by Laney McMann
I splashed cold water on my face, tore my clothes off and shoved them in the laundry hamper the servants left before pulling on a clean shirt and jeans.
He would have tried to kill Layla.
I paced the room.
Said he'd kill Justice. I had to do it. Ryan was out of his mind. I had no choice.
Looking down at my hands—they were sticky and red. I washed them again, splashed more water on my face.
Why was Layla out in the middle of a dark field with Justice anyway? She's hurt. She should be in bed, healing, not ... throwing daggers at trees in the dark!
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, specks of blood still marking my face. The wide, dark pupils and deep purple circles under my eyes. I barely recognized myself anymore. Justice knows better than to put her at risk. This hell-forsaken castle is nothing but a death trap for her. Why doesn't he just take her and leave?
Because he can't, and you know that!
And what the hell was that on her neck? Fire growing on her palms at the sight of me? Me?
I stared at the mismatch of spear tips on the side of my throat like it was a life-sucking leech, always there. A taunting reminder of what I was becoming. Someone who lurks in the shadows. Kills people in cold blood.
I don't even know if Ryan was armed. Maybe he wouldn't have done anything ...
I glanced at the brand on my throat again. A similar brand was on Layla's neck, not just the place where she’d been cut.
The brand looked the same as mine. Didn't it?
It was so dark out in the field, but it had looked like the Fomorian Coat of Arms.
Why the hell would she have —
"Max?" Layla's voice.
My hand slipped off the edge of the wet sink and my head careened into the glass mirror, shattering it. A line of blood streamed down my face from a gash over my eye, and I swayed, gripping the sink for balance.
"You don't have to answer." Layla's voice, not a voice from a different time with a different timbre, but her normal voice, chimed in my head. "I know you can hear me." She sighed. "You heard me earlier ... when I first came to the castle. You said, "I." I heard you. That wasn't really me, though. Talking to you before."
Was that hesitancy in her tone? Maybe, but my head was spinning.
I found myself sitting on my bed, unsure how I'd gotten there, blood spilling through the fingers pressed against my forehead. Spots grew behind my closed eyelids, my head pounding. I found it hard to concentrate. I listed to the side. Layla's sweet voice chimed in my thoughts again. It had to be a dream. The best dream, but still, just a dream. My body fell back, head hitting the pillows.
*****
“I bet you can’t catch me!” Layla takes off through the tall sea grass.
“Wanna bet?” I race after her.
The cliff ledge is close in this part of the forest, running almost semi-circular before dropping off without warning onto the jagged rocks and freezing sea below.
Layla’s steps quicken, her blonde hair flying like a kite trying to gain altitude, leaves and twigs snagging at it as she runs through the Wood. She laughs, high and light on the wind, smiling back at me, and comes to a stop near the edge we know so well. “I told you I’m faster than you.” She laughs and holds her arms open.
I run closer, breaths heaving, and pull her into me, off the ground, so we’re eye level.
“You cheated.” I grin, kissing her mouth. “You always do.”
Layla wraps her hands around my neck, and runs her fingers through my hair, pulling me close. “Maybe next time, I’ll let you win,” she says, before her lips graze mine, causing me to shiver.
The sensation wracks my body like a violent onslaught of a sudden illness, and causes me to lurch me forward, releasing my hold on her. A ripping sound crowds my ears, and my grip tightens around the knife in my hand.
Layla’s eyes widen. Blood seeps from a wound in the center of her chest, coating her shirt red.
"And you thought I'd never hurt you." I smile.
She screams.
My grasp loosens around the hilt of the silver dagger, arms falling to my sides. Layla stumbles backward, and falls off the cliff.
*****
"Max?" Someone shoved my shoulder. "Max, wake up."
With a groan, I rolled over onto my side, and blinding pain seared through my temple. Groaning, I opened my eyes, or tried to. My bed was soaked, sticky, and hot, and my vision was off, blurred in one eye. The soft light from my bedside table lamp glowed in a yellow spot on the wall and ceiling, dimly illuminating the room.
