by Alicia Wolfe
But Jereth’s forces were too numerous, impassioned and prepared. We were bewildered and disjointed. One of our major houses had gone over to Jereth and another had been whittled down grievously.
“Fall back!” Gleamstone said. “Fall back to within the house!”
Obeying, we allowed ourselves to be forced backward across the lawn. Archers took up station on the second story and sent volley after volley at Jereth’s side, making them go slower and raise their shields or summon spells to protect them. That gave us time to slip in through the various doors, then slam them closed.
“Board the doors!” shouted Gleamstone. “Board the windows!”
We dismantled bookcases, chairs and other odds and ends and used them to barricade the entrances. Meanwhile arrows whistled through the apertures, killing or wounding knights around me. A warrior woman right next to me was pierced through the eye with an arrow and fell dead to the floor. An arrow struck my arm but just glanced off my armor. Another rebounded from my shield.
Queen Calista had been upstairs, but she stormed downstairs, wrath on her face. After briefly conferring with Davril and Gleamstone, she strode to the one door that hadn’t been barricaded and shouted, “Jereth! This is madness!”
For a moment the arrows stopped, and there was quiet.
“Do you wish to sue for peace, Mother?” came Jereth’s voice.
“Do you really wish to make war on the Crown?” she said.
“You’re harboring a murderer, Mother. He slew the scion of two houses loyal to me, and I must have his head.”
Taron Deepnight went to the Queen’s side. Shouting out the doorway, he said, “I killed no one, you upstart renegade! And you will regret this!” He gave a great sigh. More quietly, to the Queen, he said, “Yet perhaps I should go out to him. Yes, yes I believe I will. It is the right thing to do, even if it means my death. I will die well knowing that you and the realm, such as it is, is safe.”
“No,” she said. “That would only deprive me of a great supporter and the patriarch of an important house. Jereth would still find some excuse to wage his war. That’s all this is. Your guilt or innocence is beside the point.”
“Will you send the villain out or not?” shouted Jereth from outside.
“It is not for you to give orders to me and mine,” said the Queen. “Now be off!”
Instead of leaving, however, Jereth said to his people, “Flame arrows!”
Outside, the enemy archers set their arrows on fire and shot them at the Big House. Queen Calista and the other sorcerous Fae exerted their magic to shatter the arrows or repel them, but Jereth’s side had its own magic-users, and they ensured that the arrows got through. They struck the façade of the Big House and immediately fire licked at the walls and windows.
Calista slammed the door closed.
“This looks bad,” I muttered to Davril, who stood near me, with the members of his house on the other side. In that moment he was fully both a king and a knight.
Instead of answering, he went to Lord Greenleaf, who was busy chanting a spell to slow down the flames. Already it was getting hot in here.
“Can you use this?” Davril said, producing the Emerald Ring.
Greenleaf finished his chant, then turned to Davril. His eyes sparkled when he saw Davril offering it to him.
“My ring!” he said, and slipped it on his finger.
“Can you use your spiders to send Jereth packing?” Davril said.
Greenleaf closed his eyes, seeming to concentrate on the ring, then opened them and scowled in disappointment. “The ring’s been used recently.” He said this with only mild hints of accusation.
“I had need of it,” Davril said without apology.
“Unfortunately it cannot be used too often and will need some time to recharge its energies.”
“Blast!”
The air was growing so hot I had trouble breathing, and my gambeson was sticking to my skin below my armor.
“The house can’t last much longer,” one of the courtiers was saying.
“We’re doomed,” said another.
At the moment I couldn’t argue with them.
Attention swung to Queen Calista, who was speaking in hushed tones with Lord Gleamstone. All were hoping she had some plan to repel Jereth and win the day.
Finally she said, “Hear me, my friends! I am hereby canceling the summit! Any peace with my son is off the table. We will fight our way out of his siege lines and make our way with all due haste to the dirigible dock, where we will take off and return to the Palace. There we can gather our full strength and make a short end to Jereth’s little rebellion.”
