Ravages

by Kit Bladegrave

  His dead father, thanks to you.

  “Shut up,” I snarled, digging my nails into my palms to try and get a grip on myself.

  I eventually found myself standing outside a door, my palms throbbing in pain and bleeding from my nails, but at least the voice had stopped again.

  I did nothing wrong. I was only doing what should have been done years ago, nothing more. I pushed open the doors in front of me and stepped inside.

  “Forrest,” I whispered, staring around the chamber.

  It was nothing like the room I’d grown up in.

  No, he had been a prince, had a chance to grow up in the world that I should have been in all this time.

  Tapestries depicting great battles of his clan covered the walls while thick furs lay on the floor. There was a table at the far side overlooking a balcony. A massive bed filled another corner and across from it sat a dark wood wardrobe.

  I closed the door behind me and threw the bolt in place for good measure. Not that I expected anyone to be stupid enough to come back and try to attack me, but I was in no mood to have Allis or Cassius appear in here either.

  Absently, I ran my fingers along the desk and the stacks of papers there. Orders and other issues needing the prince’s attention.

  Well, king now, since Kadin was dead.

  A sharp jolt shot through me, but I grit my teeth and shoved it away, tossing the blade and my shield, folded back into the gauntlet, on the bed.

  “You just need to rest,” I told myself as I kicked out of my boots next and spotted the wash basin and mirror by the bed. “Sleep, that’ll make everything better. Today was just the first day, and it was hard…”

  I froze when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror.

  Blood and dirt splattered my face, and I hadn’t even noticed. It was in my hair, and as I held up my hand to start wiping it away, they were covered in it. I yelped in alarm as more dripped from my fingers and pooled on the floor. The quiet thud of each drop was like another punch to my gut.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  I shut my eyes and shoved my hands in the cold water, willing it to go away. There hadn’t been that much blood, I knew there hadn’t been.

  “Please be gone, please be gone,” I whispered under my breath, heart hammering away, and body trembling all over.

  Carefully, I opened my right eye, then the left and though the water was dirty, it wasn’t bright red like I expected it to be. My hands weren’t smothered in it, and I sagged in relief against the table.

  But the moment was short-lived when I lifted my gaze. My jaw dropped as I stared at the horrible reflection looking back at me.

  My eyes, they were solid black!

  I tried to break away, but the darkness held me in that gaze.

  It felt like a hand was squeezing my throat, cutting off my air. I gasped for breath, but there was nothing there. Just pain.

  Those eyes, they couldn’t be mine! Cassius’ weren’t. The army we used, they were plagued, but not us! He swore to me we would destroy the army once we took back what was ours!

  I blinked and finally, the grip around my throat vanished, and I sucked in air, coughing and hacking as I tried to catch my breath.

  When I looked up this time, my eyes were back to normal, but I backed a hasty retreat and climbed onto the bed, shoving my weapons to the foot of it.

  I curled up in a ball, yanking the covers over my head like I used to do when I was a kid, and wished for the world to start making sense again.

  7

  Craig

  “Sire? Sire?” There was a shuffle of feet, and I heard more murmuring. “Craig?”

  “Hmm?” I glanced up from the table to see Luca, Nora, and a few others staring at me intently.

  Tristan had a small smile on his face, and Lucy was giving me another sympathetic look that I had gotten used to these past few days.

  “Sorry, not used to that title yet.”

  “Understandable,” Luca told me. “But I’m afraid you’re going to have be to at some point.”

  At some point. I wished it could be never. Though I was happy Raghnall was no longer around to try and kill me or make my life miserable, being king of the demons was not part of my plans.

  Reginald and half the demon council were against my taking over, until we started sending refugees through and they realized that everything I’d been telling them all these years was real. That Raghnall had been possessed by the darkness himself.

  It barely took an hour to figure out who else had been taken over and I executed five more commanders, also taken over by the plague.

  Reginald, sadly, had not been and was still alive. Despite his hatred of me still, I couldn’t complain. He helped get the injured aid, and was leading patrols along the breach every six hours. All other portals had been shut down, save for one, monitored by Lucy and Greyson.

  For three days, we’d been in Boshen, and there’d been no time to stop and take a breath.

  I still had no idea what happened at the sorcerers’ manor, but sadly, that was the least of our problems.

  Cassius and Kate controlled the seat of power in Gregornath, giving them access to a wealth of old magic. The capital of each realm wasn’t where it was located just for the hell of it. Each realm contained its own source of magic, and right now, Cassius was tapping into all the magic of that world.

  I rubbed my forehead where a persistent headache refused to leave me alone and glared at the table. “What of our defenses here?”

  “We have plenty of men to guard the wall,” Tristan stated, pointing to the place on the map. “But if their army is as big as you say, the moment they’re through, we’ll be overrun. I could call in my troops…”

  “No,” I told him, shaking my head. “We can’t risk having all our soldiers in one place, not yet.”

  “You’re really going to try and stop them here? With the number of soldiers you have?” Tristan asked, and let out a whistle. “You’re braver than I am.”

