Storm Princess Saga- the Complete Series

by Everly Frost

  The gargoyle’s eyes widen as my shout reaches it. I take a step back for momentum and then run toward it, electric dagger raised. The creature glances backward—it’s dangerously close to the cliff’s edge—before bracing for the strike. At least, I think it’s going to brace, until the last moment, when it ducks, angles its right shoulder into my ribcage and tackles me backward along the ledge where it forces me to the ground.

  Oomph! The air leaves my lungs as I slam into the ground. A ton of gargoyle male drops down on me, but at the last moment, its hand slides up behind my head, cushioning me so I don’t crack open my skull. Its other hand punches the ground to stop its massive body from crushing me. The impact hurts and it takes me a moment to catch my breath. Long enough for the beast to shift its paw to my dagger arm, pinning it and forcing my hand open, compelling me to release the weapon.

  I struggle, kicking my legs and trying to get my arm free as it rises upward, straddling my hips. “Stop fighting me, Marbella.”

  “Never! I won’t let you hurt him! You… what?”

  It leans across me. I lie stunned as it whispers into my ear. “Stop fighting me.”

  I shiver, because there’s something so familiar about the way it just leaned into me. “Wait… Who…? B-Baelen?”

  He nods. “It’s me.”

  I search his features as he helps me rise to my knees. I try to find anything in the gargoyle’s features that resembles the male I know. My lips form a startled what the?

  “What’s happening?” I ask. “This is supposed to be my simulation. You’re not supposed to be here…”

  He growls, “I didn’t know it was you until you held the dagger. You’re the only one who lights up at the touch of steel. That’s when I recognized you.”

  “But what do you see when you look at me?”

  A rattle of breath inside his chest sounds suspiciously like a chuckle. “Please don’t be offended, but you look hideous.”

  I’m too stunned to be offended. “So I look like a gargoyle to you, just like you look like a gargoyle to me?”

  He sighs. “I should have known this was all wrong. Gargoyles don’t look like this. Especially not female ones.”

  “Then, what’s really going on right now? Have our simulations somehow combined in our minds?” Heat suddenly burns through me. I stare at him. “What happened in yours before you flew down here?”

  He smiles, slow and strong, seeming to enjoy the blush that blazes across my cheeks. “A memory. One I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Oh.”

  He clears his throat, suddenly serious. “Which ended when I hit my head.” He gestures to his younger self. “After that, I floated way up high. I thought the simulation was over, but then I plummeted back here. It felt like I was actually falling.”

  “Do you think we’re still in the arena?”

  He shakes his head as he peers around us. “I can’t see anything beyond this cliff. I can’t see the arena. I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t feel like I’m sitting in the chair anymore.”

  I think back to the moment when I fell out of my younger self. I’d fallen too, as if something had released me—or pulled me out. Had we both fallen out of the chairs of truth at that moment?

  “Then… what does this mean? Are we stuck in the same vision but our bodies are moving in real life now? Bae, if that’s true, we could have killed each other!”

  I look around us, searching the sky, the cliff, the rocks, trying to find a clue about what’s happening. It’s too silent. Too quiet. There’s no breeze, no moving clouds anymore. The simulation has… paused.

  “What about the other gargoyles that attacked just now? If you look like a gargoyle to me, and this is somehow really happening, who were they?” Fear shoots through me, sharp and terrifying. “Who did I hurt?”

  His expression is shadowed. “There were too many of them to be the Elven Command.”

  I gasp. “My Storm Command. Our friends. They were trying to get the dagger away from me. They must have been trying to stop me from hurting you.”

  A shriek rises in my chest, but I push it down. I meet Baelen’s eyes as panic threatens to overtake me. It’s the first true panic I’ve felt in seven years when I thought he’d died. I don’t know what’s really going on around us and not knowing whether my ladies are safe is killing me. “The Elven Command has done something to us, to the chairs. And now my Storm Command is hurt…”

  Baelen doesn’t pause a moment longer. Even in his current gargoyle form, the concern in his eyes shines through. He’s already assessing an exit, a way down the mountain, reaching for my arm.

