Evanescent (Chronicles of Nerissette)

by Buchanan, Andria

  “She knows everything,” Eamon said.

  “Good. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone crying why over and over again as the end comes. It’s very annoying.”

  “My army is going to stop you,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “No matter what you do to me, they won’t stop until you’re dead. They’ll find you and—if you’re lucky—they’ll banish you to the Bleak right beside me. It’ll be me and you, trapped in the void between worlds for all time. ”

  “The Bleak?” The Fate Maker raised an eyebrow at me. “What makes you think that I’m going to sentence you to life in the Bleak?”

  “I—” I looked first at him and then at Eamon.

  “You may not believe this, my dear Allie.” The Fate Maker came closer and crouched in front of me. “But I don’t want you to suffer. I just want my throne back.”

  “It’s not your throne,” I said. “It’s my mother’s. Or it was before you put her in a coma.”

  “A technicality.” He shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees. “You want to know the truth?”

  “No,” I spat.

  “No?”

  “You’re incapable of telling the truth. You twist things around to hurt people, and I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.”

  The Fate Maker leaned close so that his mouth was near my ear. “I loved your mother,” he said quietly. “More than that idiot John of Leavenwald ever would have. All I wanted was to rule for her so that she could be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for either of you.”

  “You wanted power.”

  “It would have been a nice side benefit, but no, I really just wanted for both of you to be happy. In fact, I’ll prove it to you.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll give you everything you’ve ever wanted. That secret desire you never wanted to admit.” He brushed his hand against my forehead.

  My eyes closed against my will, and I saw what he was offering me: a life in the world we’d left behind. Mom in the kitchen and a guy who looked like John sitting in front of the television. There were framed photos of me standing between them at swim meets and a picture of me in a formal dress next to Winston. My mother on the couch, snuggling into John’s side, smiling. He turned to me and opened his arms, inviting me to come join them.

  I jerked my head away from the Fate Maker’s hands and opened my eyes, staring straight into his eyes. “No deal.”

  “Really? I’m offering you the life you’ve always dreamed of and you’re just going to say no deal? Don’t you want to think about it?”

  “That’s not my life, and those people weren’t my parents.”

  “They could be.” He smiled at me but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. “You’d never know the difference. All of this would be nothing more than some weird dream. You’d forget all about us by lunchtime.”

  “What about my friends?”

  “What about them? Fragments you’ll forget before you’re even completely awake. Side characters in a very realistic dream.”

  “And Eamon?”

  “Eamon?” The Fate Maker turned to look across the clearing at my jerky half brother, who was standing in a tight group with his men, all of them talking quietly and moving their hands in quick, angry gestures. “What about him?”

  “What happens to Eamon?”

  “The same thing that’s going to happen anyway.” The Fate Maker stood and glanced down at me, brushing his hands against the black velvet of his robe. “I have no place in my ranks for a man I can’t trust—especially one with his own group of soldiers.”

  He raised his hand and a ball of energy crackled to life in his hand, swelling to the size of a bowling ball in less than a second.

  “No!” I tried to thrust myself forward, going for the Fate Maker’s knees. But because of how I was trussed up I couldn’t get the leverage and only managed to slam into his ankles, knocking him off-balance. Eamon was a jerk, a traitor, but I couldn’t just sit and watch as the Fate Maker killed him. Even if he was a crap sibling.

  Eamon spun around at the sound of my voice, and the swirling mass of dark magic hit him in the center of his chest. Our eyes met for a brief second before the space around him filled with light and he crumpled, lifeless, to the ground.

  Getting my feet underneath me, I pushed myself up, hitting the Fate Maker with my shoulders. He stumbled and I dug my elbows into his stomach, tackling him to the ground.

  “No.” I got up on my knees, pinning him underneath me, and started pummeling him with my bound fists. “Bring him back. I command you to bring him back. You give me my brother back.”

