She smiles coldly. “He's not the one you should be worrying about.” Her sing-song voice sends a chill straight through me.
There's still Grayle out there as well as her. Is he here, too? What does she actually want? “What did you do to him?”
“What the hell do I have to do to get a little attention, Syxx?” she screams. “Pay attention to me. Focus on me.”
You’ve got it, bitch. “Who are you?”
“Much better,” she purrs. “I'm Niko. I like long walks on the beach, and hanging with friends.”
“You have friends?” Shit. That just slipped out.
She ignores the insult. “You know the really annoying thing about being a Moondreamer?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“You.” She twitches and smacks herself in the head. “The worst part about being a Moondreamer, is you.” She steps over a few of the soldiers. “Because you're somehow special because you're hers. Because she gave you up to keep you safe and you're all the world can fucking talk about. Syxx this, Syxx that, but what have you really done, Emilie?” She paces back and forth, kicking people's bodies as she goes. I wince with every connection of her foot.
“What does my mom have to do with any of this?” And where is she? Is she lying inert somewhere in the house as well? Is it even possible Niko got the jump on Mom?
Her eyes glitter with malice. “Again, not the person you should be focusing on. You're useless. You're an angry bee with no stinger; a rabid dog with no teeth. Laughable. I'm the one who's been training my whole life for the fight you only just heard about three minutes ago and tried to co-opt. I'm the one who’s put the work in, yet you think you can swoop in and take my army?”
“Your army? They're the High Council's army. Actually they belong to no one. Well, no, now I guess they're sort of mine, but really they—”
“Sweet Jesus, shut your mouth or I'll remove your tongue.” Niko pinches the bridge of her nose.
“What about Grayle?” That was where I was going before the verbal diarrhea struck. “Are you doing this for him? Where is he?” If he's here and everyone's been switched off, then I have to beat them both.
“Can you actually be this idiotic? There is no Grayle.”
“Just because you haven’t seen him doesn’t mean—”
“You idiot, I'm Grayle! He's a character I created to hide behind to throw everyone off the scent. Admit it—you never even saw him for yourself and you were terrified of him. Dance puppet, dance.”
Niko’s not telling me the truth so we can bond over stories. I stall for time. “But he had a brother, Graire. My mom killed him in front of me—he was real.”
“Yes. She killed Graire. But Graire never actually had a brother. With Graire removed from the equation, I was able to spread a few well-timed rumours that caught on like a wildfire. Graire failed. Gra-iled. Grayle. See what I did there?” She laughs. “I put in a couple appearances as Grayle, and the rest is history. Just like you're going to be.” She shifts until she looks exactly like Misty, then Ibor, then Sakarias, and finally Draven. “I can be whoever I want to be.”
“How dare you wear their faces?” I should be attacking her, but she’s wearing his face.
“Does it bother you, Emilie? Wouldn’t it be delicious for me to play with you and kill you while looking like your absolutely perfect mate?”
“Maybe you have to be other people because you can't look yourself in the mirror.”
“Oh no, I can. There's fabulous lighting in my bathroom. If it was possible for me to clone myself, or to split this in two, I'd hit this every single day.” She slaps her own ass and shifts back to her true form.
I could try to run down the hall, but with the legs and arms, it would be like those football training exercises with the tires. I'd probably trip and she'd zap me with something nasty before I reached safety.
What can I do to bind her magic? How can I—
She tweaks a finger and the air in my lungs turns to water. Icy and suffocating, it tastes like blood and rust. Blackness swims at the edges of my vision, but I dissolve her bones in retaliation.
Her body folds to the floor with a dull slap, leaving her a Niko-colored puddle by the door. Bones take a few minutes to fix, even for a Moondreamer.
There are a lot of them.
Gagging, coughing to clear my lungs, I turn and run downstairs to the training room, gasping in deep breaths, jumping over, then floating above the unconscious bodies along the way. No one was downstairs when Niko knocked them all out—exactly what I was hoping for. If we engage upstairs all around my friends, she's liable to hurt them to distract me or try to force me to surrender. At least down here we're alone and I can focus. No one will get hurt except for her.
Or me.
I head for the armory and grab my knife.
A current of air sweeps across my shoulders, hits my back, but I’ve had enough time to get my head into the fight.
I flip around and reverse gravity.
Niko slams head-first into the ceiling, along with everything else in the room except for me. Ready for it, I have the advantage, and throw an explosive spell at her. Quicker than I can blink, she shrinks down to the size of an ant and it misses, scorching the ceiling beside her. She returns to normal size and flings out a bright red ball of pain that engulfs my body, stinging every nerve like I’m covered with a blanket of wasps.
That I can deal with.
Thanks, Mom.
I shake off the burning and fire it back at her, magnified. She throws a shield up, and I do the same, just in time to block her next spell.
I volley it back on her and it doesn't do any damage, but she staggers backwards. With shields up, we can't attack each other directly with spells like we did upstairs, and we glare at each other, assessing one another’s defenses.
Interesting.
My shields are better than hers, but I'm no match for her offence. Her training must have focused more on attacking, rather than defending. If I can get a couple good shots in and keep my cover up, I might have a chance.
