by Jenn Polish
“And let’s play a guessing game. Your little trip here is going to help him along.”
“Aon,” I whisper, but honestly it’s so good to hear his voice, which has been pretty absent since Blaze died, that my reprimand is only halfhearted. He looks at me with pained sorrow, but there’s Evelyn with her hands again.
“The only thing I’ve learned that would be of any help to the king is that I needed to be touched by a hatched faerie to enter, but if you honestly think the king hasn’t surmised that already, you haven’t been spending nearly enough time thinking as your enemy does.” She pauses, regarding Aon with sadness in her eyes. He looks down toward Banion and his dangling, swollen dragon bulb.
“No, the king and his advisers think in terms of blood.” A longer pause this time.
And then it hits me, and it feels like an axe to my stomach. “He thinks by using hatched faerie blood, they’ll be able to cross the barrier without Jorbam and the others being able to control it, doesn’t he?” Pause. “Doesn’t he?”
“But Ler and Os can get in. And all the fae who aren’t hatched yet. Or who’ll never be hatched, now with Dreaming—” Aon cuts off his own objection, consuming himself with stroking Osley’s ears, eyes downcast.
“By the trees’ choosing,” I counter. “Hatched faeries can get in anyway.”
Evelyn nods thoughtfully. “That’s why you had so much trouble combating the rebels who killed Jax’s joiner, isn’t it? Tacon and his followers? They continued to have access to the Plains because they had hatchling mates.”
“Yeah.” A pause.
“Wait, though. Wouldn’t we know if the king was collecting blood from us?” Aon’s voice is steady, but there’s fear in his brown eyes.
The humans have been
Collecting the fae’s blood
For time and time
Unless the truth
Is cloudier.
The Head Slicers, correct?
They
Inject the blood of dragonkind
Into the brains of the faye
In the Slicings.
And in the process
The Slicers have also been
Harvesting faee blood
From Slicings
Is that not right?
Sing that it
Is not,
Zaylam offers softly, her melody sad, slow, and tentative. Grave.
Evelyn’s head rises and falls again.
“Oh, Lunara,” Mama mutters as Aon runs his fingers under his hair, over his Slicing scar.
“Indeed,” Evelyn responds in kind, her eyes finding my scar, easily visible because of my close cut hair.
“Why now?” Osley’s feet tap onto Aon’s curled arm. I verbalize the question for Evelyn’s sake.
“I fear that I am no longer in Xavier’s highest favor. He seems… he seems to believe that my interference with the Underland’s destruction was motivated more by loyalty to Grovians than loyalty to the letter of his law.”
Tears sting my eyes, and Evelyn meets them briefly. I say nothing, and neither does she; this is not the time to tell my little brother that Blaze didn’t just die. That que was murdered, in retaliation.
“And was it?” Mom asks, her voice clipped and tense. Mama glances wide-eyed between Mom, Aon, and Evelyn.
She sighs. “I have always borne great discomfort with the wanton destruction of lives.”
“So you became a Controller,” Mom cuts in. “And let me guess, you didn’t realize that the wanton destruction of lives is literally the task of Controllers.”
Evelyn’s eyes widen and she looks somewhat panicked. Her words spill out in a rush. “The circumstances under which I became Controller were not—”
There’s a rustling of faeric wings beneath us, and Zaylam’s neck tenses. We all look down. Kashat.
“You started without me,” he says mildly. At the sight of him, Evelyn goes rigid. I think of Fiora and I look between them nervously.
Kashat lowers his eyes, hovering in front of her. “I can’t help what I Dreamed, I—”
“You used it to manipulate me in your performance. I didn’t know it then, but now I understand that you knew who she was the whole time—”
“No, I didn’t realize at the time—”
The skin behind Mama’s eyes crinkles. “What are we on about, there, you two?”
Silence.
It occurs to me that this is exactly why we need Dreaming. Kashat Dreamed a piece of Evelyn’s life; he can’t hate her now, not really, because—if only fleetingly—he felt what it was to be her. So here he is, worried about hurting Evelyn while my moms are still ready to hate her.
