A Tide of War

by Bella Forrest

  “No,” I replied firmly. “His arrogance has clearly gotten the better of him. If he thinks he can defeat us all single-handedly, then let us give him that opportunity!”

  “You are too hasty!” Lidera cried. “Ben’s right. I can feel something—and so can she.”

  Lidera pointed at Queen Nuriya. She was standing some way off from us, her face the whitest I’d ever seen it and her large, almond-shaped eyes fearful. She was looking up into the open sky, her eyes seeming to see beyond the hues of the planet’s atmosphere into the black abyss we’d just come from.

  “The planet of the stones,” she whispered, her voice dry. “It has awoken.”

  The soft blue of the sky ruptured violently. The shadow army broke through the barriers that had been set up around our planet and started to spill out over our heads, casting the light in an inky black.

  Queen Nuriya was right, the shadow was larger than I believed possible. The stones must have cracked as the ones in Nevertide had, releasing an army which would contain millions—not thousands.

  What say you now, king of the fire fae? Will you beg for my mercy before the day is done, or will you die like the rest of your kind, believing till the last breath is ripped out of you that you could defeat me?

  “Prepare for battle,” Ben commanded, ignoring the voice of the entity. “Focus on Jenus, not the shadow. When he dies, the rest will follow.”

  I drew my sword, yelling for the armies of the fae to assemble.

  Tejus

  As soon as we landed on the planet of the fae, with Corrine’s help, we were immediately thrust into the mayhem of the battle. There was no time to be terrified at the sheer size of the shadow that had descended on the land. I swung the sword of Hellswan in every direction, each time making contact with the ashen armies.

  “Hazel, stay with me!” I shouted to her, making sure that we were battling side by side. What did almost petrify me was the lack of any location that could be considered ‘safe’ or at least out of harm’s way. If things got difficult, there would be nowhere for Hazel to escape to. The shadow was everywhere.

  Dragging Hazel with me, I saw the figure of Ben ahead. He was thrashing wildly at the mists. His roar of rage seemed to drown out everything else. Ash and Ruby followed behind us, and I was glad to see them there. It felt right that if this was the last battle with the entity and its armies—as I hoped that it would be—I would be fighting beside my emperor—the only one of us, really, who had cared about whether or not Nevertide survived. I owed him loyalty, and the protection of my sword.

  “Tejus,” Ben called out, seeing us approach. “We need to get you to Jenus. Last I saw of him was by the entrance to the fae castle, but he was swallowed up by the mists. Do you think you can call on your brother?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” I replied. “Where’s the entrance?”

  Ben gestured straight ahead, and all five of us moved through the mists, each defending our small unit as best we could.

  “This is impossible,” Ash raged, “how are there so many of them?”

  “We think the planet of the stones erupted in the In-Between, much like they did in Nevertide,” Ben called out. “What about the barrels of the immortal water? Can they do something?”

  “The witches are dealing with it. Hopefully we’ll see some results soon,” Ash replied, charging on, his sword swinging into the darkness.

  Tejus of Hellswan, came a voice. We couldn’t see the entity, but clearly it could see us. I deduce from the presence of these armies that your brother has been abusing his power. However, I can’t say I’m disappointed to see you here—you and your emperor can witness the destruction of fae lands, and can perhaps commiserate with them, your own land as unfit for purpose as theirs.

  The shadow started to move back, revealing the stone steps that led up to Sherus’s palace. Standing at their apex was Jenus—clean shaven, his hair neatly tied back, and wearing the richly embroidered gowns of the fae. He held no weapons, but as he raised his arms up, further separating the mists like a curtain, there was no doubt about who had the superior power. An entire army of millions at his disposal.

  His face rested in a sly smile, his eyes slowly taking in the group. There was no evidence of panic or fear, just a knowing look saying that we would fail, that he was undefeatable. I didn’t know if it was because the monster wore the face of my brother, or because I felt that Jenus was the monster, but I lost my head and launched at him with a cry, every fiber of my being wanting to destroy him, eradicate him from this dimension and all the others.

