by Olivia Ash
Sadie hastily stood and ducked as a ball of fire shot past her shoulder. The sleeve of her robe caught fire. She patted it repeatedly in an attempt to quench the flames, but it didn’t work. So, she just tore it off and threw it aside. Now, merely clad in her leather corset and stretch pants, she shivered as a cold breeze brushed her shoulders.
Above her, Mara cast multiple balls of fire in her direction. The demoness still held a hand against the stab wound on her abdomen. Sadie smirked, even as she leapt from side to side, ducking and turning to avoid the fireballs. Some flew too closely by her that the hot temperature singed her skin.
She had dodged what seemed like the twelfth fireball when she turned around and wasn’t able to dodge the next one. It hit her abdomen. The sheer force of the impact knocked her off her feet. She groaned, folding in on herself, but immediately got up, not wanting Mara to have any kind of advantage.
As she stood, the demoness used the distraction to rip the red fabric of her own top, exposing her gashed midriff that spurted black ichor. Mara cast a small flame in her hand and used it to burn her skin. The demoness winced as she closed the wound by cauterizing it.
Sadie held her dagger high as Mara tended to her wound. She ran as fast as she could, preparing to strike under the demoness’s sternum. But Mara looked up with enough time to fly up and avoid her attack.
in the air, high enough for Mara to fly above the trees, she heard the demoness yell out something. Then, she heard rumbling all around her, followed by the arrival of imps and horned skeletons. There were hundreds of them running from behind trees and shrubbery. They sprinted toward her.
She braced herself. If Mara brought company, she had backup of her own. She couldn’t see the princes yet, but she knew they were on their way.
She sheathed the mageblade, so she could cast fire. The flames licked at her forearms. She held her arms in front of her and shot long streams of fire at the imps. Those that got hit stopped in their tracks, flailing their arms as they let out high-pitched shrieks. Eventually, they dropped to the ground, unmoving. She kept casting, trying to stop more of them. But there were too many. She looked to her left and to her right and saw more of them coming out from the trees and running toward the fortress.
Her eyes widened, knowing the barrier wouldn’t be able to hold off this many soldiers. When she caught sight of her four men flying through the trees from the fortress’s direction, she breathed out a sigh of relief. She knew she wouldn’t be able to handle all of this by herself, and she was grateful that the princes were there to help her defend her home.
Mordecai shifted to shadow and appeared behind a skeleton that immediately burst into pieces of bone.
Sadie returned her attention to six of Mara’s soldiers that surrounded her. The skeletons held spears and scimitars, attacking her in unison.
One of them swung its sword at her head. She sidestepped and whirled around the skeleton. She swung her sword over and over again, decapitating the skeleton and amputating its limbs. She aimed at its torso, swinging her sword, hacking at the bones until the skeleton stopped moving. She concentrated on disarming the skeleton soldiers first and moved on to dismembering them one by one.
To her right, Pyra and the princes fought their way toward her.
The men fought side by side, their backs to each other. They kept an eye on each other as they fought, protecting one another each time a dangerous blow got in too close.
Kaiser moved at inhuman speed, dismantling skeletons with his bare hands. Damien held his flaming broadsword high, fighting the imps with it and killing most of them with just one blow. Steele fought with his hammer, bashing skeletons and breaking them apart. Mordecai held his enchanted staff, casting cages made of smoke, ensnaring enemies to dampen the flow of soldiers running toward them. They defeated wave after wave of soldiers, and Mordecai would release those that he caged so they could fight all over again.
Beside them, Pyra crushed imps and skeletons under her weight. She swung her tail back and forth, demolishing skeletons and sending imps flying through the air. The dragon also opened her maw every now and again to breathe fire at the enemies. As they fought, they moved closer and closer to her. There were just too many soldiers.
She would have dropped her weapon then and there to just watch them fight because she thought they were brilliant. But imps rushed to her with their axes and hammers, and she had to dispatch them. It didn’t take long.
