple one, unflawed in fact, and left her without blame. The Demon Gods would never have been able to enter a holy world, no matter how much they wished to return to a home they once knew. Layla's mother may have cursed the Fomorian race to a life in the Shadows years ago for killing her husband, the King of the Otherworld, but Elethan had chosen to remain there of his own free will. Chosen to walk among the darker things of the world. It had been his, and all of his people’s downfall, as well as their ultimate destruction.
"Justice and Benny." Layla untangled her body from around mine, but my gaze remained glued on a figure in the distance. Light grey eyes found mine through the fires and smoke, and I swore a grin tugged at my father's face. My foot lifted off the ground. I could make it to him in a second, maybe two, pull him out of the carnage, into the Ancient city. I could save him.
Just as I was about to propel myself forward, he shook his head with a sad grin, and turned back toward the fire.
"Max? Did you hear me?" Layla grabbed my hand.
My neck didn't want to move, my gaze not shifting away from my father's charcoal robes as he disappeared into the haze.
"Max! Something's happened. To Justice and Benny. We have to go!"
Alarm charged through my veins as I finally heard what Layla was saying. "What?"
"They're here." She took off running, dragging me with her. "Somewhere. Something's wrong."
"Layla, no—" The words had barely left my mouth. A dark, svelte figure, made of shadows and mist, a ghost of herself, materialized on the ground in front of us.
The Crone's form blurred from semi-transparent, to solid and back again, flitting between the two before her shape held, flesh and bone replacing shadows. A twisted grin warped her marble face.
Layla dropped at my feet without a sound. Her head slammed against my boot with a sickening thwack, spraying blood on the ground. Livid crimson trailed from the corner of her mouth, eyes rolled up into her head.
I screamed.
The sound shook the very foundation of the Ancient city, reverberating through the hollowed castle down the crumbling town streets, spinning in a vortex of raw, pure energy. It grew into a wind that continued to build—a deep, dark part of me fueling my power, doubling it into something that I knew would rip Mag Mell to shreds, leaving nothing behind. Lightning struck overhead, thunder clapped through the whistling wind. Bricks, pieces of mortar, and debris tore through the sky, striking my face and arms and leaving jagged cuts.
"I told you to stay where you were, MacCoinnich." The Crone grinned, seeming unfazed, as my open hands rose into the air, the charge feeding through my body, through every cell, trembling my body where I stood. "But thank you for reuniting the true Twin Souls to their home and to me. My body is now returned, renewed. An unfortunate turn of fate occurred when I cursed your souls. It left me but a shell. Now I am once again whole."
She drew in a deep breath, seeming to relish the air in her lungs, and lifted her head to the sky. As though she was pulling them together and toward her through sheer force of will, two moons aligned overhead in the heavens. One full moon shone white against the darkness on the Eastern horizon while a Black moon gleamed against the Western daylight. The seam of a two-toned sky ran directly above my head.
The Morrigan's dark eyes closed, her arm
s raised, head tilted back, while debris slashed across her transformed flesh. "Look at the power we create! The heavens come to us, speak to us. We are the true Gods here. We will rule all those below us! As is our right!" Her eyes opened and she gazed toward me, a seductive grin gracing her face. "You and I—we are the true Fire Born."
My eyes shifted toward Layla's body. She stirred, and whispers so faint I could barely make them out seeped into my thoughts. MacCoinnich's presence rose from within me again, wielding more strength and power than anything I possessed on my own, and words spilled from my mouth, "From the ashes of old. They shall rise. The last of the Ancients. Foe and Ally." I returned her grin.
She smiled.
"The Legend lies in wait. And bides its time. Until at last the day comes. For the children born of fire.” Repeating the words I'd learned as a young boy, I never truly understood what they meant until that moment.
The Morrigan's grin grew, spots of crimson tainting her perfectly unflawed skin, her head tilted back toward the skies, as if reveling in the swirling debris and chaos surrounding us.
The heavy sword slung across my back left its scabbard, the familiar sound of steel touching my ears as I clenched the hilt in my fist. Breaths heaving, the tang of metal and salt coated my mouth, blood collecting on my tongue. "Upon the twenty-ninth day of the seventh month, the black moon shall rise, and the ashes must fall, as the White Raven flies."
The Morrigan's eyes widened, her head turned, and she refocused toward me, her mouth slack.
MacCoinnich's strength, combined with my own, sang through my veins with a fierce hum, feeding me knowledge, reminding me of all that had been lost upon his death. "You know the words," I said to her. "They're in the book you needed—my book. The book I saw Agrona give you on the steps of the castle." I'd read and memorized the passage only days before when the book had appeared in my room, knowing it was there for a reason—I just hadn't known why. Until now.
She narrowed her eyes, jaw tightening.