I leaned closer and pressed my hand to his forehead the best I could, searching for a way in. “I can feel his emotions… like path into his mind, but I can’t find a way to get to him.”
Kate hurried around, so she stood on the same side of the bed as me and took my hand in hers. “Let me take care of that.”
Warmth shot from her hand into mine as the runes on her body burned brilliant blue, lighting the room.
“No,” Lucy said worriedly. “No, this is too dangerous!”
“We don’t have a choice,” Kate argued. “We have to get him back… I have to get him back. If Cassius attacks and we don’t have Craig here, we’re doomed anyway, right?”
She said it lightly, but the dark truth of her words made everyone shift and frown.
She swallowed hard as we exchanged one final look before I told her to clear her mind the best she could and just think of Craig. I did the same, keeping my hand to his forehead, and latched onto the swirling storm of his raw hate.
The second I had hold of it, I felt my mind yanked away from my mind, and Kate’s grip on my hand tightened painfully.
I was falling through nothing, and when I landed, it took a few seconds to understand what was happening.
A battle was happening around us. We stood in the middle of the field outside the castle in Torolf, as chaos surrounded us. There was screaming and the cries of dying men and women, dragon’s roaring, and plagued everywhere.
“What… what is this?” Kate whispered, spinning around as she let go of my hand. “Where are we?”
“A vision,” I replied. “This must be what he’s seeing.”
No wonder he was thrashing around in his sleep. I squinted, peering through the mass of bodies and searched for Craig.
A plagued sprinted toward us and I braced for an attack, yelling a warning to Kate, but it passed right through us both. We weren’t really here, just visitors.
“No!” I heard Craig bellow and we both whipped around.
Kate cursed, but the sight before me froze me to the spot.
Kate, a different Kate, stood across the field with Cassius before her. From the amount of blood dripping down her body and the victorious look on that bastard’s face, he had just killed her.
I finally spotted Craig and stepped back in shock to see a sword jutting out of his chest.
Another version of me was sprinting toward Cassius, but in a few horrible seconds, I watched that version of myself get killed.
Kate and I watched, stunned into silence, as Cassius moved across the field and finished Craig off.
“What… no,” Kate whispered, shaking her head. “No, this can’t be right, can it?”
I didn’t know what to say, but before anything came out of my mouth, the world spun around us, and we landed right back where we started, but further back into the battle.
I heard myself yelling for Craig and saw me helping him up, swords in his hands, and driving back into the fight, as Kate and Cassius battled overhead.
“It’s a loop,” I whispered, watching it play out all over again, all the way to the very end. “He’s stuck in a damn loop! We have to break him out of it!”
“How do we do that?” she asked, already hurrying to catch up to Craig.
I was right behind her, watching him go through the motions. Half of me hoped it wasn’t the real Craig, and he was somehow just a witness in all of this, too, but as the sword plunged into his chest again, Kate and I gasping in shock and cursing, I heard him mutter, “Damn it, enough!”
“Craig!” I yelled, right in his ear.
He flinched, but it wasn’t enough to pull him from his vision.
“Craig, come on,” I yelled louder, grabbing hold of his shoulders, but either he couldn’t feel me, or I wasn’t actually reaching him.
The scenario played out a second time, and when he reset, Kate and I were right there when he got up with the other me by his side.
I stood right in front of him, but he merely walked around me without even seeming to think about it.
“It’s not working,” Kate snapped, going so far as to smack him across the face.
He flinched at the hit and blinked confused, staring around.
The rest of the vision seemed to slow around us, but then it sped right back up again, and he kept on going.
Kate looked at me, but I had no idea what else to suggest… except the one thing that might be enough.
“Remind him,” I told her as we stayed right beside him through the whole fight. “You have to remind him!”
“About what?”
“About you, both of you, together. He’s trying to get to you, to save you, Kate. Remind him that you’re not that Kate, that none of this has happened yet!”
While we’d been talking, the other Kate had been slashed, and the sword had just plunged itself into Craig’s chest. He sank to his knees, spitting curses as Kate knelt in front of him. She held his face in her hands and kissed him.
Cassius kept moving, as did the rest of the fight, and I hung my head thinking it wasn’t working, but then the vision came to an abrupt halt, just as the other Forrest was lifted off the ground by his throat.
Kate pulled back slowly, narrowed eyes watching Craig closely, before his arms wrapped around her and dragged her to his chest, kissing her again and hugging her.
“Kate! Your alive, thank the gods,” he whispered over and over again.
She hugged him back, and I patted his shoulder. He turned to look up at me, grabbing my hand.
“Way to scare the piss out of us, man.”
He climbed to his feet, and we all stared at the sword that laid on the ground at his feet, the one that had just moments ago been jutting out of his chest.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve watched you both die?” he whispered.
His gaze lingered on the dead Kate across the field, and his face paled.
He shook, and we turned him away.
“How long have I been stuck in here? Wait, are you two stuck in here, too?”
