The weather was icy, as the beginnings of winter started to settle on the city. The wind bit deeply through my thick coat, and I cast a sympathetic glance over the poor souls who'd scored guard duty overnight, high on the battlements or patrolling the streets.
Walking along the cobblestones, I dug my hands deeper into my pockets, wishing I'd thought to pick up gloves. Gran's words and the spirits' advice tossed endlessly in my mind, churning up and down like clothes in a washing machine, thoughts working their way to the top of the barrel, then sinking down as another item took the first one's place.
Gran's message meant something. I'd considered the analogy of the cake for hours now, but didn't seem any closer to solving it. I was certain it was another cryptic clue. It was so unusual to hear from Gran, and I could only trust the message was important. The spirits remained stubbornly quiet on the matter, obviously gagged by Nememiah's new rules. Epi's words, for reasons I couldn't fathom, also haunted me.
We all play to our strengths.
Was I playing to my strengths? Was I using every facet of my abilities to win this war?
I suspected the answer was no. Overwhelmed with fear of Archangelo, learning to cope with the Fae magic, the days when I thought I'd lost Patrick forever… everything was working against gaining my feet in these new circumstances. Too much had happened, too many things had gone wrong, so many events had taken place, never giving me time to breathe. And now I was flailing, trying to figure out my place in this new reality.
“You need a plan, love,” Lucas' voice resonated. “You need to take advantage of all of your strengths, not just some of them.”
“You need to fix the recipe,” Gran added, her voice a gentle murmur.
I walked in silence for a few minutes more, trying to figure out exactly what it was they were trying to tell me. Turning up an alleyway, I decided to visit the mess. A hot chocolate would be nice, and maybe something to eat, as I'd skipped dinner. The streets were silent save for the patrolling guards, and Phelan and Keenan walked a few steps behind, leaving me to ponder in peace.
Reaching the central courtyard, I turned right, walking along the path past the hospital, and striding towards the mess. Stepping up to the doorway, I almost stood on a small black object which lay on the mat. With a frown, I bent over to retrieve it, and realized it was a cell phone. Someone must have dropped it. Turning the cell over, I was startled to discover it was mine.
Staring at the phone, I tried to figure out how it had gotten here. The last time I'd seen it was months ago, before I'd been taken to the Realm. Thanks to Nememiah, cell phones could be used in the city, but I had no need for one because everyone I knew was always with me. Who needed to call, when you lived with all your family, all your friends, and everyone you'd ever loved inside your head?
I was about to shove the cell into my pocket but I hesitated, staring at it again. It must be here for a reason. I couldn't shake the thought that I was supposed to find my phone, here and now. I turned it over in my fingers, pressing the button to power it up, but the battery was dead.
Memories of when Lucas gave me the cell flooded my mind. He'd been so concerned about my security. Tipping the phone upside down, I recalled how he'd had it fitted out as a Taser, to keep me safe when I'd gone into town on my own.
I brushed my fingers over the metal buttons on the bottom of the phone, recalling his instructions on how to operate the Taser. Flat as it was, the phone could do nothing to help me now, but gut instincts told me I'd found it here for a reason. When I'd been in Sarbon, Lucas had brought his ring to me, tried to trigger memories locked away in my mind. I suspected that he and the other spirits had placed this cell here, for the same reasons. It meant something – something important.
Gran's words echoed in my mind again, warning me if the recipe didn't work, it needed to be changed.
Hurrying inside, I asked the lady at the counter for a hot chocolate, something to eat and a notepad and pen.
I needed to figure this out.
≈†◊◊†◊◊†◊◊†≈
I was ploughing through a second plate of bacon, eggs, and hash browns when Conal and Ben caught up with me the following morning. Sitting in a corner, I'd written copious notes and my forehead was creased in a perpetual frown as I scribbled more thoughts onto paper.
Conal settled on a chair to my left, Ben to my right. Conal handed over Patrick and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Couldn't sleep, Sugar?”
I shook my head, settling Patrick in the crook of my arm, and scrawling another couple of words onto the sheet of paper in front of me.