  “No.” The Fate Maker smiled at me, his mouth bloody from where he’d bitten his own lip during our fall. “And besides, why would you want him back? He was a terrible sibling. He betrayed you.”

  “Bring him back,” I shrieked as two of the woodsmen reached us and grabbed my arms, pulling me off him.

  He shifted his weight so he could stand as I fought against the two men holding me. “I did you a favor. One last favor before you die.”

  “Then do me a real favor and bring him back.”

  “No. No more favors. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of your whining and I’m sick of your rule,” the Fate Maker said. “You will take me to the tear, and then I will end this silliness.”

  “Then why don’t you untie me and make it a fair fight?”

  “And why in the name of Fate would I want to do anything as stupid as that? Last time I ended up trapped. And let me tell you, young lady, you don’t want to know what sort of magic I had to do to find my way home.”

  “Yeah?” I sneered at him. “Well, I hope you know some sort of magic that will bring you back to life because when I get out of these ropes I’m going to kill you.”

  The Fate Maker cocked his head to the side. “That doesn’t really give me a reason to untie you, does it?”

  “But if you don’t untie her,” John of Leavenwald said, his voice low, “I’m going to let the dragon eat you.”

  I looked up to see him standing in the clearing, Winston, Rhys, Kitsuna, and Mercedes behind him.

  The Fate Maker turned to stare at them. “What?”

  “I said, untie her.”

  “Men.” The Fate Maker flicked his gaze to the traitors who had joined him. “Seize them.”

  Before any of them could obey, Mercedes had raised her hands and vines grew up around their ankles, tying them to the ground. “I don’t think so.”

  The Fate Maker wiggled his fingers and the vines around him burst into flames, the fire licking at the grass around my boots. “Did you really think that would work on me?”

  “I can come up with other things that might.” Winston stepped forward, his form wavering between teenage boy and black dragon.

  I started to scoot closer to him, trying to ignore the way the flames on the vines were licking at my legs.

  “How do you think you’ll rule this country if you kill her?” Kitsuna asked. “How do you think you’ll make them follow you?”

  “I have an army.”

  “But you don’t have the tear,” she pointed out. “You wanted it for a reason. If you kill her you’ll never find it. Never be able to use it.”

  “Then all the better,” the Fate Maker said. “Without her, the relics will stay lost, and then the last of the great prophesies cannot be fulfilled and magic will flourish in Nerissette.”

  I had gotten close enough that I could lean onto my hands and lift my legs. I pulled them into my chest and kicked them out at the back of the Fate Maker’s knees, pitching him forward. He rolled and brought a fist up, slamming it into my jaw and making my head jerk back. He sat up quickly, grabbing for my throat, and I brought my head forward, hard, slamming my forehead into his nose.

  “You—” He flung an arm out, knocking me off him, and then started toward me on his knees. Before he could move any closer, though, Kitsuna threw herself onto him, pinning him while Mercedes held her hands out. Vines sho
t up from the ground to tie around him, lacing around him like a cocoon.

  “Now, you.” John looked at the young woodsmen who had betrayed us. “When she unties you, you’re going to run away. And if I see any of you again your lives are over. Forevermore you are banished from the Leavenwald, your names stricken from the scrolls, and you will be forgotten.”

  The vines dropped, and I watched as Eamon’s soldiers bolted for the trees, melting into the forest around them within seconds, leaving his body behind. They didn’t even look back. The cowards.

  John was staring at Eamon’s body, his jaw tight. He swallowed and his shoulder tensed before he turned to me, his face betraying nothing. Like finding out his son had died while betraying him was nothing.

  “Um, guys?” I tried to sit up from where I’d toppled over, staring up at the trees around us. “Can someone untie me please?”

  “On it!” Kitsuna came over and took the knife from my belt, cutting my wrists free before moving to my ankles.