“No, no I don’t think so,” I replied. “And not long, twenty minutes or so?”
“That’s it?” He shuddered, and Kate’s hold on his hand tightened. “Sorry, I just… I expected to have a vision the closer we got to the end of this mess, but nothing like this.”
Kate blanched, staring around the field. “You think this will really happen?” she whispered.
“No, maybe?” he said quietly. “I don’t know, but if not exactly like this, I think this vision has told me something vital. We’re missing whatever the key is to stopping Cassius, to stopping all of this.”
“But what?” I asked, slowly moving around.
“I don’t know. I’ve watched it all happen again and again and again, and I can’t understand what happens. Kate has the shield, but he destroys it and kills us all, it’s like our strength just disappears…”
“Craig?” I asked when he stopped talking.
He tapped my shoulder, and I turned around to see what he was pointing at that had him, and Kate transfixed.
Three figures stood across the way, a strange wind rustling their hair and clothes, though none blew across the field. Three figures who beckoned to us and clearly did not belong here.
Together, the tree of us marched across the field, stepping around and over dead bodies, passed Cassius still holding me by the throat, and the dead body of Kate I quickly averted my gaze from.
We stopped a few feet short of the others, stopping directly in front of the past lives we each had. Broden, Celandine, and Malcolm.
Each smiled softly at us as Celandine stepped away from the others.
“The time for the final battle is upon you,” she said.
“And this?” Kate spread her arms wide. “This is what happens?”
“It’s one of many possible outcomes,” Broden replied in his deep growl of a voice, “but the most likely if you do not correct a mistake we made so long ago.”
“I don’t
understand,” I said slowly. “What mistake? You did everything you could to stop all of this. What did you not do?”
Malcolm sighed as he reached out and rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. “It’s more of something we should not have done. The realms should never have been divided. In trying to protect the races, give them a chance to defend themselves, we made them weaker, made them nearly defenseless against this plague.”
“You did it to try and protect them,” I argued.
“Yes, and in doing so, we failed them.”
“Wait,” Kate mumbled quietly, “you’re saying… you want us to put the realms back together?”
The three nodded in unison.
“It is the only way,” Celandine assured us. “The only way to give you enough strength and power from all the realms to defeat the darkness before it consumes everything in its path.”
“How the bloody hell are we going to do that?” Craig growled.
Broden smirked, and the look was nearly identical. “Carefully, but to do so, you’ll need to pull on the original power that split them in the first place. That of the Vindicar that runs through all of you, and the one who dwells within the darkness.”
“Cassius?” Kate snapped. “We need his blood? You’re joking right?”
“Sadly, no.” Celandine stared proudly at Kate as she cupped her cheek. “You have come far, Katherine, and proven yourself a true Vindicar. Have faith, and you will see this through.”
“And this future here,” Craig muttered, “we can avoid it? None of us will die?”
“I’m afraid that is up to you in the end,” Malcolm told us. “But hope is your strongest weapon. Never forget that.”
I wanted to ask more questions, figure out how to ensure none of us died, but then everything swirled around us, and I gasped as I came to back in Craig’s room, Kate beside me.
“Uh, guys?” Craig muttered, and I glanced down to see him staring at the chain curiously.
Kate and I quickly freed him and helped him sit up. He was slow to move, but once we got him on his feet, and he hugged Kate close, I sensed his mind clearing.
“What happened?” Lucy asked urgently.
But it wasn’t her I focused on.
Out in the corridor, people were rushing around, and bells rang out.
Malcolm’s talk of hope disappeared in a second as I realized what was happening.
Cassius and his army, they were here.
Were we ready to fight them? Ready to do what had to be done to bring this all to an end?
“Mama Lucy,” Kate said as she took Lucy’s hand, “I need your help.”
“What are you thinking?” Craig asked.
“I’m thinking we need a trap for Cassius,” she told us. “Time to trick him for once before we end him for good.”
21
Kate
In all the times I’d seen Celandine dressed and ready for battle, never did I picture myself in the exact same clothes and leather armor with bits of chain mail.
It was surreal, but here I was with Craig and Forrest at my sides, all three of us armed and ready for this final fight. The real shield hummed with power as I held it steady in my left hand, a sword in my right. Not the Executioner blade, but I knew now the weapon didn’t matter.
The only thing that did was the person wielding this shield and the two by her side. The three of us, we were the true weapon and were ready to face whatever befell us.
The trap was set, and though I clung to the hope that it would work, doubts rose in my mind as the minutes ticked by.
I expected to be afraid, after witnessing what could be my death several times over, but there was no fear. Not anymore. Just the knowledge of what we had to accomplish if we were to save the realms.
Steps echoed behind us, climbing up to the top of the wall where we waited.
“It’s ready,” Mama Lucy whispered behind me.
“And everyone’s in position?” Craig growled quietly.
“Just waiting for the signal.”
