Shards of wood exploded as my power smacked into the door. Aethan was pushing past the broken bits before they’d even finished settling. The voluptuous velvet drapes that had once dressed the windows were ripped into shreds by broken glass. Furniture was strewn across the room amongst the bodies of goblins and Orion’s personal guard.
‘Orion,’ Aethan roared. He hacked and chopped his way through the goblins between him and his brother. Orion was backed up against the far wall of the room. The lone survivor, he still fought, but slowly, as if injured. As we battled towards him, his sword was knocked from his hand.
‘Noooooooo.’ Aethan beheaded a goblin that Mia had blinded and then he pushed the corpse out of the way.
A towering goblin seized Orion’s throat and shoved him up against the wall. He pushed him higher and higher till Orion hung from those hands like a thief in the gallows. His feet beat ineffectively at the wall and his face turned red, then blue.
‘Isadora. Help him.’ Aethan’s face was a frenzy of tangled emotions, fear and anger warring with each other for dominance.
Even though we fought as hard as we could we weren’t going to make it to Orion in time. I couldn’t hurl lightning, not with Orion there. I would kill him as well as the goblin.
The answer was quite simple. I could stop the goblin’s heart. I could stop all their hearts. Surely just this once wouldn’t hurt. To save Orion, the heir to the throne. Surely he was important enough.
I reached a hand out towards the goblin holding Orion but Aethan grabbed it. ‘No.’
‘Just this once.’
‘Until the next time.’ The battle raged around us as eyes the deepest blue bored into mine. ‘Every time seems necessary. Every time gets easier. Like a seduction it will take you over until eventually, that’s all you do. All you know. There has to be another way.’
‘And if there’s not?’
‘Then so be it. I’ll not have you throw away your soul.’
I ripped my eyes away from his. He might not be about to let me throw away my soul but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let his brother die. ‘Stay,’ I said to Scruffy, and then I ran towards the goblin line that Rako and Isla were holding back and jumped. The goblins were so startled as I flew over the top of them, that not one took advantage of my exposed stomach.
I reached them as Orion’s eyes were rolling up into his head. With a scream of pure rage I struck at the goblin, my sword catching him in the side of the neck. It lodged in his collarbone and ripped from my grip as he slumped to the floor. Orion slid down the wall and I pulled the dead goblin’s hands from his throat.
‘Breathe,’ I said. ‘Come on Orion, breathe, damn you.’ I lay him down on the floor and was about to press my lips to his when he let out a low moan and a cough.
I had made it in time, and I hadn’t used black magic. I wasn’t sure which of those two things I was more relieved about.
Orion opened his eyes and stared up at me. ‘Thank you.’ He pulled a face as his voice squeaked.
Before I could respond, a hand grabbed the back of my head. I yelped as I was dragged along the ground by my braid. A goblin’s foot buried itself into the side of my ribs. I curled into a ball as pain exploded through my chest, utterly helpless to do anything as the goblin lifted a curved dagger above me.
‘Izzy.’ Aethan’s voice was a shriek of despair.
The irony of him finally calling me Izzy when I was only seconds away from death was not lost on me. Bloody typical.
The three of them were finishing off the last of the goblins, but there would be no saving me from this blow.
Would it hurt a lot or a little? I was betting on a lot. I closed my eyes and prayed to the Great Dark Sky that the end would be swift.
The goblin’s laugh turned to a gurgle and the killing blow never came. As I opened my eyes he fell to the side, Orion’s sword piercing him from behind.
Orion gave me a crooked smile and then slumped back to the ground.
Scruffy was the first to reach me, licking and whining and crying all at the same time, but Aethan wasn’t far behind him.
‘Izzy.’ His hands ran over my body checking me for injuries. ‘You’re safe, you’re alive.’ He stroked my face as he stared into my eyes. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
‘You remember,’ I said. ‘You remember me.’
The corners of his mouth curled up. ‘I don’t need my memories to know that I love you.’