There were many nods and smiles, but also scowls and frowns. The lords and ladies were proud, and they didn’t like to run away. Still, no one could argue with her reasoning or fault her courage. She was a brave but wise queen.
Commander Gleamstone consulted with the knights quickly, even as the air grew hotter and it became difficult to breathe, and decided on the weakest part of Jereth’s circle. Gleamstone mustered the warriors and the few non-combatants, such as Liara and her Sisters. The Fae Lords were all pretty badass, and the Queen was probably the most powerful of them all, and she insisted on being in the front lines. But presently all the company was gathered, a horn blew, and we all burst out of the side door and rushed across the grounds.
Fire licked at us for a moment, then disappeared.
Jereth’s forces braced themselves. Calista shouted some ancient words and a thunderclap smote the scene, sending out a great blast of light. The enemy knights reeled backward, falling to the ground. More rushed to fill the gap, but too late. We cut down a few and then were through the line of foes and into the forest-garden.
I sucked in a breath of cool air, glad to be out of the burning house, and spared a look over my shoulder to see the flames licking up the sides of the Big House. They had almost consumed it. Even as I watched, it began to collapse, and smoke rose up in curtains.
Damn. Jereth really did almost kill his mother.
The bastard himself in his purple armor appeared, silhouetted against the flames, and stabbed his sword in our direction.
“After them!” he cried.
He ran toward us, and his various armed companies streamed after him.
I turned back around and ran, keeping pace with the others. We didn’t sprint but moved in a fast jog, military-style. My heart pounded against my ribs and my eyes burned with sweat. My legs ached, and the armor was hot and stifling, not to mention heavier than I would have liked, even if the Fae armor was actually much lighter than the human equivalent would have been.
Greenleaf, Gleamstone and the other mighty magic-users amongst the Fae fell back to the rear of our group so that they could work their magic. I heard shouts and thunderclaps, and once or twice the ground quaked below my feet. There came cries of consternation from Jereth’s group behind us. At last I thought they were sounding further and further away. When I looked back, I saw that the trees immediately behind us had now come alive, and their roots and limbs were tearing into Jereth’s people.
Serves them right, I thought.
Then I thought of the Coolwaters, overcome by loss and the desire for revenge. It was easy to fault them for overreacting, but it was also easy to see where they were coming from. If any of them were slain by a tree for trying to avenge the loss of a daughter or a sister, that would be a tragedy.
But maybe less of a tragedy than if they’d successfully led a coup against Queen Calista.
Not to mention killing me. I was really against that.
We ran hard, over hill and dale. Beautiful trees arched over us, and the sunlight glinted strangely, as though there were a veil between us and it. That was weird. I didn’t have time to make sense of it, though.
I kept an eye out for Ainu. She’d warned us against fighting amongst each other, and I didn’t think she was bluffing. She hadn’t materialized on her flying carpets yet, though. What would she do? Was there an
y way she could really stop Fae Lords from doing what they would? I wasn’t sure what to hope for. It all depended on what her real agenda was.
At long last the trees thinned and a broad swath of land appeared ahead. And beyond that, empty blue sky.
We emerged from the trees and jogged toward the drop-off that plunged down to the bay. We had reached the edge of the Home Isle—the edge of our little world.
The air shimmered beyond the edge, a faint pinkish sheen. It was that same veil I had noticed earlier that had come between us and the sun. I frowned at it, and the Fae muttered darkly. Still we ran along the cliffside, making for the dirigible docking bay. Gradually it appeared ahead.
Jereth and his people were still stuck fighting the trees or whatever. None of them appeared. We had time. We could do this. We could really get away.
We reached the docking bay and began to board.
“Wait,” said Greenleaf to Calista. He was scowling at the translucent pinkish veil. “I think there may be a problem.”
