by Chloe Jacobs
“Because you’re only half faerie?” Wyatt asked.
She nodded. “Not all full-blooded faeries have magick. I assumed my goblin blood would cancel out whatever ability was contributed by my mother’s blood. Besides, my skill with my blades has always been more than enough for me to do my job, so it never became an issue.”
“But your mother did have magick, right? What was her gift?”
“I don’t remember her demonstrating her power to me at all before she died.”
“I’m sorry.” Greta felt worse for asking in the first place.
Siona shook her head. “It’s nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing. Greta was starting to be able to read Siona better, and she recognized the anguish gleaming in her eyes. The wounds of her past must still hurt like hell, and maybe it was harder for the strong goblin hunter to brush them aside because they were getting so close to the Glass Kingdom.
She decided to change the subject. “So what’s the deal with the faeries talking to each other telepathically?”
“How did you—”
“It’s pretty obvious if you pay attention,” she said with a grin. “Can you do it, too?”
“No, of course not,” she answered quickly. “Not since I was ejected from the Glass Kingdom.”
“How does it work?”
“You remember I told you that every faerie mind is connected through Queen Minetta, and that this allows her to see through the eyes of any of her subjects?”
“Sure.”
“The same gift also allows all faeries to communicate with each other along this same connection.”
“And you’re not part of all faeries?” she asked.
“Not for a long time.” Siona looked her in the eye, and any pain or sadness she still felt about that was hidden well.
“But you were, at one point?”
She nodded.
“After having just one person thinking he can poke his way into my head whenever he wanted, I can imagine you must have been glad to be rid of it, right?”
Siona paused and a shadow passed over her features. “You don’t realize how much you’ll miss something until you have been barred from ever receiving it again.” That sounded a lot like regret, but Greta wouldn’t have pegged Siona as the type to pine for acceptance from people who’d turned their backs on her. She was too strong for that, too independent.
“If we’re getting close to the Glass Kingdom, there are a few questions I want to ask the princess,” Greta said. She stepped ahead and left Wyatt and Siona alone together.
As she jogged up the path, it became obvious that Siona had come back for her, not so much to tell her the news about the Glass Kingdom, but because she and Wyatt had fallen quite far behind and the faeries had probably wanted to check on her. Probably still had half a mind that she was a flight risk.
A rumble in the bushes made her pull up short, and she immediately drew her sword. She looked back to warn Wyatt just as something flew out at her.
She knew what it was even as she flew off her feet and crashed on the ground beneath all three hundred or so pounds of goblin king gone Lost.
Her sword was between their bodies, and she held him back by bracing it against his massive chest.
Blood dripped from his muzzle onto her cheeks, proving that this wasn’t his first attack of the day. She didn’t dare scream because Wyatt and Siona would come running, but her side was shrieking with pain and her arms were already shaking. She wouldn’t be able to hold him off for long.
Isaac, please remember.
Could that work here? In the “real” world?
His jaws snapped less than an inch from her nose.
She shifted her hand and deliberately spread it open over the dirty, matted fur covering his chest. In her dream, they’d been touching.
Nothing happened.
In her dream, she’d been able to make him see her memories. How to do that here?
“Isaac, it’s me, Greta,” she said between teeth clenched tightly together. The more pain she felt, the stronger her need to let loose the black cloud of magick. Already it twisted and writhed like a storm that had pulled a field full of dust up into a funnel. “You know you don’t want to do this.”
He growled and curled a clawed hand around her throat, squeezing until she choked. Her arms buckled and she struggled to push him back before he could tear her to pieces, but she was failing very fast.
She blinked through the spots in her vision and saw Wyatt running for Isaac’s back with her own dagger held high. She tried to scream but couldn’t. Tried to throw Isaac off, but he wouldn’t budge.
She felt the impact of her own weapon sinking between his shoulder blades and sobbed, but it didn’t stop him. He reared up and spun around to face Wyatt. She jumped to her feet. The hilt was still sticking out of him, and she pulled it out before throwing both arms around his neck.
“Do it, Greta,” Siona called, standing with Wyatt. “You must.”
She didn’t know what they were talking about until Siona pointed at the dagger still in Greta’s hand. Isaac growled and spun, trying to throw her off.
The faeries were going to join the fray any second now. She needed to show him a memory that would shock him out of the moons’ grip quickly, before they decided he needed putting down.
She closed her eyes and prayed there would be enough time. “Remember what you said to me when you wanted me to say your name, Isaac?” She spoke as closely into his ear as she could and tightened her arms around his neck. “You said…you said we…”
It wasn’t working. The memory wouldn’t stick with her long enough to…
She was getting fuzzy and didn’t think it was from pain. The storm of magick was so strong it swept away the words and thoughts and images she wanted to project before she could latch onto them, as if it didn’t want her to remember.
He wasn’t responding. She caught sight of Dryden out of the corner of her eye with an arrow cocked and ready.
Her breathing was shallow and raspy, and her lungs hurt. Her fingers slipped through his fur, losing purchase. A coughing fit overcame her, and she let go of him, collapsing on the ground. Blood-tinged spittle flew from her mouth into the muddy snow.