  I played right into his hands.

  Laughing, Jenus swatted me away, sending me flying into Ash, putting us both at risk from the encroaching shadow. We scrambled to our feet. The shadow moved back further, allowing us a pool of light. I wondered why the entity had called back its armies from attacking us, when I could hear the fighting continuing elsewhere. Jenus stepped into the space, and the armies followed him. We were completely surrounded—cut off from the entrance to the palace that I’d envisioned being our only possible escape option.

  The smirking face of my brother was making my blood boil.

  “Tejus,” Hazel gripped my arm and whispered, “call him.”

  I nodded, waiting for the right moment. I glanced over at Ash, who gave me the briefest of nods and launched himself at Jenus. Ben followed him, both warriors battling the entity best they could.

  While he was distracted, I tried to call out to my brother. I let my mind wander across the confined space, letting Jenus know that I was there. I drifted past Ash, feeling his anger and rage at the creature, but also his pride, how he wouldn’t let himself be defeated at the hands of the entity once again. I drifted past Ruby, sensing her fear and determination, the worry she had for her parents, but most of all Ash. Ben’s energy was bright, purer than the rest of us, a brilliant flame that was only preoccupied with justice—with bringing down the creature, with forbidding him to take the land of the fae, that land Ben felt he was partly bound to. Hazel’s energy I didn’t need to feel with my mind. I knew what it would contain. I knew her fear and anger were intertwined, but that her hope would overshadow both those emotions, trusting that we could end the entity somehow, that we could perhaps even bring back a repentant Jenus from the dead.

  I loved her for that hope, but I felt it was misplaced.

  I reached toward Jenus, feeling nothing but a sickening darkness, a bleak despair that I’d never known, so wretched and absent of any light that everything about it felt gray and dead, as if the mind wasn’t even alive. I kept trying, mentally prodding the creature as he tried to destroy Ash and Ben.

  A few moments later, just at the point in which I was going to give up on the idea and join in the fight, I felt a flicker of anger—a small, twisted whisper of jealousy and hate, emanating from the figure of Jenus. I latched onto it, feeling it with my mind, recognizing the feelings as those belonging to my brother, not the creature who borrowed his form. As our energy met, the emotions changed to relief and recognition, and I could feel Jenus, the imperfect brother of mine who had gotten it so horribly wrong—whose pride, hatred and acid jealousy had been his own downfall. The same brother who reached out for me now, begging for forgiveness.

  I held the energy, bringing it forward, chasing his mind with my own. I hesitated for the briefest moment before latching on to Hazel’s hand. Our three minds met, the energy electrifying. A border sprang up, pure and white, appearing as a great flame engulfing us all. Ben, who had been knocked back by the entity only a split second before, was blown back by the force, flung into the shadow, and Hazel screamed out his name.

  I held her tightly, not letting her cross the barriers of white light to reach her uncle. She fought me, but my grip didn’t falter.

  The angrier she became, the more desperate as she heard Ben’s roars of fury as he battled the ashen army, the higher the flames rose. Before long, not a sound could be heard other than the screams of the entity. They were s
o loud, it was as if they were coming from every single creature that had broken out of the stones—one cry becoming a million.

  The fires were burning the entity, their purity washing out its darkness, blazing against the blackness of its soul.

  Jenus’s face became a contorted mask of pain, and he reached for the barriers, desperate to get out. They would not let him pass. The flames leapt onto his robe and hair, snaking their way up his body. He turned his anger toward us, his flaming body ready to pounce. Before he could move, he let out one last scream, a torrent of black tar vomiting from his mouth. It didn’t fall to the floor, instead, like it was a live, conscious thing, it started to circle the wall of flames.

