Shadow Queen

by Cyndi Goodgame

  The sword was above my head gleaming like a sun with a shimmer from the spotlight but away from Szar. Calum’s cursed yelled echoed above me as the same slow motion I saw before in my head told me he was about to kill Lee all over again and this time it would be my Calum. My Calum.

  All I could think was, the mother wasn’t lying.

  The sword entered his body just below his abdomen where his ribs meet his side. Hope kindled in me a second thinking maybe he deterred it, but the blood told me otherwise. Feeling my panicky wisps of air surround my thinking skills, I closed my eyes just long enough to breath out. He was going to die. My next thought was, Who next?

  Borgon cursed the repeat of someone else throwing their body in to save mine.

  Without a care to where the dang sword of death was now, I dropped my only knife and grabbed Calum’s weight knowing I would land pinned under his legs. I didn’t forget that I can’t hold this Hunter up, I just didn’t want him being hit again. He fell with a thud and me with it. Borgon was above us ready to strike again like a python to it’s surrendered victim. Seeing the craftsmanship of the famous Godslayer just above me, I shouldn’t have been thinking how the beauty of a weapon guides the lucky owner to the drive it is sends into its target. But that’s what my mind did. Calum’s screams weren’t of pain, just rage. He wasn’t moving off of me and he wasn’t trying to stand. I strained to lift each of his hundred pound legs, but it was a no go. He was bleeding and moving more on top of me than before.

  From my stupor I feel the electricity build. It’s a building strength that is painful and downright awful to witness. It made me feel weak. But the second my skin crackled in my brain with the sound of it, I knew what had to be done. I could win this. I could save Calum.

  I searched for Cord without my eyes. What I mean was, I found him with my head.

  Cas. I need Cord NOW.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  The unexpected.

  On the ground he sloped into a freefall position. Borgon was laughing and making a stupid speech about his day of infamy and hardly spared that Cord fell prostrate parallel to me to get to my face.

  Calum gurgled spewing blood from his mouth. He was yelling that he loved me and that his death was meant to be. I screamed at him to shut up.

  “Cut me and grab hold,” I thrust out my hand. “You have to save him.”

  His face snarled up with his Were teeth pushing through, but his reaction was quicker than the python’s incongruous aim and fail to strike. He wasn’t the Scorpion meant to strike him down. Instead he was his savior.

  All at once, I saw three things.

  Cord’s half turned to his animal form face healed before my eyes. Every new cut and slash just shriveled and curled away.

  Calum's eyes rolled back just as Lee’s did.

  Calum’s sudden scream mimicked the sealing wound that I now knew was, for certain, a deathblow and would have played out the same as Lee. It was the same strike made by Borgon to both men. With the sound of his flesh hissing against the sword, I released everything we'd learned about each other at once. The electricity, the healing, they were in the act.

  And the final event was far from just supernatural. The built energy combined with the instant push of light from a supercharged Cord, the Were, and the image of either of them taking the place of Lee in my arm’s from earlier welled up a slow burn through my torso. Like the wave of a whip, a flash of pure electricity resembling a downed light pole flew from my chest to the sword now aimed centered between Cord and my head. As it descended, the way it lit up Borgon’s eyes stayed the only picture I could see outside of the glare. No longer the hard edged pupils of a Hunter, the man above me resembled what I might have formed in my head as the devil with colorless eyes.

  The sword gained momentum just as I saw it lean back up towards Borgon’s shoulders and swing backwards. Szar attached himself to the back of the man, struggling to pull the opposite direction. Cas had his other arm. All of could think of next was how five god powered creatures were fighting a normal Hunter strengthed enemy and still, we were not winning as easily as we set out thinking. Using power for good was easy. Using that same power to fight for your life and others doused an amazing amount of strength and energy you only realize you lack when you’re three steps in and one step from death.

