by Violet Grace
When her pace begins to slow, I look back and see her face is scrunched with exertion. I figure I’ve depleted her Art enough to have a conversation without her trying to incinerate me. Part of me still hopes that I can reason with her, that the old Jules is still there somewhere.
I float down to an easy landing on the top of the castle tower, accidentally-on-purpose tearing Damus’s flag from the flagpole on my way past. Jules lands on the tower with a thud, breathing heavily.
‘Why are you doing this to me, Jules?’ I say.
Sweat drips down her temples, fury rages in her eyes. ‘Not everything is about you! You found your family, but you expect me to just walk away from mine,’ she pants as she rises to her feet. ‘Staying behind was a split-second decision because I had to know my father. I do not condone everything he has done, but I am convinced he is the best chance for restoring the balance and harmony in Albion.’
‘But what about all your deception before you chose to stay behind? You knew about your power but you kept it from us. Conjuring the Art without a wand? Even when Gladys was trying to work out how I could do it, you chose to say nothing.’
The castle grounds below are swarming with Protectorate officers, soldiers and courtiers, their faces turned towards us. More people stream out of the amphitheatre as if they are rushing to a show. Some nosy fairies and unicorns hover at a cautious distance.
‘At first I didn’t realise I was conjuring without an instrument,’ Jules says. ‘I wore chromium on my body just like every other Fae child, so when I performed spells I just assumed I was doing it the same as everyone else.
‘It wasn’t until after I had discovered I was scaevus that I realised I could conjure without a chromium wand. I assumed it was a result of being scaevus so I kept it secret. I thought if people knew, they would also know I was an abomination.’
‘But you knew that I could do it and I’m not scaevus,’ I challenge.
‘And that’s when I started to suspect —’
‘That you had chromium in your blood too,’ I finish for her. ‘That you are half human.’
‘That’s why I asked you not to find my parents. No one else could know.’
For a moment I feel bad that I revealed the truth about her parents, effectively changing her life. But then I look at the jewels dripping from her neck.
‘I can see it’s been really tough on you,’ I retort.
Jules squares her shoulders, her skirts swishing as she takes a step towards me.
Magic sparks at my fingertips.
‘Have you thought to ask yourself why your father hasn’t executed you for being an “abomination”? Why is Damius keeping you around, pretending that you’re his heir? He would sooner nominate me as his heir than a scaevus. He couldn’t possibly love you.’
Something flashes across her face. Hesitation? Shame? Rage? A split second later, she launches herself, crash-tackling me in midair. The momentum has me flying off the top of the tower edge.
My wings flare as I try to steady myself, but Jules clings to them, her fingers digging into the silky filament. I bite down on the pain that feels like jagged nails scraping along flesh. Constrained, I can’t fill my wings with enough air to fly. We’re spiralling towards the ground. Castle bricks, windows and treetops blur by until we slam down onto the grass in front of the castle. I manage to use the Art to break our fall but I’m winded. Jules rolls and is instantly on her feet.
‘Jules, Jules!’ Abby shrieks as she runs towards us, Tom at her side. ‘This is not who you are.’
I look up at Abby’s distraught face, and the distraction costs me. Jules, too well-trained for distractions, gets me in a wrestling hold and flips me onto my stomach, immobilising my hands behind my back.
‘No hands, no Art,’ Jules says as I struggle against her strength, my mouth filling with grass and dirt.
Tom rushes forward to help me, but Jules fires off a spell that has him crumpling to the ground.
‘Stay back or the next one will kill you,’ Jules says to him.
‘You wouldn’t hurt my twin,’ Abby says.
‘I will do what is necessary,’ she says, her voice cracking.
I hear the clatter of armour and the thunder of boots and hooves rushing towards us. Hundreds of Damius’s fighters. We’re surrounded. On one side, a line of Damius’s new army in their beige uniforms with the new standard. On the other, a line of the Protectorate, led by General Cassidy.
I look for Tom. He’s clutching his midsection, his lips moving in what I guess is a healing spell. He gets to his feet and staggers over to Abby, who looks confused and torn.
