by A Lonergan
I rolled onto my back, and as he was gloating I kicked away from the ground as silently as I could and my foot connected with his back. He was down, and I wasn't going to let him get back up. I locked my legs around his neck and squeezed. He bucked and struggled against me, but the pressure on his neck was too much for him to move us. He tapped out on my thigh, and collapsed underneath me. I hopped off of him quickly, and moved away from him as far as I could before he started to rise. Goblins were known for their tempers and I didn't want him to change his mind on his surrender last minute. When he straightened up, I could see a slight tinge of green to his skin before it faded, and his porcelain complexion came back.
He smiled and nodded at me with his approval, but I didn't need it. Besting him wasn't entirely hard and I didn't think it would be hard to best any of the others either. I had indeed trained to be an elite with a different kingdom, one without magical use. I was glad we weren't permitted to use our magic during this spar period, but I was almost itching to break the rules, or at least bend them to see how much my skills would improve on the battle field.
What Nico had stated before we started had been true. "Magic fails, and when it does, all we have are our skills. We might as well make them the best they can be and use magic as a backup. Elves rely on their magic, they will not train in battle the way we do. Magic is a backup, only. You have your squadrons to practice your defensive and tactical magic with. Today is all skill with our hands and weapons."
Chapter Forty-One
The King
Willow ate like a grown man, and she interacted with my men like she was one of them. It was an odd side to see of her. She smiled at something one of the men said beside her, but it wasn't her carefree smile she had around Nico and I. It was her death eating smile. The smile that would make my men run in fear, and she used it for that reason exactly. She grabbed a huge leg of bullhock off of the center of the table and tore the meat away from the bone with her teeth. The meat was greasy and left some shine on her cheeks and she chewed.
Willow caught me watching her and set the leg down. She raised an eyebrow in challenge and said, "Are you going to tell my mother?"
Nico barked out a laugh, and stole the hunk meat from her plate. She picked a knife up and brought it down on the sleeve of his tunic which pinned his arm to the table. She looked in his eyes, and very seriously said, "You don't take what's mine. Especially my food after a long day of training."
That it had been. We had started before the sun had come up and finished well after it had gone down. We had never trained so hard in our lives, and it was all thanks to Willow. She probably went against every single men in this dining hall. If they wanted a challenge, she was willing to give it to them. A few strands of her hair had fallen down, and I was surprised it had stayed up so well with how many times she had been thrown around. The little pieces of hair stuck to her neck, and her cut off tunic stuck to her in various places. I wasn't surprised that every single man in here wanted to go up against her, even if they did get shown up. A touch from her could salve any wound.
"Is this how you usually treat your men?" Willow asked, as she pushed her empty, but dirty plate away from herself.
"No," I shook my head. "They usually eat with their families. We are typically finished by lunch time and then they are free to work on their magical skillsets."
Her face went slack. "What? Then why today?"
"Because you worked them so hard, I had to compensate them extra in someway." I rubbed my jaw. "I think it helped them a lot more than you think. You pointed out their flaws to them, and that's what they needed. It will help when we are in the mountains. You said you were a lady back home, but I get the impression you spent a lot of time with the other elites."
She ran her tongue over her teeth, and pushed away from the table. The men around her protested, and Nico smirked, but she didn't care. She didn't like where I had taken the conversation and decided she was needed elsewhere. I stood up with her and faced the hundreds of my men. "Today was an exciting day! Please, enjoy the feast and we will see you all tomorrow morning, bright and early once again!"
I waved as I exited the room. Willow had disappeared. She worked too well with the little shadows she had at her disposal. But somehow, the thought of hunting her down had adrenaline pumping through me. I jogged down the hall before I summoned my magic to me. I inhaled and it stuck to me like an armor. I could see things clearer, and smell everything. Tracking her would be easy. With my magic at its highest velocity, I could see just about everything, including the black footprints she left behind. Her magic stained everything she touched, and I wished I had done this before now. The elves loved to use their heightened magic all the time. They couldn't live without it, and if they came across our trail, they would surly know what we had with us. I needed her to train on how to pull her magic into herself. From the looks of the hallway, it was leaking out onto everything. The excitement I had in chasing her was gone now, replaced with dread for what was coming.
