by Emma Hamm
She couldn’t let that change. Like Abraxas said, she was stronger than this hatred.
Swallowing hard, she turned the blade’s attention to the creatures above their heads. “Do the Umbral Knights have souls?”
The question seemed to confuse the weapon at her back. It paused, seeking out the scent of a soul above their heads. That horrible voice grated through her mind once again. “Not really. Something like a soul, but made through magic and not as tasty.”
“Could you still eat it?”
It thought about her question thoroughly before answering. “Yes.”
“Then I want to give you a feast, grimdag. No mortals other than the King, but I wish for you to devour the souls of those monstrous creations. Set them free or feast upon them, I don’t care. They aren’t really people.”
At least, she hoped they weren’t. The Umbral Knights had always seemed other to her. They weren’t capable of thought or dreams. They didn’t even react when they were ejected from their armor, as though it were merely a surprise to them, but one that they suffered through because they had to. She’d never seen a hint of emotion in their actions or reactions.
These were the things she told herself while she climbed the castle. The exterior had seen better days, and apparently the current king didn’t think it was important to fix the tiny crevices or cracks that allowed a person to clamber up the sides of the stone walls. It was yet another flaw that he was incapable of understanding. Someone had to have told him that he needed to fix this?
Lore sank her fingers into the cracks and ignored the ineptitude of their king. This was all part of her plan. She would move forward with this, no matter the costs.
She would feel the disappointment later. She’d feel the guilt of taking a life when there was time for that. Until she was alone and could scream into a pillow. If she survived, that was.
Her fingers curled over the top of the first rampart and she stilled. It wasn’t hard to figure out where the Umbral Knights were. Their armor always shifted and clanked, their footsteps harsh against the stone ground.
Lore waited until one was close to her, then launched over the edge of the rampart. It took all of three seconds. She landed in a crouch at the creature’s feet, and then her hand wrapped around the grimdag.
The dagger knew where it wanted to go. It whipped her arm around, sinking the blade into the weak spot at the back of the Knight’s knee. It dug deep through the armor until the magic of the blade touched the smoke inside the metal.
For the very first time, Lore thought she saw surprise on an Umbral Knight. It tilted the helmet down to look at her, and then it was just an empty suit of armor. Frozen in place because nothing inside it helped to animate the suit.
She froze as well. Lore stared at what she’d done and realized she didn’t know how to feel remorse for a creature like this. Should she look at this empty metal contraption and wonder about the black smoke that had... what? Given it life? It wasn’t alive.
None of the Knights were really living. They followed orders, and she had now freed them from that.
She didn’t have time for this pity. More footsteps echoed behind her.
Pivoting, she swept her leg out while remaining in a crouch. The Knight wasn’t expecting there to be someone on the ramparts, and it tripped over her leg and fell right in front of her.
The grimdag flashed in the light and pierced through the eye hole of the Knight’s helmet. Sinking deep where an eye would have been, the dagger drank deeply of the dark smoke until this suit stilled.
Lore stood with the dagger held out in front of her. There would be more. She would fight until the very last breath to get to the King’s wedding, but it would be a hard pressed battle. Except...
There were no more Knights around her.
“Two?” she whispered. “Why are there only two?”
Why weren’t there more?
The roar of a dragon shook the air, and then she realized that Abraxas had created more of a distraction than he’d given himself credit for. He had made such a scene that all the Umbral Knights had raced from their posts to help the King. And that could only mean that they thought that Zander was in grave danger of dying.
Hadn’t Abraxas said there were weapons that could kill a dragon? Worry fisted in her stomach and she ran down the ramparts, down the first set of stairs and all the way to the end that bordered the courtyard.
She saw his wings before she could see down into the courtyard. They stretched high, nearly as big as the castle itself. He was so large, but that only made him an easier target for the Umbral Knights that pointed giant crossbows at his heart.
She couldn’t let them fire those. Lore burst into movement, pumping her arms and legs faster than she ever had before. The grimdag in her hand crowed with glee as it touched the first Knight. It had barely finished drinking before she whirled on the next, the one that cranked the wheel that would release the first arrow into Abraxas’s side.
Another arrow fired from above her head and caught the last Knight at this stand. She looked up to see Beauty leaning precariously out a window with a crossbow in her own hand.
Beauty gestured wildly for Lore to keep moving, but... She couldn’t. Her eyes found Abraxas and she could think of nothing other than the holes in his wings that leaked bright red blood. He threw his head back again, roaring with such rage and anger that her chest rattled with the force of it.
She wanted to help him. She couldn’t let him die here while she tried to kill the King. Sure, it was important, but wasn’t he more important than all that? Wasn’t he worth saving?
A hand clapped on her shoulder and threw her forward. Lore caught herself on the edge of the stone wall before that same hand whirled her around.
Margaret hissed, “You have the grimdag, girl. Move or all of this will be for nothing.”
Then the other elf whirled around and pinned a Knight between the two daggers in her hands. Margaret wrenched the blades from side to side, sawing through the Knight’s helmet until it popped off and all the smoke poured out of the armor.