I twist my head around to see Jules, the victor, but she looks anything but. She looks like a shell. For a moment the world drops away as the four of us look at what we’ve become, our ragged hearts pounding as each of us is forced to choose between love and love. There are no winners here. Whatever choice we make, we lose.
The momentary silence is broken by the sound of clapping. I see Damius, standing on the steps of the castle, surrounded by guards. The Luminaress is there too.
Damius looks like he’s aged about thirty years. His hair is dull and thinning; his once handsome face is sunken and he looks frail, leaning heavily on an ornate staff. The healers and apothecaries would surely have healed the burns from the crypt, as well as any resulting infections or complications. Clearly whatever ails him can’t be fixed with the Art.
Perhaps this is the natural order at work. Damius violated nature when he stole my mother’s life force, feeding on it to enhance his power, and now he’s paying the price. He hasn’t just lost access to my mother’s power, he’s lost crucial parts of himself as well.
‘You make me proud, very proud, my daughter.’ Damius hobbles down the stairs and along the line of guards. ‘My admiration grows for you each day.’
His words sicken me. I could almost understand how Jules might be so blinded by the desire to have a father that she’d fall for this obvious manipulation. But this is Damius! Surely there are limits to family love and forgiveness.
‘Get her on her feet,’ he barks at Jules.
She removes the knee that was digging into my spine but doesn’t release my hands. I scan the assembled Fae for Tom, catching his eye. He gives a quick nod and melts into the crowd.
‘How stupid of you to return, dear niece,’ Damius says in a voice more scratchy than silky. ‘I knew you would. However, I didn’t expect you to come so soon and so unprepared.’
‘Impulsive, even by her standards,’ the Luminaress agrees from the castle stairs.
I struggle to free my hands from Jules but she tightens her grip even further. Damius looks on, amused.
The Art wells within me and dances into my fingers, begging for release. But with my hands restrained against my body, I’d only end up incinerating myself.
Then I realise that the Art is not my only power. I am Queen Francesca, daughter of Cordelia.
I muster the authority of the Queen that I have learned to be. ‘You will stand down or you will be destroyed – all of you.’
Damius examines me for a moment, before his waxy face breaks into a sneer of grey and shrunken gums. He throws his head back in a rattling laugh. ‘You and whose army?’
I stare back at him, seething. ‘Mine.’
I hear an ear-piecing shriek from somewhere at the back of the crowd. I close my eyes for a moment, brimming with relief. Tom must have found Callie.
A roar goes up from all directions around the castle. The thrumming of wings fills the air as they take to the sky before landing in a circle around Damius’s soldiers. Other Fae simultaneously transfer through various portals and join the circular barricade of bodies. I recognise maids and staff from Windsor. Others look familiar from street parades and visits to villages. My heart skips with pride for all these people coming to risk their lives for me and my family.
Callie, their leader, hovers in the air with three other maids, their wands raised.
Damius’s army look around uncertainly. They shift positions to face the newcomers.
Damius scans the people’s army, then turns back to me with a sardonic smile. ‘That’s it? You think this rabble can defeat me and my army?’
‘Do not underestimate the power of people fighting for a cause they believe in,’ Callie says, her voice making up in defiance what it lacks in authority. Her fighters raise their wands and cheer.
‘You are outnumbered,’ says General Cassidy, unmoved. ‘End this foolishness now – all of you. Surrender or face slaughter.’
‘I’m not done yet,’ I say, looking to the skies.
Damius and General Cassidy follow my gaze, watching as a shadow moving across the palace grounds rapidly descends. Two hundred unicorns, unadorned with battle armour or any form of identification, circle just above us, the beating of their wings sounding like furious thunder.
They land in the grounds, joining the ranks of Callie’s army. More follow, streaming from the sky.
‘What have we here?’ Damius says, and I feel a tiny thrill at the crack I can hear in his confidence.
‘Your worst nightmare,’ says an enormous, scarred grey unicorn in a thick Italian accent.
