by Amy Sumida
Then it struck.
Alexandra screamed as the beast snatched her from the balcony; her song—and the protection it was providing our soldiers—failing. Nidhogg streaked upward, faster than the Griffins or Drachen could fly, and as we all watched in horror; he let Alexandra go.
All of our songs turned into horrified screams. The battle came to a halt as a Spellsinger dropped from the sky like a fallen angel and crashed onto the temple's spires.
“Alexandra!” Adelaid shouted.
Alexandra's broken body slid down the polished amber and came to rest on the edge of a sloped roof. We stared down at her in shock. Blood ran from her open mouth and down her arm; dripping over the edge of the temple. It seemed to happen in slow motion; the reality refusing to latch onto my mind. We had never lost one of our own. Alexandra was the first Spellsinger in history to die.
“No!” Odin's roar echoed up to us.
The Earthshaker snarled and then set his ferocious stare on Mimir. The land beneath us started to rumble, and the Giants went still.
“Odin, no!” I cried. “Don't hurt the land!”
Odin's rage bubbled up, but the tremors subsided, and he channeled his anger into a bolt of magic that he launched straight at Mimir. It sent the Giant flying onto his back, but after a few moments, Mimir got to his feet, laughing.
Our army rallied and renewed its attack. Magic sizzled over the battlefield, blood sprayed, swords arched through the air, and shields bashed bodies out of the way. The Griffins and Drachen had united to chase Nidhogg; circling him as they tried to catch the slippery beast. Everyone was using their fury to spur them on. Everyone but the Spellsingers, who clutched at each other and wept.
We were gathered in a bundle, as close to Alexandra as we could get, mourning our kin as we ignored the battle entirely. Some of the strongest beneathers who had ever existed had been stopped by a single act; a single death. And it was that knowledge which finally roused me from my grief. I scrubbed my tears away, grabbed Adelaid by the upper arms, and shook her.
“Alex would want vengeance!” I shouted at Adelaid. “Stop this. All of you, stop it. We will mourn her later. But now we must win this war... for Tír na nÓg and Alexandra.”
They sniffed and stared at me, then straightened, looked at each other, and nodded.
“I think it's time for some uncertain consequences,” Eilener declared in a dangerous tone.
Chapter Sixty
We held hands and stared calmly down at the battle scene below. The cacophony faded as we focused our intent. The Spellsingers would sing together for the very first time; a tribute to our fallen sister. Our expressions were grim, and our resolve was rock-hard; we were going to kill them all—every last Giant there.
Genocide.
It was the only thing that would assuage our pain. They had taken one our kind, but our race was only six strong. Which meant that justice would require the death of a sixth of their population. But Spellsingers didn't concern themselves with justice. Hurt one of us, and we will hurt all of you. The Jotun were about to feel the wrath of the Spellsingers as no one in history—not the denizens of Rome or even those of Atlantis— had ever felt before.
We had decided on heavy metal; German heavy metal, to be precise. We needed the shrieking power that only metal could provide, and it seemed appropriate for killing an entire race. The other Spellsingers had set their iPods aside; we were relying on Kyanite alone this time. I called to him and felt his eager response. Kyanite was just as furious as we were—my pain was his now—and he was intent on helping us as much as he could. I felt his assurances that our song would reach all of the Jotun and only the Jotun. Then Warlock's “Kiss of Death” began.
The song was about vampires; a cursed life of killing and satisfying an endless hunger without mercy or guilt. I thought it was perfect considering that the Blooders were taking the hardest hit. This wouldn't just be vengeance for Alexandra; it would be for all of our fallen warriors.
We took the song's violent message and upped the horror. Our voices rolled out with a low rumble and then rushed over the battle like a storm of poisoned gas. We called out our dominion—and then our judgment—upon the Jotun. We screamed for our magic to avenge our loss, and give us satisfaction. With one focus, we struck.
The sky turned crimson with our magic, and both of the armies froze. All eyes turned to us as our song swept out and started the true slaughter. Our troops pulled back to the safety of the temple as the Jotun began to scream. With a mighty toss of his head, Cerberus threw the broken body of Garm at Hel and sent them both crashing into the fleeing Giants. Then Cer bounded over to Freya and sat down beside her calmly, to watch with supreme satisfaction as the Jotun were wiped off the face of Tír na nÓg.
But it didn't stop there.
Our power rose with our vengeance; climbing higher and higher. When we had directed our magic to kill the Jotun, we had meant to target the soldiers who had joined Mimir's army—those that were on this planet. But the word we had used as a common focus between us was “genocide,” and it hadn't occurred to us that genocide meant the mass murder of every Giant in existence. We hadn't been thinking straight, and our fury had led us into lashing out without putting limits on our magic. We had set a goal for our music that exceeded our expectations in terrifying ways.
