My stomach dropped. “What the hell could possibly be worse than—”
“The Falak,” she said, and the air seemed to whoosh away from us both, the warmth of the summer heat turning to the ice of a winter’s touch in a flash. “That is what could be worse. It is a serpent of great size and power. One whose magic lies hidden and asleep for now. One that thinks, and plans. One that will be reborn if it can be.”
Chills rippled through me as the pieces clicked together. “They believe Ollianna can control it because of her connection to the snakes?” Like the ophidians. The ophidians that Marsum had said even the Jinn masters could not control, but Ollianna could.
“They bred her for this. They chose bloodlines and power to bring her to the light from a very old line of magic. It was all a game, giving you a few things, making you trust her, allowing her to go along with you. She needed the green stone and its connections to beasts and the earth to increase her power. They tried giving her the other stone, the one flecked with lightning, but it hurt her.”
Titania watched me, her eyes shifting through the colors of the rainbow. Which was why Ollianna had been so eager to see it leave the Swamp. Titania nodded. “So yes, we will help you, if only because we came to stop them ourselves.”
All around me, the sound of buzzing intensified, and I found myself looking up at an army of fairies as they flowed closer. Hundreds of them, at least as many fairies as there were witches waiting at the crossroads.
I held out my hand, palm up. “Then we fight side by side.”
She landed on the tips of my fingers and bent one knee, mimicking me. From her side, she pulled a tiny dagger and cut her palm. A well of red blood beaded up, iridescent and catching the light like her wings. Then she reached out and nicked my skin. I didn’t move, didn’t flinch. Until my own blood welled up, red as the dawn, and flickering with lights that it shouldn’t have but did.
“Blood calls to blood.” She smiled up at me and pressed her tiny wound to mine.
Little bolts of energy scattered up my hand and straight into my heart. “How is that possible?”
“You carry the world with you, Bright one. We are part of this world.” She pulled her hand away and shot into the air, pulling two swords from her side.
Fairy blood. I had fairy blood in me.
“Today, we fight!” she called out. “Many of us will die, but we will stop a great evil from coming into this world. We must.”
The buzzing around us intensified and the air lit up with colors and shimmering lights that drew my eyes in every direction.
Before I could suggest a planning session, or a strategy, they were flying away, zipping amongst the trees and across the creek.
“Oh shit!” I turned and bolted, running as fast as I could and still losing ground on the fairy army. They were going in now, no plan, no thought as to the best way to face off against the witches. “Bryce, Maks, Lila, we’re going in!” I yelled as I leapt across the creek. I landed on the other side in a crouch, scrambled against the loose soil and then was off again.
Maks stared at me. “What?”
“Titana and the fairies are here, and they are going in NOW!” I ran past him to leap onto Balder. Bryce shifted to his lion form and Maks was on Batman as I spun Balder to face them. “I love you, guys. You know, in case we all die.”
Lila laughed. “We aren’t dying, not today! Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death!”
“Richard the third,” Maks and I said in tandem. I grinned at him. Grinned at Lila and saluted my brother.
“Into battle we go.”
There was no plan, no strategy, but ahead of us was the buzzing of a hundred angry fairies, and the boom of magic blasting through the air which meant this was our chance to take the crossroads.
We had an army with us now; if small, they were mighty.
Like Lila.
Like me. I let out a whoop, adrenaline coursing through me and I couldn’t contain it.
Balder stretched out as I leaned over his neck, urging him faster, the call of a battle running through my veins. Batman and Maks caught up to us, his pike pole held to the side like a knight riding into battle. I pulled the flail and held it out as we took the last corner before the crossroads.
The witches were engaged already with the fairy army and didn’t see us at first. Maks drove his bladed spear through three of them, right in their necks before he leapt off Batman and a bluish mist billowed up around him, tinted with a darkness that hadn’t been there before.
“You left his magic in him?” I said and the flail hummed in my hand. “Thanks.”
And then I let fly with my weapon, bashing it into the witches whose backs were still turned to me. We had the upper hand, and we were taking it for all it was worth. Lila shot into the fray, still small, her acid flying and her claws and teeth damaging eyes of the witches. She shrieked and roared. Maybe she could have gone big but then she would have been a target. I approved of her choice to stay small—for now.
The call of a male lion burst through the air as Bryce leapt into the fray. The witches didn’t know what to do with him, or us, for that matter, and it occurred to me that they most likely had never been in a fight, never mind a full-on battle.
A good number of them scattered, chased by fairies that screamed for their bloody deaths in great detail. I jumped from Balder’s back and pushed him away as I swung the flail over and over. The witches’ magic slid over me, the flail absorbing it gleefully. With each gulp it took of the power, it tightened its hold on me.
The day ticked by, and the witches held us at bay far better than I’d thought they would. Darkness tinged the sky and we still weren’t at the crossroads proper. I could see it ahead of us, a literal cross of stone where the four roads met. Ollianna stood on top of it, her eyes distant, not even really looking at the battle below her.
Trick lay at her feet, as if sleeping. Please, gods, let him be sleeping and not dead. “Lila, do you see him?”