  Watching my brother battle for control, I built the electricity seeing that it was me left in control over it now. It’s not random in its movement, but rather heaving like my chest in a pulse back and forth. I took in the longest breath and sent out the current towards the sword again. Three times the strength as before, it was like an ocean wave without the ability to drench me in anything but the pressure and sweat beading across my skin. Whether it had color to it to others or not, I matrixed the shimmery glow of Cas’ eyes in my head because that soothed the rage I felt in other directions. It was, to me, like a sunbeam warning another that its heat would surpass the coldness of the steel and chill of its aim. It would never get near me, I told myself.

  Growing wider, the beam seemed to convulse. Maybe it was me rocking it back and forth with my breathing, maybe it was just that powerful. I didn’t care if it took out the one thing that would cut me or the people that I care about. We were going to beat Ted Borgon and his Godslayer.

  Kissa.

  I heard his voice beside my ear but I couldn’t move or see anything but the same soulless blank eyes and the wave of physical agony going into them. No, I didn't hear him aloud. Szar wasn’t touching me, just Borgon. Neither was Cas.

  You have to let go. It’s killing him.

  Within my held breath, I parted my lips for the words to answer him. I couldn’t.

  I know. I’ve almost destroyed him Cas.

  No, you’re killing Szar. He can’t make it much longer. You have to stop.

  I only heard the word kill and Szar.

  Like a snake, the whipping beam struck the sword forcibly stronger and then back into me. It wouldn’t stop. I tore my head a quarter inch to beg Calum to stop it for me. He had to be doing this, controlling the current. It wasn't me or it wasn't me alone. It had to be his Hunter strength electrocuting the enemy and holding back the sword from hurting me, but I couldn’t see his face. It was gone. Light and jolts of sizzling pain were my guide. I looked back up to the eyes above. They were gone too.

  Kissa.

  I can’t Cas. It won’t stop.

  You have to make it. You can do this.

  I can’t.

  I sobbed. It wasn’t like me to cry, but I couldn’t see my brother or Calum or even Cord’s face. Something touched me on my face. It was gone before I could examine what or who it was. The breath from my sob let go the second I searched for the source. With feeling Calum and Cord on either side of me, it could be either though I couldn’t see them seconds ago. The light was stronger still, orange and red flames in my head. I sobbed again and the flutter of the light made me blink. It recoiled and shook. Through the haze of it I could see Borgon’s figure above and the sword still suspended at his shoulder length, but this time I saw my twin. His head was lulled sideways and lying across the shoulder blade of Borgon’s body. Limp.

  The last sob held in my throat released and all at once it snapped. Like a wave hitting the rocks, it slapped into my chest and consumed my body. My eyes closed, and blackness hit me. It was familiar to me. It was a vision like the one before. The Elf lord stood above Cord and I just like we are now, but Calum was there with us. He was…dead. The pale coldness of death was on his face, purple on his lips.

  Except it changed. The Elf lord's hand was outstretched before me, pulling me to standing.

  I blinked back the darkness and inhaled, sobbed, and shook with the last of the electricity left in me. My eyes found the light, but it was not the orange glow that had taken over my vision. It was just the spotlight above.

  My legs were free and my body was buzzing with the familiar after effects they always did when Calum was near. My head twisted and ache
d from the headache that Cord always sent my way. It was ebbing its way into my soul and I worried it might stay with me for hours. I knew neither of them were touching me because I was standing and I could feel Cas arms around me. Energy seemed to flow through the air like the wind.

  When I opened my eyes fully, on the ground was Ted Borgon with the sword in his chest straight through his heart. Above him, Lord Jetten held the hilt.

  After the initial tear of realization that it wasn’t me that gave the final blow to our enemy, I searched for the guys. Cord was beside Cas and I holding his temples.

  Calum was leaning on the podium wall ledge holding his side, alive. I hauled myself five steps to leap into his personal space checking for how bad the wound was. It wasn’t there the more I removed his clothing that was in shreds anyway. Touching his mark, he was completely fine.