Fireworks exploded inside my head as he bent his face and captured my mouth with his own. Finally, finally he was kissing me the way he used to. With surety and totality, as if he would die without my mouth against his. I curled my arms around his neck and dived deeper into the kiss.
It was Orion who pulled us back from the brink of inappropriate passion.
‘Legas,’ he croaked. ‘They took Legas.’
Aethan broke our kiss and I stared up into his face as I tried to re-order my thoughts. I knew Orion’s words held dire importance, but I couldn’t remember why.
Rako swore and rushed from the room and Isla stopped in the process of examining Orion’s throat and let out a hiss. ‘Legas was here?’
‘We were discussing… crop rotations.’
I was guessing by his blush that they’d been discussing a certain night faery, not crop rotations.
I pushed myself up into a seated position. ‘Who’s Legas?’
Aethan reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Orion’s best friend. One of our cousins. ’
The import of the words smacked into me. Galanta needed a donor body for Santanas’s soul. Legas was of royal blood, just as Santanas had been.
‘Buzznuckle.’ I leapt to my feet. ‘We have to stop them.’
‘I’m coming.’ Orion pushed himself up.
‘It’s too dangerous.’ Aethan’s voice left no room for argument but Orion’s face took on a stubborn look I knew too well. If I hadn’t known that he and Aethan were brothers before, I most certainly would now.
‘You can’t even talk properly.’ Isla patted him on the arm as if to soothe him, but the pat was too hard and too fast to do that. It was the first time I had seen her rattled.
‘I don’t need a voice to kill goblins.’
I winced at the high-pitched wheeze that came out of him. His throat must have been excruciating.
‘Too dangerous,’ Aethan said again, shaking his head.
‘If we don’t get Legas back it won’t matter if I’m alive or not,’ Orion whispered.
He had a good point. I watched as Aethan’s face wavered between uncertainty and defiance.
‘It was just a small force,’ Rako said from the doorway, ‘not the group you saw last night. I’ve sent trackers after them.’
As if that had settled the argument, Orion retrieved his sword from the dead goblin, wiping the blade on a ruined curtain before sliding it back into its sheath. ‘I’m going and that is that.’ He strode past us towards the door.
‘I can’t believe he’s being so stupid,’ Aethan muttered. He shook his head and then dragged his hands back through his dark hair. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘If anything happened to Legas he would never forgive himself,’ Isla said.
‘Not the point.’ He started to move towards the door. ‘We are his arm. The Guard is his arm. He rules and we protect. That’s how it’s done. How it’s always been done, and Orion knows that.’
We trotted down the stairs and out a side door towards the stables. ‘He’s in love,’ Isla said. ‘That does strange things to a man’s head.’
Aethan let out a snort, but his eyes flicked towards me and I had to resist the urge to take him to the ground and cover his mouth with mine.
‘And women’s heads,’ Isla said, smirking at me.
I stuck my tongue out at her, but wisely said nothing.
The rest of the Guard stationed at the castle were already there and saddling their horses. I found Lily in a stable towards the back with Wolfgang’s horse.
It only took a few minutes to get the saddle on her back and the bridle in her mouth, but by the time I had finished, most of the Guard were already waiting. I grabbed a travelling pack stocked with food and water from the front of the stable as I led Lily out.
‘They’re heading west,’ Rako said as he pulled himself up into his saddle.
‘Why west? That’s orc country.’ Isla’s perfect face puckered and I knew she was thinking about Wilfred.
I placed Scruffy on Lily’s back and shrugged. ‘Where’s Wolfgang?’ We were really going to need him.
Rako scrunched his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘He went back out with the Guard to keep an eye on the goblins.’
‘You mean he’s not coming?’
‘I’ve sent a message but we don’t have time to wait.’ The look on his face matched what I felt. Despair.
‘Izzy.’ Grams rounded the side of the castle and trotted towards me.
‘You’re hurt.’ I reached out towards the streak of blood on her cheek.
‘Not mine,’ she said.