"Max, we need to get you up. Can you help me, please?" A familiar voice spoke, but I had no idea who it belonged to. "You're bleeding," the person said. "Do I need to call your father to help, or will you get up on your own?"
No, no calling Elethan. My left eye focused on a girl leaning against the bed next to me, her hand on my forehead. My right eye, I finally realized would barely open at all, and with no surprise, that was also where the biting pain was coming from. "Ana?" My voice slurred.
"Who else would it be?" Her tone pitched.
God, this girl, I swear ... "Why are you in my room?" I raised my hand to my throbbing temple, and it came away wet, slippery. Pushing myself up, my body tilted back, and I thrust my hand out. It slid against the sheets, and I landed on my side on the bed again.
"You need help. Your sheets are covered in blood," Ana said in a concerned tone. "So are you, and your eye is almost swollen shut. I thought you were indestructible."
With a grin, I tried to see her out of the one good eye. "And why would you think that?"
Hands on her hips in her usual bossy way, she said, "Because you're you. Prince of the Shadows." Even in the dead of night, which it had to be considering it was so dark, Ana was dressed in her customary attire—pajamas instead of a skirt, but still very short shorts with a half-top shirt that showed way too much. I was thankful to only have the one eye.
"You didn't tell me why you're in my room," I said, wondering if I should take something for the throbbing on the side of my head.
She gestured toward her pajamas with a hand flourish. "Isn't it obvious?"
Very. I groaned, shifting my weight back on the bed.
"Well ... come on, and let me help you since you probably can't even see me, much less be of any use in any other way." She yanked on my arm, attempting to heave me up.
"Did anyone ever tell you that modesty is the best policy?"
She laughed. "No. I think that's a human saying. Doesn't pertain to me."
"Right." I let her drag me up to a sitting position, but the room spun, and I fell back again.
"God, what happened to you?" She sounded disgusted.
"I don't remember exactly. I think I cracked my head on the mirror. If you could get me some aspirin, that'd be good. I think I need to sleep some more." My eyes closed. I remembered an empty field. Layla with Justice—and someone else. Ryan.
Was that a dream?
The sword cutting through the night ... and blood.
"Max? Max are you asleep?" Ana scolded.
"Yes. Sound asleep."
She giggled, and it was a sweet sound that made me crack a smile. I was in love with Layla, but I had to stop thinking that way. It only made what I had to do harder. Ana would be fun, she had been fun. Before. When we'd dated ... but there was the Vampyress part …
I'm immune to her poisonous bites now, though, so ...
What am I saying?
"You know," Ana whispered. "Maybe you just need the right kind of attention to make you feel better."
I peeked my eye open, and she grinned her evil little smile with painted pink lips. Placing a hand on either side of my hips, she crawled up on the bed, her legs straddling my hips. My head pounded harder, and my hands found themselves resting on her bare thighs. Her light pink pajamas were sheer, and even my blurry-eyed vision was able to make out all the details underneath her tiny half-top shirt. I knew I should look away, but
my gaze continued to scan her body, toxins feeding with quickened speed through my bloodstream.
"See, that's not so bad, is it? You look better already." Ana leaned forward, her long golden hair curtaining my face. "I won't bite." She giggled. "Unless you want me to." Warm breath brushed over the cut across my eyebrow, and her lips gently pressed down. The room swirled with colors I knew shouldn't be there. Couldn't be. The slither of my Oghams made my skin prickle. A warning.
"Ana ..." I cleared my throat with a cough and slid my hands off her bare legs.
She kissed the bridge of my nose, and the sweet, intoxicating smell of her hair played games with my head the same way it did every time she got too close. Her mouth trailed down to mine. Her tongue swept over my lips, half-drowning me in disoriented bliss. The prickle continued across my skin, and I tried to scoot to the side, out from under her, but my head spun.
"Ana ..."
She kissed me again, and her touch screamed at my Oghams to stop moving, stop warning me that I was doing something wrong. Poisonous bites I might have been immune to, but Fairie magic was like a drug—Ana was like a drug, even in my half-conscious state I knew that, but the colors continued swirling through the room, through my head, the smell of her hair clouding rational thought. Her hips pressed against mine, soft moans escaping her throat, and an unwanted charge sparked near my stomach. She fumbled with my bloodstained shirt, her hands finding my bare chest, and in one swift motion, with all the concentration and sane thought I had left, I shifted her weight and rolled out from under her so that I was standing next to the bed on the floor.
