“Young power,” High Priestess Grimmoix said, brushing her fingers on the blue stone. She laid her palm flat against it and her eyes flickered even brighter. “More! More!”
The clergy formed a circle around the pillar. They chanted and trilled, moving in a slow dance around it as they took turns touching it.
Chloe looked away and let tears stream down her face.
“Well?” the duke asked. He let the question linger over Chloe’s head like a sword held aloft by the thinnest of strings.
“Well what?” Chloe whispered, still looking away.
“Are you with us, or would you like to join your friend?”
Chloe felt an odd thumping in her pocket. At first she thought she was imagining things, maybe even just distracting herself to keep from answering the duke. Then it came again, stronger this time.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out New Perspectives on Clergy Life. The book twitched, flopped and fluttered. Chloe tossed it to the floor at the feet of the confused duke.
There came the sound of ripping paper. Shreds of pages burst from the book along with something else. A black, scaly dragon the size of a large horse leaped from the pages. It had two twisted horns on its head and its eyes were red as rubies. It also had a rider.
“CHARGE!” Garland Finbarr shouted.
Chloe rolled out of the way as the beast and rider galloped towards the duke. The dragon lowered its head, aiming its horns for the duke’s gut. It let out a mighty bellow.
The duke jumped to the side. His eyes flickered dangerously. He lifted his hands.
“Garland, look out!” Chloe shouted.
Garland jumped from the dragon’s back an instant before the duke destroyed it. The spell was so fast that all Chloe saw was a flash of light. Just like that, the dragon was gone. Garland took cover behind the marble throne.
The clergy, disrupted from their foul ritual, turned back to the stone to find something very strange happening. The duke turned to watch as the blue alchemic stone darkened towards the top. The buzzing noise had taken on a higher note. The energy in the room suddenly felt different.
“What is going on?” the duke shouted, storming over to Kiros. “What are you doing to the stone?”
Kiros lifted her head, looked him in the eye, and smiled. “Don’t you know it can work the other way? You’ve finally brought me somebody who can handle it.”
Every eye turned towards Bazzlejet. He, too, was smiling. The Amethyst source crystal around his neck glowed brilliantly.
“No,” the duke mouthed. He tried to break the tether between Bazzlejet and Kiros.
A lightning bolt seared the duke’s hand clean off. The duke railed back in shock, staring at the crisply burnt edge of his sleeve.
Somebody grabbed Chloe by her collar. She started to scream, but then realized it was just Garland dragging her to safety behind the throne.
“Stay put,” he said. “Things are about to get nasty.”
There came another flash of lightning. Everybody jumped as the shockwave from it tore through the room.
Nobody was hit, but when the air cleared they saw that Bazzlejet had seared through the chains binding him to the wall. He was free.
“Shall we play?” he said, cracking his knuckles.
High Priestess Grimmoix pointed a long, knobby finger his direction. “Get him!”
There was no way to keep track of what happened next because a dozen magic spells erupted all at once. Chloe covered her ears and knelt behind the throne. She spotted the book lying a few feet away.
“Can we escape through there?” she yelled to Garland over the catastrophic noises.
“No,” he yelled back. “I destroyed too much of it when I freed that Luciferian Goredragon. My apologies. I was growing quite worried about you two.”
A spell hit the throne. A large piece of marble fell with a heavy clunk near Chloe and Garland.
“Well this is a fine mess,” Chloe said. “I hope Bazzlejet is okay.”
A peel of thunder rattled the room.
“Sounds like he’s doing fine,” Garland said. “If I may offer a suggestion, perhaps we should see about rescuing Miss Rubedo. Maybe if we skirt around the side of the room—”
They both jumped as another chunk flew out of the throne. It narrowly missed crushing Garland’s foot. He pulled himself in tighter. “That is, unless you can think of a better idea.”
Chloe glanced overhead to look for incoming spells. She caught the sight of the crystal glinting atop the tower. “I hope you mean that, because I’ve just thought of one.”
