by G. Bailey
“Tell that to all those innocent people he’s taken!”
He blinks at me as though I’ve just hit him again. Slowly, he lets go of my wrist, and I’m almost tempted to strike him for extra measure. I mean, he practically knew what his ‘father’, a/k/a our psychopathic headmaster, has been doing all along, but he never once said anything to me, or to anyone, for that matter.
“Forgive me, please, Vina? I’ll make this right. I swear to you.”
I move away from him, a sea of conflicted emotions swirling around like a whirlpool in my mind.
“Right now, I need to find Sage and the others. Where do you suspect he’s taken them?” I demand, keeping my voice harsh and without feeling. I’m not sure I can forgive him right now. I’m too fucking livid to think straight.
Gage looks between me and his cousin, and then sighs. “Over the past few weeks, he’s been going to the cave tunnels more than ever. I think he’s keeping the students down there. I’ve tried to get in myself, but I don’t possess the power to break down the barrier. Perhaps…” He trails off, glancing down at Echo, who’s trying to eat his foot. “Perhaps a Shadow Warden can help us.”
“Zander,” I say, nodding, and Pitch merges back into my body. “Let’s go.”
I turn on my heel without checking to see if they’re following me. Echo, of course, flies to my side and I hold him in my arms, using the back of his head to wipe the tears escaping from my eyes. Whatever Greyhorn has planned, I hope I reach Sage in time.
We find Zander in the common area, with Ronan and some others who are early risers. As soon as Zander sees me rushing over to him, he stands from the sofa. Echo lets out a strange squeal and flies over onto Zander’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong, my lady?”
“I need your help,” I say, pulling him out of earshot to explain everything that has happened.
By the time I finish, Zander’s eyes are bugged in their sockets. “And you need me to help break the barrier down?”
“Yes,” Gage says, still unable to meet my gaze.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Zander quirks his lips into a smirk.
And then I do something stupid.
I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him, my tears soaking into his shirt. He believes me. None of that ‘are you sure? Do you have evidence?’ bullshit.
Zander freezes for only a second, then his hands are on my waist and he’s reciprocating my embrace, saying softly into my ear, “Don’t worry, my lady. We’ll get down to the bottom of this. Won’t we, Echo?”
I giggle and look up at Echo on Zander’s shoulder, booping him on his little wet nose. “We will. Together.”
“I’m coming with you all.”
We turn to look at Ronan, who gives an affirmative nod.
“Some of the missing students were my friends,” he adds, looking directly at me. “I have every right to be there, too.”
I nod at him. “Gage, you said you know which tunnel we should go to. Can you get us there?”
Zander holds out his hands. “It’s too early for all those stairs, and Gage can’t shadowlocate like I can. Hold on tight.”
We each hold hands, and with a simple utterance from his lips, Zander drapes us in shadows. The familiar ethereal glow of the underground cave tunnels beams against my eyelids, and I open them to see all the breathtaking crystals. These ones are different from the others. The crystals are shaped like dragon eggs and they have gold rims with amethyst centers that shouldn’t but do catch the light rather beautifully.
“Which tunnel is it?” Zander asks, rotating his wrists like he’s getting ready for a fight.
Gage points to one of the three gigantic tunnels. “The middle one.”
“Stand back,” Zander orders, and the rest of us stand a good distance away.
Jonah remains just slightly closer, his own hands raised in preparation.
“Will you ever forgive me?” Gage whispers, glancing down at me.
I keep my eyes on Zander and the strange, fascinating incantation he’s performing. “I trusted you and you lied to me. You lied to all of us.”
Zander’s gold pentagram, flecked with unusual emerald symbols, stretches up to the size of the entire entrance of the tunnel. I watch in awe as the symbols transform into an enormous dragon, and the ground trembles beneath my feet, shaking the crystals carved into the walls. Holy shit, Zander is fucking powerful. I can see why Gage suggested we ask for his help.
