A Battle of Blood and Stone

by Sawyer Bennett

  I think it’s perfect.

  I listen intently as he just wings it, and it’s even more perfect than our speech we’d prepared.

  But it’s when he says to her, “Rainey… I’ve learned so much about destiny and fate these last few months, and I can only conclude Finley isn’t the only one who has her life decided. I know mine is. It’s decided that I’m only supposed to be with you.”

  There are tears. There’s an obvious acceptance as she nods her head furiously as he formally asks her to be his wife. He slides the ring onto her finger, and then they are hugging, and kissing—with tongue, oh boy—and then everyone around the table is up and offering congratulations.

  Well, not Boral as he doesn’t know Myles and Rainey enough to do so, and, even if he did, I doubt he’d give a flying fuck about them.

  Lucien also hangs back, quietly watching the celebration as Carrick conjures champagne and glasses—making Zaid look completely put out that he couldn’t run to get them himself.

  My gaze lingers on Lucien. I wonder if he would have married Charmeine if he had the chance?

  I wonder if this makes him incredibly sad for his losses.

  Perhaps more determined than ever to rescue his love from the Blood Stone.

  Regardless, tomorrow, we are going into our own little mini-war where the stakes are about as high as they can be and it’s not guaranteed that we’re all going to come back alive.

  CHAPTER 15

  Finley

  It was a contingency we had not planned on and it hit us out of the blue—at the last minute—and there is nothing we can do about it.

  Maddox was summoned away by the gods.

  Our entire group—including Rainey and Myles, who wanted to see us off—had congregated in the living area of Carrick’s condo. On the floor were three duffel bags filled with iron weapons. All of us—excluding Rainey and Myles—were wearing black clothing with black face paint so we could blend into the darkened island and make it difficult for Micah to see us coming.

  Even Maddox was dressed this way, as he never intended to hold the glamour of Charmeine the entire time. At some point, Micah would realize he was being played and Maddox would go into stealth mode like the rest of us.

  We even had two vehicles waiting downstairs to take us off deep into the forest surrounding the base of Mount Rainier. We did not want to enter or exit Micah’s realm anywhere near civilization because one of our contingencies included making sure Micah couldn’t harm humans here should the battle spill back over into our realm. It’s why, I suppose, it was a good idea to kill Micah before leaving so as to further protect the Earth realm.

  The summoning of Maddox happened shockingly with an appearance of Cato in the midst of our gathering. He was a massive man, taller than even Titus, and impeccably dressed like a male fashion model.

  The summoning was brief as he took in the crowd, gave a slight nod to me, which I thought was odd, then gave his attention to Maddox. “You have been summoned.”

  “Fu—” Maddox started to say, but the entire expletive didn’t come out.

  They both just disappeared.

  And now we are standing here wondering what in the hell to do.

  Carrick takes up cursing as the rest of us watch him, stunned and immobile.

  “Where did he go?” I ask numbly.

  “Who the hell knows?” Carrick grouses as he paces.

  “Did the gods do this purposely to make it hard on us?”

  Stopping to give me his attention, he shakes his head. “No. Cato doesn’t operate like that. But if Maddox has something to do for Cato, it will take precedence over him helping us.”

  Discussions begin, wondering if we can adapt our plan and go without him.

  Can we put this off a few days? Most likely not, because there’s no telling when Maddox will come back.

  “We need a replacement,” Lucien concludes—basically the same thing we’re all thinking. We cannot wait to make our play for the Blood Stone. It’s too important to our end game.

  “I’ll take Maddox’s place,” I say without hesitation. I’m the only one left out of me, Boral, and Zaid with the powers to protect myself.

  “No,” Carrick, Rainey, and Myles all say at once.

  “But—”

  “Your powers are too new and too unpredictable,” Carrick says softly, giving me an apologetic smile. “We need someone with strong power because the minute Micah figures out there’s an imposter, he’s going to let loose with everything he has.

  “I can glamour myself to look like Charmeine,” Boral offers, and I’m surprised he’d make the offer for such a perilous position.