She slashed an imp’s throat and stabbed another from behind, between its shoulder blades. Taking a deep breath, she wiped a bead of sweat that dripped down her hairline. As she prepared to fight more soldiers, a weight slammed against her from behind and arms locked around her.
It was Mara.
The demoness’s claws dug around her arms as she flew her away from the melee. Sadie gritted her teeth and thrashed, desperately trying to get away from Mara’s hold.
The demoness hissed in her ear. “You want to escape, do you?”
Mara’s nails dug deeper into Sadie’s arms. Warm liquid trickled down her skin.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Mara careened to the nearest tree. The demoness slammed Sadie against its trunk.
Her chest and forehead hit the tree. Her ears rang from the impact. She fell and hit the forest floor face-first and rolled. She spasmed in pain. Still, her survival instincts kicked in.
As she tried to stand up, a jagged rock sliced her right palm. She sucked in a breath. She stood, even though she had a hard time keeping her balance and focus. She limped around the tree, finding shelter behind it just as the demoness cast a beam of fire on the spot Sadie had fallen.
Sadie crouched behind the trunk. She held her palms up and gritted her teeth as she parted the beam of fire Mara shot at the tree. Her head throbbed and the slice on her palm stung. She coughed. Her breathing turned more and more labored by the second. She must have broken a few ribs in the collision with the tree.
Breathing be damned, she got up and ran through the woods as the tree behind her creaked and crackled as it caught fire and threatened to fall on her. She ran in the direction she hoped the princes were. She hid behind the largest tree she could see.
Behind her, more trees had caught fire, but she had spread quite a bit of distance between her and the demoness. The sound of fire crackling and trees falling on the ground came from behind her. To her right were the sounds of screaming and weapons clashing against one another.
Crouching behind the trunk, she fought to catch her breath. When the sound of a fallen branch snapped, she inched a bit to her right and leaned her head to the left to see what had made the noise. Mara’s wings folded as the demoness landed on the ground. She looked from left to right and began to walk slowly.
“Your cowardice just proves you’re unfit for the throne.”
Sadie breathed through her nose, trying to quiet her panting as she unsheathed the mageblade. She pressed her left palm on the ground and grabbed a fistful of dirt and gravel.
“Come out, come out, demon queen,” Mara said, voice set in a mocking tone.
Sadie slightly shifted from her hiding place, so the demoness wouldn’t see her.
Mara approached the tree she currently hid in.
Sadie took slower and softer breaths, growing more conscious if she breathed too loudly.
Once the demoness got close enough, Sadie took in a deep breath and dashed in front of Mara from behind the tree. She threw a handful of dirt into Mara’s eyes.
The demoness let out a screeching noise, holding her hands out reflexively to block the dirt that was already in her eyes. “You fucking bitch! I’m going to enjoy ripping you apart, piece by piece.”
Sadie turned to the side and slashed Mara’s arm. She turned again to slash Mara’s side. The demoness snarled, holding out a hand to claw at her, but she was no longer there. She crouched and dealt another gash on the demoness’s calf. When she came face-to-face with Mara again, the demoness’s eyes were opened, but they were teary and red.
Mara bared her teeth and glared at her. “You pest. Why are you so hard to kill?” She extended her claws and slashed at her.
Sadie sidestepped. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Mara snarled and shot a ball of fire at her.
She ducked and swung her dagger at Mara. But the demoness spread her wings and flew back, dodging her blow. Sadie sprinted closer to Mara and jabbed with her dagger. As they fought, she noticed that the demoness’s eyes sometimes darted to where the princes were, and they widened, and Mara would hasten her attacks as if she was in a rush.
Sadie scoffed. Even if she wouldn’t be able to kill Mara, maybe all she had to do was stall long enough for the princes to get to her and frighten Mara to death.
As Sadie reached out to slash the demoness’s throat with the dagger, Mara grabbed ahold of her wrist. Mara wrapped her arms around Sadie, pinning her arms to her sides. Sadie flicked her wrist, using the dagger that she held to wound Mara’s thigh. The demoness winced but otherwise maintained her hold on her.