I reinforce my shields to the point of ridiculousness. If they were visible, I'd look like the Michelin man's sister.
Niko throws a fiery yellow ball of light my way—it hits, but bounces off, leaving only a cloud of smoke that reeks of sulphur. The fireball I toss starts her shield on fire in that spot; her defense dripping to the floor like liquid fire. Not wanting to lose the advantage, I follow with blasts of icy coldness, hoping to make her shields brittle and weak.
“Nice try.” She smirks.
I go flying backward into the wall, connect hard, and land even harder as gravity goes back to normal. As weapons rain down all around me, I lie still, pretending to be knocked out while I take stock and wait for things to stop spinning.
My mind is a hyperactive hamster on a wheel, spinning and spinning, frantically trying to come up with a solution as she walks toward me. Can I beat her in a physical fight?
Through my eyelashes, I see her stare down at me, cautiously victorious.
Her back is to the collection of knives in the armoury. Come get your pincushion, lovelies!
Blades of all lengths soar toward her, penetrate her shield on all sides, but immediately stop, stuck. She focuses on the blades, probably going to do the same to me.
No.
I grit my teeth, using every ounce of power I have to force them to twist into her, working towards her body while she tries to blow them out. The knives begin rotating, drilling into her shield, closer and closer to her. Every muscle in my body tightens with exertion, sweat trickles down my back.
My heartbeat visibly pounds through my vision, but I keep drawing the knives deeper within her shields an inch at a time. It's too slow.
And stopping.
Niko's grimacing with effort, overcoming my attack, stopping the knives.
My nails dig into my hands, and pierce the skin, eight tiny crescents in my palms. The small pain gives me something to cling to s
o I don't pass out, and it sharpens my focus. Removing my shields, I channel all of my energy to attack mode and redouble my efforts. I’m rewarded when the knives quiver again.
So close. Just another inch...
Niko cocks a foot back and cheap shots me right in the face. There’s a crunch and the metallic tang of my own blood spraying my face. It's warm and tickles my skin, running down to my ears as I’m layed out flat on my back, shields down, no fakery this time.
“You bitch!”
Stunned, I swivel my head in her direction—which way is up?—and wait for her three heads to turn back into one. Hell, I’d take two to simplify things at this point.
My equilibrium returns just as she repels the knives away from her body. They fly out in all directions, sticking into the wall and ceiling. One slices my scalp, blinding my eye with a trickle of blood. One pierces my arm, another hits my chest, missing my heart by inches. Painful but not immediately fatal.
Throwing my shields back up, I narrowly block the sword she's grabbed and swings at me. It bounces off my protection, and lodges in the wall. She tugs at it, but it’s stuck.
Excalibur.
I giggle.
Screaming with frustration, she kicks my shield with all her power. I'm thrown to the side like a giant soccer ball, and the blades in my body quiver when I land across the room, doing more damage, tearing a scream from my throat. I need time to heal. I can’t maintain my shields and heal and attack her—I don’t have the strength.
Niko walks closer, knowing all she has to do is wait for my strength to run out. She smiles, and then goes still. A sphere surrounds her, sealing her inside. It turns black and bounces violently away from me, smacking the wall, then slamming into the ceiling and floor again and again. It makes me dizzy to watch. It lands and the blackness cracks, revealing Niko's limp body inside the remnants of her shield. But how?
I squint on the brightness behind Niko when it calls my name. “Syxx!”
“Mom?”
She runs over to me, crackling with power, pulls the knives out and heals the wounds so quickly it makes me nauseated with the sudden influx of power.
“Where did you come from?”
“I was working on the sixth floor. We'd just made it—I don't think she knew about the recent expansions because she only glamoured the first three floors. When everyone went down to see what was going on, they succumbed to her spell. I saw the unfamiliar spell signature and knew something was wrong. I tried unsuccessfully to rouse the soldiers, saw the groceries and your spell signature at the front door. I knew you were home, but hadn't seen your body—seen you anywhere. I came downstairs, and, well, you know the rest.”
“She's Grayle—has been all along.”
She frowns. “That is not something I'd anticipated. It changes a lot. She—”
Mom's ripped away as a flash of light and a loud bang fill the room. Arcs of lightning shooting from Niko's hands hold my mom immobile before Niko turns and slams Mom against the wall.
“How dare you interfere? I'll kill you!”
My mom's shields were completely down healing me—she's taking the full force of the energy into her body. Light flows from my mom into Niko as Niko drains Mom’s life force. It's destroying her.
I see red.
I come to hovering over Niko, white light pouring from my hands into her. We are supposed to bring lightness of heart. We're supposed to make people feel better, happier, lighter inside. This bitch has perverted that, and twisted it for her own gain. Pure, raw energy flows inside the holes of her shields made by the knives and shatters the rest of the resistance like an eggshell. Her body begins to glow until she hurts my eyes but I don’t stop pouring my angry energy into her.
She wanted this. I’m going to give her everything she ever wanted—all the energy I’ve got.
It combines with my mom’s power and swells and swells, a crescendo of pure power. Niko takes in a breath to scream, but implodes into nothing before she can make a sound. She doesn’t even leave a damp spot on the floor.