  But he’s quickly shot down by Carrick. “I appreciate the offer, but your powers are limited to pretty much glamour and strength. You’re not going to be a match for him if he comes after you.”

  “I’m touched you care,” Boral says with a smirk.

  “I don’t,” Carrick replies glibly. “You’d do more harm than good out there. Besides, I need you to stay with Finley and keep the veil open for our escape.”

  Carrick and Lucien could easily open the veil to Micah’s realm, but Carrick did some magic mojo to the relic we found in Hungary that could find realms, and it will now keep the veil open for us as long as the relic stays close to it. That’s Boral’s job.

  “I suppose I can handle getting the Blood Stone on my own,” Lucien offers, “and you can be the distraction.”

  “No,” I say, shooting down that idea. “We need both of you to go for the Blood Stone because we need the redundancy if Micah takes Lucien out. We need someone else powerful that can get it out.”

  This was something we talked about a lot last night. Carrick and Lucien going into the cave together to retrieve the chalice.

  Boral, Zaid, and I are going to be relegated to staying near the tear in the veil in case we have to make a quick escape, with Boral in charge of keeping the veil open. Carrick admitted they were my bodyguards, but, truthfully, I know they are there to manhandle me if I refuse to leave if things get dicey. While Carrick didn’t fight me on coming, he doesn’t want me to actively participate in a fight. While I want to argue until I’m blue in the face against it, I understand where he’s coming from.

  On top of that, if I were to get thrown into the fight, it would be a terrible distraction to Carrick, so I agreed for us to play watchmen and be the last resort if we were needed. Otherwise, I was prepared to let Boral and Zaid pull me back through to the Earth realm.

  “Pyke,” Carrick murmurs, his expression disgruntled. “He’s the perfect one to take Maddox’s place because we know Deandra won’t help.”

  “Do you want to bring him fully on board?” I ask, wondering if Pyke would agree to a binding.

  Carrick shakes his head. “I don’t think we need to. My history with Pyke is usually him joining me in frays because he loves the adventure. I can pose it to him in a generic way—we’re going into a different realm to steal a stone from a twisted Dark Fae. It’s just the sort of thing he’d love. If I can find him, that is.”

  And with that, Carrick bends distance and disappears, presumably to find Pyke. I assume he’ll start in Faere, so we have nothing to do but wait.

  Rainey and Myles had to leave. Myles’ aunt and uncle were coming into town for a few days, and they were going to hang with them on the Fantasia. They both, in turn, gave me long, hard hugs with similarly stern lectures on safety and to do as Carrick says.

  Zaid ambles off to the kitchen, and Lucien disappears back toward the man cave. Boral takes out his cell phone, places a call to which he merely says to the person on the other end, “Up for some trouble this weekend,” and moves out to the patio to continue talking. I shudder thinking what Boral’s definition of trouble is, but there’s a good chance it involves something evil. Contrary to Zaid’s worries about his dad, I haven’t forgotten what an awful, twisted Dark Fae he is, and I certainly understand he’s not helping us to be altruistic but rather for his own person
al gain with his son.

  That leaves Titus and me and I’m more than happy for those circumstances. We didn’t get a chance to talk last night. I nod toward the living area and he smiles, understanding my silent invitation to hang out.

  I settle into a chair, sit in it sideways, and hang my legs over the armrest. Titus sprawls on the couch opposite me.

  Grinning, he says, “So… you and Carrick are star-crossed lovers or something, huh?”

  Titus got a lot of details last night to fill in my short summary, but my reincarnations didn’t come up. They weren’t relevant to the prophecy.

  “Apparently, I had my first life in 1015 AD. I was a shepherdess in Ireland, and Carrick saved me from being raped by a Viking. My name was Eireann.”

  Titus whistles low with an amazed shake of his head. “That is unreal. I’ve never heard anything like that.”

  “Probably because it’s a god’s curse I keep coming back?” I reply casually.

  That causes Titus to straighten slightly. “Say what?”

