Academy of Falling Kingdoms Box Set

by Marisa Mills

  “I just want to protect the people I care about,” I said, helping him back into his wheelchair. “That’s all. It’s not too late to realize your vision. If you’re willing to try again.”

  My heart raced as my father looked me over with his bright, discerning eyes.

  “For you, I might be,” Nick said, about to reach for hand.

  Pain jolted through my side as chunks of ice exploded into the room. I fell to the ground, scraping my arm as I rolled over broken glass. Celeste raised her arms, unleashing a roar. Fury blazed in her violet eyes, and swirls of vibrant purple magic surrounded her. The pendant around her neck was shining like a dying star. She ripped it from its chain and clutched it in her fist.

  “My turn,” Celeste said, smiling wickedly. She swept her hand out, and jagged chunks of ice burst from the marble floor. Dorian shouted and thrust his rapier. It did nothing. Ice crept up to his waist. There was a terrible cracking noise, and blood seeped from beneath the ice.

  “Celeste, stand down!” Nick exclaimed.

  Viviane ran to Dorian, hastily drawing her sigils, but already, Viviane’s face was strained with blood. She’d used too much magic.

  “I will not,” Celeste said. “Not until Reverie is destroyed!”

  Nick swept his hand down, and the ice melted away. Dorian collapsed to his knees and gasped for air. Blood pooled beneath him, and Alexander dropped to the ground, his pen ready. I darted to Nick’s desk. Just as my fingers closed around the hilt of my rapier, lightning shot through me. I screamed and fell to the ground.

  “That’s enough!” Nick roared.

  With a sweep of his hand, ice encased Celeste up to her chest. Beads of blood dripped from Nick’s nose. Celeste screamed, and her face twisted in fury.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” Nick said.

  He wheeled himself forward. There was a sharp crack, and the ground beneath Nick burst open. With a roar, the ice surrounding Celeste burst apart, flinging sharpened fragments around the room. I turned my face away. Nick gasped and leaned forward. Alexander shouted, and when I looked up, blood poured from his shoulder. Dorian stumbled to his knees, shaking.

  The walls of the tower began to crumble, and the floor titled. The tower was ripping apart.

  “We have to get out of here!” Viviane shouted, pointing towards the door. The ceiling lurched, and the horizon shifted as the tower began to spin. Everyone ran towards the door. I paused, reaching back for my father as the room split in half, cracking open like a walnut to the starry sky. Celeste was going to kill all of us.

  “Wynter!” Alexander shouted. A great gap through the stones was between us, and it was growing wider too quickly. I watched, horrified, as Nick lifted his head and smiled at me. He raised his hand, and with a fierce shout, light burst into the room. The floor beneath Celeste crumbled. Cushions exploded into puffs of cotton; books ripped apart, their bindings becoming undone and loosing pages like caged birds. Celeste screamed as her veins rose and blackened, pulsing beneath her skin. My father had summoned decay.

  The ceiling fell. I jumped back as the marble crushed Nick’s desk, sending shards of wood flying. Celeste swept a hand out, and the wall burst apart in a shower of shattered marble and broken rock, but her eyes were full of fear as she began to fall. I scrambled up the steep incline as the tower came apart, jumping for the ledge as jagged chunks of stone fell towards the sea. A hand reached down to grab me, clasping my wrist and pulling me back onto the exposed remains of the tower. Flames were smoldering in the wood, sending sparks into the night sky.

  “We have to go,” Alexander rasped.

  My legs felt like they were made of lead, but I followed him down the stairs.

  Dorian leaned heavily on Viviane, who seemed to struggle beneath his weight. Alexander spat blood on the floor. Sterling had Claribel’s arm around his shoulder. Jessa limped. Of us all, Briar and Tatiana seemed to have fared the best, although blood was quickly spreading over Briar’s shoulder and Tatiana was covered in blood.

  “I don’t suppose you have a way off this rock?” Dorian asked, his voice tired.