“I did lie, and for that I’m sorry,” Gage says. “I wanted to be sure I was right before jumping to conclusions. But when I found my father snooping around your room, I knew something was wrong. I should’ve warned you then.”
“Yeah, you should’ve,” I spit out, though I immediately regret the words. Sage would have done the same thing and waited until she had evidence. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. “Ask me for forgiveness once you help me find my best friend.”
“And the others,” Jonah adds, glaring over his shoulder. “Or are you forgetting that my sister is in there?”
“You don’t know that for sh…” Gage cuts himself off and trains his focus back onto Zander. “You’re right. Let’s end this once and for all.”
Zander drags his hands through the air, and the dragon soars over our heads and back again. It stretches its wings out, so beautiful and terrifying, and suddenly everything makes sense to me. Zander’s eyes, his magic… he’s part dragon. He’s got to be to wield this sort of power.
The dragon shoots into the cave tunnel, shattering the barrier and turning the particles into dust. The impact sends a ferocious wave of magical energy through the cave, knocking each of us back. When I get onto my feet and see what lies ahead, nestled away inside the tunnel, I can scarcely believe my eyes…
“Oh my fucking God,” I gasp as I stare up at the pods dangling from the ceiling. There are dozens of them hanging in between the crystals. The blue glow of them is unnatural and yet beautiful all at the same time. Water swirls around inside the pods, holding each of their victims in place.
“I wouldn’t be sure a god did this,” Zander mutters behind me, but I’m already running to the pods with Jonah following close behind.
Jonah runs ahead, his eyes searching each of the pods, and Gage heads after him, glancing once at me. I don’t recognise three of the students I first see but I know in my soul Sage is here somewhere. The guys and I aren’t looking for the same person, though, and I know why Jonah and Gage need to find Jane. Thankfully, I find Sage right away, at the front of the pods. Without thinking about it, I rip into the pod with my hands and scream as a blast of magic slams into me from the water. It burns my hands and arms as I grab Sage and drag her out of the pod. Zander stands near me with Ronan, watching out for danger as I feel for Sage’s pulse. I suck in a deep breath as Pitch leaves my soul, appearing at my side and looking down at Sage. He hovers his hand over her head as Zander mutters a bunch of curse words. I’m too panicked to even move or stop staring at my best friend, wishing she would wake up any second.
I let her down. I should have stopped this sooner somehow. I should have been awake last night. I should have fought for my best friend. If anything happens—
“You need to get your friend to a healer. Right now. Dark magic like I’ve never seen is reworking her soul, sucking the energy from it and killing her,” Pitch explains, and cold dread creeps into my body.
“Her neck tattoo is gone,” I mutter as I look up at Zander. “Take her to the healers with your shadow magic. Please.”
“I will stay and watch out for Jonah,” Ronan suggests, stepping away from us.
I don’t know why he suddenly gives two shits for Jonah.
Zander doesn’t question me as he leans down, placing a hand on Sage’s arm and my shoulder but nothing happens and he lets go.
“I need to get away from here to use my powers. Something is stopping me.”
My heart thrashes in my ears with panic. I watch him pick Sage up and we both turn
around at the same time, pausing as a man walks straight towards us, two long-ass swords dragging across the stone. His cloak lifts behind him with the same blue magic that the pods are giving out, and his eyes glow with the power as his lips tug up in a smug smile.
He looks like a god…like he’s unstoppable.
“Get the fuck out of here, Corvina!” Pitch roars at me but I can’t move an inch as my headmaster stares at us.
“Headmaster Greyhorn, what brings you down here?” I ask with a false sense of calmness, but I already know the reason.
This is all his doing.
Zander carefully puts Sage down, then tugs out two daggers from his belt and he returns to my side. I don’t even look where Ronan or Jonah are, but this isn’t good.
“Put the student back in the pod and leave. If you do, I won’t have to kill you two,” Greyhorn states, his face wiped clean of emotion.
“That isn’t going to happen,” Zander states before I can say a word. I look up to him for a brief second and I know I will always, always remember this moment.
This moment when he decided to stay and fight for my best friend because of me.
