by WB McKay
I snapped my head up just in time to deflect the ice sword with Epic. The blades rang with a low clang instead of the high note of steel on steel. It could have been beautiful if I wasn't in a fight for my life.
In the back of my mind, the Fleece wheedled and cajoled me. This fight could be over in seconds if I used its powers of compulsion. I ignored it, focusing on my sword work and trying to remember what that non-hint Ken had given me was. Something about having the right type of magic.
My thoughts were scattered when the lava snakes decided to rejoin the fight, along with another dozen that rolled down Medusa's body from their perch on her head.
The blows from her ice sword came so fast I could barely afford to pay attention to the snakes. Sure, the bites would hurt, but I didn't have any protection from her weapon. Even worse, if she hit my armor with it, I wouldn't be protected from fire anymore either.
I decided to ignore the snakes. I needed to direct the battle back toward Graulfv. He hadn't been given the luxury of a time out by his snakes. I could see a few angry red marks on his arms that marked bites he'd sustained.
Medusa, seeing my intent, shot a beam of fire from her eyes that was so intense, it burnt through the layer of soil and liquefied the rock under Graulfv's feet. Absorbed in his fight with the snakes, I don't think he noticed when he sunk to the ankles in lava.
I took two long strides, exposing myself to attack in order to put myself between the gorgon and Graulfv. She didn't take the opportunity; her intent to cut my friend down was clear. "Free your feet, Graulfv," I called over my shoulder.
I could hear him grunting behind me, and offered my free hand to help him gain purchase. A snake took that opening to bite me right on the ass. I let out a yelp of surprise and I knew before I felt it, Medusa had her opportunity.
The cold of the blade numbed the pain as her sword slid across my hip. I swung my own blade, hitting her stone bicep. Not that it mattered, though. The tattered armor at my side did. My fireproof armor was no longer anything more than a morbid outfit.
I recovered my stance, despite the wash of heat that overwhelmed me. The mass of red hot snakes lunging at my legs were no longer a low priority. If Medusa had managed to get a hit on Graulfv while his feet had been stuck in that lava, he would probably have died.
I rained down blow after blow on the gorgon. Some of them even made it past her guard and struck her stone skin. My blade didn't even make a dent.
I had committed to ignoring the Fleece. I wasn't going to use it again, no matter how helpful it could be in situations like this. But as my blade bounced off the stone body trying to kill me, a loud and resounding why sounded through my mind. Why am I risking my life? Why am I risking Graulfv's life? Why am I fighting so hard when there is an easier way? My shoulders slumped under the weight of all the whys I didn't have answers for anymore. This could just be so much easier. The Fleece agreed. I could feel the exasperation of its pleas, but it wasn't demanding as it could have been. It wasn't trying dominate me. It was like a whining child, and honestly, I was sick of saying no. And why should I keep putting Graulfv and me in danger? Really? Because it's wrong to take someone's will from them—even someone trying to kill me with an ice sword? Because it was wrong for me to further deepen the bond I felt with the Fleece? The thing could talk to me inside my head. That ship had sailed. Was me using it really going to make the difference here? I didn't think so.
Graulfv shouted behind me, likely taking another bite from a lava snake. It was only a matter of time before his armor was wrecked, and we both went down.
Enough. "Let's win," I said aloud, waiting for the power of the Fleece to wash over me.
I expected to feel a surge of magic after so long without calling on the crown, but it was already so close to me that I felt only the slightest glow from its power. The gorgon's response was almost immediate. She was slowing her attacks before I even said anything.
"Stop," I said, putting voice to the command she was struggling not to obey.
The gorgon stilled, dropping her sword to hang at her side. The snakes all around me slowly slithered up her body, returning to their home on her head. They carefully avoided the hand holding the ice sword.
Ken's non-hint clicked into place. "The right type of magic in hand," was what he'd said. The gorgon was a being of fire. If someone had ice magic, they could make quick work of her, but that wasn't necessary, because she was carrying her demise in her own grip.
