A World To Lose

by Frances Ellen

  As Sky and Madeleine moved through the clearing, they found Disciples as well. Five of them, in fact. And they were all dead, too. Some kind of battle between them and the Affinites had taken place.

  “Eva’s rescue team had eight, Percy’s had three,” Madeleine was saying. The two of them were making their way through the clearing, sending the bodies back to Saluverus’ morgue in the basement of the castle with their shimmers. “That makes eleven in total.”

  “Kristjan, Yua and those three make five,” Sky added.

  “This one makes six,” Madeleine said. She crouched down next to the Affinite. Sky leaned in and closed the eyes of the female soldier. She had multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. She wouldn’t have survived long with that amount of bleeding, but it seemed strange to Sky that such a well-trained soldier – one of Percy’s best – could have sustained such injuries in a fight. It didn’t fit in with the picture of a battle. Sky shook off a feeling of unease and used his magic to shimmer the woman home. He couldn’t begin to imagine what had happened here. She might have been tortured and left to die before others came in to fight. Still, something didn’t seem to fit.

  Sky followed his mother across the clearing to where they knew another two Affinites were. Sky and his mother had flown over the clearing and the nearby area to note where all the casualties were before dropping down and sending them home. They wanted to make sure there were no other surprises and especially no Disciples lurking around for a final ambush.

  Sky broke away from his mother and headed for the Affinite next to a great tree. Sky had seen this one before. It was Eva Kelly. Her injuries were more severe than any of them. She must have been killed by the wrong kind of Disciple; one who revelled in his kill. Her injuries looked just as shocking on second viewing. And the smell hadn’t improved, with the body lying out in the Brazilian heat like this. Sky closed his eyes for a moment before using his magic to send her back home. As Sky’s Band pulsed and a blue light appeared, his mother came up behind him. Sky stood up and looked at her.

  “Including those two we get to eight,” she said, and walked towards where they had seen the last two bodies from the sky. Sky followed her in silence.

  The two final bodies were of two male Affinites. They were lying on top of each other. The Affinites looked nothing alike. One had dark skin and bushy black hair, while the other was pale with faded red hair.

  Madeleine crouched down and moved her arm over the two bodies, her Band glowing. Her shimmer appeared and enveloped both bodies completely. When the blue light vanished, the bodies had disappeared.

  “Those make ten. So, we are missing…” she trailed off, looking around the clearing.

  “None. Eleven went in. Ten dead and Percy is in surgery,” Sky finished. He stared at the nature around him. Nathan would love to be in one of the most beautiful stretches of nature the world had to offer. His brother had been in the Amazon Rainforest twice now in a short space of time, but never for pleasure. Maybe one day it could be.

  Madeleine Mayne placed a hand on her son’s shoulder. “You did good,” she commended.

  Sky shook his head and brushed away his mother’s hand. “Good? How is this good? They’re all dead! We should’ve been able to avoid this!”

  “It was not your responsibility to save them,” Madeleine replied tensely.

  “No, it wasn’t. It was yours!” Sky shouted, stepping away from his mother. He stared at her, and she stared back. She knew he wasn’t talking about the Affinites anymore. She should’ve been able to save them. Save her. The Queen to come. They should’ve been able to…

  Sky sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just… I wish there was something we could’ve done. That I could’ve done.” He closed his eyes and sighed again. “She should be alive.”

  Madeleine let out a breath. “I know you do. I do, too. I replay that night in my head every second of every day, trying to find something that I could’ve done differently. That I could’ve detected something, anything. But there was nothing that could be done.”

  “Like there’s nothing to be done here?” Sky asked, gesturing to the torn and destroyed nature as a result of the battle. It wasn’t an accusation. But these deaths, just like the deaths of the Mendosa family—it all seemed so unnecessary. All of it.

  “Only Percy Kelly can answer that question. He is the only one who can tell us what happened here,” Madeleine said.

  “But it might be weeks before he recovers,” Sky sighed.

  “It won’t take weeks for him to be able to speak. He will be able to tell us.”

  “And what if he doesn’t survive the operation? What then?”

  “It won’t be your job to find out what happened here, son,” Madeleine said quietly.

  “It will be. Percy told Axel that if he didn’t come back or if something happened to him, that he had to send in the Asters,” Sky told her, remembering the conversation he overheard between Axel and Percy Kelly.

  “Even so. You won’t be the Asters he will send in,” Madeleine replied.

  Sky whipped his head around to his mother. “We are perfectly capable of—” His voice trailed off. There was something in his mother’s eyes that stopped him. He stared at them. At those dark, infinite blue eyes that were identical to his own. “What do you know that I don’t?”

  His mother looked at him for a while. She radiated strength. Nothing seemed to faze her. The second they shimmered into the clearing, Sky had expected her to at least react to the sight, and if not to the sight then to the smell. But she had been cool and composed; had treated every Affinite with respect and with no trace of revulsion towards the mangled bodies and the horrific smell. It was a quality Sky had most wanted to inherit, but just didn’t have. All this battle site did to Sky was fuel his anger. He wanted nothing more than to avenge these deaths. The only thing he knew for sure was that Disciples were responsible, which meant that the South American King was once again responsible. All seven Kings used to be so abstract to Sky; he’d never faced one before. But his anger towards this one was very, very real. And one day he would make sure he’d come face to face with him…

  “I got a call,” Madeleine began eventually.

