by D. N. Hoxa
That’s what I told myself. And when the guard hit the floor face first, I wholeheartedly believed that I’d done that, even though Ashes wasn’t a spell that knocked you out cold like that.
A smile began to curl my lips, just as the second guard hit the floor. Had I spelled him, too, unconsciously?
But, no. The second guard fell to his side. The large arrow coming out of his chest was perfectly visible from where I stood. And then, the woman walking towards the door was crystal clear, too.
“Julius!” she called, and my jaw hit the floor. Julian was beside me, ice shards on the floor, looking at her like she held the world in her hands.
Behind her came another four fairies. They were definitely not guards, because while the woman looked at Julian with a smile on her face, one of them grabbed a set of keys from one of the dead guards, and unlocked the door, just like that.
I turned to look at Julian, hoping he’d say something, but he didn’t. He just laughed. And Gerin laughed from behind us, too.
My God, they were right to laugh. We were really getting out of there!
The fairy woman with the other four fairy men behind her came to our door and unlocked that one, too. I didn’t even get a second to feel the relief. As soon as the door pulled open, the woman ran and jumped into Julian’s arms.
She held onto him as if he were life itself and didn’t let go for a good long while. Jealousy, like a poisonous snake, slithered up my body until it wrapped all around me tight enough to squeeze the air out of my lungs. When she stepped back and I saw her face, it got even worse.
She was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. The violet of her eyes had a red hue to it. Her blonde hair fell all the way to her waist, and the skin of her face looked like it was made out of marble. Her lips, long and full, could have a guy dreaming in seconds.
“Good to see you, Marva,” Julian breathed, then turned to the men. “Good to see you all.”
“You’re alive, Julius,” Marva said. It was so strange to hear her call him by that name. “We were afraid…” and then she thought to turn to me.
It didn’t take a genius to see that she did not like me any more than I liked her. Why are women like this, I wondered, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find something to make me change my mind. She raised a perfect blonde brow as her eyes scrolled up and down my body.
“This is Winter Wayne,” Julian said.
“The Bone witch,” Marva spit. So she knew me.
“Sorry. I’ve never heard about you.” I offered a grin, too, just to spite her.
“We have to leave the castle now, Julius. More guards are coming,” one of the men standing behind Marva said.
That’s when it hit me. It hit me hard and made me dizzy.
“Where is Galladar?” I asked with half my voice. Because I remembered what Gerin said when Julian mentioned his friends. He said that they wouldn’t be able to help us as long as Galladar was around.
Marva looked at Julian. Julian looked at me. Nobody spoke.
I stepped in front of the woman. “Where the hell is Galladar?” I hissed. If they thought now was the right time to keep things from me, they were dead wrong.
“He’s gone to Earth,” she said, raising her chin as if to say she wasn’t afraid of me.
Her words spun the room around for me. Holy spell. The fairy that had turned my beads useless in a matter of seconds—something that even Hedge witches hadn’t been able to do—had gone to my home.
I turned to Julian, fear and anger making a mess out of my thoughts. “Take me back.”
“Winter, no. You’re not ready,” he said.
“Take me back, Julian. Now.” I didn’t care if I was ready. That guy was in my home and I wasn’t there. That was all the ready I needed to be.
“I can’t. Not here,” he said. “Winter—” but I didn’t let him finish.
“Then let’s get out of this damned place.”
***
They gave me a sword. A sword. What the hell was I supposed to do with a sword, when just swinging it made the muscles in my arm ache? I didn’t complain, though because a sword was still better than nothing.
I strode forward as fast as I could without running, and Julian kept trying to make me wait, but I didn’t. I didn’t care who came in front of me. I was getting out of that castle, and then getting back home right now.
But dead fairies were all that greeted us when we left the corridor that took us to the prison room. It looked like Julian’s friends had done a pretty good job. Good for them.
“If you leave now, you won’t be able to stop him. You need to learn how to separate your powers, Winter. The fairy realm is the only place where you can do that fast,” said Julian, walking beside me. His friends—and that woman Marva, who looked like a bit more than a friend—must have told him that they’d taken everybody out because he didn’t bother to even look around or defend himself.
“I’m not staying here, Julian. I’m going back home. That asshole has probably done enough damage.” Just the thought of it made me shiver.
“You can’t beat him, Winter. You saw what he did.” His voice was low, almost begging me, but I wouldn’t hear. We were already close to the narrow corridor we’d gone through right after we’d entered the castle. The outside was close.
“I’ll sure as hell try.” I’d taken my chances against Hedge witches. I’d take them against Galladar, too.
“You’re no good to anyone dead,” Julian hissed.
The corridor ended. One of the double doors was slightly open. Three fairies were dead right next to it. I ran, heart in my throat, and I pulled the door open all the way. Fresh air filled my nostrils. The outside was exactly the same as the last time I’d seen it. Four dead fairies were scattered on the ground in front of us. Nobody else for miles.
I turned to Julian. “Open it.”
“Winter, please,” he said, both angry and desperate. Exactly like me.