  “We do, actually,” Jessa said. The streets were quiet and empty as we left the chambers. Moonlight bathed the obsidian streets and reflected off the sides of buildings. But the flames of the tower behind us were already raising alarms. I forced myself to put my steps one after the other, but more than anything, I just wanted to collapse in the road. Shouts came from behind us, and we ran through the alleys back to Jessa’s estate.

  My breath hitched when I remembered Lucian. The ruby was on the desk when the room fell apart, plummeting off the edge of Aubade. My eyes burned and my chest ached. He’d stayed with me through everything because he believed in me, and now he’d be stuck in a crystal at the bottom of the sea.

  We locked the gates behind us as soon as we entered Jessa’s estate. Minutes later, soldiers were pounding on the doors. I could see torches through the wrought-iron fence, as more and more guards arrived.

  We crammed inside the escape pod, filling the small space until there was barely room to breathe. With a jolt, the pod released, dropping quickly through rock and air before a small propeller sprang into motion, pulling us forward. I heard the ocean waves as we neared the ground, but from the window, all I saw was blackness.

  “It’s too late, Wynter,” Alexander said softly. “He couldn’t have survived.”

  “He did it once before,” Tatiana said.

  “There!” I shouted, pointing a search light down onto the beach, where we could see the still burning remains of the tower. I jumped out of the craft when it was low enough to the ground and ran across the beach until I found my father among the wreckage. I turned him over, and a gasp escaped his lips.

  “He’s alive!” I shouted over my shoulder. Alexander ran towards me through the surf, with Sterling and Briar right beside him. Together they grabbed Nick and lifted him away from the shore. We were near the edge of a small village, on the outskirts of the settlements below Aubade.

  “We may be able to procure carriages,” Dorian said. “If Aubade’s soldiers don’t find us first.”

  I nodded numbly, only half-registering the words.

  “Well, if that’s what you need,” a light, feminine voice said, “Consider it done.”

  My jaw nearly dropped as two women emerged from the shadows. I should have expected Francisca to follow us, but I hadn’t anticipated Eleanor, whose lips curled into a small, satisfied smirk. “Why, Dorian, you’re looking just awful.”

  Twenty

  WE’D ESCAPED, FOR NOW. IT was still late night, and the regions below Aubade were swarming with agents. We traced through the woods until we found a long abandoned settlement; just the tops of buildings that had been buried in the soil.

  “We have to stop,” Francisca said. “Your father’s not well.”

  Francisca removed the shrapnel from my father’s shoulder, and although she quickly wadded cloth over the injury, she wasn’t fast enough to halt the fountain of blood that emerged. Nick sighed and lay back against the cushions of the seat, staining them red. I watched with a detached sort of numbness. Already, Eleanor had tried drawing sigils over the wound, but blood still pulsed forth. Dorian tried as well, until Nick pushed him away and collapsed back into the opposite seat, coughing up blood and looking dazed.

  Finally, the wound closed, but Nick’s skin was clammy and pale. He hadn’t spoken or moved in a long time. I clasped my hands in my lap, barely aware of Eleanor’s gentle fingers beneath my shirt and the scratch of her pen.

  “Leave me here,” he called weakly. “I’m done for.”

  “Wynter,” Nick rasped, “Celeste is alive. She’s going to finish what she started. You must beat her to Reverie.”

  “Don’t speak,” I said, reaching out and taking his fingers into mine. “Please, rest.”

  Nick shook his head. “Just listen,” he said. “When—when we’re young, everything seems possible, and a
s we get older, we begin to realize how foolish we were. When I realized that I couldn’t change the world…I suppose I thought I’d settle and do the best I could. I loved Gwen so much. She gave me a purpose. And after she died, I realized just how much I’d depended on her. I told myself that maybe if I brought the man who killed her to justice, I could make everything all right again. But that was foolish, too.”

  “We can still make your dream happen, Father,” I said. “We can still create a world where demons and mages are partners and companions. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  My heart ached. I thought of Lucian, trapped in a gemstone at the bottom of the ocean, buried under rubble and sand. Had he been afraid when Celeste sealed him away again? A tear ran down my cheek. If only I still had my mother’s pendant, I could fix this, and heal my father. Instead, he was going to die right in front of me. I’d only just met him, and he was already being taken away.