“I can’t get to him. They keep blocking me!” she screamed, anger and fear lacing her voice.
“To me!” I yelled at her and she dropped to my shoulder, breathing hard. “We’ll get to him.”
We had to.
Maks was spinning his magic, keeping both himself and Bryce safe, but they weren’t making much headway.
It was then I knew we were in trouble. The witches were doing exactly what we’d planned to do.
They were holding the crossroads just long enough that no one else would take it.
“Lila, time to go big,” I whispered as I swung the flail, catching another spell as it shot our way.
“What?”
“Draw their eyes. Go high, so they can’t hit you, but go big. I’ll go small.” Already I could see how this was going to work.
Big and small, together we could get to Trick. We could save him and stop Ollianna.
I slipped the ring and chain out of my pouch and put it over her neck. She pushed off my shoulder and shot upward, her body shifting, growing in leaps and bounds. She roared as she flew, and every witch there lost their concentration. I could feel it like a buzz under my skin.
This was my chance.
28
Lila roared above all of our heads while the crossroads beckoned within sight. Ollianna stood on the stone marking the crossroads and Trick lay wrapped around the stone. But was he alive?
I shifted to four legs and darted forward as Lila drew fire and eyes. The witches weren’t looking for me as a six-pound house cat. Nope, and once more I had to admit to myself that this was a damn fine form. Not better than a big-ass jungle cat, but good in its own way.
I shot between legs, toppling witches this way and that and sending more than one onto her plump ass with an “oof.”
Cat trips witches for the win!
I grinned to myself as I closed the distance between me and the stone cross. “Trick, wake up!” I yelled as I got closer to the storm dragon. His gray and white scales were duller t
han the last time I’d seen him, and that worried me, but finally I saw his torso rise and fall with a big breath. He was wrapped fully around the standing stone that Ollianna stood on. The stone itself was over twelve feet high, solid gray and shaped like an oversized cross. Even at a distance I could see the hand holds etched into it for climbing to the top. I just had to get there.
“TRICK!” I tried to wake him again and a blast of magic hit the ground at my front paws. Shards of rocks sprayed up, two cutting across my right cheek. I hissed and spun, finding myself face to face with the grandmammy of all the witches.
“Hey, bitch!” I puffed up my body and stood on the tips of my toes. “You sure you want some of this?”
“A mere house cat. No matter what blood runs in your veins, you will never be more than a mere house cat.”
Another time that would have hurt me, wounded me deeply. I shrugged. “I’m still going to kick your ass, house cat or not.”
I shifted to two legs and swung my flail, catching her off guard, and slammed the weapon into her right hip. She screeched and the sound burrowed its way into my head, reverberating over and over.
A bellow burst through it, the roar of a very angry, very large dragon. I looked up for Lila.
And saw Corvalis.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
He and Lila were side by side, their bodies moving in tandem through the air, as if joined at the hip. Her eyes were glazed, distant, as if she weren’t really there.
What was happening?
But I knew. Serpents.
They were serpentine.
I spun away from the witch, yanking the flail free as I leapt up onto Trick’s back, using him as a step stool to get to the top of the rock, the handholds perfect launch points for me.
“Hurry!” Maks yelled. “Hurry!”
The fairies swarmed and reformed and the bellow of Corvalis came again, and with the roar, a burst of fire along the top of the battle, scorching fairy wings left and right.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I was behind Ollianna as I pulled myself to the top of the rock.
“You cannot kill me,” she said, turning to face me. The emerald stone lay around her neck, throbbing with magic. “I have power over the dragons, power over the serpents. That is my gift. The Falak will keep us safe from the Emperor. I will keep us safe from the Emperor.”
“You’re fucking delusional! You want to be safe from him, but you fucked him!” I threw one hand upward, pointing at Lila and Corvalis, both ensnared by her magic. “The second you let Corvalis go, he’s going to eat you, and then the Falak, what about him then? Who will control him?”
“Corvalis is not strong enough to throw my bonds.” Ollianna’s green eyes were so full of certainty that even I almost believed her.
Almost.
He bellowed again and I shook my head. “Don’t do this, Ollianna.”
The sky seemed to take that moment to dip into full darkness and the moons appeared above us, golden in their glow. All around us, the fighting stopped, fading away.
“And you’d kill Trick to do this?”
“No, of course not.” She shook her head. “I only need the blood of a dragon, not the death of one.” She held out a cup and poured it onto the rock at her feet, presumably Trick’s blood splattering everywhere. I leapt toward her and she flicked her fingers at me. The cup flew at my face, catching me in the side of my head and sending me off the rock. I bounced across Trick and ended up on a rock spiking out of the ground. It jammed its way through the meat of my left side. I howled, the pain sharp and tearing. Before I was too weak, I pushed myself off the rock and to my knees. I stared up at her, blood trickling down the side of my face, my hand cupping the wound on the left.
“Secondary magic works well on you, I think, while you hold that flail.” She smiled down at me and the golden power of the moons above threw their light down on her.
“Lila, you have to fight her! You have to show her she’s not strong enough to hold you, never mind the Falak!” I screamed at my friend and found her through the bond we had, through our pride. She was my second, and I could give her help. I pushed my energy and power the flail had gathered through the battle into Lila. Giving her strength.
