Her Dark Legion

by Pippa Dacosta

  “She’s dying. I intend to change that.”

  “Why help her? Isn’t it the polestar you want?”

  He walked on. The air cooled, and tek-wisps settled on roots poking out from the tunnel walls.

  “You are as old as I am, perhaps older. You once fought a war, and like the vakaru, you lost. The years go on, and nothing changes. The same cycles begin again and again. As fae, we are not immune to these traps, but I saw another side. I stood outside Faerie and looked in. You know what that view looks like.”

  I did. I knew the loneliness, the isolation, the confinement behind a glass prison, both real and imagined. The chill tried to gnaw through my skin. I pulled Kesh closer, keeping her close and warm as much for her as for me.

  “Faerie is shortsighted,” he added. “Calicto is the future.”

  Then he wanted Faerie to spread far and wide, to Sol and farther. And he’d be its ruler. Everyone would finally notice the ignored prince.

  “What does any of that have to do with Kesh?” I asked again, and all I received in answer was a cutting glance in warning. Did he even know the answer?

  The deeper we traveled, the more magic hung in the air, its silken trails tasting like spun sugar. Deeper still we walked, into the old mining tunnels a mineworker had used to stumble across an ancient Faerie well. A discovery that had gotten the worker killed and Kesh framed for murder. The presence of burgeoning magic pushed in from all sides, like water pressure. It searched for a weakness or sought to drown me in magic. My defenses flared, my unseelie side stirring awake and pushing back. Kesh’s breathing became labored, her mortality fighting against Faerie’s touch.

  “How much farther?” I’d barely finished asking before the tunnel opened into an enormous chamber, with a large, glowing green bubble at its center. The bubble pulsed and rippled, magic churning, throwing off enough light to stretch long, dancing shadows behind us.

  Eledan approached the well, his aura taking on a similar green glow. The well was three times as high as he was tall, and it beat with magic, the same as Shinj’s twin hearts had once thudded life through the ship—only this heart fed an entire planet.

  Eledan gestured for me to hand over Kesh.

  “What will this do to her?” Life magic rarely killed, but it wasn’t meant for mortals either. This much of it… it could kill, the same as my bond with Kesh could have killed her in the past.

  He offered his hand. “This is not your magic. It’s mine. Hand her over or she’ll die in your arms. Is that what you want?”

  “Why are you helping her? At least tell me that.”

  He let his smile go, and a fresh honesty shone through all the layers of madness and neglect shimmering behind his eyes. “There is no time for explanations.”

  Moving closer, I felt more magic throb over me. Kesh trembled, her breaths racing with her heart. She felt small and fragile, like something so close to breaking. I wanted to turn back and leave this place, leave them and take her with me, but she’d never forgive me if I stole her life and her choices from her.

  “Why, Eledan?”

  Green light pulsed over him and through him. Beneath his shirt, his tek-heart glowed with the same intense light as in his eyes. His guarded expression broke open, becoming raw and desperate.

  “Because I’ve lived a thousand years as a ghost, and she finally saw me. I will not allow her to die.”

  I searched his face for the trick, for the crack in his words that would reveal the deception, but I found only pain and confusion. He meant every word. Eledan took her from my arms, and in the next step, the green well of energy swallowed them both.

  Chapter 30

  Kellee

  “Kellee, I’m picking up a ton of blips on this screen, and I don’t think they’re friendly.” Hulia poked her head outside the shuttle ramp door. “Did yah wanna take a look?”

  I nodded but watched the opening into Arcon, expecting to see movement inside. Talen and Eledan had been gone for half an hour. I’d felt every excruciating minute pass like each one cut. I trusted Talen, but I also knew Eledan.

  “Kellee?” Sota asked, bristling to my right like a pillar of nervous energy and plucking on my already frayed nerves. He hadn’t left my side once.

  “See to it,” I told him, keeping my gaze on Arcon.

  He lingered, like he wanted to say more, then retreated up the ramp.

  “You’ll wanna see this,” Sota said moments later. “They’re in orbit. Looks like a whole lot of Sol ships just arrived.”