“I will get that amulet, one way or another,” Mara said against her ear.
She bent her knee to step on Mara’s foot. Her world began to swirl and morph into blurry shapes. Somewhere in the distance, she heard one of the princes scream her name.
She looked up in time to see her four princes staring at her with wide eyes. Kaiser’s figure ran toward her, but his form began to blur as well. The out of focus shapes vanished, and she was cast in darkness. She felt the familiar weightlessness of going through a portal as she disappeared, sucked into the void between worlds to wherever Mara was taking her.
Chapter Forty-Six
Kaiser
Kaiser held the skeleton’s ribs with his bare hands. He pulled, dismantling the torso. He could kill one with little effort, but Mara had brought so many soldiers that his blue tunic was now drenched in sweat. When the head of the skeleton he had just dispatched dropped on the ground by his foot, he kicked it away and watched it land near Mara and Sadie fighting in the distance.
An overwhelming need to get to her overcame him as Mara flew Sadie into the forest, farther away from them. His mind became swarmed with the very real danger that the demoness was killing the woman he loved and cared for. But another group of skeletons and imps had approached him.
No matter, he would hack his way through the rising horde to get to her, and he knew his brothers would do the same.
He had made his way through the onslaught of creatures in time to watch Mara conjure a portal with Sadie wrapped in the clutches of her hold.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins. Helpless, he screamed her name. More imps came his way, and he slashed through them as desperation took over. He needed to get to her before the portal closed. Knowing his time ran short, and Sadie would soon be left to a dire fate, he left the fight to rush after her.
Sadie disappeared into the portal and was gone.
His knees hit the ground, and he pounded his fists into the dirt, gravel, and roots of trees. “No!”
He stood, breathing heavily, and tore through the imps and skeletons that emerged from within the shadows of the woods. There was no thought to how he would kill them. He just moved and fought on instinct. And he couldn’t seem to stop screaming. All he saw was red.
Hundreds of demons were still alive and fighting. Some of them surrounded the fortress, blocked by an invisible barrier. They clawed at it, forcing themselves in. Some were able to get through because of their sheer number. Thankfully, metal vines protruded from the fortress ground and caught them, immediately strangling the imps and taking down the skeletons. But some got away and ran toward the fortress gate.
Kaiser growled and sprinted toward them. Within in a split second, he stood in front of them.
He dodged their knives, swords, and axes, catching imps by the ankles and throwing them away from the castle compound and above the forest canopy. Grabbing a rib from a skeleton’s torso, he flung it against the fortress gate, decapitating its head. He slammed the body on his leg, breaking the torso in two. Using the sharp shards of bone, he stabbed the remaining imps charging him straight through their hearts.
Blood covered everything.
Pyra roared, drawing Kaiser’s attention to her. A circle of dead imps and broken bones surrounded her on the ground, but she was losing ground with the group that still surrounded her. Light glistened off the gashes from the attacks the creature had endured, and it seemed she was growing weaker.
An imp dug its small axe in one of her hind legs. The dragon roared and snapped her head, catching the imp between her teeth and shaking her head from side to side. The imp’s body flew from Pyra’s mouth and landed on the ground beside Kaiser’s feet. More climbed onto the dragon’s body, hacking and slicing as they moved.
Kaiser ran to Pyra’s aid, reaching her side as her legs gave out from under her.
“Hang on, Pyra.”
He grabbed the imps by their necks, hair, arms or legs, and threw them in the forest’s direction.
“Can you fly?” he asked.
She let out a small growling purr and lowered her head to the ground. Taking that as a yes, he climbed onto her back as more imps ran toward them.
“Fly, Pyra!” Kaiser said.
The dragon roared and opened her wings, flapping a few times before taking to air.
Kaiser hadn’t ridden a dragon in a long time, but it was a skill difficult to forget. He held one of the spikes on Pyra’s neck and leaned to the left to urge her to fly left. Up here, he could see there were still hundreds of imps and skeletons left.