As the Jotun before us fell like wheat in the field, and the Lesser Fey ran into the clearing shouting in triumph, the song of five grieving Spellsingers launched itself into space and across the universe of Tír na nÓg. Our hands clenched tighter together as the music took us prisoner. I tried to stop singing, but I couldn't. The words just kept coming; the song had taken on a life of its own. Everything has a price. We had accepted that combining our song could have unforeseen consequences, and now, we had to face them.
An enormous amount of power was flowing through us; flying past realms with the determined and righteous purpose of killing an entire race in revenge for the death of one woman. I felt fear shiver through the others; they knew what we were about to do, and even Eilener was horrified by it. Women, children, and innocent men who hadn't taken Mimir's offer to claim a new world, despite its allure. We were about to murder an entire planet's worth of people who had done nothing to us.
I mentally shrieked for Kyanite to help us stop the song. But he was as panicked as I was; the song had become its own entity and resisted all attempts to control it. Kyanite's music had stopped as soon as the last invading Jotun was dead, but our magic had continued without him. He couldn't help me; all he could do was wait with me and fortify me physically against any backlash that might result from murdering a planet.
I began to cry; helpless tears streaking down my face. Had we saved one world only to kill another? The Spellsingers trembled beneath the weight of our actions; the heinous atrocity we were about to commit. But still, we sang.
I could see the spell as if it were a meteor; speeding across cold space toward the unsuspecting planet of Utgard. Below us, our troops stared up in confusion; no doubt wondering why we sang on when the enemy had been defeated, and the music had stopped. None of them knew to come up and help us; not that they could help, even if they had.
But then a Griffin separated from the flock and flew over to our balcony. He shifted into Gage, and then my lover ran to me. Gage took in my tears and the obvious strain on all of us, and panicked. He started to shake me wildly.
“Elaria!” Gage shouted. “Stop! Elaria, please! You can conquer this. Whatever it is; fight it. You're stronger than the magic.”
Inside me, the Rooster Spell crowed. I knew that she had alerted my other lovers, and they were rushing to me—just as I knew they couldn't stop the meteor of magic that was barreling toward Utgard. We had claimed our victory, but now we would pay the cost. No; the Jotun would pay it. We would simply have more to mourn. How could I live with this? I had done terrible things in my time, but never anything of this magnitude.
“Elaria?” Torin's voice penetrated my terrifi
ed thoughts.
Then his face appeared before me, but I couldn't focus on it. I knew Torin was searching my eyes, yet all I could do was stare straight ahead. And then he slapped me. I felt the sting, but it was stifled beneath the electrical fire of the magic coursing through me. The energy surged back and forth through us Spellsingers; building inside us even as it raced away from us. We had launched a genocidal bomb, and now we couldn't call it back.
Banning was there, and Declan too. I felt them through our link, and their power rushed into me. For a brief moment, I stopped singing and was able to take a hopeful breath. The other Spellsinger's glanced at me with wide eyes, but as soon as I took another breath to speak, my words came out in song. I was pulled right back into the magic.
The men cursed and continued to shake me; sensing that they needed to stop whatever was happening. But my focus drifted away from them, and my mind surged along with the spell. I felt the others with me; the wild beauty of Spellsinger minds spurring our magic on. My body collapsed with exhaustion, and the others went with me. We knelt on the cold stone and stared up at the sky hopelessly as we continued to sing. Our throats were going raw from the power and the strain of it; our voices screeching through the lyrics.
Then a shimmering filled the air before us. It spread out over the Spellsingers and settled into our skin. Peace filled me; the cool emotion quenching the fires of fury. Our song stopped with a squealing shriek, and we all fell forward. I gasped through the shock of the magic's abrupt halt as I felt our spell explode in open space. I began to cry in relief, but then the rebound of the explosion hit me in the chest. I was sent tumbling backward with the other Spellsingers. Fire raced through my veins, but as it burned, that shimmering haze flowed over it. My body collapsed, and the hands holding mine squeezed tighter.
I looked over at my Spellsinger kin and found the same awe in their tear-filled eyes.
“Alexandra,” we whispered as one before we passed out.
Chapter Sixty-One
I awoke to misery; emotional, not physical. I almost wished it were the later. Our side had suffered huge losses; Alexandra was just the tip of the iceberg. Every race had dead to bury, but it could have been much worse. We could all be dead, or all of Utgard could be. I sat up in bed and rubbed at my eyes; the sting of tears already emerging. I could feel the ache of emptiness that Alexandra's death had left in me. I had never realized how connected we were as a race. We had been close, despite the lack of time we spent together and the distance between us. When there were only five other people like you in existence, you tended to be like that. But I hadn't realized that I could feel them; in a similar fashion to how I could sense my consorts.
And now, one of them was gone.
“Ellie-phant,” my father whispered as he pulled me into a hug. “There you are, baby girl. We've been waiting for you to wake up.”