  “We’re in danger. We need to move.” He scoops me upward, but just as he rises to his feet, he roars, his eyes shooting wide.

  He pushes me away from him as if he’s trying to protect me. I recognize the way his arms move forward in a quick, desperate motion. It’s the same way I pushed him out of the path of the lightning strike.

  I stumble backward, grazing my hands. “Baelen!”

  He arches back against something I can’t see, something that’s clearly hurting him. With a sickening crack, one of his wings snaps right before my eyes. His line of sight descends to his chest, but I can’t see a wound.

  “Baelen!” I snatch up the dagger, ducking to avoid Baelen’s wings as he spins. His outstretched fist connects with an invisible object. There’s a thud. He hit something—whatever it was that was hurting him.

  “I can’t see… I can’t see it!” I wave my weapon around, trying to see where I need to attack, but there’s only silence again.

  Baelen drops to his knees. “Marbella, come here. Quickly.”

  I run to him, driving the dagger into the ground at the last moment, but within arm’s length so I can reach it if I need it. I try to catch Baelen as he slides to his knees. One of his legs rests at an awkward angle.

  “Baelen? Where are you hurt?”

  He doesn’t answer. His good wing curls over the top of me and pressure builds across my shoulder blades and lower back as he compels me toward his chest. He gathers all of me up inside his wing, even my feet, fitting the wing snug across my whole body, cocooning me. I have no choice but to turn my head into his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin. He smells like… icy rain and a warm sun shower both at the same time.

  I am small. And afraid. “Bae?”

  “Stay here where it’s safe until the simulation ends. They won’t come for you yet.”

  I don’t think I want to hide here. Something has hurt him and I can’t see his wound, but it’s bad. I know it’s bad. Otherwise he would get up and fight. Nothing could stop him. Nothing could keep him down. Pressure builds inside my chest, a world of fear and dread all balled up inside me, and I’m ready to scream.

  He sighs. “Marbella Mercy… I love you too.”

  My heart stops. Whatever I want to say, whatever I feel, it all chokes inside me. His wing slides away from my back, releasing me enough to allow me to lift my head, using both hands to push away from his chest.

  The cliff changes around me then, rearranging itself, rocky outcrops smoothing into sunlit walls. The space around me morphs back into the arena. My vision clears, changing as reality seeps in and the walls, the dais, and the upper levels become crystal clear. The upper levels are empty. The onlookers have gone. The arena is clear and quiet.

  There’s a groan to my right. Reisha lies on her stomach, trying to crawl toward me. Blood drips from cuts all over her body as she lifts her head, her outstretched hand dropping to the ground.

  She’s breathing hard, gasping out words. “We tried to stop you fighting each other… but you were too strong… too strong…”

  All around her, my Storm Command have fallen to the floor. Like dominos, my ladies lie scattered, their armor ripped apart, their bodies bleeding. Some of them are trying to get up, others don’t move. Jordan and Elise lie among them, too far away to see if they’re alive. Baelen’s soldiers are scattered around us too, many groaning, ot
hers lying still, all of them shuddering like an electrical force has ripped through them.

  My electrical force…

  My Storm Command were the gargoyles in the simulation—the gargoyles I blasted from the sky. They were trying to help us and I repelled them. I took out my own protection. And now the simulation has ended, but the Elven Command said it would only end when a gargoyle died.

  I can’t breathe. I can’t look down. My heart isn’t beating.

  Baelen is still beneath me. He told me to stay inside his wings until the simulation ended.

  I can’t look down… I can’t…

  He morphs before my eyes, his sharp face and dripping teeth disappearing. He transforms back into himself and suddenly, his wounds blossom before my eyes. There are four slashes across his chest like the corners of a square, piercing right through his armor.

  Four Elven Commanders stand behind him, each holding a sword that’s bloodied and glows with an unnatural golden light. Among them, Gideon Glory’s face is alight with the blaze of sorcery. His spells shimmer along the blades that he and the others hold. Wisps of sorcery waft around the chairs of truth lying broken on their sides nearby. Even now, golden ropes of sorcery slide across the ground toward me. Pedr Bounty rubs his side and I can only guess that he was the one that Baelen thumped.