I rounded a corner and came to a stop. My search for Willow had come to a close, but what I saw had me in fear. Ifrīt had her by the throat and pinned against the wall. Her eyes were black as she turned to look at me. Willow's magic flowed from her body, trying to latch on anything that could help her. Her eyes were hard, and as much as her magic was pleading, I was surprised that her face wasn't.
When Ifrīt spoke, it wasn't her voice that left her lips. "We are waiting for you. Marîd sends her regards. We want Armia, and the child or your entire kingdom will perish."
"Prince Viridian, is that you? You would use the pink genie at your disposal, is your hair still blue? How's the nose ring doing?"
Willow dropped to the floor and the genie approached me. "You call yourself a king, but you are no such thing. You don't know how to make hard decisions! You will fall and so will your kingdom. I will see to it that your head goes on a spike. I will dismember you myself."
I swiped my hand to the side, and Ifrīt fell to the floor, her eyes were now cleared and hopefully her head was too. I used a rather simple spell to free her from his grasp, but there was no telling how long it would last. "Are you okay?"
Willow leaned against the wall, her magic was now gone from the air around us. She watched the genie with concern. Ifrīt nodded her head. "They have Marîd, so this will be a regular occurrence. I thought I could put myself into a deep slumber to help prevent this but somehow he's using Marîd's magic to thwart mine." Her face fell and for the first time, I saw her break down. She hadn't broken down as long as I had known her. She had never cried in my presence, and she always kept it together. Marîd was the emotional one. She was always animated Sparkling tears left crystal like tracks down her face. "He's planning something, and he's coming. I can feel Marîd getting closer."
"How could he be using her like that?" Willow asked while she kept her distance from us.
Ifrīt looked at her bare feet. "We are lamp mates. We were captured long ago and imprisoned together. Our magic tethers our souls."
Willow tugged on a strand of lose hair from her bun. "That means there is only one lamp."
Willow was right. They had never told me anything like this before, and I had no reason to assume differently. I thought they simply enjoyed one another and somehow my sister had cursed them together. "What do we do?"
Ifrīt gave me a look full of pain. "There isn't much you can do to imprison me. My magic will always be superior."
Willow scoffed. "We are doomed. Everyone is doomed."
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, how can we help? Anything."
"You'll have to take my sight."
Willow coughed. "WHAT?!"
"If I can't see, he can't use me." No wonder she looked like she was in pain. I didn't know how she expected me to do that. "Bind my hands, and take my eyes from my head."
Acknowledgments
When I think of this book, I think of it like being a little baby that I raised. It taught me so much, it allow
ed me to do so much. It helped me grow as a writer and as a person. I can’t tell you how many times I scrapped the ending because they all sucked, and for that I want to thank Brittany and Tori for putting up with it and reading the ending every single time I would message y’all and tell you they were finished.
I want to thank my family for always encouraging me to be better and to continue to write, and always being inspiration for my characters ;) hehe, I’ll never tell who each of you are in my books.
I want to thank God because without my talents, I wouldn’t be here writing this today.
A special thanks to my readers. Thank you for standing by me. Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for loving my words.
About the Author
A. Lonergan lives in her own world. She doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do, except MAYBE her 4 year old. She loves fiercely and enjoys writing stories with heart and passion, but also a little pain. She wants her readers to feel like she does as she writes. She believes that there is nothing more powerful than being able to make someone feel something. You can catch up with her on any and all platforms.
Also by A Lonergan
Witches of Jackson Square-
Transfixed
Fixated
Captivated
The Demi Chronicles -
Goddess Games
Goddess Choice
Goddess Trials
Standalone coming soon-
Euphoria