Dreaming binds us. And we need it if we’re going to do this.
Mama interrupts my thoughts. “Sadie?”
I wave my hands up noncommittally as Kashat and Evelyn continue to stare each other down. “It’s not my place to say.”
More silence, as the defiant apology in Kashat’s eyes battles the hurt anger in Evelyn’s. Without breaking eye contact with him, she says, “The fact remains that I don’t know exactly when Xavier plans to send the Mach to attack the Plains, but as I said, perhaps as early as next week. I could try to find out directly, but I think that would be too dange—”
“Wait, the palace is attacking the Plains?” Kashat interjects.
“Keep up, Kash. Maybe don’t fall asleep next time I tell you to meet us somewhere,” Aon teases, touching his forearm. Mama waggles her eyebrows at Mom at their touch. Osley squirms uncomfortably until Aon secures both arms back around quer. Zaylam hums in amusement but Mom just rolls her eyes and twists the fabric of her flowing trousers between her fingers.
I widen my eyes briefly at Evelyn, who smirks.
And then the entire Plains quakes, and she falls off of Zaylam’s neck, plummeting toward Jorbam’s canopy.
I speed down after her, but Zaylam’s wings are bigger—she gets there first, and swoops her tailfin under Evelyn right before she’s crushed on Jorbam’s branches.
With her safe, I spin in midair, trying to locate the source of the massive quake. Something is rocking the Energies themselves, all throughout the Plains.
“Sadie!” I take Evelyn’s hand and weave with her through the thick mass of dragons, following Aon’s panicked voice down, down.
“I thought you said they wouldn’t attack until next week!” Mom’s voice follows us.
“That’s what I thought!” Evelyn calls back, harried.
We land roughly, Zaylam hovering low above us. Aon crashes down next to us and sets a quaking Osley down gently. I bend to put my hand on quer trembling fur before looking up to see what the others are staring at, transfixed.
When I see it, I am quaking as much as Osley.
“It can’t be this soon, this is too soon,” Evelyn mutters next to me.
Squadrons of Mach soldiers are in an attack formation just outside the Plains, slamming dozens of spells at a time into the invisible barrier, which is the only thing separating us from fighting a battle we just aren’t ready for.
Chapter Twenty-Three
MY HANDS ON her waistline and hers clutching at my forearms, Evelyn and I stand together on the edge of the Plains, staring out of the barrier into the Forest where we first locked eyes.
It is all about to burn.
Another series of earthquake-causing thuds erupts as the air in front of us shudders with a sickening yellow explosion. The barrier flickers.
“They can’t get in,” I tell Evelyn, trying to keep my voice steady and failing miserably. She nods, but her eyes aren’t on mine. She’s staring at the Commander of the Mach, just a flutter away from us. The barrier hasn’t been penetrated. He can’t see us yet. But he is so close to us. I can see the sweat gathering on his temples and the vicious gleam in his eyes. My stomach rolls over.
Reve.
I guide Evelyn away from the border, my hands still on her waist.
There is a reprieve, a moment where all I hear is our breath an
d Mom and Mama fighting with Aon, all but shoving him out into the Forest, away from the Mach, with Osley. Away from the attack zone. To tell the others what is happening, if they don’t already know. If they haven’t already been killed trying to stop the invasion.
Aon is screaming that he’s not a young one anymore, but he’s losing the fight. I tune out his screams because they sound too much like Blaze’s death. Mom and Mama will get him away, to safety.
Evelyn’s chest is rising and falling in time with mine, her nails digging into my forearms. Zaylam’s shadow over us comforts me. But not for long.
Because the next moment, the ground itself is rent open. I fly up instinctively, pulling Evelyn with me. We look down, and the earth itself is coming undone. Root after agonized root is breaking free of the ground, writhing like massive, solid worms. Zaylam, Gimla, and the rest of the dragons roar like their scaled throats are on fire. The sound makes it hard for my wings to keep holding Evelyn out of the way of the flailing roots.
I’ve never seen trees in pain so intense that they uproot themselves, but I can’t see what’s causing it. “What—” I start to shout at Kashat, who’s dodging roots and looking terrified a few flutterdrops from us.
