by Caris Roane
These thoughts shot through his head repeatedly as the Invictus pairs finally emerged from the woods, the horrible wraiths who had perverted themselves to take on a symbiotic mate, essentially enslaving another realm inhabitant. Wraiths often kidnapped realm-folk, of varying species, to forge a bonded pair and in that bonding, power surged. A weapon of war resulted, but to what army did this weapon belong?
He recalled Gerrod speaking of the Great Mastyr Vampire and an ancient fae force, but did these entities exist or had they been the imaginings reported by a wraith in the throes of death?
But the nature of the Invictus, as well as their consistent reappearance in each of the Nine Realms year after year, had long-convinced Ethan that some greater force lay behind the constant Invictus threat. The recent Merhaine attacks, with dramatically increased Invictus numbers, as well as the escalation in his own Bergisson Realm, showed organized strategy and tactics, the work of a master-mind.
“Steady!” His voice boomed down the ranks and an answering shout returned, echoing against the front line of the forest. They were fifty Guardsmen strong tonight, with rest of his Guard out patrolling in every sector of his realm.
But this part of the battle he loved, the unity of his Guard, the brotherhood of warriors, fighting for their land and for their people, whom they served. He shouted with his men, great cries into the night, daring the enemy to test their mettle.
A new figure rose above the red wind, however, high into the air, cresting the tops of the trees. He felt Finn reach for him along his telepathic frequency and he opened up.
Are you seeing this? Finn’s voice slid into his mind.
Ry. That bastard.
What the fuck does this mean? He can’t have gone over to the Invictus?
Ethan had a hard time believing it as well. And yet, I’m not surprised. I wonder how long this has been going on? Has he been betraying Bergisson all these years?
I wouldn’t put it past him.
Since the Invictus advanced, there was nothing more to be said and Ethan closed down the communication. He prepared himself for battle as the wraiths came into view.
Wraiths wore loose clothing, often made up of simple strips of fabric sewn together, to allow for movement in flight. They rarely walked on solid ground, but rather flew, levitated, or floated. They were almost always barefoot with spindly legs not meant for supporting their weight on land.
Ry didn’t come down from the treetops, however, but remained levitating and smirking, arms over his chest. He wore leather pants and a black tee, his Guard uniform clearly a thing of the past. The Invictus pairs would do his bidding tonight, that much Ethan sensed, but why? What power did he have over them and how had he gained that level of command?
The Invictus advanced, a fierce line of wraith-pairs, a hundred strong tonight, which meant two hundred in number. Their mates came from all species but transformed so that even trolls held a fierce look and reddened eyes that indicated a bonding with a wraith. Steel weapons of all kinds appeared in ready hands.
Ethan gathered his remaining power, but even as he prepared to do battle, the spots at the edges of his vision increased and his dizziness swelled. When his stomach twisted into a knot, something he’d never felt before, he knew he was in real trouble.
He opened his telepathy and pathed Finn once more. Finn!
I’m here, mastyr.
I’ve got a situation.
We’ve got a battle.
Close my gap, now. You’re in charge.
Finn glanced at him. Shit. Okay. No problem. Don’t worry; I’ve got this.
Ethan was falling backward at the same moment Finn closed up the battle shield. He heard Finn’s voice as he started calling out orders.
But once more, his voice intruded. Fuck, Ethan. We’re in trouble. We’ve got at least a hundred pairs coming out of the forest and Ry is smiling. This was a planned attack and he knew the majority of your force would be out on their patrols.
Ethan’s consciousness wavered but he felt the decision come together in his mind like a powerful magnet pulling the pieces to each other. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but he knew now that without Samantha’s help, his force would perish tonight, the Guildhall would be overrun, and hundreds of innocents would die.
He opened his telepathic frequency again, only this time he focused on Samantha. Can you hear me?
A pause, then, I hear you, Ethan.
I need you. I need you to serve me. I didn’t want to infringe on your freedom, but can you come to me? It’ll be dangerous, but can you come?
Already heading in your direction.
Thank the Goddess. The spots grew larger and he closed his eyes. He couldn’t even hear the battle anymore.
*** *** ***
The moment Samantha had seen Ethan fall, she’d started running. She hadn’t joined Vojalie and the others in the shelter, not when she was watching the vision from the prave play out in front of her eyes, not when she knew what would happen, not when she saw Ethan fall.
Vojalie, to her credit, had left Samantha alone to follow her own path.
The field felt like an unlimited distance, however, that kept increasing as the battle raged. Blue and red streams of light flashed everywhere and she kept hearing the wraiths shriek, a sound that sent chills through her.
One of the end Guardsmen suddenly broke away from the battle and headed in her direction. She understood and shifted course to meet him, her arms pumping hard. Her heart had never felt so weighed down, so ready to burst.
When the Guardsman drew close, she lifted her arms while still running. He caught her easily, flew her the distance to Ethan in a matter of seconds, then dropped her to the grass beside him. He took off almost in the same moment, heading back to his position in the ranks.
But the Bergisson mastyr was as pale as death.
“Ethan,” she called out, kneeling next to him.