  Earthens. Given my recent and past history with them, any discussions between us wouldn’t go well. If they were here, that meant they hadn’t yet switched on their shiny new defense net.

  “Contact Sirius.” I ducked into the shuttle and joined Hulia at the flight console.

  “Hailing…” She tapped the controls. “He’s not picking up.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know how,” Sota suggested, leaning over my shoulder and peering at the raised semitransparent screens.

  “He’s fae, not an idiot.”

  “You don’t need to get salty, Marshal.”

  “Hulia.” Sirius’s rumbling voice filled the cabin. “Pierce says we have company. She’s asking to hail her people.”

  “No, don’t let her near any comms. We can’t trust her.”

  We needed Talen back. Sirius alone would be enough to stop Pierce, but not if the fleet wanted to board the Excalibur. The displays showed the ships converging above our location. They’d soon try to make contact, and after that, Calicto would be crawling with Earthens. If they found Eledan or Talen, we’d have a fight on our hands.

  Blinking lights lit up the screen. Outside, I’d bet the ships were darkening the sky. I left the shuttle. “That’s got to be almost forty ships.”

  I could hail them to buy us some time, but my reputation would not win us any favors. Recognizing the tek-warship as their missing Excalibur, they’d be looking for a fight. Without Talen, we had no way of controlling the crew or fighting back.

  “This is bad, isn’t it?” Sota asked, staring intently at my face, reading his answer there.

  “It doesn’t have to be, if we can all just get along.”

  “Your suggestion?” Sirius asked over the comms.

  As far as I knew, since Oberon’s demise, the fae had withdrawn from Halow back to Faerie, leaving the system ripe for the Earthens to return. Only now, they’d find it changed, less human and more Faerie. They were as likely to destroy this planet as the fae had. If Calicto was anything like Faerie, though, it would have grown its own defenses.

  Pressing the comms button, I told Sirius, “Bring the ship in over Arcon, as low as it will idle.”

  “The human is protesting.”

  “She’s one unarmed Earthen, Sirius. Use your considerable fae talents to make her not protest.”

  “Kesh would not approve of my using glamor.”

  Hulia gave me a look of “is he for real?” Admittedly, it felt good to hear how Kesh had him under her thumb too.

  “You know as well as I do that Kesh will go to any lengths to protect her own. Just do it.”

  Sota leaned forward to get a look at Arcon outside the shuttle’s window. “If we bring the Excalibur in that low, Arcon’s magic output will interfere with the ship’s systems.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  The mass of leviathan warship drifted across the screen, planting itself above our location. Afraid of what the magic would do to their ships, the smaller Sol Alliance fleet hung back, forming a halo around the Excalibur. It wouldn’t last, but it would buy us some time.

  “Now what?” Hulia asked.

  “Now we go inside Arcon, find out what’s going on down there, and get Kesh back and the fae who can control humans.” Leaving the co-pilot’s chair, I headed for the door. “Sota, with me. Hulia, if those ships start to descend, contact Sota. Hopefully, the magic won’t block the signal once we’re inside Arcon.”

  Sota descended the ramp behind
me. “I’m er… I’m sorry for shooting you earlier. Again.”

  “Forget it. I’m getting used to it.” I looked up, and sure enough, Sol ships dotted the sky. That high up, they looked like hovering bugs. Each of those bugs could kill us.

  “Technically, I can’t ever forget it.” Sota followed my gaze and then jogged after me. “You were going to kill him. The others couldn’t see it like I could, and Kesh said we need him. I am sorry, Kellee.”

  “I know you are, Sparky.”

  “We’re still friends?”

  I paused at Arcon’s steps. He looked at me with all the apologies in his eyes. “Never doubt it.”

  Magic slammed into my back, but instead of knocking me down, it caught hold and squeezed. Its taste poured down my throat and swam into my eyes, blinding and choking me. Just as I realized I couldn’t move or breathe, it let go, dropping me to the ground.

  “Did you feel that!” Sota gripped my arm. “Look!”