“Open the damn portal, Julian! He’s already there!” Couldn’t he see what that meant? Julian had come back to get me because of his home. It wasn’t fair of him to ask me to wait, even for a second.
“If you go back there like this, all of this will have been for nothing,” he said. “You have to trust me.”
“Like I did back on Earth when you said you were a Blood witch?” I hissed. “How the hell did that serve me?” I couldn’t help myself. It was a low blow, but he needed to be reminded what it was like to be away from home.
“Just do it. He’s already there. If we can block the portals, we’ll make sure he doesn’t come back,” Marva said from behind Julian. My hands pulled up in fists.
“We can’t block the portals, Marva,” Julian hissed. “Even if we could, he’ll do to Earth what he did here.”
“That is not our concern,” she said, all the while looking at me. All the other fairies nodded in agreement, except for Gerin who could barely stand on his own. Fucking assholes.
“You expect me to help these people?” I asked Julian.
“Give me a day,” he said instead. “One day of training.” Hope, like the one that had brought me back to life in the prison cell when he gave me water, was written all over his face. It broke my heart.
“I can’t!” I cried. I couldn’t just stand back and let Galladar kill innocent people! Humans, witches, werewolves, vampires—even fairies. If his own kind couldn’t stop him in the fairy realm, how could they do it on Earth?
“Okay,” Julian whispered, and it looked like, with that word, all the hope drained from his body.
My mouth opened to say something, to try to explain, but then I caught movement from the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, I saw a lot of Galladar’s fairies running to us. They were coming from the back of the castle and their swords were drawn—a clear indicator that they weren’t interested in talking.
Everybody stepped back and Gerin ran back inside the castle, hiding behind the door.
“On my mark,” sa
id Marva. I would have liked to wait for her, but my blood was pumping. My mind was all over the place. Those fairies were the only thing standing between me and Earth, and I was going to get rid of them as fast as I could.
So without waiting for her mark, I charged forward, the heavy ass sword drawn.
Julian was right behind me. Marva shouted something, but I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my sword clashing against that of a fairy guard. His violet eyes were wide open as he took me in. He probably hadn’t gotten the memo that a witch was in the fairy realm, and that split second of surprise cost him. I’d never done this before, but sliding the sword into his chest until it came out of his back was a quick way to end a fairy’s life, it seemed.
To get the sword back when the guard fell to his knees, I had to put my foot on his shoulder and pull it back with all my strength. When the fairy fell on my sneakers, another was right in front of my face.
I swung my sword but he caught it with his and tried to shove me back with his huge hand. This one wasn’t as distracted as the first, but my fist on his face did the trick. Now that I realized it, none of the others who were fighting us were using their fists. Maybe fairies just didn’t fight that way. Better for me.
After another fist at his face, I swung my arm and hit his sword with mine. His slid from his hand and hit the ground with a loud noise. I jumped forward and tried to cut his throat, but he stepped away. Reaching for his belt, he took out two knives.
Knives! Oh, how lovely they looked. Just made for me. They weren’t nearly as good as the ones I had back home—their blades were thinner and completely straight, and their handles were made out of worn, brown leather—but they would do just fine.
With a renewed energy, I swung my arm fast back and forth, until the tip of the sword caught the guard on his chest. Blood soaked his grey shirt in seconds, and when he took a step back, I buried the sword in his gut.
This time, when the fairy hit the floor, I left the sword in his body and took the knives out of his hands. He wasn’t going to need them anyway. Feeling a thousand times better without the heavy sword, I charged for the fairy closest to me, one of the three fighting Julian. I thought I’d catch him by surprise, but he must have seen me approach because he swung his arm at exactly the right time and his sword made a clean cut on my left cheek. It burned like a bastard, too. The pain made me close my eyes, and on instinct, I dropped to my knees, sure that he’d swing his sword toward my chest again.
I was right. By the time I could see again and the pain on my cheek began to fade, the fairy guard in front of me was spinning around. With the knife in my hand, I sliced the back of his knee, and I jumped up just in time. He backed up. His leg failed him. He stumbled and practically fell on my knife with his neck. Bye, bye, fairy.
As I thought that, red-hot pain sliced me across my back. No, wait. It was a sword.
I spun around with my arms outstretched, but the fairy who’d attacked me jumped away. God, how I missed my beads. I’d have had him dead in seconds if I could have used them, but as it was, I fought him with my knives and with all my strength. He dodged perfectly when I charged for him, then swung his sword much faster than his friends. Putting my arms in front of my face to protect myself was a bad idea. The sword cut a straight line through them, and it was deep. My blood hit the ground—and my white sneakers—but I had no time to get angry because he charged me again. Adrenaline helped in masking the pain in my face, back and arms, and when he swung his sword, I leaned down, then came up and landed a fist right up his nose. It broke. Blood flowed down from his nostrils. I hit him again in his eyes, and when he swung his arms, i blocked it. Since I was close enough, I wrapped my arms around his torso and threw him back. When he hit the ground, I was ready. The next second, both my knives slid to the sides of his neck.
“Winter, we have to run,” Julian called from behind me. I jumped to my feet, my hands and my knives covered in the fairies’ blood, and I looked back.