  “Not braver, but I’m not giving up on Kate, not yet. She is the only way to end this war.”

  I glanced around the chamber that had once been Raghnall’s haven in this castle. Where he plotted every decision he ever made that led to where we were now. Or at least, the possessed part of him had. A very small part of me wished I could remember more about him before he turned, but there was no going back. He was dead, and the burden of saving our kin fell to me.

  Just as the dragons would now have to look to Forrest to save them. If he ever left his damned room.

  “What are you hoping to do?” Luca asked. “You said it yourself, the plague has a deep hold on her. She’s the reason why King Kadin was killed. I will not let you risk your life, either, to bring her back, not if it’s a lost cause.”

  It was odd for me to hear these demons so intent on keeping me safe after so many years of my fighting for survival under this very roof. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it.

  “I appreciate your concerns, Luca, but Kate is the Vindicar. Right now, she’s being controlled by the plague, but we can get her back, Forrest and I. We don’t have a choice.” I tapped my fingers on a drawing I’d made of the shield, what I could remember at least. “This, right here, is what gives her that power.”

  “But she has a shield already?” Tristan said confused.

  “No, that shield is made of dark magic, magic driven by sacrifices made in blood. This one,” I said, tapping the drawing again, “this is the one she needs to destroy Cassius and all his plagued.”

  Several skeptical pairs of eyes watched me, but I was not going to give up on Kate, not now when she was at her darkest moment. She needed me, needed us, but the people in this room weren’t the only ones I needed to convince.

  “We will discuss more of this later. For now, keep an eye out and ensure everyone is safe. Tristan, I would like to move the wounded and innocent to your realm if possible,” I told him. “If the worst should happen, I don’t want them getting caught in th
e crossfire.”

  “Of course, I will see to it.”

  “Then that’s all for now, thank you,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as uncertain as I felt.

  Leading, not something I wanted to be doing. I came into this thinking I would find the shards of the shield, and then I became the protector of the Vindicar, of Kate. Now, I was the bloody demon king waging a war against the plagued while said Vindicar was trapped by the plague in her own mind.

  I leaned heavily on the table, remembering how horrible it was to see Kate’s eyes black, the runes on her body glowing red.

  She was so different, but she was still in there. I saw it when Kadin had been killed. She would’ve kept him alive, but Cassius, he was the one we needed to kill.

  I needed to lie down and get a few hours of sleep, but Lucy was still in the doorway speaking quietly with Greyson. “Lucy? Can you stay a moment?”

  Greyson bowed his head, a grim look on his face, and left her with me.

  “What happened after we left?” I asked her. “And where is Crane?”

  I’d noticed he was missing, but there’d be no time to slow down yet. Too many people depending on me to figure this out. Keep them safe.

  “When the portal opened,” she said quietly, “what came through… I’ve never felt such evil before.” She closed her eyes, her hands shook.

  I guided her back to the table, and we sat down. “Take your time.”

  She smiled as he rested back in her chair. “You are going to be a great king, Craig, I hope you know that.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”

  “You’ve already done more than enough.”

  I knew she was avoiding telling me, that whatever attacked them scarred her deeply. “Lucy?”

  Her eyes darkened, and I could tell she was no longer seeing this room, or me.

  “It killed Crane,” she whispered. “Killed him so quickly with those tendrils of shadow. I’ve never seen anything like, there was no stopping it once started.”

  “But the portal, I thought you closed it?”

  “We did, but it remained, and it killed everyone it touched. So few of us made it out… and the screaming, the shrieking sounds it made…” She trailed off and shook her head hard. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can tell you any more, not yet.”

  “Is it still there?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. We sealed off the dimension, and it didn’t follow us through.”

  I cursed, adding another item to my list of growing worries. “Get some rest, Lucy, and thank you and your coven for everything you’ve been doing. I hear we have quite the store of potion now.”

  “Yes, enough for every soldier in Boshen. Had we more time, there might have been enough for those in Gregornath.”

  We both sunk into our seats, thinking of all the dead lying there.

  I glanced upward in the general direction of where Forrest had taken up residence. His people needed him, and he was letting his sadness tear him apart. His father was dead, and it was horrible, but he could not simply lock himself away and leave us all to push forward without him.

  “He needs time,” Lucy told me quietly.

  I pushed to my feet.

  “No, what he needs is to understand the truth,” I growled.

  “He blames Kate,” she reminded me. “I don’t know if he’ll be willing to try and save her like you are.”

  “And you? Do you blame Kate?” I asked hotly, quickly losing grip on my temper.

  I’d kept in check for days, as first Forrest, and then others rallied against the idea of saving her.

  They said she was a lost cause and she deserved to die along with the rest of those who attacked Gregornath. No final decision had been made yet, mostly because Forrest ranted his piece and then disappeared. We could reach Kate if we tried hard enough; we just had to be willing to try. Both of us. He could be angry with her all he wanted, but I could not stand by while he ranted about making her suffer for what happened to Kadin.