  “Do you think this changes anything?” the Fate Maker asked. “Do you think that because you’ve captured me you’ve somehow won this world? You’re still not safe. Even if you kill me that won’t stop your aunt. Or the giants. The monsters. They’ll still come. What will you do then?”

  Instead of answering I reached into my shirt and grabbed the necklace, letting it dangle in front of me. “Why did you want this so bad if you claim you weren’t going to send me to the Bleak?”

  “The tear,” the Fate Maker breathed.

  “Why have you been searching for it?” I asked, my voice hollow, as I dropped the chain against the front of my shirt. “You said something about a prophecy. About the end of magic. What does that have to do with me? Or the tear?”

  “Isn’t that obvious? I want the tear so that I can keep you from having it.” He smiled up at me, and his dark eyes glittered. “I had to keep it from you because if you had it, one day you might grow enough of a spine to use it. The prophecy will be fulfilled, and the world of magic will die. Then where would I be?”

  “The same place you’ll be when this is all over.” I leaned over so that we were face to face. “Inside the Bleak. Now what do you mean, a prophecy?”

  “Are you really going to do it?” he asked. “Lock me inside the Bleak?”

  I straightened and turned to walk away from him. “Of course.”

  “Really? Are you so cold that you can sentence a man to the space between worlds? A place where there’s nothing? No beginning, no end, a place of eternal nothingness. Can you really condemn someone to that for all time?”

  “I think you’d be surprised about what I’m capable of, especially where you’re concerned.”

  “So what will you do?” the Fate Maker asked.

  “Your Majesty,” John of Leavenwald said, his voice throwing me back to what the Fate Maker had shown to me. John had been sitting on the couch, watching a baseball game in a green T-shirt, with his arms open to me. In the fantasy I’d been offered, we’d never been apart. He’d never missed a birthday and he’d brought me chocolate ice cream the day after they took my tonsils out. He’d let me cry when we put my dog to sleep, and he’d sneaked me cookies when I was sick.

  I blinked, and the man from my fantasy was gone. Instead I was face-to-face with a man covered in dirt, his eyes red-rimmed and tired, with his arm bandaged and a nasty bruise turning black on his left cheek.

  “No mercy,” I said quietly. “There can be no more mercy. But whatever we do, it needs to be done in public. Where everyone can see.”

  “Then follow me,” John said. “I know the quickest route between here and Dramera.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I followed John and Mercedes out of the trees as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, the others following behind us. Winston carrying Eamon’s body draped over his back and Rhys dragging the Fate Maker along behind him. John of Leavenwald’s head was still held high but I could see his shoulders trembling every so often, and every so often Mercedes would reach over and touch his arm. I wanted to go to him, to say something, anything, but I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say that wouldn’t make it worse. When we came to the grassy knoll next to Lake Dramera, I found myself staring at a group of stunned dryads. All of them sat on the ground, their hands buried in the roots of the trees at the edge of the forest as they crooned songs in a language I didn’t understand. They were dirty and tired, but from what I could see they weren’t hurt.

  “What? Where?” I tried to take in what I was seeing as soldiers began crowding together along the side of the lake. “How?”

  “Queen Allie?” Darinda’s face was covered in smoke, and she had a long, bright-red gash on her arm. Instead of bleeding, though, the cut leaked tree sap and she pressed a pile of leaves against it like a bandage. “Thank the trees you’re alive.”

  “I’m fine.” I moved forward to hug her, resting in her strong, branchlike arms. “We’re all fine. What happened here?”

  “Nothing. They stayed on the other end of the lake. The wizards…”

  “What?” I pressed. “What did they do?”

  “They threw balls of dark magic at us all night. I don’t think they were even trying to hit us—they kept throwing them at the trees and blowing holes in the side of the cliff. And now they’re gone.”

  “Gone?” I asked. “They just left?”

  “The Fate Maker’s army disappeared about an hour ago. One minute they’re throwing magic at us shaking their clubs in the air, then nothing. Just poof! It was like they had never been there. We don’t know what happened.”