‘Lionel?’ Oh Dark Sky, If he were injured…
‘Talking to King Arwyn. We’re going to stay here to help protect the castle.’
‘Oh, well, that’s probably for the best.’ My heart had been in my throat the whole time she had been fighting. I didn’t think I could go through it again.
‘Let’s move out,’ Rako called.
I pulled Grams to me, dwarfing her as I hugged her, and then I pushed her away and stared into her face. I wanted to ask her the significance of the conversation I had overheard but I was too scared of the answer.
She stared into my eyes and then nodded her head. ‘Later,’ she said as if reading my mind, ‘we can talk about it later.’
‘I love you,’ I said as I swung up into the saddle.
She pressed her fingers to her lips and waved them at me as I trotted after the rest of the Guard.
We pushed the horses hard in our attempts to catch the goblins. Thought bubbles, floating back to us from the trackers, reported that the goblins continued to head west and that we were narrowing the gap, but the longer we rode without sight of them, the more tense I became. The only consolation was that if Galanta wanted Legas for what we suspected she did, then he was still alive.
‘We need to rest,’ Aethan said to Rako. ‘The horses need to rest.’
Rako scrubbed a hand down his face and swore. ‘I was hoping we would have caught them by now.’ He held up a hand and we dropped from a canter to a walk and then stopped. The sun had set hours before and only adrenaline coursing through my body kept me awake.
‘Why are we stopping?’ Orion’s voice was not improving with time.
‘We need to rest.’
‘They’re getting away.’
Aethan laid a hand on Orion’s arm. ‘If we keep going, the horses will fail, and then they will get away.’
Orion swore and strode away. Aethan watched him with a small frown on his face.
I took his hand in mine, savouring the ability to touch him again. ‘What’s up?’
‘He seems…,’ he paused for a second, ‘unhinged.’
‘Legas must be a good friend to him. I know I’d be unhinged if they had taken you.’
He traced a hand down the side of my face. ‘As I would be if it were you.’
‘What about me?’ Isla bumped me with her arm. ‘Would you be unhinged if something happened to me?’
‘I’d be crazy,’ I said, realising as the joking words left my mouth that they were true. The last few weeks had bonded us beyond mere friends.
‘Awww, shucks.’ She gave me her cheekiest grin. ‘Now if you’ve finished going all gushy on me, we should get some rest.’
After a couple of hours, half of which was spent in broken sleep and the other on sentry duty, we pushed on again. I tried not to think about how much further the goblins had gone while we slept and instead thought about what we were going to do when we caught them. It was going to be messy.
A couple of hours later, as the pre-dawn sky started to lighten, one of the faery trackers galloped towards us. He pulled his mount to a halt and, as it sank its head between its front legs and pulled in lungful after lungful of air, he said, ‘They’ve stopped.’
‘How far?’ Orion looked as if he would leap off his horse and start running.
‘About two miles further.’ The tracker cleared his throat almost nervously. ‘They’re at The Henge.’
‘Faster,’ Orion croaked, kneeing his horse in the ribs, ‘we will be too late.’
‘What’s The Henge?’ I yelled to Isla as we leaned over our horses’ necks and pushed them as fast as they could go.
‘Powerful ceremonial stones. You know it as Stonehenge.’
A prickle of unease ran down my spine. ‘When would be the best time to harness the power from the stones?’
Her face was deadly serious. ‘Sunrise.’
A few minutes later we galloped over a low rise and I could see the pillars of stone standing in the distance. I had visited Stonehenge with Mum and Grams a few years ago and the difference between the site in England and the one here behind the veil was stark. These stones were still perfect. No signs of wear or damage marked their surfaces.
‘It looks so different,’ I said.
‘This circle still harnesses the power of the Great Dark Sky,’ Isla replied. ‘I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. Galanta’s going to need all the help she can get if she’s going to make this work.’
Drum beats reverberated in the still morning air and goblins shuffled around the pillars of stone. We had to make it in time, we just had to. It seemed ridiculous that after everything we had been through, it would all be for naught if we didn’t make it to that circle in time.