In answer to my question, Evelyn points below quickly before grabbing hold of me again. I renew my grip on her and look in the direction she pointed to.
The Mach have abandoned their spell work. They’re split up now into two groups. One is several flutters back, in attack formation, swords and axes drawn. The other, farther group is shooting arrows into the barrier. When they hit, their tips burst into thick, pink droplets.
Faerie blood.
The barrier is flickering. They’ll be inside soon.
“Zay!” I shout. My body contracts with fear, and I can’t see what’s in front of me. But then she’s at my side. She, too, is shaking so violently she keeps knocking Evelyn and me almost out of the air. But when Zay sings, her voice is steady, rising so all the Plains can hear.
The Mach will break through
Swords in flesh soon
But dragonkind has friends with magic
Too
The Mach burn the Plains
The faye shoot water from their veins
Dragonkind must circle now
All in formation
How
The Mach will break through
Swords in flesh soon.
Gimla and the others take it up like a soothing battle cry, full of determined serenity instead of the ferocity that nons go to battle with. Harlenikal joins in with more verses, on and on until the Plains is full to the brink with dragon songs, most of the singers revolving in a circle above our heads, ready to dive when the Mach come through.
“They look like birds of prey,” Evelyn shouts over the din, flexing her fingers, preparing to unleash battle magic.
“They’re not,” Kashat yells back, though he looks equally mesmerized. “They won’t kill any of them on purpose. That’s what your people don’t understand about dragons. They’re more peaceful than we are, usually.”
We dodge more flailing roots. Kashat draws his labor axe, and there are tears mixed with the sweat on his face as he looks back down at the Mach.
He grabs my forearm. “If I die, tell your brother—”
But I can only imagine what message he wants me to send, because there is a throaty shout under us. The Mach have broken through.
Evelyn starts to speed down toward them, pulling me along, but I yank back against the wind current the passing dragons are creating.
“Please don’t,” I beg her, shouting to be heard amidst the clashes of metal on metal, metal on flesh. Amidst the screaming.
“Are you fighting?” she shouts impatiently, putting both hands in mine.
“This is my family,” I choke out, tears streaking my cheeks.
Her trembling hands move to frame my face as I clutch at her waist.
“Then we’ll protect each other, Sadie. We’ll get through this, you understand me?”
I can’t answer. I hear my moms shouting as they twist the Energies below us, and Zaylam’s battle song thuds in my ears.
Evelyn kisses my lips fiercely. I forget how to breathe. Her wet eyes meet mine.
“We’ll protect each other,” I agree.
She gives me a quick, small smile and touches her forehead to mine.
She looks down briefly, screws up her face like she’s calculating something, and wills me to let her free fall out of the sky.
I yell, but she lands, as she planned, on Zaylam’s back. Zay arches her tailfin around to swoop her off and safely deposits her onto the ground. I’m about to fly down to where Evelyn is, but then Zaylam, above her, screams.
She’s thrown herself in front of Jorbam as a wave of fire sparked by four soldiers working as one cascades toward Jorbam’s trunk. Her shrieks rent the air as her chest and underbelly blister open and burst into flames. Evelyn, Mama, and I send cooling water her way out of our own bodies, extinguishing the flames, but there are so few of us and so many of them, and there is only so much bending the Energies can take before they snap. Mama is yelling something I can’t understand, but I make out one word—Xamamlee. The name of her hatchling dragon. Who died the last time they attacked the Plains.
Gimla yanks Zaylam away, dragging her by her tailfin with his teeth, and I fly up to Mama and shake her by the shoulders. Her face is streaked with dirt, Zaylam’s blood, and tears. I don’t want to know what my face looks like.
She nods at me and kisses me briefly on the forehead. “You keep yourself safe, Sadie, you understand me?”