  A welling of sadness hits me, and I push it down. Sadness for the horror that Carrick went through when Rune killed me.

  I tell Titus the full story of Eireann and Banan, using both Carrick’s narrative and the memories I saw in the Hall of Histories. He learns of our love, Banan’s desire to make Eireann immortal, and his foolish attempt to take the only means to do it from a god. Titus winces when I tell him the part where Rune killed me and then cursed Carrick to have me and lose me, over and over again.

  When I finish, he shakes his head sympathetically. “I can’t imagine Carrick going through that. He never said anything.”

  “Zaid, Lucien, and Maddox were the only ones that knew about me,” I reply softly. “It wasn’t something he easily shared, I guess.”

  “What’s up with you two after this prophecy?” Titus asks hesitantly. “Because you and I both talked about the perils of an immortal and mortal being together.”

  “Funny you should ask,” I reply, swinging my legs off the armrest and perching on the edge of the chair. I lean forward and lower my voice. “Clearly, I’m going to die, if not in the prophecy, then from Rune’s curse. Carrick says he’ll always wait for me to come back to him, and he’ll wait for me to fall in love with him again, then he’ll tell me the truth of our lives and take me to the Hall of Histories. This is how we’ll live, until I die again.”

  “But…” Titus drawls. “Because I sense a ‘but’ in there.”

  “But,” I say with a smile. “Carrick wants to use the Blood Stone when this is all over to see if it can make me immortal.”

  “From what I learned last night, it seems it could work. It has the power of infinity, right?”

  I shrug, looking down at my hands. Because who knows?

  “What’s really eating at you?” Titus demands.

  My head comes up, hoping he’d push me on this. Because who better to ask about this than someone who currently lives it.

  “What’s it like… giving up your mortal life?” I ask.

  Titus gave up his mortality roughly a century ago. I wasn’t sure the exact time frame, but I knew he was a hundred and twenty-nine years old and, by my guess, he was probably in his mid-thirties despite the graying dreadlocks.

  “It’s a sacrifice,” he says somberly. “Because you watch your family and friends die, and then you are all alone. Except, well… you’d have Carrick.”

  “An eternity with him sounds wonderful,” I admit. “But I want to make sure I’m not looking at it through rose-colored glasses.”

  Titus ponders my questions a bit before answering. “There are two types of people. Those who plod through life without any great hopes or dreams. And then there are those who want to suck every bit of juice from the fruit of life and eagerly look around the corner for what is coming next. Those are the ones who are cut out for an immortal life. You’re one of those, Finley.”

  A smile breaks out on my face and a small level of tightness that had been in my chest over this issue expands and relaxes before disappearing altogether.

  Yes. I want an immortal life with Carrick if we would be so blessed. We could travel the world and the realms, seeking adventure and aspiring to every dream we ever had.

  Or, as an alternative, a mortal life together. We could get married, have children, and then grandchildren. We could sit on a porch when we were old and drink tea and talk about our life together.

  Both options sound amazing, as long as we were on the same path together.

  “You do know, if Carrick can’t find a way to make you immortal, you could live in Semper Terra. You’d make a great Annihilator.”

  I freeze, my body locking tight with the realization that could actually be an extremely easy option. I could live in Semper Terra. I’m assuming Carrick would be allowed to be there with me. Anyone living in Semper Terra doesn’t age by the magic imbued within the realm. But if a person leaves the realm, the aging process starts again.

  And the thought of being an Annihilator—one of the badass warriors taught to destroy evil creatures?

  I could get on board with that.

  Sadly, all of this talk of immortality is probably nothing more than talk. I doubt immortality will stop Rune’s curse because he’s all-powerful. He can kill any immortal.

  Our happiness would eventually hinge on Rune letting his hatred go, and I just don’t see how that will happen.

  “What would I have—” is as far as I get because a rip opens right in front of the elevator doors and Carrick steps through. I get a brief glimpse of Nimeyah’s castle, and then Pyke.