I land and look at my hands. I had no idea I had that much power in me.
Mom has recovered by this time, walks over, looks down where the evil Moondreamer used to be.
“Emilie-Syxx. I think you vaporized her.” She sounds as shocked as I feel.
“I couldn't have her killing my only mother.”
She grabs me and wraps me in a tight hug. “Come on. Let's go wake everyone up.”
“We'll be able to?”
“Yes. She's dead now. As the one who killed her, you’ll be able to undo any of her spells still running.”
I don’t even need to ask Mom how—the strands of Niko’s spells brush my skin like spider webs, tainting my senses like a rotten compost pile. Not a single one is good for any of the recipients, so I end them all and fly upstairs to find Draven and Trina.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
They’re waking when we get upstairs, and we gather and tell everyone what happened and they listen with bated breath and huge eyes.
It's going to take some time to sink in that the High Council has been destroyed, and they're really free, soldiers no more unless they want to be.
Between all of them, we have enough intel to get us into all of the training bases, and free the rest of the Fae soldiers. Until word spreads, there’s likely to be resistance from the people running the bases, but we’ll deal with that as we go along. The deprogramming and adjusting may take some time, but it's something everyone's happy to help with. We decide to keep the safe house going as a place for them to come.
We'll create others wherever they're needed for as long as it takes. This is where we start taking care of our people instead of exploiting them. Trust needs to be earned and we need to prove ourselves.
It's not going to happen overnight. We're being realistic about it—some of the leaders will put up a fight, some soldiers will be too far gone to dare believe we’re not another lie or test they’re being put through. More lives will be lost before everyone's free to live the lives they’ve always been denied.
Janska remembers a database where the leaders kept records on every Fae soldier. Everything from physical description to lineage and location. Maybe we can cross reference this and find their parents. Reunions will be happening for years to come. The damage can never fully be undone, but maybe in time we can all move forward and create a better history for ourselves. One that our own children can be proud of.
Draven and I decide to stay where we are, helping people adjust to the world outside the army instead of actively freeing bases with Ashria, but we’ll help too from time to time. Maybe someday we'll move into our own place—we're certainly not hurting for resources. Tipper left Draven his stash and there's more than we could ever hope to spend.
We decide to use it helping settle the Fae into the human world if that’s how they want to live.
For the first time, the choice is theirs.
LYING FLAT ON OUR BACKS, gazing up at the stars, Trina and I hang out alone on the roof, getting in some much-needed girl time. She's been a great help for the soldiers, showing them how amazing humans can be, teaching them more about our culture and lifestyle. Many had never even seen a human outside of the propaganda videos they were shown. Trina’s the best example of humanity I’ve ever known and wins them over quickly.
Her relationship with Kaya is a great example of another kind of co-habitation between the Fae and humans.
As much as I love having her here, things can't be like this forever. Not as they are. She’s still incredibly vulnerable—her humanity working for and against her with every breath she takes. All it would take is one traitor, one fae soldier who snaps when one of us isn’t there at her side to protect her and my best friend could be killed. Sending her away would be the smart thing to do for everyone, but I can’t bear the thought of her not being here with me.
Is it selfish if I want to keep her even if she wants to stay? How can I let her go? I can’t.
<
br /> But there’s something else I can do to keep her safe.
From the moment I saw Trina's bruised, bloody face in Mare's memory, I knew I had to do this. But only if she’ll let me.
She raises her eyebrows. “You’re awfully quiet. What's up?”
“Do you think you'd have been happier if you didn't know all of this existed?”
She sits up. “All of the Fae stuff? No way. It's a part of who you are, Syxx. And there's Kaya. I really love him. And magic—it's a part of life. I mean, I didn't know it was really a part of life until recently, but it's awesome. Who wouldn’t want to know there’s more to the world than what we see?”
“Even the bad stuff? You could forget all about it all. Mare and the beings like her.”
She bites her lip, and nods. “Even with the bad, it’s more interesting. All of our 80's loving, cartoony dreams have come true. Magic—real magic exists. The world has gotten way more exciting.”
“And dangerous.”
“Sure. The brighter the light the darker the shadow. But I wouldn't change any of it. We're both okay. We're together. That's something to celebrate.”
And just like that I'm sure. I'm not sure if it will work, but I owe it to her to try. “Give me your hand.”
“Hey, I love you, but not like that,” she quips.
“Shut up and do it!” I laugh. She puts her hand in mine. I close my eyes and feel down to the essence of who she is.
And then I change a few things.
She'll never be the same unless she asks me to take away the gifts I’ve just given her.
My spell signature gently settles across her skin. Her eyes widen and she seems to glow from within. The childish promise we made each other is now a reality.
I feel to see if the new powers are a good thing for her, or if she will come to harm because of them.
They're a good fit.
Her new abilities fit her like a snug pair of jeans.
She’s not a Moondreamer; she can’t will things into being, or grant wishes the way I can. She already brings lightness of heart to people in her own way. But now I’ve given her other abilities that will keep her safe, and make her nearly my equal in the years to come.
The Reaping (The Moondreamer Chronicles Book 2) Page 23