“What's going on?” Ben asked, surveying the pages curiously. He picked up one sheet and glanced through what I'd written. “I'm assuming you've received some guidance during the night?”
I took a sip of my now-cold coffee, screwed up my nose and dropped the half-full cup back onto the table. “Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?” Conal asked.
I stretched my neck from one side to the other, working out the kinks which had built up during the past few hours. “I'm been thinking about everything I've learned. Some things I can do, I've only ever used once or twice, and then I've forgotten about using them again… or haven't thought about it. I'm trying to create a list of all the things I can do, get them written down. Work out what abilities I have that might come in handy.”
“Such as creating an earthquake with a sigil?” Ben asked, scanning the list in his hand.
I nodded. “I think it's got something to do with what we're facing. My grandmother has been trying to get me to understand a message, and we know the spirits are doing what they can to offer clues. I need to learn how to interpret the information the spirits give us, and use it to our best advantage.”
“What did your grandmother tell you?” Ben questioned.
I repeated Gran's story, and Ben nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps it's a clue that we are to go about this in a different manner.” He leaned forward and picked up the cell phone I'd discarded. “Who did you call?” he asked.
“I didn't. I found it by the door when I came to the mess last night.
“Another clue?” Conal asked.
“I think so. When Lucas was trying to reach me when I was in Tamekeel, he brought my ring to me, used it to try and reach into my lost memories. I suspect this is meant to help us somehow.”
Conal scanned one of the sheets of paper, and he lifted an eyebrow. “You've listed painting as one of your abilities?”
I smiled wryly, a blush coloring my cheeks. “Well, it is an ability. Gran said I've got to go about things in a different way… I think maybe it isn't just my angel abilities we need to use. Perhaps it's the combination of being part human, part supernatural and part magically-enhanced-by-Fae which will win the war.”
“Hmmm.” Ben studied the cell phone. “Perhaps we should also consider the fact that Archangelo is also a hybrid. He's not fully vampire, nor is he fully angel. There may be something there we can use to our advantage.”
I lifted my gaze sharply to meet Ben's dark eyes and he offered me an encouraging smile.
Conal spoke. “Ben's right. There could be something we haven't thought of before now. We should take all your notes, gather the team, and see what we can figure out from your latest crazy combination of clues. The last ones led us in a direction we would never have considered – this might be the same situation.”
≈†◊◊†◊◊†◊◊†≈
“There.” With that one small word, I completed the task I'd set myself first thing this morning. I stood back to survey my handiwork, pleased with the result.
Zaen had become an island. Using the earthquake sigil, I'd created one minor tremor after another, until a deep, ragged chasm some thirty feet wide surrounded the city. While Enlil had been injured when William shot at him with the composite-covered bullets, he hadn't been killed, and we expected a repeat attack – or worse – an attack from Archangelo and Bran at any moment.
In th
e quest to come up with an alternative 'recipe', we'd undertaken a great many changes to our strategies. With the help of the other leaders, we'd taken all the notes, every list I'd created, and decided on new ways to approach our battle for survival. This was one of them.
I turned to Epi, who stood in a circle of people around the giant chasm I'd created. “It's over to you, now,” I announced.
Epi lifted the loudspeaker he'd been holding and shouted orders to the others in the circle surrounding the chasm. The forty-seven witches and wizards of our group began to chant together, their words incomprehensible to my ears. To my utter delight, the chasm began to fill with water, exactly as the Cal-Tech boffins had predicted it would.
Inside Zaen's walls, our people prepared, readying themselves for the fight we were about to take on. This time, we would take the fight to the Drâghici and not the other way around. This time, we would be the aggressors.
Conal reached my side, watching as the wide chasm became a moat, rapidly filling with water. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and wrapped his arm around my waist. “Looking good, Sugar.”
“I just hope Keenan and the others got word to the Fae in the Realm.” With refugees arriving every hour, the prospect of marking them out here on the grounds outside the city was problematic, not least because we could be attacked without warning. Keenan had gone into the Realm with an entire battalion of Fae spirits, to spread word that the war was nearing an end, along with Aethelwine's reign.