  Titus and I stand from our seats, and Pyke’s eyes come directly to me. They warm, and he gets a flirty smirk on his face. Because he knows it irritates Carrick to flirt with me, Pyke makes a big production of coming straight to me for a hug.

  I have no choice but to engage, but I keep it light with a tiny pat to his back. Looking over his shoulder at Carrick, I can see he’s not amused but he’s not going to say anything. It’s by silent agreement with Carrick and because of how well I know him, that he would not want Pyke to know the history of us. Given that we weren’t going to tell him anything really, other than we were on a mission to hunt a piece of stone Carrick wanted, Pyke was going to be kept in the dark.

  “I’ll go round everyone up,” Titus says in his deep rumbly voice I’ve really and truly missed.

  When he’s gone, Pyke claps his hands together and rubs them with a devilish gleam in his eye. Throwing a thumb at Carrick, he says, “He says we have a grand adventure ahead of us. Going to steal a stone from some monster?”

  “That’s the plan,” I say with an overly bright smile in return. “Carrick really wanted you to come with us. Said that you were always up for a fun time of fighting and general mischief.”

  “Indeed I am,” Pyke replies gleefully. “It’s so boring in Faere and modern wars aren’t any fun to participate in.”

  “First-world problems,” Carrick mutters, and I try not to laugh.

  Everyone starts filtering into the living area. Boral from the patio, Lucien from the man cave, and Zaid from the kitchen. Introductions needed are made, then we are loading up duffels over our shoulders and heading down to the cars waiting for us.

  CHAPTER 16

  Finley

  It’s an overcast afternoon as we head out of Seattle toward Mount Rainier, but there’s no rain in the forecast. I ride with Carrick, Titus, and Pyke in the G550 while Lucien, Boral, and Zaid take Maddox’s Hummer. Apparently, he had given Zaid an extra key several weeks ago in case we needed it when he wasn’t around, so we decided to take him up on the offer because they didn’t want to cram into Zaid’s little Volvo.

  Carrick must have told Pyke the basic plan of attack because he doesn’t ask any questions about our mission. Rather, he drones on and on about court politics in Faere, about a pregnancy scare he had after a dalliance with a Dark Fae, fury for which his mother would have killed him were he to sire a daemon, and a n
ew fashion line he was thinking of creating for members of the royal court.

  I’m struck a little dumb listening to him, wondering how in the hell he and Carrick are even friends. I mean, I know they’re not close friends and Carrick said most of their times together involved Pyke joining battles and frays Carrick was ordered by the gods to participate in, but the more I get to know him—or listen to him prattle—the more I realize he’s just as vain, unambitious, and self-centered as his mother. It even pains me to admit that Deandra shows more substance than he does, and that’s saying a lot.

  But whatever. He’s willing to lend his muscle and incredible power to help us collect the Blood Stone, and I’m grateful for it as I know the rest of the crew is. While we might have been able to pivot our plan and go in with less force, going in with more is the safer bet. It’s hard to replace Maddox, a demi-god, but there’s none stronger than a Light Fae prince after that.

  A few miles south of Carbonado, Carrick turns off onto a dirt road that I never would have seen even if I’d been looking for it. It’s really not even a road, but rather two tire divots running deep into the woods.

  When we decided we needed an entrance and exit point that was away from human population for safety reasons, Carrick said he knew an isolated place.

  And he wasn’t kidding.

  As we drive further, the forest seems to close in on us and the canopy of pines over the fir and cedar trees make it dim enough the automatic lights come on.

  A few miles in, Carrick stops and I turn in my seat to see Lucien doing the same behind us. The headlights go off, the engines are cut and we all exit nabbing the duffel bags. We move on foot, following Carrick in a single file line through the trees until we come out into a surprise clearing that’s roughly half the size of a football field. It’s well isolated, surrounded by dense forest, and I guarantee no humans are around for miles.

  Carrick turns to me as the others start pulling weapons from the bags. “This was where I first went to talk to the gods after meeting you. When I asked for Ascension.”