  Puzzled, I looked to his eyes. His smile was stupifyed and smirky all in one. Through garbled breaths he joked, “Did you get permission from Thorn to manhandle me?”

  Jerking my hands away, I growled at him. “You were hurt. Then you healed. Then you were dead. How?” I stared down at his stomach.

  “You happened, Stace. You!”

  I ignored the comment remembering my brother. Lord Jetten had the sword in his hand, cleaning it on Borgon’s very own jacket. Beside him was my twin brother, Szar.

  I flew across the terrace platform and wrapped my arms around him. He fell back on the opposite ledge with my force, still weak apparently.

  “Sis, stop it. I am fine,” he choked.

  “No, your not,” I snapped taking in his disheveled hair and burn marks across his face.

  “Kissa, he is fine.”

  “No Cas, look at him.”

  “I watched it, love. I assure you, compared to what he was, he is fine now.”

  “Yeah, now he actually might get a girl with that face,” Cord buzzed by me to get to Calum in overdrive. He was picking up lose weapons and piling them up. "Hurry it up, Green. An arsenal of weapons are at our disposal. Jetten may need to sell some to get his manor rebuilt."

  Cord and Calum both were in adrenaline overkill from the affects of our energy sharing. In other words, they were delirious.

  “What do you mean, Cas?” He handed off the two archaic blades he’d retrieved to Cord.

  “Whatever it was, it fried Borgon enough Lord Jetten slid the sword from the man’s hand and into his body without much effort.”

  All stopped and centered a long awaited breath of ease at the dead man lying before us. He was finally gone—after all the fear and anxiety. Ted Borgon was gone.

  I wanted his death explained better, but my attention went to the Elf lord.

  “Why did you do it?” He and I had a bargain.

  “I never said I wouldn’t. I just questioned your motives.” His perfect posture he eased into wound around the body below us. He searched his pockets to be sure he had nothing else of his people. One of the Elves stepped up to tell of his hidden underground stash. He'd been stealing money as well.

  “You will keep your bargain?” I asked watching him hold the Godslayer like it was a cherished heirloom.

  “I will return this to where it belongs.”

  Curiosity made me ask, “And that is where?”

  The smile he hasn’t owned since meeting him surfaced with mischief. I decided then he looked about twenty, but knew my history books hinted that hundreds of years have passed since he was lord.

  “Ask your mother. She is the one who had it taken in the first place.”

  My mother. “I will.”

  He chortled low and said his goodbyes. I watched him shake Cas’ hand and tell him something with his head in my direction. I would ask about that and about my brother later.

  All of this spanned over a few minutes, even the mourning of the enemy's death, but the weapons were in mounds and the Elves were gone. My father and the others surfaced from the room I knew now they were locked inside of. After they were moved in, they were locked in. I’d like to think the events of the night were a great shock to me, but my father’s hug was the most astonishing of the night. It was the second one he'd given me ever.

  He told me something I needed to hear. This wasn’t the future he saw. The one he knew was worse. Somehow, we’d changed it. Listening to him made me realize something. We’d built ourselves to be the gods we were told we were made from but in reality, the grand finale wasn’t all that grand. For the most part, it was over fast. For all the time it took to get to this point, it was really over. All the energy built and spent to this end, was anticlimactic. Yet, there the dead men lay.

  And Dyer Lee.

  The court was damaged, but not beyond repair. Cleaning was essential, but wouldn’t be a forgotten memory before too long. I made my way to where I left him.

  Dyer Lee. His body still lay on the front lawn. The four guys helped me. I think he was the only one of us who truly was a god that day. He died for me. I could never repay that debt.

  I went through every single memory I knew of him. Many were good memories. If I am able to have children, I knew then how to make his memory live.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Men are nearly always will to believe…

  I learned from the guys that I’d alone taken the energy from Calum and Cord and sent it into the sword lacing it into Borgon’s body. When Szar grabbed hold, he was receiving every jolt of electricity I programmed into my head. He compared it to touching a cloud and expecting a cottony feel, but finding poison instead. Oddly enough, the second he touched Borgon and the current hit him, all of our rings lit up. Cas was the only one to see this. His view of the whole things is the picture painted for all our heads.