When the first scouts arrived that morning, they’d spotted the first few troops appearing near where the first camp had been. We didn’t have long to come up with a plan, but we managed. I had to admit, I was impressed, but there’d been no time to run through it and make sure there were no kinks to work out.
A dull rumble met my ears, then another, and I realized what it was, the sound sending a chill down my spine. Drums. The army of plagued was coming. I cursed under my breath, and Forrest, and Craig both shifted closer, so their arms brushed against mine.
No words were needed, not anymore. We were in this together. Whether the plan worked or not, I would fight until my last breath to try and save them and everyone else.
The drums grew louder, and I stepped closer to the edge of the wall.
At the front gates, we might have had a better view of the army amassing at the river, but from our position to the south, all we could do was listen.
Behind me, wings rustled as the dragons impatiently waited for their time to move in.
Tristan, his shifters, the elves with Drake, and the rest of the demons awaited Cassius and his army in the courtyard and along the outer wall. The worst part of this entire plan was the waiting, waiting for the right moment to attack.
Waiting and listening as others fought before we could move in.
“Where is she?” I heard Cassius bellow loudly and I froze. “Where is your precious Vindicar now? Has she abandoned you? Left you to die?”
I growled, but Craig rested his hand on my army. “Easy,” he whispered. “Don’t.”
I nodded, but it didn’t make it any easier to listen to him yell as Tristan called back. “Take your army and go, Cassius. You are not welcome here, and if you attack, your victory will not be an easy one.”
“For you, perhaps,” he replied. “You could join me, Tristan, join me and I will make it worth your while.”
I heard the catapults cranking back, and Tristan howled.
The sound was picked up by the rest of his army, and the demons roared alongside them as the elves blew their horns, low and long as they readied for the attack.
Any second now, it would be beginning… any second…
The yelling started as the plagued charged the wall and swords soon clashed against swords while something heavy battered against the gate.
I counted out the seconds under my breath, then the minutes, until another horn blew, three short bursts followed by one long.
I nodded to Forrest and Craig then took a deep breath and shifted, letting my dragon free.
I soared high up into the clouds, spreading my wings wide. I circled back around and spied where I needed to land.
The plagued army was across the field, focusing all their attention on the wall and didn’t even notice me. But it wasn’t them I wanted.
It was Cassius. I roared loudly drawing his evil gaze, and he smirked at the sight of me, alone.
Come on, you bastard, I thought as I waited for him to make his next move. Come and get me.
He raised his arm and yelled for the plagued unit protecting their leader to turn and charge toward me.
But it was far more than I anticipated and cursed quietly in my head.
We’d hoped for far fewer plagued, but this would have to work.
I needed him to get just a bit closer… just a bit closer… the second I felt him pass over the rune burnt into the ground at his feet, I roared a second time and was answered in kind by the rest waiting behind the wall.
“You think you can challenge me?” Cassius declared, swinging his sword casually at his side. “You may have killed Allis, but he was weak. You, my dear sweet Katherine, will die a slow and painful death for all the trouble you’ve put me through!”
I smirked, still in dragon form as he moved in closer. I anticipated his move, and he snapped his fingers. Though I knew it was coming, it still hurt like hell to be forced out of my dragon form. I sank to my knees as I sucked in a sharp breath.
He moved in closer, but paused when I started to cackle, lifting my head to meet his confused gaze.
“You’re not very original, you know that?” I muttered.
He opened his mouth when a downdraft of air made him look up, confused.
Ten dragons broke through the heavy cloud cover— thanks to Mama Lucy and her witches.
Before Cassius could call for an attack, they shot fire from their mouths, flying in a large circle that surrounded me, Cassius, and the plagued he’d dragged away from his main army. The flames stretched high above us, blocking out any view of the rest of the field. He didn’t seem concerned at all as he bellowed for more soldiers. Several heard him, and another unit peeled away from the main force. I held my breath as they charged forward, swords at the ready.
But the second they touched the flames, they were consumed and died screaming in agony.
“You… what did you do?” he raged at her. “This is impossible!”
“No, actually it’s not. And neither is this.” I closed my eyes for a brief second and reached out for the connection between me, Craig, and Forrest.
A warmth rushed through me, and when Cassius cursed louder, I opened my eyes, feeling their presence behind me.
“It’s over, Cassius. If you surrender now, I’ll make your death swift.”
“You think this is enough to stop me?” he snarled. “A little fire and the three of you? I am thousands of years old! I am older than time itself!”
His words caught me off guard, and I shifted back, confused. “What is he talking about?” I whispered to Craig and Forrest.
But then Cassius was cackling again as his eyes burned with a red flame.
Something was wrong, but it was too late to change the plan now. Right on time, more figures appeared in the circle of flames, Mama Lucy, Greyson and all the others willing to risk everything for this moment. Luca, Nora, and more demons stood, ready to protect them as they spread out around us, taking up their places along the rune on the ground. Cassius watched them closely, then his gaze darted to his feet. His eyes narrowed and a high-pitched shriek issued from his mouth.
“Kill them! Kill them all!”
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