Reminding her of who she was, and who her family was.
She screeched and shook her head, flew backward and then dropped toward us, jaws open wide. At the last second, Ollianna lifted her hand and Lila spun to the side and fell to the ground asleep.
“Just that easy,” Ollianna said.
The power suffused her, lighting her up, green magic curling all around her, driving into the ground and cracking it open. I stumbled back, unable to keep my balance with the heaving of the earth.
“Falak, your time has come. Answer to the Serpent Queen, let your spirit find me.” Ollianna’s voice cut through the air.
“I thought you wanted a child!” I yelled at her. “I thought that was your desire, not this madness!”
She turned her head slowly to me. “Do you not understand?”
Even as I stared at her, her belly began to swell until there was no doubt about what lay under her skirt. Her father’s seed . . .
“A child of power, one that can be controlled,” she said with a smile. “I am the Serpent Queen. I am the one spoken of in legend. The Emperor will never rule again. My child will cleanse this world.”
There was a crack of lightning as Trick raised his head, his eyes glazed. I scrambled backward. “Trick.”
“I’m sorry, Zam. You are too much trouble,” Ollianna said. “You will have to die too. There is too much potential in you.”
Trick lunged for me, jaws wide. I fell backward and my vision was filled with blue and silver scales.
“Get away from my sister!” Lila roared, body slamming Trick backward. Blood ran down her scales, that was all I could see and then her jaws clamped on his muzzle, snapping his mouth shut. They rolled over several times, and Lila jerked hard as her body hit the same pointed rock that I’d fallen on, piercing her right through her scales. She pinned him to the ground though, despite that.
Trick shook his head, as if waking from a deep dream. “Lila?” He muffled her name and she let him go.
“We have to kill her!” Lila yelled, and then, we were all moving at once. But not fast enough.
All around us chaos erupted. Corvalis swept down and caught up Ollianna and her huge belly, his wings brushing around us. His eyes blank with her power. The witches ran, disappearing into the air as if they were fucking ghosts, and the fairies were just as fast to dissipate. Leaving us there as if there had been no battle, as if we hadn’t been fighting for hours, as if what we’d just seen had not happened. If not for the bodies on the ground, and even those slowly disappeared, fading into nothing but ash and dried blood.
Lila hissed and snapped at Trick. He stared at her, blinking rapidly, his eyes clearing. “Lila?”
She blinked right back at him, snapping her mouth shut. “You aren’t under her power? Are you sure?”
Breathing hard, I ran around the two dragons, seeing as they weren’t trying to kill each other. “Maks? Bryce?”
“We’re here.” Bryce’s voice was beyond tired. He limped toward me. “Good thing we had the Jinn with us.”
Maks limped, too, only on the opposite leg. They’d stood side by side then through the whole fight. I shouldn’t have been so happy about that, not when we’d lost.
I hugged Bryce first, his mane tickling my nose, then caught Maks around the neck. His arms circled me. “We failed.”
“I know.”
I held onto him, and felt Bryce butt his head into my hip. I dropped a hand to his head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.”
All of us turned to see Titania flying toward us. Slower than before, but still flying. “The war is coming, one the Emperor engaged in many years ago. The Falak is an elemental creature made for destruction and nothing else. Born of a witch, she will hold even m
ore power than before. Our world is ended. Unless you gather the last of the stones and join with an enemy once more.” She snapped her fingers and disappeared along with everyone else.
I turned my head to see Lila and Trick together.
“Isn’t that the ring?” Maks pointed at the necklace and ring Lila had been wearing—it sat atop the stone cross, catching the last rays of the golden moonlight. I looked at Lila, squinting at her. The hard, ugly layer of magic that I’d seen on her before was gone. The curse was gone.
“It is. Should we tell her that her curse is broken?” Maks said.
“Hey, Lila!” I yelled and she snapped her head around, eyes narrowed as she searched for danger. I pointed at the stone. “You’re free, my friend.”
She lowered her nose to the stone, as if she couldn’t believe it, blood running off her scales. “But I can feel my smaller form still.”
And just like that she went from big to small and back again. Over and over. A dragon shifter. One of a kind.
She whooped and leapt into the sky, Trick following her.
One good thing. One good thing in this place of power and death.
But I had no illusions. We were far from done in our journey to protect our desert, to protect our people.
And now, to try to protect the world.
29
The next morning found us back at the creek where we’d started the day before. Everyone was stiff and sore from the fight—with the exception of Trick, who seemed fresh as a freaking daisy and just as fucking perky.
That was until I explained what Ollianna had done, and what was coming our way.
Even as we spoke, the daylight around us darkened weirdly for first thing in the morning and a rumble of thunder cut through the sky. I looked at the storm dragon. “That you?”
“No.”
“Then the child is born,” Maks said. “I can see bits and pieces of prophecies and potential lines of the world’s fate. A storm over the world announces the rebirth of the Falak.” He rubbed his hand over his head. “This is bad, Zam. Very bad.”
Wyvern's Lair (Desert Cursed Series Book 5) Page 24