Her time had run out. The rebellion was here, and they would get her to the King if it was the last thing they did. But in doing so, she feared she might lose the one person who had given her back her soul.
Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, Lore stilled the rapid beating of her heart. She took long, deep breaths. Her mind needed to be clear about what happened next. She needed to be focused and calm, just as her mother had trained her to be all those years ago.
One foot in front of the other, she turned herself from the sight of the wounded, screaming dragon. She propelled her body toward the podium where only the King could be. And when she saw him, she let all the rage come back out.
The grimdag sang in her hand. The dark sound was a funeral dirge of a King whom no one would miss. A King whose soul would taste like ash and dust.
She sprinted toward the edge of the castle walls. She ran like she’d never run before, because a dragon’s pained cry echoed in her mind.
Lore reached the end of the tower. Her bare, bloody feet hit the edge, and she leapt into the air. She lifted the dagger over her head, the sun catching on the edge and sending a sparkle of light down on the King.
The woman saw her first. The brunette dropped to the ground before the King even noticed that Lore’s approach was inevitable. He turned his head up to see her at the last second, and it was as though time had stopped. Their eyes met. His widened, and hers narrowed with determination.
Lore brought the knife down on his throat with a wild slice of her arm, then landed on the ground just beyond his reach. Her arms outstretched, blade in her hand, she made an easy target if he’d survived her attack.
But she turned her head to look and saw a bright line just below his jaw. It was smooth and clean, like he wore a ribbon of red around his throat. Until the blood poured out.
The King clutched the wound and made a horrible, gurgling sound. The Umbral Knights s
warmed him immediately. They drew their king from the podium but didn’t retreat to the castle. No, they gathered around him like a swarm of locusts and fled the castle with Zander in their arms.
The rebellion didn’t rush after him. They stood on the ramparts and watched in utter silence. It was so fast. Everything had happened so quickly, and Lore still crouched on the dais trying to catch her breath.
The wing of a dragon stretched in front of her, shielding her from the eyes of the crowd and the rebellion above. She looked up into the giant yellow eye and the first tears of guilt fell down her cheeks.
Chapter 35
Abraxas
She’d done it. Abraxas couldn’t believe that she’d actually done it.
Actually, he could. She’d impressed him every single day that he’d known her, but somehow, seeing her leap through the air with a dagger above her head had been beyond everything he’d imagined.
Lore was more than just a killer. She was a woman who slowly fell apart in front of him as she dropped the grimdag from her hands. And for the very first time in his life, Abraxas didn’t feel like it was better to be in his dragon form. He’d never once chosen to be a mortal because it could fix a problem.
But right now, he would bring the castle to rubble if it meant he could hold her in his arms. If he could drag her against his chest and promise her that nothing bad would happen to her again. That he would take care of her. He swore it on his life and those of the eggs still buried in the gold beneath the castle.
A deep rumble shook his throat, not one of anger or rage, but of concern as he leaned over her. Abraxas checked to be sure his wing still hid her from the hundred of eyes that stared. The crowd hadn’t yet made it to the exit of the courtyard, and many of them remained to see what would happen next. They’d all seen the elf who had sliced open the King’s throat. They knew that their world was about to crumble before them.
He couldn’t care less about their world. Their kingdom. Their people.
“Lorelei,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice low so no one could hear them speak. “Are you all right?”
She sniffed hard, belaying the grief that poured through her body before she looked up at him. And he was almost broken from the sight.
Red rings surrounded her eyes, while deep purple furrows grooved underneath from lack of sleep and surviving the dungeon. Bruises and dirt covered her lovely face and he... He couldn’t stand to see her like this. Not when he knew how vibrant she usually was. Lore was a pillar of strength, not this broken woman who had endured so much.
The membrane of his wing rippled as a woman slid underneath. The tall elf reminded him of the elves he’d met long ago. There were countless like her. The numbers of their warriors had been more in the past, though. This elf moved like she’d stepped out of history and hadn’t lived a single day of her life in Tenebrous.
“Pull yourself together, Lorelei,” she hissed. “The people are going to see you and you will need to be more than this.”
“Easy, elf,” he snarled. “Give her time.”
“Time for what? To sink underneath the waves of guilt and convince herself that she was a killer only because I pointed her in the right direction? Never.” The elf looked him up and down, clearly unimpressed with the dragon she found before her. “She has to be a figurehead of the rebellion now. She’s more than just Lorelei of Tenebrous or Silverfell. All the magical creatures will want to see her. To know that she is strong. And the humans will need to fear her, or they will think an army can attack us.”
“You’re asking too much of a woman who just killed her king.” Abraxas wanted to breathe fire on the little gnat in front of him and get it over with.
Lorelei would come with him, he’d already decided. They would go to the old forests, past the Stygian Peaks and into the whisperpines. She would stand beneath the moon every single night until she felt more like herself. Until she was strong enough to face the memories head on while he guided her through the woods.
Together, they would heal.