In conjunction with their forays into the cities and villages, the Red Cap spirits I'd received from Dwarblrl'g Whetstone had been sent on their own mission – to reach the Red Cap city of Karng'dg and beg the King to join us in battle.
Word of Aethelwine's worsening behavior filtered to us daily from the refugees; her treatment of anyone she suspected of being in league with us was brutal, and she was descending into a madness she wouldn't come back from. Always unstable, it appeared the break from Archangelo and Bran, and knowing her hold on the Fae throne was inevitably going to be stripped from her fingers, had seen the Usurper Queen descend into insanity. Stories abounded from refugees pouring into Zaen – hundreds of Fae were being slaughtered, dozens more going into hiding until they could find a way to escape the Realm and join us. The things I'd heard I'd likely never forget, but everyone who could was escaping and joining us at Zaen. And now, with this moat in place, not only was the city safer, but the Fae who were travelling to us could create rifts and reach the ground on the other side of the moat, allowing them to be marked to enter the city without the added risk of attack.
From the reports we were receiving, there had been a decisive split between Aethelwine and the Drâghici; and Archangelo and Bran. Nobody seemed to know Archangelo and Bran's location, but rumors suggested Archangelo was creating a vast army of his own, made up of thousands of demons he was bringing through from the other world, and adding to a substantial army of the undead he created with Bran's black magic. Where I had contact with the spirits of the good and the just, Archangelo had started to animate hundreds, and thousands of malevolent spirits. Unfortunately, none of us knew exactly how big his army was, nor when they would be ready to attack. And consequently, we had people desperately trying to locate Archangelo and Bran's camp, in the hope of gathering intelligence about what they were up to.
Tensions remained high, although a fresh burst of energy had spread throughout Zaen's streets as we worked on new ways of counteracting the problems we faced. The fear and anxiety which had crippled everyone was still there, but its effects were muted by working towards a destiny of our own creation. For the first time since I'd returned, a little wellspring had erupted in the city's soul; a tiny bubble of hope which grew with each passing hour, as we grasped what we did have and tried to make it work for us.
The spirits worked in tandem with me. Although unable to do what they'd done before, I was quickly learning to work with what they could offer. And although I still feared what would happen next, and was terrified of meeting up with Archangelo again, I'd grown fatalistic. Whatever was going to be, would be, and there was nothing I could do to change that. I could only work with what we had.
We'd changed the recipe.
Chapter 42: The Middle of the End
I'd barely dropped into an exhausted sleep when Keenan's voice erupted in my head, sounding incredibly agitated. “Charlotte, you must wake up!”
I pushed against Conal's chest, wrenching out of his arms, and disturbing his sound sleep. He raised himself on his elbows, searching the darkened room for danger. “What the hell is it?” he demanded in a low voice, turning on the bedside lamp.
Patrick stirred when the light went on, stretching his little arms above his head before relaxing back onto the mattress, and he blinked sleepily once or twice before he settled back to sleep, his pouted lips sucking at an imaginary bottle.
I listened to Keenan's urgent warnings. “Charlotte, the Fae are going to be attacked. Archangelo and Bran are amassing their army outside the city of Pelathrad—”
His words stopped abruptly, as if he'd been struck mute, but I could guess what had happened. Keenan had broken the covenants set by Nememiah, and in doing so, he'd been banished. In his efforts to support his remaining daughter, he'd risked everything to seek our help.
“Damn you,” I muttered under my breath, even as I hurriedly leapt off the bed to throw on some clothes. “Sound the alarm,” I told Conal. “Bran and Archangelo are going to attack Pelathrad. We need to help them.”
Conal took a moment longer to react than I'd anticipated. In the pregnant silence, I turned to him and he lowered his gaze sheepishly, brushing his fingers through his hair. “We have no real proof the Fae will support us,” he admitted quietly. It was a subject we'd discussed at length before we fell asleep, Conal voicing concerns about whether the Fae would keep to their word.