Because it’s the right thing to do.
“And we’re going to free every student here,” I add, gathering a ball of magic into the palm of my hand. “What the fuck are you doing with them?”
Greyhorn barely even looks at us, his attention somehow drifting over our heads to the pods. A slow, sickening snarl lifts the edge of his lips. “How else do you become a god?” He lifts his swords into the air at his side, twirling them around with faultless ease. “You steal the power you need and make yourself one. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
In the blink of an eye, blue power shoots out of the pods and into the swords in his hands like lightning rods. The power smothers Professor Greyhorn, no doubt charging him up like a fucking battery. Zander must realise the same thing, as he runs at Professor Greyhorn and I quickly cast a spell to lend my power to Zander. I draw five circles within each other as quick as I can and push the circles towards Zander. I gasp as I feel the draw and I can hardly stand up as Zander borrows my power, draining me but growing stronger with every droplet.
He hits Professor Greyhorn like a rock smashing into the sea, both of them blasting a mixture of blue and purple magic everywhere. The dark energy hits me in the stomach and shoots backwards into the air, rolling to a stop on my side. I look up just as Zander blocks every single one of the professor’s sword hits with his daggers, which are no doubt enchanted in some kind of way. But Greyhorn is stronger, much stronger than I ever anticipated. With every blow that he delivers, he appears to be growing stronger. The veins in his face are pulsing with the sapphire magic, crawling around his features like long twisted spider legs.
Thankfully, Gage and Jonah come rushing over and join Zander to help win this fight. Watching the three of them battle with dark magic and weapons is truly inspiring, and I’m captivated as I crawl to my feet, sand sticking to my hands. I smile as Zander knocks a sword from Greyhorn’s hand and stabs his shoulder in the same move. Jonah wrestles with the other sword, using dark magic to hold the professor’s entire arm down to the ground.
“LET ME GO!” Greyhorn bellows from the top of his lungs.
Jonah merely laughs, and then his face darkens with venom. “Why did you take Jane? Why the fuck did you hurt my sister? Your own niece!”
“Give me your dagger,” Gage asks Zander, and they both stare at each other for a moment that feels like an eternity.
Eventually, Zander nods and I slowly walk over, stopping a little distance away. I feel helpless just standing here but it doesn’t feel right to intervene. I’ve always hated Greyhorn, but this battle belongs more to Jonah and Gage than anyone else.
Gage stands over Greyhorn and presses the tip of his dagger over his father’s heart. “I remember my mother well enough to know she loved you, and because of that, I tried to find good in your heart even when there isn’t any. What you’ve done here will be remembered, but not because people will see you as a god. No, they will see you as another monster that the Enchanted Forest can forget.”
“Son, wait… listen to me—”
Gage presses down and stabs the dagger through his father’s beating chest.
Greyhorn’s mouth drops open, his eyes largen in their sockets, never leaving Gage’s face, and the veins in his face start to throb and his body convulses. The guys all step back just as he explodes into a cloud of blue dust that flickers ever so softly before falling dead to the ground. The light from the pods all but disappears, too, leaving us in violet shadows from the crystals in here.
“You okay, my lady?” Zander whispers the words.
I open my mouth to reply, but there’s a strange blast of light, and a sharp pain stabs me in the stomach. I look down, not believing my eyes as I see the dagger Professor Greyhorn was killed with embedded in my stomach. Blood oozes out and the floor and walls around me start to sway. I look into the eyes of my betrayer, and it only hurts even more. Ronan Fairweather, my friend, stares back at me with a burning hatred in his eyes I’ve never seen there before. He smiles like he’s just hit the bullseye. I suppose he did. I just didn’t know I was the target.
“Why?” I manage to choke out, falling to my knees, my vision blurring. “Why, Ronan…?”
Pitch blasts out of my soul and grabs me around the waist, yet I can’t feel a thing.
Ronan shrugs at me. “Because I had to. Now die, little shadowborn, and make it quick.”