Together, they would start a new journey where they found a magician who could sink his magic into that box. And then they would focus on bringing about a new age of elves and dragons.
Apparently, that was not the plan the rebellion had for her.
The tall elf flattened her lips and grabbed Lorelei forcefully by the shoulders. She even ignored the low rumble from Abraxas as he warned her not to touch what wasn’t hers.
“Lorelei,” she said, shaking Lore’s shoulders. “Pull yourself together. Now.”
Lore let out one more hiccup before nodding firmly. “I am. I am together.”
“You are not. I will not stand this any longer, and neither would your mother. You are a Silverfell elf. You do not cry at the loss of a villainous soul. The time of victory is now, not mourning.” The tall elf shook her one last time before releasing her. “They are expecting you to say something.”
“I can’t.”
“You can, and you will. Your duty is to give them a reason to believe there will be more. A single elf did not kill the King. Our hatred of him, our pain and anguish and suffering, that was what led to the King’s death. Now is the time to give them a spark to light the fires.”
So that was the rebellion’s plan. After all this, they wanted someone to lead the charge so that more would join their ranks.
Abraxas knew Lore had come to the same conclusion as he did. She looked up into his eyes and he saw the sadness there. He saw her suffering and the way she wanted to leave this place. But also the knowledge that she couldn’t. Not yet.
Lore reached out a hand and touched his nearest warm scale. “Abraxas, let them see me.”
“Are you sure?” He angled his head so he could watch every movement. Every flick of her eyes and every shuddering breath she inhaled. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Because you’ll fly me off into the sunset?” A soft smile graced her face before she sighed. “Our life cannot be that, Abraxas. You know there is no escaping the path we’ve been thrust upon.”
“You are Lorelei of Silverfell, and I am a dragon.” He bent his head low and gently nudged her with the tip of his nose. “Nothing and no one tells us what to do.”
And if the look in her eyes didn’t rip his heart out of his chest, he didn’t know what it did. She grinned at him with all the trust of a woman who knew he would destroy the entire world to see her smile. That was the first time she’d ever given him that look, and now Abraxas knew he’d stop at nothing to see it again.
“Move your wing. It’s time for me to let the world know that magical creatures are not dead. And that we are not going anywhere.” Her palm eased over his nose as she said the words.
He hesitated for a brief moment, but then he moved his wing.
She walked out of the shadow of the dragon and stood before all the mortal nobles who trembled before her. The sun outlined her silhouette, catching in the glimmering gold of her hair. Bright blue eyes, still filled with tears, watched the mortals as they slowly approached her. She was covered in dirt and grime. Her dress ripped at the shoulder and sagging over her chest, while the rest of it had turned into a moth-eaten rag hanging off her muscular form.
She stood strong before them. Shoulders back, jaw set, eyes staring out at the rolling hills of Umbra on the other side of the castle. This was not a weak woman who had endured a lifetime of hardship.
This was a queen.
Lore licked her lips, standing in front of these mortals as a woman who had gone through hell and back.
“The King was right,” she started, her words too loud in the silence. “I am an elf. And perhaps I came here expecting to kill him. But you have to understand, we have been dying for so long.”
One of the men in the crowd lifted his fist and cried out, “For good reason! You murdered our king!”
A few others murmured their agreement, although they mostly looked at Abraxas in fear. The looming dragon over the young elf would make sure no
one harmed her. Even if they were foolish enough to try.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Lore replied. “You haven’t looked at your children and wondered if they would live through the winter. You haven’t hidden your features your entire life, so that someone didn’t try to harm you. You haven’t lived through the moment where someone noticed you were different and then had to hold your breath, wondering if they were going to call for the Umbral Knights. Every night you put your head on your pillow, you don’t sleep with nightmares of clanking armor and a sudden piercing pain through your heart.”
Surprisingly, no one in the crowd said anything after that. They listened to her, and maybe that was the image of this broken woman still standing in front of them. Her swollen eyes and the cuts on her jaw were easy to see. And yet she was alive.
“For years, we have been tucked away from your sight. Forced to live in the shadows and in hiding, hoping that no one found us. But we are still here.” She whispered the last words, as though she was still frightened of saying them. “We never left.”
Margaret stepped up beside Lore and put her hand on her shoulder. With that movement, all the others in the rebellion stepped up to the edge of the ramparts as one. They stared down at all the mortals who looked up at them with fear in their eyes. As they used to in the old days.
“We did not want to fight,” Lore said, this time with more power than before. “We did not want to battle or kill your king. But we spent a generation begging for you to see us and to help. No one did. You left us to drown and now you are angry that we survived.”
Eyes widened. Hands touched hearts in the crowd. Abraxas could smell their fear and the hot stench of their guilt.
The brunette woman, the one he’d honestly forgotten about, stumbled in front of the crowd. She held her hands up, pleading with the other mortals. “Listen to me! She’s lying. She’s always lied. Killing the King was her plan from the beginning, and I caught them. I was the one who found her and the dragon entangled in each other’s arms, and the King was going to marry me! I will lead you all in the right direction—”