  “They must have realized that he had failed,” I said quietly. “Someone on their side was watching him, and when he didn’t manage to kill me they ran and left him behind. They chose to run rather than fight to get him back.”

  “Cowards.” Darinda wrinkled her soot-covered nose. “But you, Your Majesty, are now in possession of both the Fate Maker and the tear.”

  “Yes.” I nodded and licked my lips.

  “What will you do now?” she asked.

  “I’m going to keep us all safe. No matter what it takes. It’s time for something more permanent,” I said. “Something he can’t come back from.”

  “The Nymphiad will support your decision.”

  “More permanent?” Tevian asked as people began to crowd around us. Rhys dragged the Fate Maker into a small cleared-out area at the front of the crowd, just behind me. He let go of him and stepped into the crowd to face me.

  Winston put my half brother’s body down and joined the rest of the crowd. I watched as the woodsmen stared at the limp form in front of me, and I swallowed as I met my father’s red-rimmed eyes, his face still a blank, emotionless mask.

  “Eamon of Leavenwald died saving me,” I lied, my eyes never leaving my father’s gray ones. “He died defending our people. However you honor your dead, know that I will never forget his sacrifice for me.”

  All of the woodsmen, except for John, bowed low, their hands pressed together, palm to palm, and they brought them to their chests. Two of the younger woodsmen moved forward, lifting Eamon’s body and disappearing into the forest with it, others trailing behind them.

  “Your Majesty?” Darinda stood to one side of the crowd, the rest of the Nymphiad beside her, while Tevian and the Dragos Council stood on the other side of the group, their dark eyes fixed on me, their faces covered in smoke, unreadable.

  My father stood with the rest of his men between the dragons and the Nymphiad, a head taller than any other man standing near him. His face was tight and his jaw clenched. My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the gesture as the same one I always used to keep myself from crying.

  “No mercy.” I lifted my head, trying my best to look like a queen was supposed to, and I turned to the Fate Maker, keeping my eyes fixed on his.

  “Last chance,” the Fate Maker said, his voice barely more than a whisper as I closed in on him. “It’ll be so real that you’ll
never question it. The perfect life. I’ll even give you your brother back. I’ll snap my fingers, and he’ll wake up. How can you resist? ”

  “Because no matter how perfect it is, it’s not real. It’s not the life I was meant to live.” I pulled the tear over my head, holding the crystal tight in my hands. “That’s not what Fate has in store for me.”

  “Aren’t you the one who always says that each person should choose their own fate?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “That there is no goddess of destiny for you to worship?”

  “Who says I haven’t chosen this?” I forced my fingers to brush over his forehead, and I immediately felt my soul contract, pulling away from the bleakness that surrounded the two of us. Instead of panicking I opened my eyes. Our gazes locked, and he paled, his eyes wide as they darted from person to person. He licked his lower lip once before he focused on me, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

  The world around us melted, and everyone else disappeared, leaving just the two of us staring at each other. Everything around us was gray and wherever we were, there was no one there. There was nothing, thousands of millions of miles of nothingness in every direction.

  “I want you to know,” I said, keeping my eyes on his, “that when this is over I will pass a law that will prevent anyone from ever saying your name again. If it’s the last thing I do I’ll make sure you’re forgotten.”

  “You can’t do this,” he said as I pulled my hand from his forehead. “Please.”

  “Yes, I can. And because of what you did to my mother and my brother and the rest of my family, I’m going to enjoy every single second of it.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember Winston’s face. The darkness around me began to swirl, the air pressing in on me like I’d been caught inside a whirlpool. Warm light caressed my skin. But this time I knew the light wasn’t an illusion. This time it was the way home. I concentrated on sealing the wall between the World of Dreams and the Bleak, leaving the Fate Maker behind.

  I opened my eyes and found myself looking directly into Winston’s dark ones. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt us ever again.”

  “I love you.” He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me.