by G. Bailey
“HELP!” someone screams, running into the room, and the music is cut off, plunging the ball into silence. I push through the crowd to find Mrs. Frostan on her knees, sleeping dust on her shirt like someone just missed her face with it. Rueben runs over to her, just as she says the last thing I want her to before she passes out on the floor.
“The Tale brothers are here. They are taking over the academy!”
Chapter 22
“GUARDS!” Rueben shouts as Quin, Tavvy, Ella and Roger get to my side. We hold a strong line as the rest of the students run to the back of the room, keeping out of the way. They can’t help us right now, and I want Rueben’s attention to be on us.
“It’s too late,” I shout at Rueben, catching his attention, and he looks at me in shock. I fill my hands with dust, but I don’t get a chance to use my powers as Knox walks into the room.
“You are going to pay for taking Oisin Tale’s life.” Knox’s arms are a swirl of impressive powers, a mixture of fire, water, electricity and air all swirling together. Rueben laughs, a cold empty laugh that makes me shiver as I watch how Knox moves. He is determined, powerful, and he will end this once and for all. I didn’t know he had such control over all elements, though he told me it was possible.
Rueben strikes first, slamming five daggers of ice towards Knox. My heart is in my mouth as Knox simply knocks each one away, all the time walking forward. The air feels like it is slowly sucked out of the room as Knox and Rueben fight, a true show of elemental power that is frightening. Rueben holds his hands out, sending a storm of snow and deadly ice spikes towards Knox, who counters with a shield of fire. The shield covers him as he walks all the way through the storm, and I can’t see him anymore. I hear the elements though, and the room becomes so cold that my breaths come out like smoke.
“Quinton, go and help him, please,” Tavvy demands, but I can tell she doesn’t want him to go, even though we both know he has more of a chance of saving Knox than we do. Quin nervously nods at her before letting go and running head first into the storm. I watch as Tavvy’s skin lights up with green dust, and it makes her hair float around her, sparkling. She looks to me, nodding once. It’s time we head to the library.
“We should get to the library,” Ella says, making sure the others know. Roger looks back to the people and to us, and I know he needs to stay to protect them.
“Not until I know Knox is okay,” I say, and I don’t look his way as I try to see through the storm, but it’s pointless. I can only hear them in there shouting and fighting. I doubt sending any sleeping dust towards them will help at this point; the storm is too large, and I can hardly look at it. Seconds later, the storm instantly disappears, and I run forward, seeing that Quin has frozen his uncle to the ground in a solid ice block. Knox is holding a spear made of pure fire and staring down at Rueben.
“It will hold him for a bit. Long enough to do what we need to,” Quin explains to us.
“I should kill him now,” Knox spits out.
“No. Let us get Sin back, and then he can be publicly killed as we end the war. This isn’t the time,” I tell Knox, who looks from Rueben to me. I lock eyes with him as he rages a war in his mind not to end Rueben’s life now. As he makes the spear disappear, a part of me suspects I might just regret this decision one day.
“Let’s go,” Knox says, taking my hand. Ella quickly decides to tell the remaining students what to do while we wait for her by the door.
“Everyone stay here and lock the door, protect yourselves,” Ella commands them, and she kisses Roger before running off to us.
“Can we trust him?” Knox asks as Warren stays by my side.
“Yes. I promise,” I tell Knox, who doesn’t seem to like it, but he carries on leading us out of the dining room. We run past dozens of knocked out students to the stairs to the library before running down them as fast as we can. We find Noah and Tobias in the library with all the lights on, and they have pushed the benches out of the way. All the daggers but one are in the right places, and Noah is holding the last one.
“You should do it,” Noah says, placing the dagger in my hand when I get to him.
“Everyone else should stand back, just in case,” I suggest, feeling nervous as I look up into the faces of the goddess statue. I know we shouldn’t be doing this, I can feel it, but then I think of Sin. I want him back. At any cost. Before I can think on it more, I find the last gap and slide the dagger in, turning it to the side. It clicks, but the stone doesn’t light up like the rest of them are doing.
“Why isn’t it working?” I ask. I run around the statue, checking all the daggers are pressed in and not finding a problem. This has to work.
“Is there anything written on it?” Warren asks, walking over and looking around the statue with me.
“Who is that?” Noah asks as he comes over and helps to search.
“Warren Nightshade. I’m Madi’s friend,” Warren introduces himself, and Noah shakes his outstretched hand. The tense way they both are standing indicates their internal battle not to kill each other. But I’m getting the feeling that the more we are around dark tales, the more it doesn’t bother us.
“You call her Madi?” Tobias asks, coming to Noah’s side.
“We don’t have time for this, everyone look and see—” I pause when I find a sentence written, but it isn’t in English or anything I can read. I think it’s Latin, and I did not pay attention in that class one tiny bit.
“Can anyone read this?” I ask them.
“There is someone coming down the stairs!” Ella shouts to us from the door as Warren gets to my side and reads the sentence out loud in English.
“Only the children of tales can be the key. Hold the key and say Dormiens.”