Damius can’t keep the surprise off his face. General Cassidy looks at him, confused. Protectorate guards murmur amongst themselves.
It’s not the accent of the grey unicorn that has them so shocked. It’s the tone: higher pitched than the gravelly baritone they expect from a unicorn. Unmistakably female.
Mama.
And around her stands a whole army of girls who grew up as outcasts for the crime of being born female and unicorn, rescued from a death sentence through a network led by one woman, and hidden in plain sight as servants throughout Iridesca.
‘We stand with the sister who stood with us,’ Mama says.
I feel Jules’s body tense behind me. It’s not much, but it’s a flicker of hope.
I look around as all these scaevus girls reveal their true selves, snort and stomp their hooves, proud and fierce, ready to fight. They are untrained, but added to Callie’s people’s army, they outnumber Damius’s forces.
I look at Damius with a smirk. ‘Care to reconsider?’
‘I will never yield to mongrel blood,’ he spits.
Behind me, Jules flinches again but doesn’t loosen her grip.
‘Attack!’ Damius orders.
The grounds of Windsor castle erupt into the chaos of battle. Damius’s beige forces train their blasts on the scaevus unicorns and Callie’s army. On General Cassidy’s command, the Protectorate splits off, some forming a guard around Damius, some escorting the Luminaress and other dignitaries to safety, and others taking flight for an aerial advantage.
My eyes dart to Mama. I’m worried about her ability to fight – she’s probably pushing seventy, after all. But Mama is in control, charging full tilt at Damius’s soldiers and knocking them down like skittles. She lowers her head, allowing her horn to lead as she smashes a path through Damius’s army, her scaevus fighters flanking her.
Tom and Abby are battling back-to-back, Tom with his watchband, Abby with her wand. They are holding their own against Damius’s forces. For now.
I watch helplessly as two scaevus girls right in front of us are encircled by Protectorate unicorns. The Art wells within me, straining, aching for release. But with Jules counteracting me, holding my hands, it has nowhere to go. It’s being directed back into me. I’m burning up from within.
‘We have to help them,’ I yell to Jules.
She just adjusts her grip on my hands. I can feel her magic coursing through her. Both unicorn girls yelp and collapse to the ground, blood rushing from their wounds.
Blasts of magic fly around us. Screams and the thunder of feet and hooves fill the air. Trees are set ablaze, and wayward blasts ignite the facade of the castle. Flames lick the sky. The lush green grass is stained with death.
‘Stop this, Jules, stop it!’ Abby calls as both she and Tom edge closer to us through the battleground.
The sound of Abby’s voice is enough for Jules, finally, to lose focus for an instant.
I seize the opportunity and bend forward, flipping Jules over my back. She slams onto the ground but somehow retains her grip on my hands. Yanking hard, she strains my arms in their sockets and sends me tumbling down. She flips and lands on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs.
‘You are not the only Fae with unprecedented power,’ she says.
‘I know,’ I say breathlessly. ‘But he’s using you, Jules.’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘To bring peace and stability to the Crown. A balance must be restored—’
‘You know there will be no balance. It’s not nature’s way. Damius will destroy you just as he wants to destroy me. We are both a threat to him.’
Jules shakes her head but I see a flicker of doubt. ‘He’s my father.’
‘He abandoned you.’
The slightest movement from Jules’s trained, strong body tells me that my barbs are finding their target.
‘He abandoned you because of who you are,’ I continue. ‘And then he went on with his life like you didn’t exist.’
‘No, no, it wasn’t like that.’
‘He killed General Sewell,’ I push. ‘The woman who gave you a home, a job, a life. He took her from you.’
‘He’s family!’ Jules yells at me.
‘I’m family!’ I scream back. ‘And I never once expected you to be something other than you are.’
Her eyes dart to the scaevus girls fighting around us.
‘Think like the soldier you are,’ I say, my lungs screaming for air and the pent-up Art still burning within me. ‘His plan all along was to manipulate us so we would destroy each other.’