His head moved slightly, but he wouldn’t open his eyes, wouldn’t wake up. She couldn’t feed him by herself; he’d need to participate. She struck him across the face with her hand once then twice.
When his eyes opened and he saw her, she lay down beside him and placed her wrist over his mouth. He met and held her gaze as his fangs struck.
A sting then heavy pulls on her arm. He groaned at the same time.
The battle raged beyond so that she didn’t think about what Ethan was doing, but watched in horror as wraiths screamed high-pitched battle sounds and threw weapons in precise patterns at each of the Guardsmen. But when caught by an answering stream of Guard battle-energy, chests smoked and imploded, blood flew in horrifying arcs and their mates cried out as if in terrible pain, maybe dying with the wraiths.
She’d never seen so much violence or gore in her life.
Look at me.
Ethan’s voice cut through the agony around her. She turned her head and met his gaze.
He continued, Look only at me. Don’t think about what’s happening out there. Close your eyes if you need to.
She blocked the sounds of the battle, then closed her eyes. She pictured the cottage by the lake, the one she’d envisioned since childhood although in those visions she always saw her mother waving to her, beckoning her to come to her. How pretty her mother looked in this fantasy, with a blue dress that went clear to the ground, an old-fashioned gown from a hundred years ago, almost peasant-like.
No, more like Vojalie’s tunic. More fae-like.
How much she missed her.
The cottage had smooth river-rock all around the base, then dark beams and plaster above, and wood-shingle roof. A garden gate with a climbing rose over a trellis heralded the vegetable garden at the side of the house. Weeping willows graced a vast lawn on both sides of the property. A dock went out several yards into the lake.
She’d love to live there someday.
Arms suddenly scooped her up, but not Ethan’s. The same Guardsman who’d brought her to him, now carried her away.
She twisted in his arm
s, to glance back at Ethan. He stood tall and clear-eyed; strong. He waved to her with a short lift of his hand then turned back once more to engage the enemy. He’d been completely restored.
She’d done that. She’d been of service. She’d helped.
She’d also opened a door, crossing from spectator to participant. She doubted she’d be able to shut that door.
As the Guardsman dropped her by the Guildhall, she turned once more to watch him levitate and shoot into the air. She hadn’t wanted this, but here she was, in Bergisson, having just fed a mastyr vampire and she’d never felt better in her life.
She had no idea what the future held, but Shreveport somehow seemed like a faraway place and definitely a world apart.
*** *** ***
Ethan’s renewed strength sent shockwaves down both sides of the Guard’s joint shield, which resulted in a series of whoops.
Like music to Ethan’s ears.
He’d never felt more alive, more powerful.
Beams of energy flew from the tips of his fingers in lightning flashes, stronger and more lethal than ever before. Many of the pairs began to drop where they stood, and after a few minutes more, the Invictus line began to retreat in stages.
The Guardsman to his right gave a heavy groan. He’d taken a blade to his upper chest, high enough to have escaped lungs or heart. Ethan retaliated, and sent a strong stream of power straight for the offending wraith’s right eye. The wraith screamed as he fell from levitated flight, his body hitting the earth with a thud and twitching. His mate, a female troll dropped to the earth as well, her eyes rolling in her head.
Ethan saw her shudder and thought she might have murmured, ‘I’m free’ as she died, but couldn’t be certain.
He continued battling, his strength never wavering, a phenomenal circumstance alone given the acute suffering of the past several weeks. Had his body somehow known that his blood rose existed out there, had been calling to her all this time?
He caught one last glimpse of the traitor, Ry, his eyes narrowed and hard as he met and held Ethan’s gaze. The promise of vengeance radiated from Ry’s expression, the set of his jaw, and the reddening of his dark eyes. He moved fast, and soon disappeared beyond the canopy of the beech-wood.
A horn sounded in the distance, a sound Ethan had never heard before. The Invictus had, however. Those remaining wraith-pairs, at least fifty in number, and as if trained to respond instantly, turned and shot back into the depths of the woodland, leaving their dead and wounded behind.
His suspicions that something, or someone, had brought an increased degree of order to the wraith-pair ranks, had just been proved here on the field. Clearly, Ry was involved, but knowing Ry as he did, Ethan doubted that the traitor had achieved this level of organization alone.
So, who were the mastyrs of the Nine Realms really battling in what appeared to be an escalating war against a growing Invictus offensive?
He turned to Finn, stationed beside him, and despite the horror of those lives lost, his second-in-command smiled then pathed, You look a helluva lot better, my friend.
Ethan nodded. To merely say he felt better seemed like so much less than what needed to be said, what should be honored. His blood rose, a woman he’d met just over twenty-four hours ago, had crossed to the frontlines of a battlefield and fed him, not only saving his life but providing Ethan with enough added power to alter and undoubtedly shorten the duration of the fairground battle.
It’s over, was all he could think to say. His gaze drifted to the wraith-corpses, to their mates of varying species who’d been harnessed to a wraith against his or her will. Yes, there were women on the field, even less able than the men to have withstood a wraith subjugation.
He went to the troll he’d observed fall and murmur something, but when he reached her, she was gone. Sometimes the separation occurring from the death of the wraith set in motion the demise of the mate. The troll was very thin and covered in bruises. Around her neck was a locket.