Zander reaches Ronan’s side and punches him in the face. Jonah joins him, calling Ronan every name under the sun, but everything starts to darken and my body turns cold.
“Vina!” Gage shouts first, but I’m too hazy to hear the rest as I think I black out for a moment. I just catch snatches of their conversation while the poison in my blood intensifies, yet instead of feeling excruciating pain, I just feel numb all over.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Pitch and all you need to know is that Corvina is all I care about. We have to get her to the Faery Pools. They can heal her.”
Someone picks me up and it is then when I start to feel the pain.
“Zander, leave the fucking idiot! We will come back for him later!” Gage shouts.
“Sage is gone, I can’t find her,” Jonah whispers.
“We have to save Corvina first and then we will figure out where she is,” Jonah adds, and I want to argue with them, tell them no, that Sage can’t be missing, she has to come to the Faery Pools with me. She has to be healed. Even Pitch said so. I want to plead with them, but no words come out when I part my lips. There is nothing but agony writhing inside my body, clawing at my insides, infecting my veins.
“What about Jane?” Gage asks.
“Corvina first!” Jonah bellows, and I want to tell him that I’ll be okay. Go find your sister. But nothing comes out, just a silent agony consuming me from within.
More darkness, more writhing pain, and every second feels like an hour.
“Hold on. I can take us all there,” Zander says, and something cold brushes my cheek.
I feel like I’m floating on a bed of nails, delirious with pain.
Shadows cover me—blissful, dark, soothing shadows—and then we’re out in the forest again, the familiar scents easy to remember now. They almost give me a comfort I never thought I’d feel here. I have hated this forest since the moment I died in it.
And now I’m about to die in it again.
“Put her in the water,” Pitch demands, and I hear splashing footsteps only moments before freezing cold water covers my legs and stomach. A bright, soothing light blasts in front of my eyes, and despite the turmoil tearing me asunder within, I relax for the first time in the comfort of the pool.
Ahhh, this feels much better. What was I worried about again?
“The Faery Pools is opening a portal!” Gage shouts in a panicked voice. What the hell is he frightened about? This place is
so nice and warm and… “But that’s impossible.”
“Not for a true-blooded fae, it’s not,” Pitch whispers, but his eyes are looking down only at me, burning like molten gold. “Corvina Charles is fae and she is taking us to her home.”
It’s so cold. So dark. I don’t think I’m going to make it.
The world is spinning around me. Blood gushes out from wounds, my head pulses, and my heart feels like it’s going to explode under all the pressure. The sky is nothing but an endless sea of stars skidding over my field of sight. I thought the guys were going to kill me back there. I think they only kept me alive so I could die slower and on my own, but I’ll be doing no such thing. I earned my prize by doing what Princess Eva commanded, and I plan on claiming it.
I grab hold of the trees for aid and stumble my way through the forest, leaving a bloody trail behind me. I just manage to reach the Fountain of Mene before I collapse onto my knees.
“Eva, I did it…” I whisper, barely able to choke the words out. More blood spurts from my mouth and I hunch over, coughing out the copper residue. “I held my end of the bargain… You promised me, Eva… Eva!”
The earth below me steadily freezes, wilting all of the flowers and trees in the clearing.
Unable to keep my eyes open, I close them, my teeth chattering from her coldness. I feel her icy hand on my face.
“You did not uphold your end of the bargain, my love. Next time you call me, you call me by my official name. Princess Evangelina of the Light Fae Court and heir to the Throne of Helios and Luna.”
I shoot my eyes open, using every last bit of strength I have to hold her powerful, dark gaze. “I did… you promised me… into a fae…”
Eva slowly shakes her head, her beautiful blonde hair glowing in the pale moonlight. “You failed because my sister is still alive. Corvina crossed the portal and now wakens in my father’s kingdom.”
“Please…”
“Oh, my love, begging is so unlike you.” She traces a fingernail over my barely beating heart, ever so gently. “But you have been good for the most part. Perhaps I shall turn you into a fae and you can spend the rest of eternity at my side.”