  “Maybe…maybe you can,” he said, “but first, you’ll have to save Reverie. Celeste took the pendant,” he gasped. “And she has your blood. It’s all she needs. You must defeat her.”

  “But how? She’s too powerful with the pendant.”

  “There is another. The one I made for Gwen.”

  “But the king has it,” Viviane said.

  “Then ride into battle and take it back,” Nick said. “Don’t trust others to give you what you deserve. We must take what’s ours. I had eight powerful demons under my control. I gave four to Celeste.”

  “That explains why she was so powerful,” Alexander said.

  “I regret it now, she’s unstable and can’t be trusted. I wanted to do things… differently. You can learn from my mistakes. I was blinded by my anger. The other four,” Nick continued, flashing his hand, “are in these rings. I don’t know if they’ll obey you as they obeyed me, but…if you can get all eight, they might be enough to slow Reverie’s descent.”

  “So she’ll still fall, but with less the casualties,” Dorian said.

  Nick’s silver eyes flickered to him. “Maybe,” he said.

  “But that means defeating Celeste,” I said.

  Nick slowly nodded.

  I slumped back against the seat. How could we even hope to beat her? None of us had emerged uninjured. Even Nick, who had four demons himself, hadn’t been enough to defeat her. I pulled my feet up into the seat and watched numbly as Nick began pulling the rings off his fingers. He placed them in my hand and curled his fingers around mine. I felt a rush of energy, but it was overwhelming, so I tucked the rings away into my pocket.

  “It was an honor to meet you, daughter,” he said. “Loving your mother may have been the only good thing I ever did.”

  My eyes burned. I nodded. “Please,” I said, “You have to get better. I’ve just met you. You—you can’t—”

  Nick’s smile wavered. “My fight is done,” he murmured. “Yours is just beginning.”

  He sank back into his seat, as I curled my fingers around the rings. I watched silently as Nick’s eyelids closed. His chest rose and fell a few more times, then he stopped moving. I knew he was dead, but I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe if I didn’t believe it, none of it would be true. I brought my head down to my knees, but I bit back my tears.

  Everything had happened so quickly. Yesterday we didn’t know Nicholas Armenia was even alive. It seemed so foolish now, to try and infiltrate Aubade. What were we even trying to accomplish? It seemed so far away and distant now. A steady hum was building up in my ears, and I turned away quickly, vomiting in the sands, stumbling over my bare feet.

  Eleanor’s soft hands squeezed my shoulders. She coaxed me into a hug, and I broke. I buried my face in her shoulder, tears darkening her dress. She hummed and rubbed circles on my back, with quiet reassurances.

  “It’ll only hurt for a little while,” Eleanor murmured.

  But would it? I thought of Nick, still grieving for Guinevere after all these years. Eleanor was lying, and she knew she was lying. Sobs tore from my throat, and I cried until there were no more tears left.

  “I feel so stupid,” I said, looking up at the kingdom of Aubade on the horizon, swarming with red, glowing ships of the elite guard like hornets around a shaken nest.

  “I thought I could just walk in there and fix all this,” I said. “Stop the wars, the violence. Everything.” Nick had tried to do the same once. Now he’d given his life to save me, his only daughter. And what good had it done? Celeste was still out there, and now she had my blood. Reverie would fall, and it would be my fault.

  “Just lay down for a little while,” Eleanor murmured. She put a hand on my shoulder and nudged me, coaxing me until I lay my cheek against her thigh. Her hand stroked my hair.

  “Hush, dear,” Eleanor said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed and lay there, letting Eleanor pet on me as if I’d always been her beloved niece. It was strange to think of how she’d hated me in the beginning. But her affection felt genuine. It seemed like only a second later that Eleanor kissed my temple, but when I looked up, I was alone. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep, but I woke groggily.

  I joined the others in the small clearing. Dorian had laid out my father’s body. Without the wheelchair, he looked almost whole. I wondered how many rumors and legends had stemmed from this one man. The broken mage of the forests, liberating demons into the wild. The charming young man from the lower realms, setting Reverie abuzz with his new brand of magic. Before he’d been so crippled with power and revenge that he’d nearly destroyed a kingdom.

