From Spirit and Binding

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Doing that almost killed you,” I growled out.

  “It was the only way. The Spirit Wielders came just now. Late as always, and they spoke to me. It was the only way.”

  “I’m beginning to hate those guys.”

  “You’re not alone,” she said and hugged me tightly before pulling back. Together, we faced the crystal.

  “I can feel it calling to me. It’s hurting. I think it’s dying.”

  “It’s alive?” Rhodes asked the question I had been thinking all along.

  “It’s not a true sentient being. However, it’s more alive than we give it credit for, just like the dark crystal. It’s been crying out for its brother this whole time. We need to fix this, I just don’t know how.”

  “You’ll never learn how.” Suddenly, the king was there, gray smoke slithering in from every crack of every door and window. The power slammed into me, and my back hit the wall with bone-rattling force.

  “The Gray sends his regards,” the king whispered, and then I saw darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lyric

  * * *

  I shoved at The Gray’s magic coming at us from King Brokk and screamed, pushing all five of my elements through my hands.

  My body shook, and blood seeped out of my nose. I knew it was dripping down from my ears and my chin.

  This was too much. I didn’t have enough control, didn’t have enough power. I wasn’t about to die here. And I wouldn’t let Easton and Rhodes die either. Both of them lay passed out at my feet, the blows from The Gray coming directly at them through Brokk rather than me.

  The King of Lumière wanted me alive, and now he was going to have to face me.

  Because I was the Spirit Priestess. The one who was supposed to save the world. Damn him for making me do this.

  I shoved my Spirit Wielding out, threw the Fire and Air and Water and Earth. King Brokk screamed, going to his knees.

  He clawed at his eyes, blood seeping from where his nails dug into his face. The Gray’s shadows slithered around him like a snake, and then Brokk got to his feet, his Wielding ready to come at me.

  Brokk slammed one Air dagger at me, and then iced it over with Water. I shoved Fire at him. It wasn’t enough, so I ducked out of the way, the dagger piercing the stone behind me.

  Both Rhodes and Easton started to wake up, shaking their heads as they pushed themselves out of whatever magics had slammed into them.

  They were on their feet in the next instant, blood trickling out of their ears, as well. Rhodes had a bloody lip, and Easton had a shard of stone in his shoulder.

  We were all bruised and bloody. But we were not broken.

  The King of Lumière would not win.

  “You will not prevail. The Gray will always win.”

  “He won’t,” I called out. “You are not The Gray. You are just his pawn.” I slammed Fire into him, and it licked up his arm. He screamed, trying to shove at the flames, but it wouldn’t go away. Especially because Easton had joined in, his Fire wrapping around the king’s body. He screamed.

  And then Rhodes shoved Air to mix with the Fire, egging it on, intensifying its heat.

  The King of Lumière screamed again, his voice hoarse as his body burned. The Gray didn’t come for him.

  The Gray had clearly given up on him, just like he had given up on so many. Because, as I’d said, they were just pawns, they weren’t worth the fight or the energy.

  The king, however, had a little more energy to spare. He shoved out of the Fire, his left arm a charred thing. He threw blade after blade of Air and Water, still coming at us. The ground shook, and I was reminded that he was the King of Lumière, the most powerful Lumière Wielder of his generation.

  Except, I knew Rhodes was stronger. He really should have been king. He hadn’t wanted the throne, though, hadn’t been ready to take the mantle.

  I didn’t think we would have much longer until we had to make the choice of who would rule—no matter that there might not be a realm left to rule at all.

  The Spirit Wielders would want me to use my Spirit Wielding. I didn’t have enough juice.

  I was out of the last of my reserves, even though I had tried to hold back. Taking out Eitri and trying to save was too much.

  I knew if I used my Spirit Wielding, I wouldn’t have enough left to protect the crystals. And they were the most important part of this plan.

  So, I shoved all four of my other elements at him, all at once. They created a sludge of Fire and Earth and Water and Air that slammed into the king. His body was thrown back, and he hit the throne made of gold and diamonds and crystals of beauty and light with a resounding thud.

  A crystal shard from his own chair shot through his chest, and I held back a gasp. I hadn’t meant to do that. But he had landed just right, so his own symbol of power pierced him clean through. Blood poured out of his mouth, and through the gaping hole in his chest. It wasn’t enough, though. He wasn’t dead.

  We needed to end him. And it hurt me to admit that. It was too much. I didn’t want to be this person, someone who killed without reservation.

  Rhodes and Easton were at my side in the next breath, and I wasn’t alone.

  “You will never rule, you will die by his hand,” the king gurgled out.

  “You will never be able to hurt another person ever again,” Rhodes said, his voice hard.

  “You could have helped so many, could have brought us together. You chose not to,” Easton growled out. There wasn’t any anger in his voice, just sadness and utter disappointment.

  Even though I didn’t want to kill, maybe the good outweighed the bad. No, I knew I would have the deaths of those I ended marked on my soul until the end of my days.

  I would no longer be whole because of what I had been forced to do.