  The Elven Commanders stabbed Baelen in the back. They orchestrated it from the start. The chairs of truth had immersed us in a simulation—a real one—until Gideon Glory used his sorcery to break the chairs and pull our bodies out of them but kept our minds in a false vision.

  They’d tried to trick me into killing Baelen and when I didn’t…

  Baelen’s chest is still. His eyes are closed. A drop of blood slips from his mouth. Gravity forces his arms to slide down my sides, slipping away from my back where he’d held me at the last moment and told me that he loved me.

  They killed him.

  My heart rips apart inside my chest. It’s beating so hard. Lightning and thunder, rain and wind build inside me. I can’t lose him. I won’t lose him.

  As Gideon’s sorcery takes hold of my arms and legs, I scream and scream and scream.

  44. Marbella Mercy

  Elwyn Elder rounds me and grabs me from behind, latching on to my armor and dragging me off Baelen. My skintight suit presses against my neck like a noose. He drags me across the floor, past the broken chairs to a clear space beyond them, and drops me onto my back.

  I can’t move. The sorcery is like fire burning me and immobilizing my spine. Gideon Glory comes into view, leaning over me. So do Pedr Bounty and Osian Valor. The four Elven Commanders peer down at me while Gideon mutters beneath his breath, chanting over me. The other three raise a hand each and a golden thread extends between their palms, connecting into a circle when Gideon raises his too.

  In unison, their hands lower toward me, one each toward my bare hands and my bare cheeks, lowering at exactly the same time.

  They want my power. They all want my power. They wanted Baelen to die. They wanted the chance to kill him.

  They… I… my heart is… so torn I can’t do anything but scream my grief. “You did this!”

  They don’t respond. Gideon’s chanting grows more urgent and all four of their lined old faces begin to glow as the sorcery keeps them joined, moving them as one hand, closer and closer to the surface of my body. I scream, shouting at them, but there’s nothing I can do to stop them. How long had they planned this? How long had they schemed? There’s a dagger at Gideon Glory’s hip but I can’t move my hand to reach it. They’re going to take my power and then… they’ll kill me.

  Closer and closer.

  I whimper as their hands touch my bare skin, connecting at exactly the same moment.

  “Finally,” Gideon Glory exhales a sigh of sickening elation. Triumphant smiles break across all their faces, but I…

  I feel nothing.

  There’s no surge of energy, no crackle of lightning, no pulse of thunder, nothing of the storm passes from me. It’s like I’m empty but not because they took my power—because it’s not there to give.

  I become very quiet, sensing… a heartbeat. It’s slow. Very slow, almost like the sound of someone taking careful, cautious steps toward me except that there’s nobody approaching me. I don’t know where the heartbeat is coming from or who it belongs to. All I know is that it isn’t mine and it doesn’t belong to the four Commanders whose evil grins are fading fast.

  Their fingers claw into my skin, pressing deeper, frustration replacing their triumph.

  “What’s going on?” Elwyn Elder demands, a glare forming fast.

  Gideon shakes his head, filled with confusion. “I don’t understand… we should have her power by now.”

  “You said this would work!”

  They argue back and forth, yanking on my arms, clawing at my cheeks, and I begin to laugh despite the pain, great big sob-laughs. Mostly because I’ve lost it, I’ve lost everything, but also because… “It didn’t work.”

  Gideon Glory hisses at me, snarling a chant, his eyes glowing like golden orbs, but his sorcery washes over me like water off a swan’s wings. At the back of everything, that slow, quiet heartbeat thrums and it’s turning into a shield around me. The Elven Command has taken everything from me—they took Baelen and now I’ll never see his smile or hear him laugh or hold his hand or join my body with his. There’s nothing more they can do to hurt me.