To demonstrate, he reached out a palm toward a stone on the grass. It rose into the air, borne up by his telekinesis, and he guided it over the drop-off. We all watched breathless as the rock neared what I had begun thinking of as the Veil.
The rock hit it and burst into flames, then blew away as ash.
We stared from it to each other.
“Shit,” I said.
Greenleaf, Calista, Gleamstone and the other sorcerers conferred with each other, then gathered in a huddle. They chanted, low and strong, and a great energy built around them. It grew greater and greater as the seconds stretched on, and the ground once more thrummed under my feet. Even the air seemed to vibrate, and the fine hairs along my arms stood up.
“Whoa,” I told Davril.
He stood closer to me, almost protectively, but his gaze was on the sorcerers. Mine was, too. Everyone’s was.
When the sorcerers—there were seven of them—had built what they deemed was enough magical power, they as one raised a hand toward the Veil. A light so bright it hurt my eyes flashed out and struck the Veil.
It should have shattered the barrier. It should have broken it utterly.
Instead a ripple spread from the point of impact and spread out from it, radiating to the far ends of the Veil, passing out of sight.
A great weight seemed to settle on me.
As if to confirm my worst fears, Calista turned to us. Sadness shone from her face. “I’m sorry, my friends,” she said. “It appears Ainu has trapped us here. With Jereth.”
Chapter Fourteen
Davril turned to me, his face grim. “I’m sorry, Jade. You saved me before only for this to happen. But … I am glad of our time together.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I wouldn’t have traded this for the world.”
“‘This’?”
I didn’t bother to explain, and he didn’t press me. But I had come a long way from the selfish cat burglar I had been just months before. My eyes had been opened, and my heart. I was an altogether different Jade McClaren than I had been before the Fae had found me. Before Davril had found me. And if I was to die now, I would die content. But there was no way to get that across to Davril in the time we had.
Four shapes materialized in the sky overhead, and we all craned our heads to see Ainu on her flying carpet sweeping through the air with three wizards and witches flanking her and bringing up the rear on their own carpets.
“What is the meaning of this?” Queen Calista said, and her voice was magically augmented so that it shook like thunder.
Ainu didn’t look intimidated. Her expression fierce, she said, “You have brought war to my home, and if I let you leave you would have only brought greater war to it.”
I had to admit that that is exactly what Calista had been intending to to—gather reinforcements at the Palace and then return here to utterly destroy Jereth once and for all. I hadn’t considered the damage that would have done to the Floating Gardens. Or maybe I had and I’d decided that ending Jereth’s threat was worth it.
But not to Ainu.
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” Calista said. “Defying the Queen of the Fae is not wise. I had thought you a wise woman, Ainu. But I see you’re more proud than wise.”
“You speak of wisdom,” scoffed Ainu. “Yet all you bring is destruction. I cannot allow that to consume the Home Isle or to spill over into the other Isles. If you cannot solve your problems, you cannot leave.”
“Damn it all,” I muttered. It seemed to me that ending our problems would probably result in all of our deaths. Because there could be no mistake: Jereth had the advantage.
Greenleaf stepped forward to Calista’s side. Addressing Ainu, he said, “How were you able to counter our might? You are not Fae, and though your mages may be powerful no three wizards or witches could have withstood the assault we just carried out on the barrier.”
“You are not the only Fae in the world,” Ainu said mysteriously. “Not in this world, and not in the Fae Lands. Not all in the Fae Lands belonged to the Nine Thrones. Others crossed over into this world also, from outside of your realm. We’ve been trafficking with them for some time.”
“Of course!” Davril said. “The Lost Fae!”
“Looks like they’ve been found,” I said, not knowing who the hell the Lost Fae were.
“Enough,” said Calista. “Ainu, you are a woman motivated by profit. I will pay you more wealth than you can imagine if you only drop this barrier right now and let us begone from here.”
“Will you promise never to return?”
Calista started to speak, then hesitated.