He opened it and saw the pictures of a boy and girl, the smiling photos taken at elementary school. But the pictures looked old, which meant the woman had been bound to a wraith for a long time.
He picked her up in his arms and held her. He didn’t care about the why of this tragedy, only that it still existed in his realm and he wanted this kind of enslavement to end.
Many of those fae with healing gifts were already running or engaging in levitated flight to cross the expanse of lawn, that stretch near the Guildhall where soccer was played every weekend through the inter-species league.
His might be a kingdom with a warring enemy, but his people pitched in as dozens, no hundreds of realm-folk came to care for his injured Guardsmen and the wounded among the wraith-pairs.
Finn and another of his Guard, Kyle, went from fallen Invictus pair to the next in order to determine if either wraiths or the mates survived. The wounded wraiths would be taken to a prison hospital as would any mates found to be hostile or beyond reach.
Those mates who had been obviously subjugated against their will and who survived the death of the wraith, were given priority and rushed first to the fae with the greatest healing gifts as well as the realm-surgeons as needed.
Several of his Guard patrolled the edge of the beech-wood to make sure the enemy had truly quit the field. Ethan only had to learn once the hard way that sometimes the retreat was a feint.
The corpses were gathered and taken to various morgues.
When the battlefield saw the last bit of debris hauled away, including the grass washed free of blood and any other battle-related detritus, like pieces of burnt clothing and scattered weapons, only then did Ethan finally levitate into the air and begin a slow progression in the direction of the Guildhall and Samantha.
A single thought of Samantha, however, put his heart in high gear. Having taken her blood had changed everything and now that the battle was over, his body seemed lit up and ready just for her.
He took deep breaths because what he needed from her now had nothing to do with a deep draw at her neck. But Goddess help him, how could he ask even more of her?
*** *** ***
Samantha wanted to go home, back to Shreveport.
This was all too much.
She stood in the shadows of the Guildhall, having watched the last of the fae healers, the physicians, and the support volunteers depart the field so that now only Ethan and his Guard remained.
And Ethan moved slowly in her direction.
She felt him coming for her like a slow-moving ocean wave, something she couldn’t stop even if she’d wanted to.
She’d fed Ethan and he’d battled his enemy, maybe even saving the day, or the night, so to speak. But this wasn’t her fight or her war. She was human, too, not just fae, not just a blood rose. Why should this be her fate?
Earlier, families with children and the aged had gone home as soon as a member of the Guard told them it was safe, scattering quickly to either cars in the parking lot or taking off in levitated-flight. Many of the realm-folk could fly, but a good number relied on more traditional forms of transportation. Those who had arrived at the fairgrounds on bicycles arranged to travel in cars with supportive friends and family members.
The grass looked pristine in the glow of her new realm-vision.
What had taken place, once the battle ended, had been accomplished by the local realm-folk by long habit, a story all in itself.
The Invictus had tormented the Nine Realms for centuries and no matter how many wraith-pairs were killed, more arrived to replace each lost unit. Vojalie’s insights into Bergisson’s daily life flowed through her mind, of how hard the community of a million souls strived to live each day as normal as possible despite the constant threat of an unpredictable enemy.
As Ethan drew near, she couldn’t believe how much better he looked. The blue beneath his eyes had vanished and his complexion now had a golden, tanned appearance instead of the chalk she’d witnessed even at the prave.
“You’re better.” She wished he wasn’t, wished her blood hadn’t been good for him, but the evidence of what she was stood right in front of her.
Because of the battle, his long hair had come loose from the woven clasp that held it in place. Curls and strands flowed away from his face and her heart thrummed all over again, getting ready for him if he needed her. He shouldn’t be so beautiful. He should be thin, pale and evil-looking instead of towering over her like a god from mythology.
“You’re alone?” Ethan scowled.
“I sent Vojalie back to your house as soon as the Invictus left. The baby needed her.”
“But there’s no one else here.” He glanced beyond her to the Guildhall.
“I felt secure enough because your Guardsmen are still patrolling.”
“I don’t like that you’re alone. You should have gone with Vojalie.”
Did he have to be so worried for her safety?
Tears filled her eyes and she was ready to launch into all her reasons for why she wanted him, right this minute, to take her back to Shreveport. But he stepped close and took her arm gently in his hand and squeezed. “Thank you.”
Her breath caught and held. “You don’t have to say that, not to me, not for this.”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t have time to tell you before. Thank you for saving my life. In fact, because of what you did, you saved hundreds of lives tonight, not just mine.”
She was taken aback. “Is that what I did?”
He nodded. “I don’t know why, but I wasn’t far from death. I didn’t realize it until you came to me, until I started to feed. I’m stubborn in that way. I don’t always understand the most basic things.”
At the time that she’d crossed the field to him, she’d felt so confident about doing what was needed to be done, just as Vojalie had said she would feel. But why did it all have to be about life-and-death?
“I want you to find someone else.” There she’d said it.
“I know. I can feel it in you, that you’re unhappy about what happened, that you feel trapped, and I’ll do whatever you say because I believe in your right to whatever path you want to follow.