  Szar was the Saiph, the right shoulder of all of us, and his letter revealed that he had no power shared with me but that of our Valkyrie and godlike strength. He can handle all of our powers together and be the stronghold we need when all else fails like a shield to evil. Because...each of them are affected by the powers they share with me and let it hinder them but Szar can harness all of it and let it bounce off of him to guide them in deepest trouble.

  It fits, it just sounds crazy.

  His face returned to its normal color with the exception of one scar from what I guess was the electric current I shot through him. His hair was a mess, but lately it always stayed that way with its growing length. As it turns out, he was shielding himself from the pain within the effort of shielding us. Szar said he felt the pain, but it wasn’t life threatening from his standpoint. It was more like a push and pull effort, not physical pain. Analyzing it, we decided that it was his ultimate gift somehow. He held back the sword while I projected the energy while in contact with Borgon, but not me. I was underneath or beside them all. Cas could still communicate for that reason. It wasn’t about shielding us from him, it was shielding him from us. It all sounded like a silly fairy tale when we told it aloud, so eventually it turned into just that…a story.

  Borgon was already dead before he was staked by the Elf lord, the man just did it for my sake it seemed.

  Calum’s death was fortold, but I changed it. It was scorpion who helps to save him, but he wasn’t the cause of his death like the legend said. The destiny was fulfilled, but it was also altered meaning the visions told the future, but futures can be changed. Free will still leads a person no matter how the descension. I called for Cord to save Lee. I learned later that was how the three of them were caught. Cord heard me call and started to double back, none of them realizing when they woke up where I was dragged. In the process, Cord stabbed Cas by accident therefore fulfilling another part of the mother’s dream prophecy storyline, just altered even more. Calum wasn't there yet so the story changed. I’d never read any of the mythology or destiny entwined stories.

  Lord Jetten joined us in the main hall of the Cross Manor two days later with the five faction lords all in one room. After filling in any details that might have been missed from the torrid event, we made the decis
ion to meet as a council monthly to stay aloft of each faction’s doings. And we agreed to a solid discussion to involve the humans and how that could be done.

  Borgon was so enamored by the idea of the Godslayer he signed up for a large sum of money and agreed to find it for the Elves. The Elves in power wanted it for greed’s sake and made a deal to help overtake the factions and rule. Greed set in. When it went awry, Borgon turned into a madman, as any man would be with his family murdered. What started as a mission to put the lords into submission, turned into an all out war between us versus him.

  My father spoke for the first time on the subject being released from his prison of fortune telling. “I think it’s time I revealed Lord Ryan’s origin.”

  The room spilled to the left where my father stood. We didn’t bother sitting since we didn’t think there was too much to discuss on the first go round. We just wanted the initial start of an agreement to work in unity established. But my father threw a kink in the mix.

  “Part of Cord’s initial letter announced his ancestry from royalty,” he said to all of us and them just to Cord. “Your father was a lieutenant within my guards, but my wife pointed out once that he was not born of our court. I learned of it, but didn’t know till later what it would elapse into. Your father wasn’t Valkyrie, but human. He came from Mexico, founded the country we know now as Texican, formally known as Texas. Though the upper half still exists, the lower half near the Mexican border is now ran by none other than Lord Jetten, the Elf lord. He has seen to it that your parents legacy continued to bridge the gap between our supernatural world and the humans.”

  “How long have you known this?” Cord asked bewildered but holding steady.

  Sheepishly he answered, “I have visited the country on many occasions.”

  Cord, who was conspicuously quiet through the declaration, pushed his feet closer to the middlemost of the room. We were all in a circle to begin with, but it was tapering in the more we talked.