"Not interested." My voice came out in a slur. I hung onto the bedpost to keep from falling.
She grinned, and her hands reached for my belt loops, tugging on my hips, pulling me back to her. "No?" Her enchantments were suffocating, the sweet smell of her, obliterating.
"No." I took a step away from her, swayed, and fell, the back of my head clipping the edge of the wooden dresser.
*****
The stands rise into the bloody grey sky in a sheer vertical ascent. Ten-foot high metal fences, wrapped in barbed-wire, insure no escape should anyone try to flee the Battle. Spread across a barren wasteland, the makeshift coliseum is long and wide, a desolate patch of yellowed ground with no distinct markings. The only boundary is the gathering of Fomorian people who enclose the pitch on all sides, each of them wielding a weapon of their own. Ancient-looking spears, daggers, long swords. Some wear chain mail, while others don plate metal and large wooden shields.
Jeers grow through the packed stands, and my fist grips the hilt of my sword, slung through the belt around my hips, concealed beneath my robes. Hood up, face hidden, my steady gaze scans the rowdy crowd. Two other daggers remain secured in the leather straps across my chest, one short sword, slung from my shoulders, lays flat across my back.
Similarly clad, Sam stands to my left as everyone awaits the gates to open on the opposite end of the pitch. My heart beats so fast, so hard against my ribcage, it's painful. Posture tense, muscles aching, my left hand opens and closes while my Oghams furl and unfurl over the surface of my skin—green line upon white-hot, angry green line adjoining with the next, producing the feel of patchwork underneath the fabric of my robes, as though needle and thread are sewing the Oghams together. Blanketing my body in a thick layer of protection.
In the distance, the grind of steel on steel silences the throng, and the gates open with a chillingly slow lurch, revealing a silhouette of the one we are all waiting for.
Alone, Layla stands dressed from head to toe in black, her wrists bound, her blonde hair tousled by the slight wind on the air, its golden color a bright star against the deadly gloom. An eerie light emanates from around her body, an unearthliness that shoots a true pang of fear through my bones. Everything about her, from the way she stands to the way her shoulders are set, from the harsh lines of her jaw to the narrowed, fierce glare in her eyes, is wrong.
My first instinct is to abandon my plan. Scrap it to hell and run to her. Explain everything, figure out another way, tell her what she saw in the Fomore castle—me kissing Ana, telling Layla it was over between us, hadn't been me at all, only a false picture of what I'd wanted her to see, to believe … but with a sickening jolt of reality—a reality I haven't allowed myself to seriously consider—I realize it isn't Layla standing on the other side of the pitch.
It's Teine.
The girl who torched the Fomorian gates and spoke to me in my thoughts as if she were from another world. The girl who had been born forever ago and betrothed to MacCoinnich in an age where time was different. Everything was different. The girl I'd seen in the vision weeks before who'd held no fear in her eyes as the castle of Mag Mell had fallen to ruins around her. Only a blank, emotionless expression had graced her pale, soot-smudged face then, and as I stare across the barren pitch at her stilled form now, the same blank look etches the planes of her otherwise beautiful face. A face I could map every constellation of, blind.
A face that glares in my direction with the same hatred I'd used against her when she'd come to see me in the Shadow Realm. The day she'd learned I'd gone over to the Demon Gods. I created the person standing across the fighting pit in front of me. Created the sheer rage I witnessed bleeding into her eyes when she had ripped the eternity bracelet off of her wrist and thrown it at my feet. The eternity bracelet still secured around my bicep like a blood-soaked amulet.
Staring at her, pulse rising to hammer against the walls in my throat, she reminded me of tales I'd read about the God of War. The embodiment of a monarch. Forbidding and stunning. A fierce and unwavering Goddess of the Ancient Fire Born. Her boots throw dust off ground as she slowly moves forward, the ropes binding her wrists falling to the ground as if by sheer will. With her next step, an invisible force shoves her onto the far end of the fighting pit. My jaw tightens, teeth grind together as jeers and taunts grow again like a tidal wave through the arena, as though in response to her uncivilized treatment.