I nod and turn as Kashat shouts my name. He tosses me a fae glass sword.I don’t know where he got it from, and I can’t stop to ask. I don’t ask, either, when Aora got here, because she’s at Kashat’s side, the two of them fighting off three soldiers together. That must mean Aon’s flown with Osley to safety, spread the word. Relief pools in my stomach even as I catch the sword and swing my eyes around, desperately seeking Evelyn amidst the rising smoke. I vaguely register Ezrae, a deer elder who often brings us information from Lethe, who is dodging arrows to run for more help. I wrench the Energies into a shield around him as he gallops and I spend a satisfied moment as arrows deflect off of him and speed back to their shocked and scattered senders.
The moment I take is too much. I hear Evelyn’s scream and I speed toward the sound. On the way, I feel the pull of Energies caused by my growns fighting near me, above Aon.
Aon’s back. Mama is yelling something at him as she raises protective spells around him with her wiry arms. Aon. In battle. My baby brother.
He’s never looked so small.
But Mama’s protecting him. She has to. I keep flying, coughing in the smoke, toward the sound of Evelyn’s scream.
Armed only with magic against soldiers with both metal weapons and magic, Evelyn is holding her own well. But she’s surrounded.
I shout her name and tug the Energies into a gust of wind directed at the soldier nearest her, knocking him over. I keep speeding toward them, but they keep coming. They slash at her with spells and with sharp metal.
Nothing else exists.
I will be too late.
I yank the Energies into spells. They are not falling properly. Everyone is moving too fast, faster than our training prepared us for, faster than I can think. One of the soldiers is bringing down his sword, slashing toward Evelyn’s chest.
She doesn’t see him—she’s busy sending waves of water toward the tree nearest her, coughing in all the smoke. She doesn’t hear me shouting.
THE GRATING SQUEAK of non metal on faye glass slams into my ears, and the world speeds up to regular time again. The soldier’s sword is not buried in Evelyn’s flesh. It is swinging down, down. Unsuccessfully.
Because his sword is being held off by Lerian’s axe.
My heart soars, almost bursting out of my chest.
“Sadie, either get her another weapon or get her out of her,” Leria
n shouts as she thrusts his sword away and launches her axe at him. He cowers; with her powerful centaur lower body, she is much, much bigger than he is.
Lerian whinnies and rears up on her hind legs, brandishing her front hooves at him. “More of us are on the way, horse-killer! Not so much fun when we’re not chained down, huh?” But more Mach are approaching, beginning to surround even Lerian, who is now reared back to back with Evelyn.
“Hey, faerie! Might wanna wipe that smirk off your face and come help us out here!” Ler yells as she swings her axe wildly at the jumpy non soldiers around her.
I realize with a jolt that I’m frozen, smiling on a battlefield that was home mere moments ago.
“On three!” I shout as I speed toward them. Evelyn nods and Lerian whoops. I shout the countdown, flying up and forward, and on three, Lerian rears up wildly. Evelyn and I take advantage of the Mach’s distraction to knock a few of them unconscious with an enchanted gust of noxious wind aimed at them from either side.
I laugh with our temporary triumph, and then I am doubled over, free-wheeling out of the sky.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I SEE, AS though I’m observing if distantly as someone else, an arrow, soaked with my blood, tearing clean through my skin. I hear my flesh skewer open. Smoke stings my eyes and I struggle to regain control of my wings. I hear Mama shouting as she yanks the Energies at whoever shot at me, her voice cracked and terrified. I don’t look down at my wound. I don’t even know where I’ve been hit.
I look up at Evelyn as I careen to the ground. Her lips are moving soundlessly as she sends streams of water at my burning friends while she runs toward me. Mom and Jax are tending to fallen dragons. Zaylam is among them.
I roll over and wretch.
Lerian is galloping toward me, my name on her lips, coughing though she is with the smoke rising thickly through the entire Plains.
Almost all the Lunavads are on fire. I send a weak rush of wet wind Lerian’s way, clearing the air around her and pushing smoke away from her lungs. The effort of bending the Energies keeps me pinned to the hard, hot ground. A pair of thick roots tears out of the ground and lifts me away, planting me under my Mom before smacking three oncoming soldiers aside. I try dimly to figure out whose roots saved me, but the pain is getting too much.