  “From who?” Sky asked.

  Madeleine looked at him, telling him with her eyes that she wouldn’t answer that question. Sky groaned his frustration. Because she travelled widely for the Small Council, his mother had contact with Affinites all over the world and they fed her the same information they passed on to the Small Council. Madeleine never did anything with the information, while Sky obviously would, given half the chance. She just wanted to be informed. Axel had a tendency to leave out pieces of information for the good and success of a mission, but she preferred to know the whole story.

  “Mitrik is days away from making his move,” Madeleine divulged.

  Mitrik. The Higher King of the North American Underworld.

  “Is your informant sure?” Sky asked.

  Madeleine chuckled. “Very sure. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have told me what he told Axel. You won’t be finding out what happened here. I suspect you will be sent to North America.”

  Sky nodded slowly. “Will Rose and Katherine’s Bone Recovery team be pulled back?”

  “Possibly. But it won’t matter.”

  “Why won’t it matter?”

  Madeleine let out a long sigh. “Because they suspect the bones can never be found.”

  Sky stared at her and said quietly, “What?”

  “Each area where the spell implied a bone could be found has come up empty. Rose and Katherine already suspected nothing could be found a few weeks ago, but Axel wanted them to be sure.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  Madeleine looked at her son. Just for a moment the strength left her eyes, and she allowed him to see the sadness underneath. Cara and Tomas had been her Aster family. In all her radiating strength, it was easy to forget that she’d lost people, too. Probably only Sky’s father would be ab
le to see what she was hiding underneath.

  “Cara and Tomas’ magic are lost forever. There will only be five Asters from your generation onwards. You five are all the world has left,” she said.

  “How bad is that?” Sky asked tentatively. He would never ask that question to anyone else in any other situation. No one would ever get to see his vulnerability or worry.

  Madeleine smiled slightly. “Not bad. You have proven your worth with just the five of you so far. A King and a few Disciples are nothing you haven’t handled before.”

  “We’ve never faced a King before,” Sky admitted.

  Madeleine turned to face her son completely. She placed her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes. “You are my son. You have trained well to become as strong as you can be. You can handle Mitrik. I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t believe it.”

  Sky looked into those deep blue eyes. “What about the South American King? Can we handle him?”

  Madeleine’s features hardened. Whatever emotions she had openly shown him had disappeared once again. “He took something from all of us. If you come to face him, you will have every living, breathing Affinite and Aster there beside you. Sooner or later, he will pay for what he has done.”

  Sky stared at his mother. He believed every word she said.

  “Come on,” she said, offering Sky her hand. “Let’s go home. You need to prepare yourself for what Axel will have you do next.”

  Chapter 13

  The operation had gone on for hours. And hours and hours. And somehow Percy Kelly survived. Even with all the blood loss from his open chest and his shattered leg and his double-broken arm. And then there had been the internal bleeding.

  That the man was still alive was a medical miracle.

  How he managed to survive all those injuries without any magical assistance, Sophie would never understand. She had tried to convince her mother for either one of them to step into that operating room when things seemed to be going south. Just to give the surgeons a little extra assistance. But her mother had refused. Sophie knew why, though she hadn’t wanted to accept it.

  Sophie didn’t get it. Percy had never had anything against the Asters. Or magic of any kind. He and his brother had been the best soldiers, fighting right alongside the Asters on the front lines in the war against Astaroth. Why was he so against it now? It didn’t make any sense.

  Sophie leaned against the doorway of Percy Kelly’s room in the Medical Bay. He looked better than he had done when he came in. Just. A bruising had appeared on his face around where it had been cut open. His skin was purple and blue and throbbing. His leg was in a gigantic cast and so was his arm. His struggles had made his injuries in his leg and arm worse than when he was brought in. The crack that they heard in his final struggle to stay away from both Sophie and her mother had been the sound of his humerus snapping. That bone in his upper arm must have already been damaged when he came in, but it fully broke while in his most frantic state. One of the two bones in his lower arm was already broken.

  Sophie couldn’t imagine the kind of rehabilitation and physical therapy this man would have to go through before he could move properly again, let alone join his brother again in training Affinites.

  Even after Percy had been put under anaesthesia, Bianka had not allowed Katherine or Sophie to go near him. Sophie knew that if a patient didn’t want to be healed with magic, it was absolutely forbidden for her to do so, but it took all her effort not to walk into the room and even just heal that one cut on his face.

  Why didn’t he want to be healed by magic?

  The question spun around in Sophie’s mind.

  “Here you are,” came a voice behind her.

  Sophie turned her head to find Jake standing there. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Sophie leaned back against his chest.

  “How did you know where I was?” she asked.

  “I thought I might find you here,” Jake mused.

  Sophie chuckled. “Liar.”

  “Fine. I went to the library first. I overheard a studying nurse say Percy Kelly had come back, severely injured. Then I figured you’d be here,” Jake kissed her neck once and then looked past her at the man in the bed. “How is he doing?”