Before she could recover, Dryden let his arrow fly. Another joined it, both thwacking into Isaac so hard she winced from the hit.
He roared and turned to the faeries, but they dodged as he rushed them. When Isaac would have come back around, Greta stood and lifted her hand. She didn’t have the strength to go after him with her sword, even if the magick wasn’t battering away at her rib cage and her skull.
Siona was right. It was too late. The Lost couldn’t come back, and she was only hurting everyone—including Isaac—by holding out false hope.
She should be the one to do it. She should—
Her fingertips sizzled. She was horrified by the eagerness that overcame her and scrambled to cut it out.
“I can’t.” She tucked her hands into her abdomen and bent over. Her whole body shook. “I can’t. I can’t.” She looked up at Siona through a veil of tears. She couldn’t save him. And she couldn’t let him go free again, either.
But she couldn’t kill him.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the arrows fly. Dryden and two others hadn’t hesitated.
Isaac snarled and spun toward them, but the faeries were already nailing him with more arrows, and suddenly Dryden’s icy power filled the air, too.
Greta jumped forward, but Siona held her back.
Siona shook her head. “Please, Greta. This is a kindness. He deserves to die honorably.”
Isaac had fallen to his knees. His head hung between his hunched shoulders as he wheezed for breath.
“This isn’t honorable, Siona.” Greta sobbed. “This is the most unhonorable thing I’ve ever done.”
Dryden stepped forward with another arrow. He looked to Siona, and she gave him the all clear.
No. She couldn’t let him do it.
&nbs
p; She opened herself to the magick, and a wave of heat hit the faerie warrior like a broadax to the midsection. He grunted and froze to the spot, a wide burn mark appearing across his chest. Mercilessly, she threw out another wave, and another. He put his head down and braced himself against the onslaught, but the storm swept him up, and he was caught in a vortex of ice cold. She was using his own power against him, because it was her power now, too. Of course it was. The beast was greedy, not willing to give anything back. It took, and took, and took.
Just as the maelstrom filled her completely, she felt a tug. Siona was clamping down, shoving the door closed. Greta instinctively rebelled, but this time Siona was ready for the pushback and was able to reclaim control.
Dryden recovered and with a shaky hand, he let his last arrow fly. Isaac shifted, but it still got him in the chest. He rose up with a howl that shredded her to the core.
Her heart broke, and with her last shred of control, she turned everything that was still Greta completely off.
She wiped all emotion from her heart. After all, hope hadn’t worked to bring him back from being Lost. None of her cherished memories had worked. And if this was truly the end, she didn’t want to mourn him. It already hurt too much.
Finally, she felt blessedly detached.
When Isaac collapsed into the muck and didn’t move again, Greta turned and walked away.
Chapter Twenty
They got moving immediately, Siona on one side of her, Wyatt on the other, and the faerie warriors completely surrounding them…much like a prison escort.
Greta stopped a few minutes later.
“I’ll be leaving now,” she said. “I’ve decided not to continue to the Glass Kingdom.”
Two of the warriors immediately pulled back their bows and aimed them at her head. Byron and Leila looked at one another before Leila said, “Danem Greta, I thought we had a deal?” Her voice dripped with geniality.
“A deal that I’ve decided no longer benefits me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I don’t want to rid myself of the demon’s magick,” she said simply.
“But what of your duty to the goblin kingdom?” said Leila. “Have you forgotten that war is imminent, and you do not have the resources alone to protect the goblin king’s people?”
“The goblin kingdom is no longer my concern. I think all would agree that they would fare better without me anywhere near.”
Leila motioned to Wyatt. “Then think of your human friends. Who will help you rescue them?”
“That, too, is no longer relevant to me.” Her needs were simple now. Power. Then nothingness.
Love, hope, responsibility, honor. Those were born of emotion and sentiment, none of which mattered. She only cared about amassing enough magick to give the demon what it wanted so there would be an end to the pain.
Wyatt started forward. “Greta, think about this.” Gone was the Wyatt who’d wanted her to leave with him and forget about the Glass Kingdom. She didn’t blame him. She’d gotten steadily weaker and stronger at the same time. More volatile, less reliable. In everyone else’s minds there was no doubt what had to happen—at least in everyone’s minds but hers.
“Without the faeries you don’t stand a chance of withstanding the—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Wyatt,” she said, tired. She wasn’t even sure the faerie queen could remove the magick, it was so entrenched in her every vessel and vein and cell.
The avaricious monster in her thought about daring them to try, though.
Byron crossed his arms. “I don’t believe that we can allow you to leave our protection.”
Her laughter was hollow and tinny. “Allow? You don’t get to allow or deny me anything. I don’t belong to the Glass Kingdom, the goblin kingdom, or any other part of Mylena.”
He frowned. “You don’t actually believe that you—a mere human—could best any one of my warriors if it came to that?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” She looked down her nose at the four who remained in the group, including Dryden. “Human or not, I can take you all on with my eyes closed. Even if you happened to have some decent powers to use against me, you’ve all seen what I can do with my own. You don’t stand a chance and you know it.”