“Exactly,” said Ainu. “You cannot lie, you’re too noble, and we both know you would need to return here, to deal with your rebel son. Well, you will deal with him now. Or else.”
With that, Ainu shot off on her flying carpet, and her mages followed her. Shortly they were gone.
The Fae Lords glanced at each other, honestly flummoxed and in fear. I bet it had been a long time since that lot had been in such dire straits. Probably since they had to abandon the Fae Lands in the first place.
Figures appeared in the forest ahead. We braced ourselves, expecting Jereth and his asshats to come charging out and meet us in battle. I still wasn’t sure which way that would go. Jereth might have the numbers by a hair, maybe, but we had some powerful sorcerers among us, and Queen Calista was no slouch, magically-speaking. It wasn’t long ago that I’d seen her personally drive off Vincent Walsh in dragon-form. Either way, open battle would see the great houses of the Fae Lords dwindled to a few survivors, and that would be devastating to their people.
It wasn’t Jereth, though. I sucked in a breath as the dark shapes materialized through the undergrowth—and yet still remained vague, dark and almost shapeless.
“Wraiths,” I said. “Damn it all.”
Davril drew his sword with a steely ring. “Brace yourselves, friends! For the glory of the Queen!”
“For the Queen!” they shouted, ripping out their own weapons or staffs.
It wasn’t just three wraiths this time, I saw, but a full dozen. The dark, skeletal phantoms clad in ghostly rags exploded from the forest and streaked across the open ground straight toward us.
“Be brave,” Davril told me.
I felt anything but brave at the moment. I was half-tempted to throw myself backward off the cliff rather than face those unholy terrors again. My heart froze just to be near them. There was something truly foul and unnatural about them. They put a nasty taste on my tongue.
The dozen wraiths fell on us, howling and slashing with their talons. One swiped at my throat. I ducked, then slashed it across the side with my dagger. It shrieked and flew at me again.
All along the line, Fae Knights, Lords and Ladies battled the horrors, swirling and pirouetting gracefully, their bright blades flashing, the long hair and dresses streaming. They were a vision of the angelic grappling with the abominable.
And the
abominations were winning. One wraith sliced through the armored chest of a Fae Knight with its talons, another tore off the head of another. Some Fae toppled backward, off the cliff, and plunged thousands of feet to their deaths. The solid line of warriors broke up, becoming scattered pockets. Our weapons didn’t work as well against the wraiths as their talons worked against us. Our blades and arrows could hurt them, if they were magical, or maybe a certain kind of magical, but they couldn’t kill them. But the wraths’ talons could hurt us every time.
“It’s no good,” Davril said at last. His visor was up, and I could see the pearls of sweat on his forehead. To Calista, he said, “Come with me, Your Majesty. We must get you to safety.”
“I cannot leave my people!” she said, blasting a wraith with a beam of light from her palm. It dodged around the beam and drove toward her. Lord Greenleaf struck his staff through it, forcing the creature to discorporate. Another Fae hurled purple flame at it, making it draw back, but only for a moment.
“You can do nothing else,” Lord Feathermuse said. “You must live, my lady, or all is lost! Jereth is still the Heir! If he takes the throne, he will lead our people back to the Fae Lands if he can, and the Shadow will consume us utterly.”
Calista reluctantly seemed to agree, and she nodded raggedly.
“This way,” Davril said.
Hacking a path with his sword, he led the way toward the treeline on one side, and I went with him. Several knights grouped around us, and Lord Greenleaf stayed at the Queen’s side in their midst. Lord Feathermuse and the others moved the other way, trying to pull the wraiths off of her. Some went, and some didn’t.
We plunged into the trees and ran, slicing and dodging with every step. My heart pounded and I just knew that at any moment I was going to bite it, but somehow I kept staying one half-inch away from death at a time. It didn’t hurt to have Davril Stormguard by my side. He saved me more than once. I had his back, too.