by May Dawson
“Tera,” Cax says warningly.
“We’ll figure something out,” I say. “We always do.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” the young woman mutters. Her light blond hair is pulled back from her freckled face in a tight Dutch braid; she looks so young that I wonder if she had even graduated elementary school during the Savage Night. But she’s no less scary for all that.
I climb out of the wreckage of the train. She doesn’t even look back at me as she hops off, sure that I’ll follow. She lands easily in the dirty snow at the side of the tracks.
Behind her, there are a dozen king’s men.
“Come here,” she reminds me, her voice lilting and playful. “I’d rather not kill him. Just for old time’s sake.”
Reluctantly, I slide off the edge of the train. I’m a lot less graceful than she is. I land heavily on my feet, and my knees buckle.
But it doesn’t matter, because there are instantly half-a-dozen king’s men surrounding me. Two of them grab my arms. I don’t have the chance to fall.
“Sana eum,” she says off-handedly.
The rest of the king’s men storm toward the train. I try to look back over my shoulder, to see if my men are okay or not.
The king’s men swarm the train, and I expect to hear the clash of sword-on-sword or the pop of magic exploding. But there’s silence.
As she cuffs me, I hear one of them call, “They’re gone.”
“Of course they are,” she mutters.
I smile, and she yanks the cuffs tighter.
“What am I being arrested for, exactly?” I ask. “Poor taste in parents?”
“It’s your own crimes you have to answer for, Tera Donovan.”
“Still waiting for details.” I cock my head to one side, listening intently. Are my men coming for me now? Or later? That’s the only question. I know they’ll come.
There’s a hissing sound coming from the train, and the sound of the people all around us calling out to each other as they reconnect with loved ones. Someone is weeping. “Did you really take out an entire train full of innocent civilians in order to get to me?”
“Don’t act like you care,” she shoots back.
“I don’t think I’m the one with crimes to answer for.” I hope everyone made it out safe. My chest is tight as she pushes me away down the line.
She pushes me into another rail car, a single one with an engine, that waits at the end of the rails, guarded by king’s men.
I’m alone as I climb the stairs with her right behind me. But I don’t feel alone.
Not for long.
The king’s men tramp in behind us.
She pushes me into a lush padded seat across from her in a first class cabin, then bangs the door shut behind us. We’re surrounded by ornate gilt decorations and lush red velvet that reminds me of my yacht. Lord, I miss my yacht.
We leave the wreckage of the train behind us, blocking the rail into Vasilik. The train chugs steadily deeper into Avalon. I gaze out the window, which is barred. It’s begun to snow again.
“So I’m behind on the news,” I say. “What’s going on in Avalon?”
What I desperately want is news about Alia—and Stelly, for that matter, though she was safe enough the last time Cax spoke to her—but I don’t want to reveal who matters to me. The Crown knows too much about that already. The king will use that against me if he can.
She stares at me, her eyes wide and her jaw set. It’s a look of utter disgust. “Oh, you know. Ravengers have killed perhaps two hundred people since you decided to tear open the fabric between our realms.”
“I did no such thing.”
Pale blond brows twist together over her pretty, sharp-edged face, and she leans forward dangerously close to me. “Be. Quiet.”
I never get used to having someone stare with fervent hatred in their eyes. But I’ve certainly been here before.
“Who did you lose?” I ask. Even if she can’t see my humanity, I look for what’s real and decent in her.
She snorts, shaking her head.
“A parent?” Both of mine are dead, but I doubt mentioning the deceased dark lord will lighten the mood in the room. “Sibling? Lover?”
She moves so fast, she’s a blur. She pins me to the back of the seat, and the steely edge of a blade cuts into my throat. “Stop talking.”
When I swallow, I can feel the cold blade nick my skin. “That train wreck. Do you think innocent civilians lost whoever you lost? People were separated from their spouses, kids from their parents—”
“Yes, I saw you helping like the fake heroes you are.” Her voice shakes with the accusation.
I bet her loss is fresh. Tension twists through my stomach, but follow my gut, even though her eyes glitter with fury.
“Do you trust the King who ordered a mission that cost his own citizens’ lives? There had to have been another way. But he didn’t really care, did he?”
“Shut up,” she warns again.
She can’t kill me. She has to deliver me to Avalon for a trial—or at least, for a public execution. I’m hoping for a trial first.
Most of all, I’m hoping that it’s broadcast. The seeds of an idea are sprouting in my mind.
I wonder if I can still reach any of my men. Devlin?
“What are you doing?” she demands. My eyes must have gone glassy when I turned inward, trying to talk to Devlin.
I make eye contact with her. “Trying not to breathe too deeply.”
“You’ve got jokes.”
Tera, are you alright?
No. Same curt answer he’s given me before. But I will be. I need you to get in touch with Rian and have him contact the others. Tell them to leave me alone for now, but let Aerowyn and Penny loose. Rescue is the plan B—not until it looks like the noose is going to drop.
What kind of trouble are you in now?
The hanging kind. But I’ve got a plan.
Tera—
Whatever Devlin wanted to say to me is lost as the girl in front of me elbows me in the face.