"Give me the sword," I said, my voice ringing with the Fleece's authority.
She did as she was asked, without a moment's hesitation. I sheathed Epic and took it carefully, making sure I only touched the hilt. It was a magnificent weapon. And now it was mine. This was exactly why using the Fleece was such a gift; it made things so much easier. I could save myself so much trouble and pain.
My arm drew back and I took a step forward, putting my weight behind a strike aimed at the gorgon's chest. I shouldn't have bothered with all the force. The sword cut through like a hot knife through butter.
The glow of the snakes winked out and the gorgon's body dropped to the ground with the heavy thud of inert stone.
There'd been too many bodies to know how many I'd killed. Still, the judgment from the prone body at my feet pierced me. I'd had no beef with the woman. She was only fighting in the trial because her leader shoved her in there and said, "Fight to the death!". I had no idea if this was a good person or not. Maybe if we'd met on the street, we'd have wound up in the same situation, bound to kill each other. But fuck if anyone deserved to be made to fight to the death against their will.
I glanced at Ken. "I fought to the death," I told him. "Trial's over, right?"
"Yes," he agreed. "You've passed the trials. We can go in now."
"Just a second." I dropped the gorgon's weapon by her body, and thinking better of it, kicked it away from us. Lowering to my knees, I placed my hands over her wound. As in the previous times, my body burned with the healing magic. When the process was complete, dizziness tilted the world around me.
The gorgon gasped for air. Her eyes came to focus on me, filling with hatred.
"Yeah, still not friends," I said, and with a bit of effort, I called up a death light and treated the gorgon to a period of unconsciousness. The girl could probably use the rest, she'd had a long day, what with the dying and all.
I slumped back, feeling mighty pleased with myself. It was difficult to sort out what was my own pride, and what was the Fleece's. I'm a god. The thought took me aback, and I immediately blamed it on the Fleece. Whoa boy, I thought at it. We can't think like that, shut that shit down. Understand?
The Fleece went quiet, though it was still feeling smug. I did my best to rebuild the walls I struggled to keep between us.
"Graulfv?" I reached for him. He took my arm, and I smiled weakly up at him. "You know the next line," I told him. "You can go ahead and say it."
He nodded. I had to give the man credit, he kept that nod solemn even though I knew somewhere inside he was laughing. With a ring of authority, he turned to Ken and said, "Show us the way to the food. Sophie hungers."
And boy, did I.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I'd never put much thought into how integral my butt was in the whole process of walking until we were trekking through the jungle with two puncture wounds being jostled with every step I took. The pain radiated up to my mid back and down to my knee. When we emerged into a bustling town, I let out a sigh of relief. "We must be close now, right?" I asked, looking up at Ken.
"That depends on your definition of close," he replied. "We are going to the castle up there." His head turned, and his eye stalks pointed at a steep angle.
I followed his gaze and let out a groan. There was a steady stream of people, probably servants, walking up and down one of the largest staircases I'd ever seen, making their way to a giant door that opened into the rock wall of the cave. "I don't suppose there is an elevator."
"No."
"And if I flew up there, I'd be considered hostile?"
Ken nodded. "Any guest must be accompanied by an attendant such as myself, otherwise they will be considered invaders and treated as such."
"Well, let's get going then," I said, resolutely turning my eyes away from our destination so I didn't have to think about it. "This is going to be a literal pain in my ass." Why, oh why, did my nifty new healing magic not work on myself? Life was never fair.
"Is the pain from your wounds worse than the hunger?" he asked.
"I'm using my ass pain to distract me from the hunger, but the reminder is super useful, if I want to throw a real pity party."
"You throw parties for pity?" asked Ken. "I like to have fun at parties. I suppose I should have known that wouldn't be what you aim to get out of parties, though."
I rolled my eyes at the slimy volcano. "And why is that?"
He looked taken aback, like it should have been obvious. "You are attending this ball."