  “He survived the operation, miraculously.”

  Sophie could feel Jake’s arms tighten around her ever so slightly. “Have you been here all day after being here all night?” he wondered.

  “I couldn’t leave… I had to know,” Sophie whispered. “I need to know.”

  “Why not heal him? Don’t you need to know what happened out there?”

  “He won’t let me. I’m not allowed to if he doesn’t want it.”

  Jake let out a sigh. “You should get some rest. You know they’ll notify you if there are any changes.”

  Sophie tightened her hands on the arms around her. The strength of him was comforting. He was right, of course. Standing here day and night wouldn’t help Percy. And it wouldn’t help her. And still, she couldn’t leave.

  “Just a little while longer,” Sophie said softly.

  Jake kissed her neck again, but made no move to leave her to it. “All right,” he whispered in her ear. He would stay, Sophie realised. For however long she would stand there he would stay. Even if he thought doing something else would be better for her. He wouldn’t force her to do anything, he wouldn’t talk down to her or tell her she wasn’t thinking straight. He would never treat her like she needed someone else to make her decisions for her because she was still broken in some way.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  A slight tightening of his arms around her was his only response. And the two of them stood in the door opening for a while. They didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Sophie stared at Percy’s body and his beaten, broken face. He was the best soldier Saluverus had ever seen. And yet some Disciple had managed to do this to him. None of it made any sense. Even with the element of surprise, Percy would’ve been able to defend himself better than this.

  Sophie stared at the cast around his leg, and the bandages around his head for a long time.

  Movement from the bed triggered her to step into the room. Sophie broke away from Jake’s hold immediately and walked forward.

  “Soph, are you sure?” Jake was saying. Sophie ignored him. Jake came up close to the bed, but remained at the foot of the bed.

  Percy Kelly’s eyelids fluttered open and his eyes immediately darted around the room. His gaze quickly found Sophie, and panic flared in his eyes.

  “No, no, no, no, it’s okay. I’m not using magic, okay? No magic,” Sophie assured Percy quickly, as he immediately tried to move away from her. Sophie held up her hands and revealed the Band on her skin. It was just the black lines wrapping around her wrist like a bracelet. It was not glowing like it would if she were using her magic.

  “No magic,” Sophie repeated. Percy’s wild eyes stared at Sophie’s hands. His entire body trembled, but he seemed to believe her. A few moments later the soldier’s body stilled, but his eyes remained wild and alert.

  “Dar… dark…” Percy whispered. Sophie could barely make out what he was saying, he spoke so quietly.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” Sophie said. She kept her hands up where Percy could see them. She didn’t want him to panic and ruin all of Bianka’s hard work.

  “Dark… creation… my dark…” Percy rasped. Pain covered his features. “Eva… mine… creation destroyed…”

  Sophie tried to make sense of what he was saying. She was about to ask him again, but he suddenly clenched his eyes closed and started screaming. The monitors around Percy’s bed started beeping and flashing, and Percy screamed even louder. It was as if he was finally feeling all the pain from all his injuries.

  “Nurse!” Sophie yelled.

  “We need a nurse in here now!” Jake shouted.

  She stepped back from Percy. It took every bit of effort for her to step away from the patient i
nstead of towards him. Her magic hummed in her ears. Her fingers itched to be pressed against Percy’s chest so the magic could flow through them.

  Dagmara, the nurse who had been on call the night Percy came in, dashed into the room, followed by a male nurse Sophie didn’t recognise, and Marlena. Dagmara was talking so fast that Sophie couldn’t follow what she was saying.

  Dagmara took a syringe and emptied the contents into Percy’s upper arm. It seemed to calm him down enough for Marlena to lower a mask over Percy’s mouth, which sent him into a deep sleep.

  It was the vibrating of the chip in Sophie’s upper arm that finally made her walk out of the room. She wanted to stay; she needed to know whether Percy would be all right, and if it was her presence that had triggered all this, or if this was bound to have happened the moment he woke up.

  But she forced herself to walk out of the room and call for Sky. It would take her at least thirty minutes to get up to the castle, from the Medical Bay down in the village. Since she didn’t know what this summoning was about, it was better that her brother could shimmer the two of them up there. That was protocol. No more than five minutes, or you shimmer.

  “What’s going on?” Jake asked.

  Sophie looked at the boy apologetically. “They’re calling me. I have to go.”

  Blue light appeared, and before either of them could say anything else, Sky had taken a hold of her arm and shimmered the two of them to the Board Room.

  Mitrik was making his move. Or so it seemed.

  Lian stared at the map of North America that was displayed on the television screen above the corner desk in the Board Room. He was the first to get there; he’d been in his bedroom at the time and it took only a few minutes to get from there to here. Sky had gone off to get Sophie from wherever she was; Lian guessed the Medical Bay. He wondered if Sophie had been in the Medical Bay all day to see if she could be there when the soldier woke up. Sky had told them that the man hadn’t wanted to be healed by magic; had fought vigorously against it, despite his horrific injuries. Percy also hadn’t wanted to be shimmered back to Saluverus. None of them could make sense of it.