***
I watched it come with far more dread than I’d felt over the tidal wave. It was a spectacle pushing through the clouds, groaning from the force of its own weight as it pushed forward, coming, I knew, to annihilate us all. I sank to my knees on the drawbridge.
Not like this. Ivywild was my home. It was the only place I’d ever belonged, the only place I knew peace. The duke had turned it into a weapon. I didn’t know how, but there was no question that it was coming for us—a flying fortress at the duke’s command.
Lord Finbarr was speechless beside me. His disbelief mirrored mine. This can’t really be happening, his eyes said. There was no way to fight back and, even worse, I didn’t want to. That was my Ivywild up there.
“Get up,” Lev said.
He was standing behind me, looking down with eyes as hard as steel. “Get up,” he repeated.
I rose slowly from my knees. “We can’t fight it.”
“Yes, we can,” he said. “Ask yourself what’s more important, that castle or them?”
He spun me around so I could see the rebels gathered outside of Woodman’s Hall. Every last one, from Mrs. Larue and Anouk to Yert and the Gremlins, were watching the sky. The faces were so familiar that they all felt like family now; the rest of Sandrine’s crew, the Terra Cartisans, even the testy Slaugh. I knew most of them by name. Something had happened in the old wooden lodge. New bonds had been forged. Fay, Slaugh, Brownies, Gnomes, Gremlins and Hobgoblins had all made a stand because I’d urged them to, and now that they saw what they were actually standing against, not a single one of them was running.
“We’re counting on you,” Lev said. “All miracles aside, you have to be strong. If you fall, we all fall. Home is not that castle. Home is not a place.”
I stopped scanning the crowd of faces and paused on his. He had changed a lot since our first meeting at Moonlight Pass. I’d seen terrible things there, but it was one of the best nights of my life because that’s where I’d first seen the boy with the blue dagger.
He was rougher now, harder and formidable in his Slaugh armor, but he still looked at me with the same sort of curious recognition. In those first moments together our souls had reflected each other. We were kindred spirits—two parts to a whole. Shadow and light, dusk and dawn. I felt the connection more strongly than ever. He would always be that boy. He would always be Lev. I finally understood what he’d tried to tell me that day on the dock. We were both the people we’d chosen to become, not the titles we were born with. He was not just a king any more than I was just a Flute Keeper.
“I have to destroy Ivywild, don’t I, Lev?”
“You have to try,” he said. “All the good things it stood for are here now. Fight for them.”
There was a rumble like thunder. I couldn’t tell if it was the clouds in the distance or the castle as it grew closer, casting the forest into shadow. I took one last look at Ivywild’s pearly walls, its soaring towers and its crystal-topped spires. I had almost cried the first time I’d laid eyes on it.
A single tear rolled down to my chin. I brushed it away with one hand and reached for my flute with the other.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Wait!”
Startled by the sound of a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time, I lowered the flute and looked towards the edge of the forest where Valory and Katriel were leading Queen Othella, Violet, Mr. Larue, the two Master Cas
ters and a young black man with human ears.
Nobody would have known it was Queen Othella if she hadn’t been in the wheelchair. She wore secondhand human clothes. Her hair was limp and matted. Her thin face looked ten years older than when she’d left Faylinn.
“Chloe might be up there!” Othella shouted.
I ran and met her halfway across the drawbridge. “What do you mean? How? Did you get caught? Was she taken prisoner?”
“No,” Othella said. “Chloe, Bazzlejet and Garland went in on their own through a book Garland had with him.”
The others arrived on the drawbridge. The young man that I didn’t know spoke up.
“My mother might be up there, too.”
I couldn’t help but stare. He looked as human as me. “Who is your mother?” I asked.
“Kiros Rubedo,” Violet answered for him. “She’s a Faylinn refugee like your father. She’s a powerful alchemist. We think the duke had her abducted.”
There came the unmistakable rumble of thunder. All heads turned to the flying castle.
“We can’t just sit around and do nothing,” I said.