“My last name? Why would it—” I stop as Ella sends two dark tales flying out the door, the sound of their heads slamming again the stairs is heard not long after. Tavvy runs to her side with Quin, who quickly puts up a wall of ice at the bottom of the stairs to stop anyone getting in.
“I think we need to hold a dagger each, and then say my last name to open it,” I tell everyone, hearing the shouts and the ice being chipped away. It won’t be long before they get in.
“Six people need to do it, and two people need to guard the door,” Ella points out, working it all out quicker than the rest of us have. “I’m going to guard the door. I’ve decided it.”
“And I’m going to help her,” Tavvy says, looking to Ella, and they hold hands for a moment.
“Not without me, you’re not,” Quinton says as Tavvy and Ella look to me. I nod once, tears falling down my cheeks because we all know what it means. They are my best friends, and I know we need to do this. We need six people, or this isn’t going to work.
“Ella and I are well suited to fight together. You need to do this, to make up for the past. I know you need to do this,” Tavvy tells Quin and then kisses him like they are saying goodbye. It’s hard to watch, because I don’t want to see them say goodbye to each other. I can see how real it is. And real is hard to find.
“Well that’s new,” Tobias mumbles, and Noah mutters something similar. Knox just looks to me, and I nod at him.
“Be careful,” I tell Tavvy when she looks my way once more as she lets Quin go. I look at Ella for a moment to make sure she knows I mean both of them. “We won’t be long, hopefully, then we can all get out of here.” No one says anything else as we each go to a dagger. Ella and Tavvy close the doors, and only seconds later, we hear them fighting. It’s seconds later until there is screaming, and I’m desperate to go to them when the scream sounds painful.
Quin goes to move to the door, but Knox grabs his arm, pushing him back to the dagger.
“No,” he warns Quin. His tears match mine as I grip the dagger tightly, knowing I have to do this.
“Dormiens!” I shout. Noah, Tobias, Knox, Warren and Quin say it just after me, and the stones on the daggers start to glow. I cry out as I’m blasted away from the statue by what f
elt like a gust of wind. I slam into the wall, scraping my arm and ripping my dress as a bookcase crashes onto me. I climb out from under it, gasping from the pain as I hear a loud bang. The ground harshly shakes as I pick myself up from the ground, seeing Knox right next to me while everyone else was also blasted away. I look to the goddesses just as the stone fades from the tip of their heads all the way down to their white dresses. Everything just pauses as we stare at them, and then in the blink of an eye, one of the goddesses slides a black dagger out from her pocket and stabs the other before disappearing.
“NO!” I shout, running over to the platform where the goddess has fallen to her knees, thick blood pouring from her stomach. I climb onto the platform as everyone surrounds us, and I kneel in front of her, pulling her onto my lap. No one should die alone.
“What is your name?” I ask her.
“Avalon,” she tells me.
“I’m Madi,” I gently reply to her, and it’s hard not to stare at how simply beautiful she is, a true goddess.
“I might be able to heal—” Warren starts to suggest.
“No, dark prince. This is not a wound my kind can ever survive. The dagger is a soul dagger, born in the fire I was created in,” she gently tells him, and I have no clue how exactly she knows who Warren is, let alone what I called him.
“How can we help?” I ask.
“You need me to help you. One more time, I will bless the Dormiens line. I loved your ancestor, and for him, I will do this,” she tells me. A tear runs down my cheek when I see how pale she is, how she is struggling to tell me anything.
“I didn’t even ask...” I whisper.
“You want to save someone, bring them back from the dead. That I cannot do,” she honestly tells me, though her words make me cry. Screams of pain come from the other side of the door, and Avalon holds her hand up, placing a wall of light that looks like water in front of the doors to stop anyone getting in.
“Oh,” I say, placing my hand over my heart as a deep pain burns in it. Tavvy and Ella might be seriously hurt, Sin can’t come back, and this all was for nothing.
“We should go and help—”
“The tale girls are dead now. You cannot help them,” the goddess tells us. A sob leaves my lips as Quin shouts and runs to the door. He falls to his knees, crying, but everyone else is just silent.
“I will send you back in time,” the goddess says.
“What?” I ask, wiping my tears away.
“I have enough power to send you six back to the moment Oisin was hurt and this future happened. The versions of you that exist in the past will disappear the moment you appear, so you must be ready for that. Lost Time Academy is called that because I once saw a vision of you, Madilynn Dormiens. You need time to be lost to save the world. I will help you. It is the last thing I will do,” she tells me. “Then you can find the end of the prophecy and fulfill it. The world will be whole and perfect as it should be once again.”
“Thank you,” I whisper to her, as I’m completely unsure what else to say.
“You must promise me one more thing, Madi,” Avalon says. “Come closer so I can whisper it.” I lean down, placing my ear near her lips as she asks me to do one big thing. I don’t get to tell her yes before the world burns away into a light, and the last thing I hear before I fall into it is Avalon saying goodbye.