Red-hot pain explodes as her elbow slams into the bridge of my nose. I cry out, then draw a ragged breath. Blood pours down the front of my face, and I tilt my head, trying not to gag on it.
“You’re not going to use your magic in here, Donovan,” she tells me.
No, I’m not.
I’m saving my magic for the execution stage.
Chapter 36
The king moves fast these days, apparently.
When they pull me off the train and take me by carriage to the town center, they bring me directly to the gallows. It’s a cloudy, overcast cold day, and the sun doesn’t seem to reach the square at the center of town.
“You’ll be tried here,” the girl who captured me says as she pushes me to the edge of the stairs that lead up to the gallows.
I gaze past the executioner who stands at the foot of the gallows and up to the wooden frame that seems to tower in the sky. “Seems like a rather foregone conclusion based on the setting. Not a lot of suspense here.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” she asks brightly.
She pushes me toward the executioner, and he takes over leading me. Together, the two of us slowly climb the flight of stairs. There’s a sea of angry faces watching us.
I wonder how many in all the other towns and cities of Avalon are watching this moment broadcast by the power of magicians. The king’s gallows and his victims are re-created in every town torn apart by Ravengers.
Thankfully, she wiped my swollen face free of blood—none too gently—and healed my nose before we left the car. I can’t imagine how my men would feel to see me in chains, bruised and bleeding. My request might not be enough to hold them back.
Their trust in me does war with their possessive protection.
But this time, this is my fight. My magic.
My redemption. Or maybe my death. I don’t know. Some plans come together better than others. And I’ve put together most of this plan with a bloody nose an
d a bad headache. I’m not at my best.
At the top of the gallows, I can smell fresh-cut wood; they’ve erected this thing almost as fast as the rips have torn through Avalon. I suppose it does provide good opportunity for the king to reinforce his control.
Everyone is terrified right now, and the more fearful a people, the easier they are to control. My father used that to his purposes, too.
Then a portal ripples, and four king’s men step out. My heart leaps. I’m so glad to see the king step out onto the stage, carrying the shield of Everlach.
And so is the crowd. They go wild. But I think we’re pleased for very different reasons.
The king’s magician follows him. He kneels at the front of the stage, rocking back and forth as he puts himself into a trance, muttering his incantation. When he looks up, his eyes are glassy.
Somewhere, many more people are watching this madness unfold. Maybe the men I love. My heart aches for them because I know how I would feel in their place.
“We’re here today,” the king says, “to bring Tera Donovan to justice.”
And the crowd goes wild yet again.
He points a finger at me. “When she’s gone, will the rips she created seal again? Who knows?”
It’s worth a try seems to be the general consensus from the crowd.
“This is the tool she used to destroy so much of Avalon.” The king grips the shield in his hands as he studies it. He looks to me. “Do you deny it?”
“Do I get to mount a defense?” I ask.
The king stares me down. “Of course. There is always justice in Avalon.”
There’s a fantasy.
But the executioner releases my chains. It doesn’t matter in terms of an escape; I’m surrounded by the king’s guards and an angry crowd that would rip me apart. It just makes the king look magnanimous.
And it means I can reach my invisible blade.
I massage my wrists which ache from the cuffs. The king goes on and on, outlining the case against me, and I half-listen. It’s not his current lies that I plan to respond to, anyway.
Finally, he comes to a close. “Tera Donovan, how do you possibly defend yourself after all you’ve done? Explain yourself to Avalon.”
Oh, yes I will, thank you.
He gave me a platform, a way to reach all of Avalon.
“I’ve been accused of being my father’s daughter,” I say softly, knowing that with magic at play now, my words will reach the crowd, “and with that, of carrying out his dark legacy. We are all haunted by the Savage Night. And some of us are haunted by the day that came first.”
I only have one chance at my spell. Repeating Devlin’s words, I snatch the blade from my belt and slice it across my palm. In my haste, the blade slices too deep, and I hiss as it strikes through not just skin, but the muscle underneath.
The king’s men start forward, but there’s a pool of my blood in my palm now, and I fling it up in the air, the same way that Devlin did when he showed me his memories.
“Blood magic!” The king shouts, yet another charge against me.
The drops of bead pause in the air, hanging there, and then glittering red magic arcs between the beads. The air in front of me ripples, and my memories play.
My father kneels on the floor of a cell, broken and distraught. The crowd hisses at the sight of him.
“Shut her up,” the king shouts. “She deals in lies, just like her father!”
He hits me, and I fall to my knees hard on the rough wooden floor. Pain jolts up my knees. But I squeeze my eyes shut. All that matters is this moment. All that matters is the truth. I just have to live long enough to let it play.
The king’s magician crosses the floor. His arms are folded across his chest as he studies my father curiously. “The king needs a villain.”
Padrick Donovan looks up into his glowing eyes. His face etches with lines of terror.
“You’re going to be our villain,” the magician promises him, taking his head in his hands. My father jerks away from him, but he can’t escape. “No one will ever listen to the True once you’ve killed for them, destroyed for them. You’ll be Avalon’s enemy, not the rips themselves.”
“No,” my father tries to pull away. “Get away from me.”