“Daddy,” I cried. “She's gone.”
“I know, honey.” He rocked me.
“It's okay, baby,” my mother crooned as she came in on my other side. “You're alive, and I'm so thankful for that.”
They held me for awhile, and then they eased away.
“There are a few men who have been waiting with us,” my dad said softly. “They're rather anxious.”
My parents slipped off the bed, and my consorts quickly took their places.
“Ellie,” Torin whispered as he pulled me into an embrace. “I'm so sorry about Alexandra.”
I couldn't speak; I just hugged him and let his solace surround me. Banning, Declan, and Gage moved in around me; each man touching me and giving me some of his strength. I inhaled deeply and then exhaled my grief. I couldn't hide in their arms forever.
“I'm okay,” I said as I sat up straight. “Thank you.”
“What was that?” Declan asked. “That glimmer in the air that went into you and the other Spellsingers?”
“It stopped something from happening, didn't it?” Torin asked.
I nodded and swallowed past the constriction in my throat.
“Elaria?” Gage stroked my hair back from my face gently. “You can tell us.”
“We were so angry,” I whispered. “We wanted all of the Jotun to pay. What we really wanted was to kill the soldiers that were here; those who had come to hurt Primeval.”
“But?” Banning asked.
“But what we focused on was the annihilation of their race,” I could barely get the words out.
The men inhaled sharply and exchanged horrified glances.
“You don't mean...?” Declan left the terrifying possibility unsaid.
“We mistakenly cast a spell to murder every Jotun in existence,” I admitted. “After the music killed the Giants here, it flew off the planet, toward Utgard.”
“Sweet stones,” Torin whispered. “That's what you were fighting against; your own spell.”
“We were trying to stop it, but you saw what happened; even our connection wasn't strong enough to overcome the combined song of five Spellsingers,” I said. “I tried everything; Kyanite, the RS, my own stubborn will, and nothing could end the song. The spell forced us to complete it.”
“So, what did stop it?” Gage asked.
“The only thing that could,” I whispered as I started to cry. “The soul of another Spellsinger.”
“Alexandra,” Declan said with wonder.
“She calmed us.” I sniffed and took a deep breath before I could continue. “She gave us the peace of the dead, and then she took the brunt of the spell's backlash. Alexandra saved our lives.”
“And then she said goodbye,” Adelaid said from the doorway.
“Aunty Addie!” I cried and reached for her.
She swept in with the other Spellsingers, and my consorts moved back so that my kin could crawl onto the mattress to me. We held each other and sobbed. We wailed and screamed and purged ourselves of the sadness until we were strong again. Then we wiped the tears from each other's faces and held hands.
“She saved us,” Eilener said. “Alex saved us from our folly, and we can never forget that or squander her gift.”
“We won't,” Adelaid said firmly. “We're going to live better now. Every moment is precious, and every song will be a miracle.”
“Where is she?” I asked. “Did someone get her down from the—” I choked on the words.
“We did,” my father said gently. “Alexandra has been gently prepared for burial by Kalli and me.”
“Thank you, Robert,” Adelaid said sincerely. “We'll take her home and bury her by the sea.”
Silence reigned a moment while the thought of Alex being buried hit home.
“Have you been downstairs yet?” I finally asked the Spellsingers.
They shook their heads.
“Someone put us in our beds,” Adelaid said. “When we woke, we went looking for each other. You were the last one found.”
“I've just come from below,” Cerberus said as he strode into the room. “Hey, El.” He came over and hugged me tightly. “You did good out there; they're singing your praises downstairs.” He looked over at the other Spellsingers. “They're singing all of your praises actually. Which I imagine is the best way to praise a Spellsinger.”
“Haha,” I fake laughed but also smiled. Then my smile fell. “Is Freya...?”
“Freya and Odin are both fine,” Cer assured me. “Neither the Drachen nor Griffins suffered any loses, but the Gods have eighteen dead, and the Witches have twenty-four.”
“We lost twice that number in Shining Ones,” Torin added. “And I'm told that the Lesser Fey suffered even greater losses.”
I took a deep breath and looked at Banning. His face was lined with grief and worry.
“Twenty-six,” he said softly.
“Oh, Banning,” I cried and reached for him.
He dove into my arms and held me tightly. I could feel him trembling, but he didn't cry. Not a single tear.
“I'm so sorry,” I whispered to him.
“They stood in
the sun again,” Banning whispered as he eased away. “That was a miracle for them. At least they had that before they died.”
“Let's go downstairs,” I said. “All of you need to be with your people.”
“Most of the soldiers from other realms have already left,” Cerberus announced. “They wanted to bury their dead at home.”
“Of course,” I murmured.
“But the leaders have remained to make their goodbyes to the Spellsingers,” Cerberus added. “Except for the Drachen and Griffins, who are all still here.”