I catch sight of Damius striding towards us, his Protectorate guards blasting anyone in his path out of the way.
‘Don’t be fooled by her cunning words,’ he calls to Jules. ‘She kept you a pliant lapdog, even when she knew the truth about you.’ Damius stands over Jules and me while the fighting rages around us. ‘Francesca knew all along that you were a claimant to the throne, but she kept your heritage a secret. She didn’t want to share the power, the wealth, the glory.’
‘That’s not true,’ I wheeze.
‘Ask her yourself. Ask how long she’s known about your claim to the throne.’
‘How long?’ Jules says.
‘Jules…’
‘How long?!’
‘I knew there was another … an heir. I didn’t know it was you.’
‘Of course you did,’ Damius says calmly. ‘Why else would you withhold this information from your bodyguard, your friend?’
‘I … I …’
‘Destroy her,’ he tells Jules. ‘Destroy all of them. Destroy every last one of them and take what is rightfully ours.’
There’s a blur, a movement to my left. Tom is pushing through the barrier of Protectorate guards, Abby trailing behind him. Tom throws off two guards who try to restrain him, aims his watchband at Damius and fires, but his blast hits a Protectorate guard who steps in front of her king. Four guards instantly pounce on Tom, one driving a knee into his back, two pinning his arms down and the other squeezing his neck in a headlock. Another guard restrains Abby.
Damius doesn’t even look down at the crumpled body of the guard who just saved his life. His eyes are focused on Tom.
‘Do something!’ Abby cries out. She looks up at Jules, pleading.
‘Jules, please,’ I gasp. ‘Help him. You have the power.’
‘Silence!’ barks Damius.
‘Father,’ Jules says. ‘This was never the plan. You said —’
‘That was before,’ he says, dismissing her. Then he looks directly at me, and bellows, ‘I. Do. Not. Lose!’ A vicious smile creeps across his face as his eyes flick to Tom. ‘But you do.’
‘No!’ I scream. I struggle against Jules as Damius raises his staff in Tom’s direction.
And t
hen everything happens at once. Abby bites her guard’s arm, freeing her hand to hurl one of her red test tubes at Damius, right as he unleashes a blast at Tom. The test tube goes off like a bomb, and Protectorate guards, dirt and grass fly into the air. Jules leaps up off me, shielding her father from the impact. Finally free, I run to Tom, who has dived to the ground and avoided Damius’s blast. Abby runs to Tom too, reaching him just as Damius knocks Jules away and fires at him again.
Abby slumps to the blood-soaked grass.
Jules screams her name.
Damius raises his staff, preparing to fire once more.
A flash of light and energy passes over me. Damius and his remaining guards are thrown backwards as Jules unleashes blast after blast of power with sweeps of her arm. The force of it reverberates around the castle grounds like the howling winds of a hurricane, sending fighters from both sides flying. I curl down, covering my head with my hands.
Then the hurricane stops. Jules races to where Abby lies and gathers her up, cradling her in her arms.
‘No! No! No!’ Jules cries, tears streaming down her face.
Tom is at Abby’s side, feeling his sister’s wrist for a pulse. ‘Stay with us, Abbs.’ He places his hands on her temples as he performs his healing Art.
‘Tom,’ I plead, but I don’t know what I’m asking. I just watch him work, silently willing Abby to live. Sweat drips from his brow. I beg and barter with any god or goddess who’s listening. But it doesn’t do any good. It’s taking too long. I prepare to conjure the cataclysmic spell.
Then Abby starts coughing, sucking in air.
Tom collapses from exhaustion and I wrap my arms around him.
Jules looks down at Abby, her eyes filled with love.
‘In-laws are the worst,’ says Abby weakly.
An eerie calm surrounds us. The force of Jules’s power has stilled the fighting. I take in the surreal scene. A mess of soldiers – Protectorate officers, Damius’s army, Callie’s soldiers and Mama’s unicorn girls – groan on the ground or groggily get to their feet. Wiping blood and mud from their faces, they look around at their fallen comrades.