  I shoved Hazel behind me; the ichorous black liquid narrowly missed her, and instead shot into Ash’s open mouth, filling up his nostrils and eye sockets—consuming the emperor of Nevertide.

  Benedict

  Yelena and I were being held by Sky again, zooming over the Dauoa forest and beyond into the wasteland of Nevertide.

  “Blue and Rock are up ahead,” Sky pointed out. We watched as the Hawks flew closer. They must have been on their way back to find us. I hoped they had good news. Sky stopped, hovering in the air by flapping his wings rapidly.

  “What are you doing?” Blue asked. “We need to keep looking for the jinni. We’re running out of time. The others have left already!”

  “We found her! But what do you mean they left?” I shouted.

  “The entity left the portal, with its armies. What do you mean her?” Rock replied, equally baffled.

  “Long story. Let’s get down to the cove.”

  They left?

  How did they think they were going to battle the entity in the other dimensions if they couldn’t manage to defeat him here? They didn’t even know that the shadow was actually made up of super-ghouls; information like that might have made a big difference.

  We carried on our journey, Sky moving as swiftly as he could with Julian, Fly, and Ridan behind us.

  A short while later, we landed on the shore. Horatio, Aisha and the Oracle were waiting for us, staring at the portal. The rest of the place looked deserted.

  “We missed them—you must have known!” I stormed up to the Oracle, furious that we’d missed our chance.

  She turned to me, her barely-there blue eyes staring down at me, but seeming to look past me, as if I wasn’t really there. It was freaky when she did that, and annoying.

  “I told you we were too late,” she sighed.

  I groaned in frustration. Trying to pull myself together, I bit out, “How are they going to win this if they can’t get the entity back in the stones? You must have known this was going to happen. Why didn’t you leave your stupid cave earlier? Why didn’t you come and find us?”

  Julian and Yelena were both glaring up at her too, all of us waiting for an answer that would change our minds about burying her in the sand and leaving her to rot. I looked around for Horatio and Aisha, but they were just standing in front of the water, looking worried.

  “Be patient.” She smiled. “There is another way—all is not lost. The leaders of Nevertide—brave sentries—are making choices right now that will lead to happier times…new beginnings and regeneration.”

  “That means literally nothing,” I replied angrily. “Tell me what’s going to happen to my family—to the entity.”

  “That I can’t see,” she sighed in her whimsical way. “There are too many unknowns. I am sorry, young soldier, I can give you no more than that.”

  I turned away in disgust. What was the point of an Oracle if they couldn’t even answer the simplest question?

  “I think I can see Zerus and Field,” Julian commented, looking toward the far edge of the cove. I followed his gaze, watching as the Hellswan sentry stepped into view. I was surprised that they hadn’t taken him with them, but I supposed he was a bit too out of it to be much help in a fight.

  “I thought I recognized you,” he muttered as he approached. “There are other villagers hiding along the cliff edge. They are waiting to be told whether or not to leave this land.”

  I looked past him, now noticing villagers starting to emerge from the wild shrubbery that grew on the opposite side of the cove – Queen Memenion with them.

  “Did you tell Tejus everything?” I asked Zerus.

  “I did. My brother seems different now,” he mused.

  “Which one?”

  “Tejus,” he replied, looking at me like I was an idiot. “He is different. Kinder, perhaps. More in control of his temper and his rage…I wonder if in the past I judged him too harshly.”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t that concerned with Zerus’s thoughts on his brother—more with whether or not Tejus was going to survive the battle, and my sister and family along with him.

  “Have you heard anything from Jenus?” I pressed.

  “No.” The sentry shook his head. “He has been silent, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m going to see if Jenney’s with the villagers,” Julian said, walking away from us with his shoulders hunched. Not knowing what else to do, I ran after my friend, Yelena joining us.

  “Julian, wait!” I called out.

  He stopped, his brown eyes despondent.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t think we should give up hope,” I said. “I know the Oracle’s talking nonsense, but new beginnings sound good, right? I mean, she’s not saying we’re doomed or anything.”