  Claws sprung from my fingers, teeth plunged from my gums, and the vakaru in me tore free, unleashed by the powerful rush. Sota dragged me to my feet, but among the sensory overload, I almost didn’t claw my way back to being in control.

  “Look,” he repeated.

  A liquid green torrent of light shot skyward, like a reverse waterfall, and at its center, the Excalibur throbbed and warped. Vine-like Faerie tendrils exploded from Arcon’s tip and thrust into the Excalibur’s hull, wrapping the vessel in vegetation and turning it into a pulsing mesh of roots. The ship groaned in protest and descended, pulled toward Arcon.

  Chapter 31

  Kesh

  I’d never felt more alive.

  The world was awash in power. I breathed it, drank it, drowned in it, and never wanted it to end. Forever stretched in a moment. Faerie embraced me, like Talen’s bond once had, only this was more. This was everything. I wasn’t saru, and I wasn’t a body with a heart and a mind. I was stardust. Everywhere and nowhere. Everything and nothing. I was finite and timeless. A hundred thousand souls called and were silenced. A mother cried.

  Then I was me again, in a body that felt too small. I remembered everything had hurt, but it didn’t now, and inside, at my center, a star pulsed awake and wanting, needing its pieces.

  I’d been with Eledan on the Excalibur when the pain had struck, but this place was far from the Excalibur.

  Talen was here, hands reaching toward me. Behind him, where nobody watched, Eledan stumbled, his hand clutched to his chest. His polestar heart hungered too. Its presence reached to me, needing to be one, and the power in my veins ached in answer.

  He was hurting, I realized, thoughts slowly returning. In my muddled mind, one thing was clear: he’d done something, changed something, and I was… different. Powerful. Calm. Controlled. Life throbbed below me, above me, and all around. Life magic. It ran through my veins again, lighting me up.

  I laughed and heard it echo through the world. So much power… I could reach out and…

  “Stop,” Eledan panted. “Stop, Kesh. Not yet.” He was on a knee, his face ghostly pale, long hair spilling over one shoulder and trailing on the ground. He looked panicked and afraid, the opposite of everything I felt.

  Talen was in front of me, blocking my view. He glowed silver, but only because I was seeing the real him, through new eyes. I looked at my hands and moved my fingers, stroking magic in the air. These hands didn’t seem like mine. Something fundamental had shifted inside.

  “Kesh?” Talen’s hands hovered over either side of my arms, wanting to touch but afraid to. Why was he afraid?

  The magic pulsed like long, luscious waves rolling up through the floor, through me, and climbed higher and higher, converging on the pyramid’s point. I couldn’t see it, but I knew its path. Then it pulsed again and again, a beacon sending out a signal.

  At the edge, where my thoughts couldn’t reach, something familiar answered. Many familiar things with dark thoughts and dark intent.

  The unseelie.

  We were on Calicto. The information came to me from a sense of belonging. If this was Calicto, then the well behind me meant we were below a living, breathing, Arcon.

  Everything seemed impossible yet so perfect.

  “Kesh, say something.”

  I blinked at Talen and saw that same fear Eledan wore mirrored in his eyes. Whatever had changed, I didn’t want him to fear me. Never that. I threw my arms around him and pulled him so close his heart thumped against mine. His arms clutched me against him. His chin brushed my cheek, the gentle caress warm and smooth. He smelled of lilies and honeysuckle and home, and I never wanted to let him go.

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  “You collapsed. Eledan brought you to Calicto to heal you.”

  Eledan had healed me? That wasn’t all he’d done. I watched him, behind Talen. He staggered to his feet. His gaze snagged mine and held it, even as his body trembled. “The Earthens are here,” he said, his voice raw.

  Talen pulled me toward the only way out of the underground chamber and away from its enormous beating well of life magic. As we left the ebb and flow of magic, another sound sought me. Voices called out as one, hissing a name.

  “Do you hear the voices?” I asked Talen.

  “Yes.” His pace quickened, guiding me through an overgrown tunnel. Wisps took flight around us—their tiny half-tek-bodies sharp and shining, each one a marvelous union of human and fae.