Oh, right. Not exactly fun time central, and I had to say it counted as a party. "Good point. Okay, well, don't expect any invitations to my pity party, Ken. I'll keep you off the list. Now, can we please get going? My ass needs… I don't know. Maybe stitches. But definitely rest."
One of the other tour guides emerged from behind us with a small group I didn't much notice, distracted by the look the other guide gave Ken. From the way Ken straightened up and looked around, I got the idea that it probably wasn't in his job description to stand around talking to the guests. "Yes, of course," he said, his tone distant and polite. "The best healers will be available to you once we reach your quarters, Sophie Morrigan." He bowed his head and took off, leading the way through the stone streets of the town.
My pain and hunger receded to the back of my thoughts as I picked up on something strange around me. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly. Everyone we passed seemed hesitant, stilted. I watched a woman with fiery wings argue with a man who appeared human—at least from a distance. She picked up vegetables from his stand and shook them at him. On the surface, the exchange seemed normal enough, but I couldn't shake the eerie feeling that something was just off. When I passed by, I received a glare from both of them, and then, they both looked toward the castle—quick, almost like a nervous tick—before resuming their argument.
I received similar glares from everyone who caught me looking their way, again with nervous tick glances at the castle.
Beyond the strange inhabitants, the town itself was comprised of ramshackle buildings, as if only the minimum effort had been put into their construction. They reminded me of something I'd read about in the American old west, mixed with something else. "It's a boomtown, mixed with a shanty town."
"What's that?" asked Ken, as if he hadn't really heard me.
I ignored his question because he wasn't likely to understand what either of those terms were. Instead, I asked my own question. "When was this town founded?"
He nodded as if I had just confirmed something. "Not many who come through here notice. This town was built shortly after King Tiberius came to rule. At his insistence."
Without realizing what I was doing, I looked up at the castle above the town and for the first time, noticed the giant windows spreading upward along the rock face. "So he can gaze down at all of his subjects." I shuddered. "All of his slaves."
"Just so," whispered Ken, as though he worried their ruler would hear his reply.
No wonder everyone glared at me, a guest of the warden.
Not much later, we arrived at the base of the stairs and began to climb. Graulfv positioned himself at my side, his arm locked at ninety degrees, ready to be a steadying force if I needed it. I made it about twenty stairs before the pain in my rear made using that arm necessary.
A continuous stream of lava and fire fae slipped past us, obviously in the middle of urgent preparations for the ball. I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw the first fire elemental.
Fire elementals were the living embodiment of flame. They had the distorted features that humans tended to give to extraterrestrials in their old movies, and moved with fluid grace. My friend Zoe had told me they were a force of nature like a volcano, and my encounter with them had proven that to be true.
"Don't worry," said Ken. "You will come to no harm here. The elementals are in service to the king, as are the rest of us."
If I hadn't heard Ken doing his tour guide routine, I might not have noticed the subtle resentment in his tone.
"That's good to know," I replied, because it was good to know he didn't think I was likely to be attacked, but truthfully, I knew the only person who could make such a promise was the one who controlled them. The last time I'd encountered fire elementals, they'd been controlled by the Orani. I didn't actually know what fire elementals were like outside of a situation of captivity, and I wondered if they were sought out for this kind of subjugation for any particular reason. Whatever the reason, violent or not, it still disturbed me to see people subjected to this. It was exactly why I wasn't supposed to be using the Fleece. It would control people just as well as the mask this tyrant was using. Loud and clear, the word Better echoed through my mind like a gong—and it wasn't my voice.
Quiet! I mentally shouted at it, and then swallowed hard. I had moments where I felt deeply conflicted about the Fleece. It had been useful. It had helped me save Owen, and remove Erik Bresnan from the fae council. But I couldn't look at the situation before me and think that this kind of magic could really be considered benign. I needed to recover that mask. And I needed to do something about the Fleece.