  I had already lost so much, but I needed to face my reality. That meant meeting his gaze and refusing to close my eyes as the King of Lumière let out one last shaky breath and then died.

  Right in front of us, with no pomp or circumstance.

  It was death at its cruelest, and I had been the Wielder.

  So now, there was no King of Lumière. There was no sovereign of the enemy.

  No one to help put the kingdom back together.

  My hands shook, and I looked around. I knew the kingdom was still fracturing. As the king’s soul left, and I watched it go to a place I could never reach, I let out another shaky breath and staggered to the crystal room. The light crystal, just like the one in the Obscurité Kingdom, pulsated, fractured light spearing out of it on the parapet like sun hitting a prism.

  This crystal was the dark crystal’s mirror image, its brother, and it was dying, too.

  I staggered past the king’s body on his throne and headed towards the crystal itself. And then I looked past that to where my home lay, to where the Obscurité waited for us, and tears slid down my cheeks.

  “No!” Easton screamed.

  “It can’t be,” Rhodes called out.

  Others were screaming as spears of light slammed into the wards that separated the two courts.

  The crystals themselves shook, and I knew that they were nearing their end, this was their last stand, their final moments.

  And as people screamed, their magic being ripped from them as they became Danes right before our very eyes, the wards fell.

  It was as if a curtain had fallen down from the heavens and slowly billowed away in silky sheets of magic and dust.

  We could see the Obscurité Court clearly. We could see its people, the castle.

  In the distance, a dragon or something like it trumpeted, and I knew that was Fire, and the earth rumbled from Earth.

  The Air behind us swirled, and the Water sipped at the territory’s dry shores.

  The four elements were now one. In this instance, there were no kingdoms, only a realm taking its last breath.

  I turned away and tried to face the crystal, attempted to help. It reached out to me, its spindly wispy fi
ngers broken and tattered.

  I knew this was the end.

  “The crystals are fading fully,” I whispered. Easton was at my side in a step, taking my hand.

  “What can we do? If the crystals fade and fall completely, our realm is dead.”

  “Can we fuse them together?” Rhodes asked from my other side.

  I took his hand and gave it a squeeze, and then let go of them both.

  “I know what I have to do. I don’t know how I know, but I know this is the next piece. We’re going to find our way after this. However, right now, this is what must be done.”

  I looked at them, my heart breaking, and I knew they knew.

  “Don’t let this kill you, damn it,” Easton snapped and kissed me hard on the mouth before taking a step back.

  I touched the crystal once and then went to the end of the balcony to face where I knew the other crystal was.

  I closed my eyes, and as the crystal shook, crying out to me, I held my hands out from my body in opposite directions to face each crystal.

  The crystals screamed, their dying breaths ones of mania and pain.

  So much corrupted magic had filtered through them over the years that they were now fragments of themselves, trying to protect. Not able to do anything right. At least in their minds.

  I would have to rebuild them, to make them into what they once were. However, in order to do that, I needed the pieces.

  So I shoved all the elements from my body, every ounce of my being that I had left, and I pushed it out towards the crystals.

  Bright light beamed, and people stopped screaming as they looked on in awe at the colors and swirls of magic that bubbled and bounced all around us.

  The crystals screeched, more light pouring from them before they shouted, please, please! in my head.

  And then the crystals broke. One splinter after another, multiplying shards.

  They shattered into a million pieces, into dust. Into virtually nothing.

  More people shouted and screamed and called out. I didn’t know who they were calling to. I didn’t know anything.

  I only knew that the dark crystal flew over the distance between us, its remnants swirling until they landed right on my skin, the light crystal’s doing the same. The glittering dust swirled over my body as if tattooing me and etching my skin with its memories and power.

  It sank into my flesh, and it burned, echoes of memories and of pain and histories long since dead and fallen seeped into my bones.

  The crystals were no more, their power now within me. I would find a way to put them back together again.

  They were home, even if this shelter was only for a moment.

  I opened my eyes, and both Easton and Rhodes stared at me, their eyes wide, not able to say a thing.

  I wasn’t sure what I could say either.

  I was the Spirit Priestess, the one who was supposed to save us all, and I had just destroyed the crystals.

  Their energies flowed through my body as if trying to heal one another, and I knew this was only a step. Only a pause before the break, before the silence of death screamed into mercy and new beginnings.

  Our people were safe, the realm was stable for now.

  And once I figured out how to pull out this magic and form a new crystal or do something else that would protect everyone, we would be safe.

  We would have a weapon against The Gray.

  I just needed to survive the overwhelming power within my body first. We would find a way to come together—all of us. We would heal those who had given so much for us, and we would find a way to thrive in this realm. To heal it.

  And as I looked at Easton, and he came forward to hold me close, I knew I wouldn’t be doing it alone.

  I would never be alone again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Easton

  * * *

  I looked over at the wounded and then those helping others and tried to feel some semblance of warmth or confirmation that we’d won. It was hard to do with so many people on the ground, their eyes open and vacant. So many had died for this, to protect their realm, not their kingdom, not their territory, not their element. Their realm. And I wasn’t sure we were done yet.