The outlook wasn’t good. A decision had to be made. Stay here and protect the fortress, whatever the cost, or grab his brothers and search for Sadie before it was too late.
If Sadie managed to survive, she would likely be furious he and his brothers didn’t stay behind to take care of the fortress.
Then again, if anything were to happen to Sadie, Kaiser knew not a single one of his brothers would be able to live with themselves if she fell at the hands of Mara.
Somehow, almost as in answer, Hobson and a fleet of ifrits emerged onto the fortress grounds just inside of the gate, easily dispatching dozens of imps and skeletons within moments.
Kaiser let out a sigh of relief and led Pyra beyond the fortress to help his brothers. Most of the soldiers were gathered around his brothers who stood back-to-back with each other.
He yelled, “Look out!”
They looked up at him, spread their wings, and flew up beside him and Pyra. He reached out to pat the side of Pyra’s neck, a gesture dragon-owners often did to urge their pets to blow out fire. At first, Pyra didn’t seem to understand his intention, but then the dragon reared her head back.
A rumble came from underneath him, along with a strong torrent of hot, blue fire that erupted from Pyra’s mouth.
Warmth enveloped him. As the fire consumed most of the soldiers and plants below them, the other demons ran deeper into the forest or toward the direction of the castle. At first, there were sounds of screaming and clashing metal, but eventually, the screaming ended. Meanwhile, the stream of fire coming out of Pyra’s mouth showed no signs of ending.
She must be as pissed and worried as we are.
Remind me not to piss you off…
He patted the dragon’s neck again. “It’s all right, now. Good girl.”
Kaiser led Pyra back to the ground. They landed on ashes and charred land. He climbed off Pyra’s back as Mordecai, Steele, and Damien landed on the ground around him.
Steele coughed as his feet touched the ground and swatted his hand in front of his face. “Even their ashes smell bad.”
Kaiser approached him. “Make a portal. Now.”
Steele nodded and held up his hands, muttering a spell.
“Where to?” Steele asked. “I got the entrance ready but not the exit gate,” he said through gritted teeth. Keeping one palm up, he used the other to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead.
“I can
still feel her,” Kaiser said, pacing. He closed his eyes and concentrated. He reached out for the connection he had with Sadie and used it to track where she was. He saw it in his mind’s eye. A rocky desert filled with lines of magma. There’s no other place like it.
“The Vale,” he said, opening his eyes to look at his brothers.
Steele sucked in a breath. “It has been ages since I’ve done this. And I’ve only ever flown above the Vale or through it. I’ve never really set foot there.”
Kaiser knew that portal magic was rare. He and his brothers could do it, but mostly just between here and the human world. Sometimes, they didn’t even know where they would land when they got there. They could also use it to go to places they were familiar with, but only if they tried hard enough.
The Vale was a mostly barren land. He never found use in going there before, and he guessed his brothers felt the same. Now, they were paying for it. They could all fly to the Vale, but it would take half a day to get there. Unless they didn’t want to get there and save Sadie quickly—which was impossible—they needed to make a portal.
Around them, dozens of warriors peeked out and came out from the trees, perhaps because the fire attack had finally ended. They began to run toward him and his brothers again. Pyra swiped her tail to send them flying back to the forest.
“Keep doing that,” Damien said to Steele. “We’ll handle the rest.”
“Right.” Steele said, not even looking at them. “Don’t die.”
Without a word, Mordecai shifted to smoke. He flew toward the soldiers, killing them with little effort. Damien’s blazing broadsword hacked at imps and dismantled more skeletons. Behind them, inside the fortress boundaries, Hobson and the ifrits picked at the soldiers who succeeded in getting through the barrier.
“Kaiser,” Steele said.
He looked at his brother who had his face scrunched up in concentration as he created the portal. “I need a map of the Vale. Do you think you can point out where she is in the Vale if you’re looking at a map?”