All the fairy guards were dead, and all of Julian’s friends were still standing—and one of them was holding Gerin in his arms. From the other side of the castle, about thirty new fairies were running towards us.
An arrow landed right in front of my feet. They were archers, too, it seemed.
“Shit,” I hissed and stepped back. Why the hell couldn’t they just let us go?
“We need to run,” Julian said again. He pulled me back by the arm while three of his friends stepped in front of us with their bows drawn. They began to shoot arrows at the fairies.
“Can’t you open the portal here?” I asked Julian, but I was already walking backwards while a rain of arrows poured down before us.
“We need to get to safety first,” he said.
Julian’s friends, the ones with the bows, were already backing away, too.
“Let’s go!” Marva called, and they all turned around to run toward the abandoned houses behind the castle.
They were right. There was no point in fighting those fairies. We needed to get to safety first, then I could get back home.
I was going to turn around and run as fast as my legs would let me, but then a bright white light appeared right in between us and the fairies who were running for us.
“What the…” Julian whispered, as surprised as I was.
Fear clawed its way to my mind when the thought of seeing Galladar again occurred to me. Shit. I was not ready for him. Not here. At home, it was my territory. My friends and family—the ones I had. Out here, I was at a disadvantage in every way.
“Julius, we need to go!” Marva called.
Julian didn’t move from beside me. He, too, was afraid of what was coming from that white light. I held my breath as something dark began to take shape. Two legs. My hands began to shake. Two arms…
The light disappeared. The person remained. It was not Galladar.
It was Evelyn Davis.
Twenty one
Everything lost sense for the longest second. Just like in the prison, it almost felt like I was stuck in a dream again. Because it just didn’t click together. I was in the fairy realm. So what business did I have to see Lynn there?
I looked at Julian. He’d confirm it if I was hallucinating or not, but the look on his face wasn’t a good sign. He, too, looked like he couldn’t breathe.
“Lynn?” I whispered because I didn’t have the heart to ask the whole question.
To my horror, Julian slowly nodded. “Lynn.”
Lynn stood in front of us—and the fairy guards coming to fight us, but they’d stopped running, too. Nobody had expected that light—or the girl dressed in a leather jacket and denim jeans to appear out of thin air in the middle of a battle. And she looked clueless. Terrified. Absolutely stunned.
“Lynn!” I called with all my voice. She turned her head, shocked to hear her name, and finally met my eyes.
There was no time to even begin to think of an explanation to this, because the guards were charging forward again, and the first person they’d reach was Lynn.
Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself running forward with all my strength.
“Stop!” Marva shouted, but I didn’t.
“Lynn, run!” I called because she was just standing there, looking at me, seemingly about to piss her jeans. A second too late, my words registered in her brain and with shaking legs, she began to run toward me.
The guards were so close to her. My heart fell all the way to my feet at the thought of her dying there. My muscles burned when I pushed myself harder, but none of it mattered when Lynn was right in front of me, and I had just enough time to grab her hand and pull her behind me, before the first guard’s sword nearly cut through my face.
I usually didn’t mind fighting, but fighting fairies with large swords wasn’t something I was used to. Without my gun and knives, I felt naked, and without my beads, I felt like a limb had been amputated. I still tried my best to fight with what I had—my body and the borrowed knives—but I was heavily
wounded, blood everywhere on my body, pain only halfway concealed by adrenaline.
If I continued that way, I wasn’t going to make it. Julian and all of his friends—including Marva—were fighting, too, but there were too many fairies. Hopeless, I began to chant the same spell I’d conjured to help Julian create the ice shards in my hands.
The castle was too close to us and the ravenstone wouldn’t let my fairy magic work. But when I stabbed a fairy in the chest, then buried my other knife in his right eye—all the while chanting—the one that came after him was suddenly pushed back.
He was surprised. I was surprised. We both collected ourselves fast. I stopped his sword with my knives and I chanted another spell, one that would produce a blow that should send the opponent flying back—and possibly break his ribs.
On the third try, the fairy fighting me was thrown back, and he took two others with him.
If I’d had a second to breathe, I would have allowed myself a cheer, but as it was, two other fairies were in front of me again and the fighting continued. One of them cut my shoulder with his sword while I was trying to get to his friend’s neck with my knives, when suddenly, an arrow appeared right about his heart. I used the second of distraction it cost his friend, and I sliced a clean line right under his chin. When I turned, I saw Julian with another arrow in his hand—no bow—stabbing another fairy right in a chest.
“Go back,” he said to me, but before I could, another fairy charged me. Spinning around with my feet in the air, I hit him in the face with the heel of my foot. He stumbled to the side and Julian delivered a fist to his face, giving me enough time to get close to him and stab him in his heart.
“Come on,” Julian said and retreated back. I didn’t need to be told twice. Heart in my throat, I ran back where we’d come from.
Lynn was far away, all alone in the dead land, but I had my eyes on her. I was running as fast as I could to reach her before other fairies did. The closer we got, the clearer I saw her face—and the fear reflected in her eyes.
“Stick by me,” Julian said as he ran beside me.