“Keenan just got himself banished to tell me about the attack,” I argued, pulling on pants, and yanking a t-shirt over my head. “I doubt he'd have risked it, if this wasn't what needs to happen.” I stopped my frantic movements, settling on the bed beside Conal and pressing a deep kiss to his lips. I gazed deeply into my life mate's eyes, willing him to believe me. “I know this is what we have to do. Sound the alarm. We're going to Pelathrad.”
Conal gazed up at me, his dark eyes searching mine. “You're sure about this?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. Keenan was specific.”
“And he's really gone?”
I nodded again, struggling to hold back tears. Keenan had been such an incredible support over the past few months, and his bravery, his strength and his help would be deeply missed, but I knew he was gone – I could sense it deep in my heart.
Relief coursed through my veins when Conal nodded, getting to his feet. “Okay, if that's what we need to do, let's get going. I trust you, Charlotte. I always have and I always will.”
≈†◊◊†◊◊†◊◊†≈
The twin suns of the Realm were casting hazy golden light over the mountains surrounding Pelathrad when Conal and I stepped through the portal a few hours later and the newly-crowned Queen of the Realm curtsied gracefully. Always a stunning woman, Arasinya was dressed as a Queen should be, her gown of sky blue silk decorated with dozens of precious stones, and her silvery white hair weaved into an elaborately arranged style. Dozens of silver earrings travelled the length of her pointed ears, and she wore an exquisite silver and platinum ring with a sparkling purple gem signifying her role as leader of all Fae. Goren stood at her side, his usual leather tunic and pants embellished with a gold braided sash which hung from his left shoulder and draped down over his right hip.
I offered her a poorly-executed curtsey and straightened, waiting to see how Arasinya would respond to our sudden arrival. Other portals opened around us, and our people poured through them, marked with sigils and ready to support Arasinya and the Fae in this battle against Archangelo.
Arasinya's eyes widened as the realization dawned that w
e'd come to her aid, and relief flashed in her turquoise eyes. “How did you…” Her words trailed off and understanding crossed her features. “Father warned you.”
I nodded and she stepped forward, wrapping me in a warm embrace. I was silent, not wanting to tell her about Keenan but when she stepped back, she must have seen the grief in my eyes, because she stumbled a little and I reached out to steady her.
“He's gone, Arasinya. He's lost to us forever. He broke Nememiah's rules by telling me about Archangelo and Bran's plans.”
For a long moment, Arasinya was silent, her gaze distant as she struggled to control her emotions. She visibly settled before she spoke, reverting to her calm assurance. “He was lost to me before. I must consider that I was fortunate indeed to have gained those extra months with him, when you gave him back to me however briefly.”
“It is for the best, my Queen,” Goren said quietly. “We will need all the help we can get against the vampire hybrid and Bran.”
“They haven't attacked yet?” I asked. Epi appeared from one of the portals and hurried to catch up with us, while Conal took up a position beside me, my ever-present guardian. Nissa strode along beside him, dressed for battle, and carrying both a sword and her trusted knife. From another portal, Matt stepped out with a dozen men, carrying human weapons – rocket launchers, sniper rifles, machine guns. He caught my eye and winked.
“No, but I am concerned about the numbers we're facing,” Goren said. “According to our captains, we lost twenty five percent of our armies in the last battle.” His attention was distracted for a moment by something to our left. “If you'll excuse me, there is much I must attend to.” With a deep bow, Goren turned and ran towards where a group of Fae were preparing horses, the animals' bodies being covered in heavy leather armor. All around us, hundreds of Fae of all races were working in the courtyard outside the castle, keeping up a frantic pace. To our right, circled around a roaring fire, Gnomes worked at honing swords. Near the gates, a group of Elves were stringing bows and stacking them in a huge pile by the keep. Near the entrance to the stables, hundreds of tiny Demi-Fae worked, filling quivers with brightly feathered arrows produced by a small army of Brownies. Overhead, dragons soared with their wings outstretched, their Pixie riders working in unison with their mounts to practice sweeping maneuvers along the side of the mountains.
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