“You’re going to love being the villain,” the magician promises. He lowers his head to speak intimately into my father’s ear. “And even as you lose yourself, you’ll remember this: if you fail us, if you’re soft, if you’re merciful, if you don’t make the True the most hated and feared to ever walk Avalon….I’ll slit the throat of your wife and child in front of you, and we’ll start again with the next in command of the True. You’re disposable, and so are they. So be evil, and save them.”
My father begs. But it doesn’t matter.
“You’re altering the past,” the king accuses me. “I had nothing to do with Padrick Donovan.”
“And you had nothing to do with the rips,” I answer, my voice clear and ringing.
The crowd has gone very silent.
This time, I call to mind the king wielding the shield of Everlach, tearing open the fabric between the realms. Ravengers come flying through the gap, and the crowd yanks back in fear, even though they aren’t real.
“That’s a lie!” The king shouts. “That never happened!”
He’s not wrong. But there’s truth in it anyway.
I switch to remembering the night we came through the rip and into the city of Minsk, the house where my men and I fought to save a family from Ravengers. I let them all see the moment when the family recognizes me, when the mother tears her child out of my arm, as afraid of me as she was of the monsters.
Watching it play out again makes me bite my lip in shame. There’s just something about the terror and outrage on that woman’s face, even if she shouldn’t have felt that way about me to begin with.
There’s a restless murmur in the crowd. I hope they see themselves in her.
But most of all, I hope they see the king’s guilt.
I get to my feet heavily. The magic I’ve woven has taken its toll.
The shield lays on the platform halfway between the king and I. He must have thrown it away from him. My lips part as understanding dawns. Even here, in full view of Avalon, he’s trying to frame me for creating the rips.
A rip tears open below the gallows. The king and I are safe above it, but people scream and scatter as half-a-dozen Ravengers lunge through and terrorize the crowd.
“She’s opening up the rips!” the king accuses.
I can’t be sure what anyone saw in the distracting blur on stage. People are screaming.
Down in the chaos, there’s something burning. At first, I think the city is on fire, the same way I left that Vasilik town. Apparently, wherever I go, things end up on fire.
But the flames are moving steadily, almost elegantly. It’s a sword on fire, cutting down Ravenger after Ravenger.
It’s Airren, wielding Excalibur. Then I pick out Mycroft in the chaos, and the Fox—no, two Foxes, fighting side-by-side, looking so very similar in the way they strike with a sword and dance back.
But Ravengers keep coming, no matter how fiercely they fight.
One Ravenger knocks the Fox down—which Fox, I don’t know—and he crawls back, reaching for his sword, as the thing stalks toward him…
A black dragon with spreading leathery wings plummets down from the sky like a shot.
Penny soars back up into the clouds carrying the Ravenger, which is kicking and flailing helplessly.
Airren throws his hand out and helps the Fox to his feet, and the two of them return to fighting in one smooth flawless motion.
I drop to my knees and grab the shield as the king vanishes back through the portal. It’s so heavy I can barely lift it—well, Mycroft made this look easy—and I balance the pointed tip on the floor as I slide my arm through the straps. I bump my bloodied hand into the strap, and I bite back a curse as fresh pain jolts up my arm. I’m still bleeding s
teadily, all over the shield of Everlach.
My men buying time for everyone to get clear of the nightmare scene far below. But sooner or later, all my men will fall out there. And they won’t get up.
There seems to be a never-ending stream of Ravengers coming through that rip.
I whistle, calling Aerowyn to me. She always seems to know what I need. There’s some kind of connection between us.
When she soars down from the clouds, my heart lifts. I’ve got my chance.
Then she lands on the stage, her feet striking the wood with sharp clacks, and she already has a ride. Cax is on her back.
Cax pushes back his flop of golden hair from his green eyes, and holds his hand out to me. “May I have this dance?”
“Cax,” I say. I don’t want him to be the one to jump. I force myself to grip the shield, even though it’s hard to close my fingertips around the grip. I won’t let him take it from me. “I’m going into that rip.”
Avalon doesn’t deserve me, but a country is a complicated thing. I’m going to die for them anyway.
“I’m not stopping you,” he says steadily. “Airren would kill me if he knew. I told him I’d fly you far away from here.”
“Still with the lies?” I ask, although relief floods my chest. Cax, somehow, understands.
“Well, we are spies,” he says with a wink.
I slide onto Aerowyn’s back, behind him. Her wings flutter, and the powerful muscles in her back shudder beneath us. I close my eyes, savoring this moment one last time, as my free arm slides around Cax’s lean waist.
Together, the three of us soar into the sky.
Flying still feels like magic.
And magic isn’t something I take for granted, even after being here in Avalon again for all this time.
This is a good way to end my story.
“You trusted me to make my own decision,” I say into Cax’s ear as the two of us soar over the rip.
“I do,” he says. “And I trust us.”
“What do you mean?”
He glances at me over his shoulder, as best he can, and his smile seems sad. “We always find a way to complete the mission, don’t we?”
I lean my head against his shoulder, just for a second. I’m so tired of being Tera Donovan, of Avalon itself, which seems bizarre after I fought so hard to be here and to stay here. I don’t want to die, though.