She thought that would shut him up, but he actually smiled. “Can you really be so certain of your power?” He raised a cocky brow. “Or that we are so lacking in same?”
Byron’s sister put a hand on his arm. He glared down at her, but it hadn’t escaped Greta that she was the one in charge. He backed down from the hard line.
“Don’t make a decision that you will regret when the smoke clears,” the faerie princess warned.
Greta almost laughed again. She was the one with all the power here, and they knew it. Since they’d helped her unlock it, maybe she should thank them.
“Think what the goblin king would expect you to do.”
She snarled. “You know what? He isn’t here, and where he is, there are no expectations anymore.” She didn’t feel the connection to him now. He must surely be dead.
The idea of it threatened to make her crack all over again, but she tightened the noose keeping out her emotions and focused on Siona, who was very obviously standing with the faerie warriors. She was starting to realize that she’d been played. Not only by the faeries, but also by the one other Mylean she’d thought she could trust.
With a sneer she said, “Are you going to try reminding me about my responsibilities again, or maybe appeal to my gentle nature? Because I’m pretty sure I no longer have one, and truthfully, I never wanted any responsibilities.”
“No, I understand why you’re doing this. I can feel what’s going on in there.” She nodded in the general vicinity of Greta’s heart. Greta imagined it was clogged and shriveled, suffocating from the sooty black magick that had invaded every single cell. Was she even pumping blood through her veins anymore, or if she looked down at the festering wound in her side would she find her blood was as black as tar?
“It hurts all the time now, doesn’t it?” Siona said. “There’s no room for anything but the pain…and the craving. The craving for more.” Siona leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “But just imagine the supply of magick available to you in the Glass Kingdom. All of it yours for the taking.”
The idea had merit. The darkness craved more power, and she was beyond denying it now. Besides, taking magick from the faeries would help guarantee that they couldn’t use those weapons against the goblin people. Even without her emotions, she could see the benefit in that.
“All right, I’ll continue to the Glass Kingdom as long as it’s clear to everyone that I’m no longer interested in having Queen Minetta relieve me of the magick. I only want to find the human boys for my friend and facilitate negotiations between the faerie race and the goblin race.”
That was a lie, but she didn’t actually care.
You still care, a weak little voice whispered. If you do this, you’re not the only one who’s going to die. You have to care. The monster sank its poisoned teeth, made of darkness and smoke, into her soul until that voice fell silent.
The terrain climbed steadily for the next hour or so. Large pieces of jagged, ice-covered rock jutted all over the place. There was something about the formations that creeped her out. As they passed one particularly rounded boulder, she reached out and chipped away at some of the ice with the heel of her hand. When it fell away, she found herself looking at a perfectly shaped mouth held open in a silent scream.
She jerked back. “What the hell is that?”
Siona stopped beside her, lips pressed together in distaste. “The Lamia have long cowered within the caves of Mount Laos,” she said.
The Lamia? Agramon had made a deal with the Lamia to bring humans to Mylena. Twelve of those humans had been needed to open his black portal. To make sure nothing happened to those twelve until he was ready to initiate the spell, he’d compelled the assistance of the Lamia
once again to turn the boys into stone.
She glanced up and examined the almost sheer rock face as inconspicuously as she could. High up the side of the mountain, at a height that made her want to throw up just tipping her head back to look, was a narrow outcropping and a series of cave openings that were really just cracks in the stone. But a body could fit through there.
“We must continue,” Siona said.
She filed the location away but continued on.
Greta looked up again a little while later and gasped.
The Glass Kingdom. It had to be. But it hadn’t been there a minute ago. The only thing she’d been able to see was more mountain, but then they’d turned a corner and there it was, hidden in plain sight.
The castle grew into the sky. So many towers, as if there’d been a hundred architects and each one had had a corner of the castle to work on, all of them needing to outdo the others. Some of the towers were tall and skinny, stretching to where the suns’ pale light could bounce off pointed tin roofs prettily, while others were wide, as if daring the high winds coming off the mountain to do their worst.
And there were windows everywhere. Big ones, small ones, oddly shaped ones. But also crystal and mirrors. It wasn’t hard to picture what the place must have looked like a week ago when the endless sea of white snow had covered everything, reflecting off all of those surfaces. It would have made the entire place look like a glittering ice palace…or a kingdom of glass.
Granted, it wasn’t made completely out of glass. There was enough stone, timber, and iron incorporated in its structure to make it as sturdy as anything else she’d ever seen. But it was certainly a sight to behold. If Greta hadn’t blocked out all emotion, she might even have found it beautiful.
Soon, they approached the gates. Monolithic carved barriers on massive posts the thickness of concrete pillars that looked strong enough to hold up the Golden Gate Bridge, they were made of some kind of burnished steel that shouldn’t have existed in the backward civilization of Mylena, but she wasn’t really surprised that the faeries had somehow found it. The gates towered overhead and looked ridiculously heavy, and no one person could possibly push them open to get either in or out.