  Nightshade, the voices in my head crooned, growing louder like they had on Hapters, but they weren’t asking for Talen. They were asking for me, and it felt right. Everything felt right. Like I was supposed to be here, in this moment. Like I finally belonged.

  “The queen of names,

  a star unchained,

  Faerie’s worlds forever changed.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, unsure the words were in my head with all the others or if Eledan had spoken aloud. He didn’t smile like I’d thought he would. If anything, there was a sorrow in his eyes that matched the longing in his tek-and-magic heart.

  He had done this. He had known what would happen when he took me below Arcon, and he knew what was happening now. Still, he was afraid. If he feared our next steps, so should everyone.

  “What did you do?” Pulling from Talen’s grip, I stopped in the tunnel, blocking Eledan.

  He straightened and peered down his nose. He had no intention of answering.

  A wisp darted up the tunnel, taking its light with it, leaving just one hanging from a metallic root overhead. We were close to Calicto’s surface, and the rumbling from a ship’s engines sounded like distant never-ending thunder. The humans were here, on Calicto.

  “You did something that frightens you. Tell me.”

  Talen caught my hand and gently pulled. “There’s no time for this—”

  “I freed you,” Eledan said. It sounded so simple, but as any saru knew, freedom was not simple.

  “What does that mean?”

  He sniffed and attempted to snarl back, like he always had, but its edge had blunted. “It means as it sounds, and now we should listen to your silver fae. We do not want to be in these tunnels when the dark fae arrive.”

  The dark fae. The voices in my head. “They’re… coming here?”

  “You know they are, Nightshade.” Now his smile was real. “You feel their imminent arrival in your bones.”

  I felt it in the same place I felt the star throb and churn, and the same place I loved the saru. “How is that possible?”

  “Each Faerie well, placed throughout the systems, acts as a stepping stone, and Calicto’s is the last before Faerie. They were waiting for their Nightshade to awake and call them home.”

  “All of them?”

  “Every last one my brother chased from Faerie.” He shoved by me. “They have little else but vengeance on their minds, so we had better be ready.”

  The last wisp took flight and buzzed up the tunnel, plunging us into darkness. In that darkness, I saw why they looked at me with f
ear. My hands and wrists shone with a milky glow, the remaining warfae marks like great scars carved into the light, and that was only what showed outside my clothes.

  “Fate is in motion…” Talen murmured, his gaze heavy with concern. “We must regroup and ready ourselves for the return of the dark fae and our return to Faerie.”

  “Kesh?” Sota’s voice ricocheted out of the darkness.

  “Down here.”

  The outlines of Sota, Kellee, and Hulia appeared in the tunnel’s gloom.

  “The humans are here,” Sota announced, his red eye glowing in the dim light. “Fifty ships and counting.”

  “Sirius?”

  “Still on the Excalibur.” Kellee prowled closer, his vakaru eyes reflecting the wisp-light. “We all need to get somewhere defensible.”

  Before his words ended, Arcon had trembled, and the vine- and root-knotted tek-walls had cracked and warped, shifting around us. Arcon was breathing out. Everything felt alive. Calicto hummed beneath my boots, a constant presence like that on Faerie. I had the impression of being inside a huge beast that was aware of us, just like Shinj had been aware.

  Eledan’s careful smile said it all and not enough. The bastard knew what was happening here.

  “Follow,” he barked, turning on his heel and striding into a tunnel that had just opened up.

  Kellee glanced at me in question. I nodded. Arcon was Eledan’s knoll. We had no choice but to follow, lest the knoll swallow us.

  The floor lifted into a steep spiraling climb. Talen walked ahead of me, keeping Eledan in front of him, while the others trailed behind. Occasionally, the floor trembled and throbbed, and the higher we climbed, the lighter the tunnel became, until the veins in the walls glowed, lighting our path. I touched a branching vein. The greenish light rippled brighter beneath my hand, as though I’d thrown a pebble into a pond, and Arcon beat back against my hand. Whatever was happening wasn’t normal. I wasn’t even sure whether this was Faerie’s touch or something else. Something Eledan.