One thing at a time. "You said something about healers at my quarters? You're taking me to my quarters?"
Ken's demeanor changed immediately. He turned back into tour guide Barbie. "Of course. The ball doesn't start for several hours yet. In the meantime, you'll be given the use of a suite of rooms and servants to see to your needs."
Eventually, Graulfv and I made it to the top of the stairs. The pain went way beyond just the site of the bite; my whole leg felt like it was on fire. I wondered if maybe those lava snakes were poisonous.
Ken stopped just inside the twenty foot tall double doors. He spoke quietly to a human-looking attendant who stared at Graulfv and I with a lifeless expression. When he huffed out a breath, the smell of burnt metal with a hint of lemon hit my nose.
My gasp drew everyone's attention. The attendant looked bored, but Ken's eye stalks drooped in what I determined to be concern. Graulfv's grip tightened on my arm.
"Are you well, Sophie?" He stepped in front of me to meet my eyes. "I can carry you if need be."
I shook my head and gripped my leg as if it were the cause of my gasp. "No need. I can make it to our room on my own." I did my best not to stare at the hunched shoulders of the door attendant. King Tiberius was using a dragon to answer his door. "I just need a little rest."
I passed through the rest of the pomp and circumstance without seeing any of it. All I could see were the light brown eyes of the dragon that didn't show any of the fire that should have been there. I'd seen dragons who'd been imprisoned and they hadn't looked that beaten down, despite their comparative poor health. I knew that this man, this dragon, probably wasn't suffering any more than the rest of the residents of Derinia, but seeing him made it real in a way that seeing the others couldn't. I wasn't imagining things, or exaggerating the situation. These people were slaves. This man could have been Owen, Greta, or Zoe.
I was still in a daze when we passed down several more halls. Ken had stayed behind, leaving us with the dragon. I didn't come back to myself until we walked by a huge set of ornately carved wooden doors flanked by two grand stairways. It could only be the ballroom.
The dragon ignored the splendor of the giant chandelier and sculptures made of ice. He turned down a hall to our left and led us up a slightly smaller, infinitesimally less grand set of stairs and stopped at the third door on the right.
"This is your suite," said the dragon,
his tone dull. "If you need anything, your servants are waiting inside and will attend to you."
He turned on a heel and marched back the way we'd come. "I didn't say goodbye to Ken," I said stupidly, wondering at the sudden sense of regret that washed over me.
"I said goodbye for the both of us," said Graulfv, giving me a weak smile. "He said that his next guests were certainly going to be a disappointment after us."
That made me feel both better and worse. "Well, we have work to do, but first things first, let's get my ass patched up."
"Do you enjoy saying that word?" he asked.
"Which word?"
He gave me a look.
"I don't see why I should take guesses in an attempt to answer your vague questions," I told him.
"All right, then." Graulfv opened the white wooden door and bowed his head slightly, gesturing for me to enter.
A woman wreathed in fire met us at the doorway, her yellow eyes bright and cheerful. "Please, come in and sit down so that I may tend to your wounds."
When she turned and gestured to the huge comfortable sofas I realized the wreath of fire glowing behind her wreathed a pair of wings at her back. Despite being bathed in fire, I could still make out golden feathers. "You're a healer?" I asked, lowering myself slowly to the couch and still wincing when my cheek hit the soft white leather.
The woman nodded, her white-blonde hair floating in a swirl around her head. "Of course. All phoenixes are." She held up a hand and snapped her fingers. It lit up in blue flame. "Healing fire."
A phoenix. "Wow," I said, quietly. "I've never met a phoenix."
Her smiled was sad for half a beat, then bounced back to relentlessly cheerful. "We have a lot of work to do here in Derinia. Visitors are often injured. It's a difficult place to stay safe if fire isn't your friend."
"There aren't any phoenixes outside of Derinia," I guessed. I'd known they didn't leave Faerie, but now I thought I remembered hearing that they only lived in certain places.