Chapter 23
When I open my eyes, every part of my body burns, right down to my soul, as I gasp for air and try to calm my breathing down. My heart is beating so fast as my eyes are blurry, but the night sky is clear above me. The air is freezing cold, and I slowly become aware of the cold grass underneath me as I stretch out my hands. We are outside, and it is seriously freezing cold. Ravens screech in the distance, and I groan as I try to sit up. Someone wraps an arm under me, lifting me up, and I see it’s Warren now that things are a little less blurry.
“It worked?” I ask, looking around and not seeing anyone.
“There!” Noah shouts, pointing into the distance where two hooded figures are carrying Sin’s body into the woods. Quin shoots two blasts of ice, freezing the hooded figures, who drop Sin to the floor as ice crawls up their bodies and they shout until they are frozen. We can’t be too late. I’m running with them all until we get to where Sin lies. I stand still as Knox places his hands on Sin’s chest before they start glowing from the power.
“He’s alive,” Knox gasps, absorbing some of his twin’s wound. “I can’t heal all of it but enough to keep him alive.” I rest my hand on Sin’s cheek and cry from the pure feel of him alive. We did it, and my heart finally can breathe again. I drop my head as a pure relieved laugh leaves my lips, and tears drop onto the icy ground below.
“I can heal him fully, but not out here,” Warren explains, and Knox looks to me, his eyes burning with power.
“He is really alive?” I whisper, thick tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Yeah, Sleepy. We did it,” he says, and I lean closer, wiping his tears away before stepping back, because I can celebrate with them later. I have a promise to keep. A promise in exchange for this gift. Sin is back, and there is a tiny chance we can all have a happy ending for once.
It’s a chance I will give everything for.
“Warren, please don’t let my dust put you guys to sleep. Saving the world alone would be difficult,” I tell him as I start to walk backwards, away from them.
“What are you talking about?” Noah asks, but Warren nods in agreement.
“I made a promise, and you must not stop me,” I explain to them all, looking one more time at Sin and smiling widely, feeling so happy it almost hurts my face to smile so much. I turn around and run into the field. I stop roughly in the middle and hold my hands out at my side. I’m not exactly sure how to do this, but if Avalon said I could, then I’m going to try to.
“I am Madilynn Dormiens, and everyone shall sleep.” I say the words Avalon told me, before pulling every inch of power I can possibly find into myself. I feel my feet leave the ground as the power begins to hurt, to burn into my soul and make my body ache to stop doing it. I cry out as my head flings back and my hands go to my chest. I hear my name being screamed, but I can’t stop this.
It’s my destiny.
It’s my promise.
It’s my fairy tale, and it’s just the beginning.
Epilogue
Warren
“MADI!” Noah shouts, looking up in wonder like us all. All of our shouting has done nothing to distract her, and I have a feeling we shouldn’t anyway.
I use my spear to make a dome of grey energy around us, protecting this little group and making sure I can see Madi all the time. She floats into the air, and very suddenly, wings appear behind her made of pure blue dust. They are massive, twice the size of her, and they spread out. She looks like a fairy princess from a damn fairy tale.
“Anyone else seeing the wings? Did anyone know she could do that?” Tobias asks in pure shock.
“Nope,” Noah answers, sounding just as shocked. Suddenly she slams her arms out, and ravens fly out of her, hundreds of them all in one go. They are made of pure blue dust and they spread it as they fly out in all different directions. They leave massive piles of dust in their wake, heading straight for us.
“What is she doing?” Knox asks, standing over his brother.
“I think she is putting the entire island to sleep. Every single tale in a deep sleep. Just like the raven prophecy said,” Quin answers in awe, and I know he is right. Madilynn is the most powerful tale out there, and no one ever saw it. I wait until the ravens are gone before lowering the dome and running towards her. Just as she collapses, I jump up and catch her in mid-air before she falls. I place my finger on her neck, feeling a pulse and knowing she has just overdone herself. Her Tale brothers and Quin run over, except for Knox who slowly walks, holding his brother in his arms.
“Is she okay?” Tobias asks first, but then his tone soon changes as I nod. “Hand her over.” Because I don’t wan
t to cause an argument, I carefully hand Madi over to Tobias who I can see is very protective. I’ve got a long way to go if I want these guys to trust me. One thing is for certain. I want to be around Madi in any way I can be. I’ve never met anyone like her, and she is worth fighting for.
“She is alive and just tired, I suspect,” I answer.
“What do we do now?” Noah asks, stroking some of the hair out of her eyes. It’s clear they love her, and I don’t know how my love for her can even compare.
“I know where we should go,” Knox says and opens a portal with a click of his fingers. I look back at the academy and hear the pure silence. No bird whistles, no person talks, and there is no sound but the wind.
Madilynn Dormiens just put the tales world to sleep...but what happens when they wake up?
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Thank you so much for reading Tales & Dreams!! A big thank you to Helayna, Mads, Cora and everyone that supported me with this book! Including my wonderful Pack Leaders <3
A special thank you to my family. Without you, I couldn’t be who I am today and my books wouldn’t exist. You are everything.
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