  “No,” Julian replied slowly, “but new beginnings can mean a lot of things. Not necessarily good. We’re standing in what’s basically a wasteland while everyone goes off to fight—despite the fact that the last battle failed. Has it occurred to you what will happen if GASP fails this time? If the entity gets back here before they do, or the shadow? We’ll all be dead. And in the meantime, we have nothing to do but wait, once again.”

  Julian had a point.

  I slumped down onto the sand, suddenly feeling dejected.

  “Do you think we should go after them?” I asked. “We can probably get to Earth—maybe Aisha will take us to where the battle’s happening?”

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Julian replied, kicking a stone.

  “Then we can only do the next right thing,” Yelena replied, her hands on her hips. “If we’re the last to stand against the entity, then we need to make sure we’re ready. There’s a bunch of old Viking weapons over by the water. There’s the three of us, Zerus, two powerful jinn and the only creature in the entire universe that’s defeated the entity in the past! Why are you being such wimps? We have an army!”

  “Not to mention the villagers,” I added, my mind coming alive at her speech. Some of them were pretty fierce.

  “Exactly!” Yelena cried.

  Okay. This was good. I looked over at Julian, who smiled reluctantly.

  “Let’s get some weapons then,” he agreed.

  If the battle was going to come to us, we’d be ready.

  Ash

  The black tar-like liquid flew around the barrier. I raised my sword, hoping to cut it down in its tracks, but as I cried out to Ruby, telling her to stand back, the tar slid past my blade. The last thing I saw was a black emptiness shooting toward my face—too fast for me to do anything other than cry out.

  I felt it enter me. Its cold thickness slid down my throat, drowning me, filling my lungs as on reflex I inhaled it urgently, desperate for air. It blinded me, my eyes wide open in horror but seeing a void of nothingness—as if the very thing that was attacking me was nothing.

  The liquid flooded through my body, reaching every vein and nerve, restricting all my senses. From a distance, I could hear the screams of Ruby and Hazel, the bellow of rage from Tejus, but none of it seemed to matter. Their pain and shock were happening far, far away—too many dimensions away to mean anything to me.

  Welcome me.

  The voice purred inside me, its whisper curling inside my organs. I felt omnipotent, glimpsing a sense of power
inside me that far outweighed anything I’d ever thought possible. I also felt a flicker of desire that was mine—reaching out for the entity, wanting it to take me, to show me a future where there was no pain, no death—just eternity and the infinite possibilities of every single species trembling in my presence.

  “Don’t—Ash—don’t!”

  I heard Ruby crying. It was still an abstract sound, something I could have dismissed like all the other voices of my friends, but there was something in the tone—the hitched cry, the desperation that it held—which reminded me of things that I sensed the entity wanted me to forget.

  “You’ve got to fight it! Don’t leave me—you said that we weren’t done yet—you promised!”

  The flicker of desire that had leapt up in me in response to the entity’s power was still there, but it had dimmed. I was reminded of Ruby, the girl I’d pulled from a cellar, whose bright blue eyes had glared at me in mistrust. Just one look at her had made me think that she was the most alive thing I’d ever witnessed. I remembered the night in the summer palace, the way her skin glowed, her voice, her soft laughter and the burning marks she’d left on my skin where she touched me.

  I wanted that warmth, not this darkness.

  I can give you eternity, the entity whispered, immortality, lifetimes of glory.

  A lot of people had been offering me immortality lately. The Impartial Ministers, Ruby’s mother, and now the entity. I wasn’t interested. Not if there wasn’t Ruby to share it with.

  The moment my decision was made, a searing pain splintered through my body, as if I was tearing apart from the inside. My body stopped belonging to me. Fires felt like they were consuming my blood, my soul separating from its home as it rejected the insurmountable pain. Was this what dying felt like?

  The entity screamed; my fire was its fire, my pain its pain.