  “We thought you might want to say a few words,” Dorian said.

  “You’re just going to leave him here?” I asked, frowning.

  “They’ll be looking for his body,” Dorian said. “It may buy us some more time.”

  “Plus, he wouldn’t exactly be welcome in Reverie. This was his home. He was their Chancellor. They’ll bury him properly,” Eleanor said soothingly.

  “But under what name?” I asked. “His whole life in Aubade was a lie.”

  “We need to take cover,” Sterling said, pointing to a pyramid shaped building nearby, shrouded by the forest. My knees shook as I walked down the stairs in an underground chamber and settled on the cold ground, watching as my friends filed in after me. Our packs had been left at Bella’s estate, we didn’t have enough time to grab them. We had no supplies, but Eleanor and Francisca seemed to have anticipated that.

  Eleanor handed me a blanket. I curled up in it and settled in a corner. I leaned my head against the cold stone and looked everyone over as best as I could. My eyelids were heavy. I felt on the verge of tears again. We’d failed in Aubade. Lucian was gone. My father was gone. The only way to save Reverie might be to beat Celeste. Worst of all, I was too tired to care.

  I looked up at the ruins in the flickering of the small campfire Sterling had built, half buried in trees and sand. Was it just yesterday Tatiana had been collecting pink shells from the beach? It may as well have been a thousand years ago. The mages would go on fighting, the king in his battle armor against the armies of Aubade, while demons and humans got swallowed up in the rushing tides, ground up against the rocks like bits of broken glass.

  ***

  Time seemed odd after that. It came and went in little spurts, as I drifted in and out of sleep. I woke once, and it was dark. Everyone, save Francisca, had settled around the fire, and I knew she was probably patrolling the forests, serving as a look-out. Reluctantly, I forced myself up. I commanded my feet to work, shivering but drawn to the fire like a moth. Eleanor passed me a chunk of bread, and I ate it mechanically. I wasn’t hungry, and the bread tasted like ash.

  I squeezed between Tatiana and Jessa, and they made room for me. I glanced at their bandages, trying to see the damage my friends had taken in the battle. We were lucky to be alive.

  “And that was our plan,” Alexander finished. He’d been recounting the entire story, but I’d only c
aught the last sentence.

  “A valiant effort, Your Royal Highness,” Eleanor said. “It’s a pity you didn’t succeed. To think, I hired that woman to teach Viviane, and she was plotting our demise the entire time.”

  Dorian’s smile didn’t meet his eyes. “Perhaps meeting you drove her to this,” he said.

  Eleanor hummed and shrugged her slender shoulders, but I caught the guilt flashing across her pale blue eyes. Would she ever forgive herself for the alliance she’d forged with Celeste? How deeply it must have cut Eleanor, to know her ambitions for Viviane had put us all in danger?

  “I wish I’d realized you were going to fight Celeste,” Eleanor said. “I’d have come up to help.”

  “Seems like you showed up at just the right time,” Claribel said. “I’m glad someone had an escape plan.”

  Eleanor glanced at her, as if seeing her for the first time. To her credit, her lips didn’t recoil in horror, but maybe that was only because we were still wearing the clothes we’d pulled from Jessa’s estate, badly damaged from the fighting. I’d always pictured Claribel as an old woman living by the forests, but realized she was probably a few years younger than Dorian.

  “Lady Eleanor, Baroness Sherrinford,” my aunt said, extending a hand over the fire.

  Claribel shook her hand and offered a smile.

  “Claribel Hart,” she said. “My son Sterling.”

  Sterling grimaced, but Claribel kicked him and he offered his hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “And Briar,” Dorian cut in, nodding at the tall, dark shape lounging against the wall. “I don’t think you’ve met. He’s Wynter’s…brother.”

  Briar hesitated, looking towards me to confirm the designation. I winked at him. Blood or no, he’d always be my brother.

  “A pleasure,” Eleanor said.

  “Claribel had the delight of meeting our mother once or twice,” Dorian said.

  “Oh,” Eleanor said flatly. “How fortunate. I hope she wasn’t too demanding.”