Mr. Larue looked past me to the row of cannons we’d set up outside Woodman’s Hall. He nodded his approval. “Looks like you’ve’ got some defenses in place.”
“It won’t be enough,” I said, squeezing my flute tight. “I was thinking of something a little bigger.”
Violet trembled. “But…Chloe.”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to risk Chloe’s life, either.
“We could fly up there,” Valory suggested. “You know, buzz up and have a look and see if we can spot this Chloe person.”
Violet stared at her with a mix of disbelief and contempt. “That Chloe person you speak of is the queen of the Fay! We can’t take her safety lightly!”
Valory chuckled. “I’m a queen too, little lady, and I wouldn’t want my allies sitting on their rumps, waiting for their doom.”
“You have a point,” Katriel acknowledged begrudgingly. “If we arm ourselves properly, we might be able to fly in close enough to look.” She turned to Lev. “What say you, King Hugo?”
He nodded slowly. “It might be possible.”
“I’ll go, too,” I said.
“But if one of us has to carry you, we won’t be able to fly very fast,” Katriel said.
“Who said I needed anyone else’s wings?” I asked, lifting my flute.
“I’m coming, too,” Violet said.
“Huh-uh.” I said, shaking my head. “We’ll need Channelers on the ground. Go and wait with the others. Othella, you go with her. You guys—” I pointed to the two Master Casters “—report to Mr. Tulley. He’s got a garrison set up on the other side of the Hall.”
Mr. Larue watched me with some amusement. “So long as you’re handing out orders, where do you want me?”
I could feel the suggestion in the question. He wanted to come with us. “Don’t worry about Bazzlejet,” I said. “If he’s with Chloe, we’ll get him out of there. Your wife is waiting for you and I know Lord Finbarr will want to talk to you.”
That only left the half human. I suddenly felt awkward. I didn’t even know his name, let alone where to put him.
“Um…”
“It’s Tobin,” he said, extending a hand to me.
I shook his hand. It felt strange to come face to face with someone like myself.
“So, um, do you have any powers?” I asked.
He gave me a blank look. “Not that I’m aware of, but I do throw a wicked curve ball.”
I managed a little laugh. Nobody else standing near us got it. “Well, Tobin, maybe you’d be useful to the Gremlins.”
His eyes grew wide. “Gremlins?”
I pointed to the two short, bat-eared figures by the cannons. “Joyboy and Wimbleysminch. They’re our weapons experts. They get their orders from that Hobgoblin over there. Her name is Sandrine.”
Looking dazed, Tobin walked towards the cannons. “Gremlins and Hobgoblins. Got it.”
Valory shook her head as she watched him walk away. “He looks like he’s expecting to wake up from a bad dream.”
I grimaced at the approaching castle. “Too bad it’s not.”
A small army of Slaugh lined up behind me. Lev had given them some silent signal and now they were awaiting their orders.
“You, too,” Lev said to Valory.
Beaming, Valory took up a spot with the other Slaugh. Katriel rolled her eyes.
I stared at the troops in amazement. “Do we need this many?”I asked.
“We’ll cover for you,” Lev said.
“Then you know what I’m planning?”
He gave the slightest of nods.
I held the flute to my lips and played the familiar third note. Another peel of thunder rattled the sky, but this time it was not the castle. Tuari shot down from the clouds. She lit up the sky with her otherworldly glow. When she beat her wings, I felt my pulse beat in unison. The beast was a part of me. Never before had my existence relied so strongly upon it.
There was a collective gasp from the rebels as Tuari landed on the drawbridge. Even the Slaugh were awestruck. They drew back, gasping with their dark eyes wide.
Tuari’s wings stirred up gusts of wind. My hair blew back from my face and I felt my pulse beat even faster. I climbed over the bird’s neck and down to the soft plumage between her wings.
“Take me up to Ivywild!” I shouted.
Tuari would have obeyed even if I’d only whispered. She beat her wings, lifting off.