  “I don’t,” Lucy finally replied. “But with the power that’s within her, if she is not stopped, if she can’t be brought back to us, there may be no other choice, but to… to kill her, Craig.”

  I tried to swallow, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t let me and I stormed out of the room instead.

  Every demon I passed bowed their head at my passing, and I barely managed a nod in return.

  I grew up in these halls and being back here brought up memories I’d once found painful. None of that mattered, not anymore. Not after everything I’d lost and everything I was about to lose.

  I stomped up the three flights of stairs, turned right at the top, and stalked toward the guest chambers.

  When I reached the end of the corridor and the double wooden doors, I took a deep breath in through my nose, not that it did anything.

  “Forrest!” I bellowed, and pounded my fist against the door. “Open up, right now! We need to talk!”

  A growl was the only reply I received.

  “I will bust down this bloody door if you don’t open it!” I warned. “You can’t hide in there forever! There’s a war going on in case you’d forgotten, and your people need you! Get your ass over here and open the door!”

  A louder growl echoed in the chamber, and I cursed, dodging to the side a second before the doors exploded with a burst of dragon fire.

  Splinters of wood fell over my head and shoulders, smoke rising up from the singed hole where the doors had been a second before.

  “There, now they’re open, happy?” Forrest snarled from inside. “Leave me alone.”

  I brushed wood and dust from my shoulders, growling as my face shifted.

  Three demons rushed forward, alarmed, but I waved them off. They eyed the hole in the doors warily before they bowed their heads and retreated down the hall. They remained in sight at least, just in case.

  I appreciated it, considering Forrest was clearly not himself.

  “Feel better?” I snapped as I shoved open what remained of the doors and they crumbled to the floor. “You’re fixing these doors, by the way.”

  “Whatever you say, your highness,” he spat from his place near the balcony doors.

  They were thrown wide open, and he had his back to me, his shoulders tense and smoke rising up from over his shoulder.

  I planted my hands on my hips and glared at his back, waiting for him to turn around and face me.

  But he didn’t.

  He just stood there, wearing the same dirty and battle worn clothes as the day we arrived. The room was destroyed, burnt pieces of broken furniture littered it and several of the tapestries had been torn apart.

  I hadn’t realized his dragon could fit in this room, but noticed several cracks in the stone ceiling and walls, which indicated that he barely fit, but it had been enough for him to get into a full-blown rage.

  Fire was the only thing he could do in his human form, though it wasn’t as powerful as if he was his full dragon form. If he’d shot the door like that, it would’ve taken out half the corridor.

  “I’m not going to let you sulk up here forever,” I grunted.

  “Why the hell not? There’s no point, and you know it.”

  “No point? Your people need you, or did you forget about them?”

  That got him to whip around and glare at me through narrowed eyes. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Oh, I’m going to dare, you pathetic bastard.”

  It was a low blow, but if he was going to pull this shit, then I was going to push him until he was angry enough to do something, hopefully, leave this room.

  I wasn’t about to stop now, “Your father was killed, and it’s terrible, but this is not the time to mourn. Your people, what’s left of them, are lost and confused right now. They’re suffering just as much as you are and what do you do? You sit up here and hide. You do nothing to help them!”

  He took a hard step toward me, his hands curling into tight fists at his sides. “Don’t,” he r
epeated, the word more of a gasp.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be king, if you’re not ready to do what’s necessary.”

  He roared in fury, and was across the room with his arm pressing into my throat before I had a chance to blink. He slammed me into the wall and lifted me off my feet.

  My guards came rushing in, yelling for Forrest to release me, but I gasped for them to not attack.

  Any reaction from Forrest was better than no reaction at this point. I could take his anger, I hoped.

  “Kate is the reason my father is dead!” he bellowed. “She held him there while that bastard killed him! My father… my father is gone, my lands are gone, because of her! Do not tell me I’m not ready to do what’s necessary.”

  The dark glint in his eyes was not one I’d seen before and my gut clenched.

  “Forrest, she’s not herself! You know this.”

  “No! She made her choice! She left us,” he ranted, and his arm pressed harder against my neck, cutting off my air.

  I gasped, clawing at his arm, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care.

  “She left us for that damn world. For him! She chose to let the darkness in and look where we are now! Gregornath has fallen and my people… my people have nowhere to go!”

  I managed to kick him in the gut and his arm loosened enough for me to slip away from it. I decked him when he came at me again, and he flew backward, landing hard on his back. I rubbed my sore neck as I stalked closer, glaring down at him.

  “She didn’t choose anything! You heard Celandine. Everything’s been twisted in her reality. She thinks she’s saving us all!”

  He jumped back to his feet, and his fists were flying toward my face.

  I ducked under a few hits, but he clocked me in the jaw, stunning me. I shook off the hit in time for another one to land before I grunted and rushed him, tackling him to the floor.

  “We have to save her!” I argued hotly.

  “No, no we don’t! She’s not here anymore, Craig, don’t you get it? She’s gone! Our Kate is gone!”

  All the fight suddenly went out of him, and he laid there, limp on the floor, sadness warring with anger in his green eyes.