Small daggers and arrows are thrown from the stands, coming within inches of her body, sinking into the ground around her, but she doesn't flinch. Instead, a grin plays on her mouth and her gaze shifts toward the skies. A cacophony of caws splits the raucous heckles surrounding us. Black wings eclipse the tallest spires of the makeshift coliseum, cutting through the gloom, the sneers, as hundreds of crows converge overhead, their dark plumage blocking out the blood-red moon. Screams replace taunts as the volume rises through the crowd, and the birds, flying in unwavering sync, move as one unfaltering unit, a squadron of soldiers, and attack.
Shrieks intensify as shields are raised, swords and spears thrusting into the skies. The birds careen downward, razor sharp beaks and claws extended, tearing across the faces of those who have come to watch the Battle. Come to see one of the Fire Born destroyed.
Teine redirects her focus toward me as though we are the only two people in the arena. Blank, unseeing, heavy-lidded eyes stare from the other side of the field. Her posture is stiff. Predatory. Her expression still, emotionless, except for the sneer on her perfect lips. As I stare back under my hooded guise—chest rising and falling with my staggering breaths, white-knuckling the hilt of my sword, unsure if she can see my eyes, unsure if I want her to—I'm almost positive none of it matters.
I am the enemy she's come to kill.
She tilts her head slightly as if to see me better under the hood. "How shall I kill you, my love? I saw what you did last night."
Fire releases from her open hands and rips down the field like a canon blast, straight for me.
*****
My breaths seized up in my throat, eyes opening, or one eye at least, the nightmare fading into nothing as a weak stream of too-early grey morning light bled across the bed, and my arm ... wrapped around Ana.
Oh, shit! Oh, shit, shit. Shit!
If I'd ever moved faster in my life, I couldn't remember when. I was out of the bed, head spinning, throbbing, and across the room wit
h my shirt on before Ana had even shifted her position. My bed was stained scarlet, crusted smears of dried blood flaking off onto the floor and dotting Ana's bare arms and face. My sword lay on the ground near my dust covered boots, specks and smears of crimson tainting the steel. The mirror I'd busted my head against was shattered, shards of glass everywhere. My laundry basket overflowed with the clothes and cloak I'd shoved inside it in my panic to distance myself from all the evidence of killing Ryan. The room resembled a crime scene. Fitting, I thought for a murderer, a betrayer, and a cheater, apparently. Someone I no longer recognized in the mirror.
A quick knock rattled my door, and Sam peeked his head inside. "Hey, everyone's still asleep. We need to get ... moving before—" His gaze tracked toward the bloody sword, Ana in my bed, and me, surely white with shock, with a swollen eye and speckled with blood. "Oh. My god. What the hell did you do?" He opened the door all the way and came in, closing it behind him.
"I ..." I shook my head, having no idea what to say. What did I do? Because the normal Max would never, ever ... and I didn't remember—
"You slept with Ana?" Sam thrust his arm toward her in the bed as she finally stirred awake. "Are you ... are you out of your mind?"
I think I might be, yeah. "I don't know what happened." I raised a hand to my still throbbing head. "I had a run in with Ryan last night, and ..." I gestured toward the sword. "Justice ... he was with Layla, training her or something, it was dark, and I saw a flash of light through the window, so I went to check it out, and Ryan was outside."
Sam's eyes grew wide. "And ...?"
"And he's psychotic!" I threw my hands in the air. "He wanted to kill Layla. And Justice. He transformed and lunged at them. I reacted. So did Justice."
"You killed Ryan?" His face was white.
"I had to! He wanted to kill me a few days ago at Layla's house. Went after Layla twice and abducted Benny! What the hell should I have done?"
Sam bowed his head, and I wondered if it was at the mention of Benny's name. "What did Justice do?"
"Helped. What else?" My hands rested on top of my head on a deep breath.