Lev gestured to the Slaugh to form a circle around Tuari and me. The winged soldiers flew into formation. Lev took up the front. He glanced over his shoulder as we began the ascent.
“Thank you,” I mouthed.
Tuari’s back heaved with the rapid up and down movement of the climb. The floating castle was causing disturbances in the atmosphere. As we got closer, the air felt charged with electricity. Debris from the castle’s underside tumbled and rolled into billowing clouds, creating a dirty fog that obscured my vision.
We broke free of the debris cloud and came level with the sheer outer wall of Ivywild.
Katriel shouted something but it was lost in the wind. I saw her pointing to the arched opening where the waterfall used to spill out from the castle wall. It was a way inside.
Lev shook his head and shouted something back. He pointed up, past the top of the wall.
So we were going up and over. I leaned close against Tuari’s neck and urged her to go higher. I sensed her hesitation. Maybe it was the static charge that filled the air, but Tuari seemed to be affected by being close to the castle. Then again, I thought, it might just be my own fear holding the bird back. I didn’t know what we’d find in the castle. Part of me didn’t want to see.
Something whizzed by my ear. I heard a scream of pain. Katriel floundered in midair as black blood spurted from a bare spot on her arm that wasn’t protected by armor.
“Archers!” Lev shouted.
Five red capes lined up on the top of the wall with bows. A volley of arrows rained down, forcing us to break formation. I heard several plinks of arrowheads striking armor.
Bleeding badly, Katriel fell back. Another Slaugh went to help her down. The others tried to regroup into their circle around me.
Another volley came our way. This time I was ready. I stopped the arrows with a barrier.
“Get behind me!” I shouted. “We’ll press ahead!”
“Don’t waste your strength,” Lev shouted. “We’ll swarm them next time they reload.”
I held off one more round of arrows. We were close enough to the top of the wall to see the faces of the red capes.
“NOW!” Lev shouted.
I dropped my barrier. Lev and the other Slaugh burst forth like wasps out of a nest. No sooner did the red capes reach for their quivers than the fearsome, winged warriors were upon them. They were so fast that I never even saw them draw their weapons.
One, two, t
hen three red capes went tumbling over the top of the wall. The two that were left had enough wits to conjure their wings, but they couldn’t defend themselves any better in flight. Two male Slaugh grappled with them. I heard the swift slash of their blades and the guttural scream as the red capes fell out of the sky.
“FALL IN!” Lev shouted.
The Slaugh regrouped. They appeared unshaken by the blood on their armor. It was just the first obstacle of many they expected to face.
We flew over the wall and passed over the outer streets, throwing winged shadows over the innocents huddled in doorways and alleys. They looked ghostly with whitened hair and shrunken skin, much like Commander Larue after his escape from Helm Bogvogny.
There was no time to help them. We cut a swift path to the center part of the castle where the towers rose steeply. We came under fire again near the central tower that housed the elevatree. A regiment of red cape archers took aim. The Slaugh dodged the arrows and swept wide around the tower. I urged Tuari to keep pace as the Slaugh spiraled faster and faster around the central tower. There was no way the archers could catch us, but I remained cautious. I was ready to cast a barrier at a second’s notice.
We arrived at a suspension bridge that connected the central building to an outer tower. There were three figures standing on the bridge. I saw the dark purple color of their robes and instinctively cast a shield of energy in front of Lev and the other Slaugh who flew in front of me.
A meteor of flame collided with my barrier and burst into a wall of fire. Through the smoldering curtain I saw the faces of the three men standing on the bridge.
It was Kesper, Nuckelvee and Marcellus, the judges of the Seelie Court. There was something different about them, though. Their bodies were swollen, making them look like bulked up versions of themselves. Even ancient old Marcellus was holding himself aloft without any sign of his usual stooped posture. Most alarming of all was their eyes. They glowed with otherworldly white light.
Tuari made a frightened cawing sound and flapped her wings hard to reverse direction, away from the bridge.
The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) Page 42