  I looked over at Lyric, who stood by Rosamond, holding the other woman’s hand as the Seer grunted. Ridley was currently pulling ice shards out of her back.

  Apparently, one of the Wielders had learned how to make shrapnel from ice, and it carved into somebody’s flesh. Especially if that person had covered a smaller person with their body, trying to protect them. I didn’t even know which Wielder Rosamond had protected. I figured the only reason she’d even seen the ice coming was because of her visions.

  She still had blood seeping from her nose, and I knew that was probably because of her Seer powers, as well.

  People were helping her, just like others were helping everyone that was down for the count.

  Our own men and women were even helping the Lumière soldiers who had fought against us.

  A lot had fled when the king died. They took off into the mountains, and I knew that they would likely find a new leader. Probably The Gray himself. He was out of royalty to use as pawns, after all.

  Other Lumière had shown up at our borders in need of aid, pledging their allegiance to freedom, rather than a kingdom. We needed everybody that we could get, and if we could prove that they weren’t traitors, then we would use them.

  At least, that was the plan.

  Justise knew what he was doing, and between him and Rosamond using her Seeing, and Lady of Air with her secret ways I still didn’t quite understand, we would be able to figure out exactly who was on our side when the time came.

  As I thought of the vast amount of people who had perished, and those who were injured, or those who looked like they had lost everything because when the magic had stripped their Wielding from them, I knew that we would need more.

  We would need those who had hidden themselves away, even those who had maybe been our enemies at one point.

  We would need people like the pirate king, even though I had raised an eyebrow when Lyric mentioned it. Still, I wasn’t above asking Slavik for help. And he would know the workings of the underbelly of our realm. He would know who might want to save our realm from fading away into extinction, even if they had questionable morals. Because that’s what The Gray wanted. The Gray wanted the Shadow realm to rule.

  And if the Shadow realm ruled, the Maison realm would die.

  “Do you think Rosamond is the Queen of Lumière now?” Rhodes asked me as he came to my side. “Aunt Delphine abdicated when she left the realm.”

  I raised a brow as I looked at the other man who had fought by my side. He had put himself in front of Lyric and me to protect us.

  It didn’t matter that I had once hated him because of who his parents were. It didn’t matter that I had fought against him for so many years. It didn’t matter that I had hated him because he could love Lyric when I couldn’t at the time.

  He was my brother now. He was family. However, I could still be an asshole.

  “So, it’s either you or Rosamond, I would think. With your scrawny cousin dead and all.”

  “We don’t know that Eitri is dead. Something happened right when he was pulled into The Gray,” Rhodes said, shuddering a bit.

  I joined him in that shudder. “Well, he’s as good as dead, then. Rosamond is the next in line to rule in terms of age.”

  “I don’t want to be the queen,” Rosamond said.

  “You might not have a choice,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  “I’m a Seer. Like the Spirit Priestess cannot be queen, neither can I. Leadership would go to Rhodes, I would think,” she said, looking off into the distance. I didn’t know if she was using a vision or just her hopes at that point.

  Rhodes shook his head. “We don’t have time for a King of Lumière, even King of Obscurité,” he said sharply, and I nodded.

  “We’ll worry about the royal lines la
ter. For right now, we’re just generals, those who would fight for our Spirit Priestess and our realm.”

  “Don’t fight for me,” Lyric said, coming up to me. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and I held her close, kissing the top of her head. It was odd to be so affectionate with someone. To feel something so deep in my chest. This was my new normal. And I felt as if I’d been waiting my whole life for this.

  I was so afraid that we were going to lose these precious moments, that we would only have a few of them left, so I didn’t mind that everybody stared.

  Because this could be the last time I held her, and I knew it.

  I felt the power within her, knew the crystals etching their way into her skin had amplified it.

  And I didn’t think that her body would be able to handle it for long. It could barely hold her five elements as it was.

  We had to get the extra magic out of her. No matter what.

  “We’ll deal. First, we must fortify our resources and work together,” Rhodes said, and I nodded.

  I looked around at those who’d survived and thought about the fact that we only had a small number of lords and ladies left, and that Delphine was now blind. I remembered that Wyn was dealing with a new element, and Teagan and his father were in mourning, still fighting yet scarred.

  The Lady of Earth had disappeared. I knew she was alive, even though her husband was dead. There was so much to do, so much more to figure out. However, there was one thing we knew. We needed to defeat The Gray.

  “We’ll find what we need. We’ll uncover our allies, and we’ll go up against him. And then we’ll bring back our realm.”

  Lyric looked up at my words and nodded tightly. “We’ll bring back the crystals in any form we can.” She looked down at her hands, at the fact that she glowed just a little bit in the light. The illumination was there for only an instant, but I had seen it, and so had the others.

  “We’ll find a way,” I whispered, kissing her hand.

  “I know.” She leaned into me. And then Braelynn jumped into her arms, and Lyric let out an oomph before she laughed. Lyric wasn’t small anymore by any means.