  Gideon’s hold on my spine weakens. He chants harder, but his power is fading fast. I kick my legs, freeing one of them from the spell, and strike out at Osian Valor on my right hand side. He shouts as my armored foot cracks against his ribs, knocking him off balance. He tries to keep hold of my hand, but falls to the floor. My hand is scratched and bruised from his raking fingernails, but it’s free now.

  As quickly as I can, I grab hold of the dagger dangling so recklessly from Gideon’s belt right beside me as he leans over me. Oh, the arrogance that he never thought I’d be able to reach for it.

  He shrieks as my hand lights up on contact. He struggles to get away from me, but I hook my fingers around his belt and press the sizzling dagger into his side.

  I whisper, “You killed Mai. You killed Baelen. You are nothing but evil.”

  He leaps to his feet but I follow him up and so does the dagger, finding its target. His eyes fade. The only light cast over his body radiates from the storm I wield.

  As he falls, dead, I spin to the remaining three, finally in a position to see that Teilo Splendor lies across the far dais in a rumple of robes. I don’t know what happened while I was in the simulation, but Teilo’s head wound tells me he tried to stop the others.

  I’m suddenly cold as the adrenalin of escaping Gideon’s sorcery wanes. I can’t bear to look where Baelen lies. I drop to my knees, only knowing that I have to end this. If I’m the first Princess to wield the storm as a weapon then I’m determined to make myself the last.

  “You want the storm,” I say as the three remaining Commanders scoot away from me. “Then you can have it.”

  I lift the bright dagger to my own heart, “Be free, Storm.”

  45. Baelen Rath

  My heartbeat thuds in my ears. Slow. Fading. Like walking away from my life step by step. My consciousness separates from my body and the world turns white. No more lines, colors, or shapes. No more twirling ribbon or crackling light. No more battles.

  Everything around me disappears except Marbella’s voice and the bright dagger she presses to her heart, somehow the brightest thing I see. Too bright.

  “You want the storm,” she cries. “You can have it!”

  She’s the reason I’m here. She is my reason.

  A single final thought rips through me.

  Stop.

  46. Marbella Mercy

  Before I can drive the blade home, a thud freezes everything around me. The dagger pauses at my chest, its tip refusing to budge. I’m not responsible for the pause in time. There’s not a lot I can think about ri
ght now but I know it wasn’t me who froze everything.

  The three remaining Elven Commanders are caught between expressions of fear and rage, their glittering robes frozen in swirls as they scrambled to get away from me. My friends are frozen too, some half rising, some on their knees.

  I finally see Jasper and Sebastian both stationary but in the act of running toward Baelen, with Sahara right behind them. They don’t look harmed like the others and their voices echo in my memory like a dream that happened around me while I was unaware. Get back! The Storm is too strong! And lastly Sahara shouting: Take cover! We can’t help him if we’re dead.

  A drop of water hits my cheek, drawing my attention upward. A cool breeze swirls around me, creating soothing sensations across my scratched skin. I’m not sure where it’s coming from until a soft female voice speaks behind me.

  “I’m here, Marbella.”

  I freeze like the people around me but not because the thunder has affected me. I know her voice. Sure, the last time I heard it she was wailing and shrieking, but there’s no denying the lilt she speaks with, the gentle rush of sound like a waterfall lives beneath each spoken sound. I stand and turn slowly.

  She’s just like an older version of the gargoyle baby I saw in the nest. Her skin is porcelain in texture and a soft caramel color; her eyes are deep brown and framed with long dark lashes; her hair rests across one shoulder and washes down her side to her slender hips and the longest legs I’ve ever seen only partially covered by the fine silver gown she wears. Her ears are round, not like mine, and she glows around the edges. Her wings shimmer in a cascade like her voice, except that… I frown… one is broken, the fine gossamer webbing torn and draping closer to her body on her left side.

  “You’re the Storm,” I say, even though it’s stating the obvious.

  “We are the Storm,” she corrects me, her mouth drawing into a serious line. “You, me, and… him.”

  I follow the line of her arm and pointed finger, sucking in a sharp breath and spinning back to her before I see Baelen.