‘Hurry,’ Orion yelled over the beat of the drums. ‘We must hurry.’
I didn’t need his words to urge me on. I clung to my reins with white knuckles and prayed.
Isla pulled her bow from the pommel in front of her and started firing arrows into the goblins. She jumped easily from her saddle while still shooting.
‘Stay here,’ I said to Scruffy as I leapt from Lily’s back. He let out a little ruffy bark that I hoped was a yes.
‘Quick.’ Orion grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the goblins. ‘We must find Legas.’
The goblins roared as we ran towards them. I pulled my short swords from the sheaths crossing my back and leapt towards the closest one. I didn’t need to be told twice to kill those big bastards.
The goblin lunged at me with his dagger held straight out. I slapped it away with the blade of one sword and bit deep into his neck with my other one. He roared with pain and spun away from me clutching at his throat as blood pumped through his fingers.
Orion fought like a mad person, forcing his way ahead of me so that I ended up covering his back as we made our way deeper into the group of goblins. They seemed more interested in attacking the rest of the guard than attacking Orion and me. I used that to my advantage, dodging around them as much as I engaged them. We had to find Legas and we had to find him soon. The light around us was brightening and I knew that at any moment the sun would breach the horizon.
‘There.’ Orion pointed to our left.
I peered past him to where a platform of stone rose into the air. A body lay on top of the platform and I didn’t need to be a genius to know it was Legas.
We raced towards him as the sky brightened. Any second now that sun would rise and whatever spell Galanta was planning, would start. I jumped high into the air over the last goblins, landing on the stone platform in a crouch.
Where was Galanta? What was she doing?
‘Hurry.’ It was my turn to urge on Orion. I raced toward the unconscious figure.
Please don’t let us be too late. Please let him be alive.
A blazing bright disc peeped over the horizon, shooting light across the ground towards us. ‘No,’ I screeched, hurling myself at his body. I di
dn’t know how or why, but I knew with absolute knowledge that if that light got to Legas before I did, all was lost.
I landed on my knees beside him but the light got there first. It touched his face. Such a familiar face. A blonde version of the one I loved.
Not Legas. It wasn’t Legas.
Instead, Orion looked almost peaceful as he lay there, his hands crossed over his chest.
‘Surprise.’ A strong hand grasped me from behind and a dagger plunged into my side.
I sagged back against my attacker, helpless as the blade slashed toward me again, this time biting deep into the veins at my wrist. Staring up into the face of my attacker, I watched as Orion’s facial features melted, flowing and reshaping until Galanta leered down at me.
‘You,’ I gasped. ‘It was you all along.’
She held my wrist over Orion’s still body. Blood ran freely, splattering down over him. He lay on the broken stone I had unwittingly freed Santanas from. My blood sizzled as it landed.
‘So nice of you to come.’ Her pointed teeth made her smile that much more malicious.
I looked toward where the Guard fought. The goblins that had let us pass so easily, now battled like demons.
I was so stupid. So desperately stupid. She had played me from the beginning and even knowing that, I had walked blindly into her trap.
For once the sunrise did nothing to warm me as it blossomed in front of my eyes. Black mist grew around the stone and I knew I was too late.
Too late to save Orion. Too late to stop Galanta. Too late to save myself.
The mist rose into the air above Orion as Galanta began to chant. Black, boiling, bubbling smoke, coalesced in a cloud as her voice rose to a shriek. I pulled against her, but a foot buried itself in my ribs and pain exploded from the stab wound. I slumped to the side as I retched, red clouding my vision.
So this is what Santanas had meant when he’d said they still needed me. They’d need my blood to complete the spell. And now they had it.
Cold crept over me with a calm that stole away my fear. The fact that I was going to die took some of the horror out of what I was witnessing. I wasn’t going to live under a rule of war and chaos. I wasn’t going to have to fight to maintain the basic rights of mankind. I looked toward Rako and Aethan, feeling like a coward that I was giving up so easily.
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