Realms

by Kit Bladegrave

  I landed on my feet and snatched at them with my jaws, scattering them, but our own forces were too close for me to set the enemy on fire. I killed two, but the rest latched themselves onto my back, and I couldn’t dislodge them. I roared in pain, their talons and fangs digging into my scales until I finally threw myself into the sky, spinning madly to throw them off.

  The bastards only held on tighter, tearing through my hardened scales to reach the soft skin beneath. Then one threw itself onto my wing, and its talons slashed right through it, taking me crashing to the ground.

  I rolled and reached around, attempting to free myself of the ghouls, but nothing worked.

  A flash of fur flew at me, and a ghoul was torn free, followed quickly by the second. Tristan was right behind them and as the ghouls screamed and shrieked, he tore them to pieces before I’d even finished shifting back. My right arm was bloodied and hung limply at my side. My back was slashed to ribbons, but I’d survive.

  “Thanks.”

  He spat out a mouthful of ghoul.

  “I’m sure that tastes great.”

  He shifted back and wiped his mouth on his arm with a look of disgust. “You owe me.” He spat again, shuddering and I waited for him to be sick, but he held back. “Gods, that’s terrible.”

  “We get them all?” I asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  Kate touched down beside us, shifting back as soon as her feet hit. She ran over. “You alright?” she asked me, staring at my arm. “You’re going to need stitches.”

  “Most likely, but I’ll live.”

  “By the way, pretty sure I won,” she added, pressing her hand to a bleeding wound.

  “Not going to argue at this point.”

  Craig, Sabella, and the other fighters joined us, declaring that all the of the enemy forces were dead. We decided to pile up the bodies and burn them first, then we would we ensure there were no more tracks left to follow.

  Luca and Nora returned just as Kate set the bodies alight. They declared the trail was destroyed and no one would be able to track us back to the fortress.

  As the flames hungrily ate at the bodies, a warm breeze blew across the back of my neck.

  I turned, wondering at the strange sensation that was calling to me.

  The trees, grass, and shrubs surrounding the field had been dead when we arrived, but, they began to heal themselves, bringing life back to this land. It was as if the earth itself was coming alive with every bit of darkness that was being destroyed.

  I was going to turn back around to continue watching the bodies burn when a figure stepped out from behind one of the newly healed trees.

  He looked at me and smiled.

  “Who’s that?” Craig asked.

  I rubbed my eyes, swearing I was seeing things, but the older man was still there. “Stay here,” I told Craig. “I’ll be back.”

  “Forrest?”

  I waved him off and went to meet Thorne beneath the boughs of the tree. “You’re alive?”

  “In a sense, yes,” he said, resting his hand against the fresh bark on the tree. “But in truth, no.”

  “I don’t understand, why are you here? Mori, she’s been trying to reach all of you since we came back to the realms.” I was annoyed. “She could stand to hear from you.”

  “She could, but she does not need to, not anymore.”

  “That’s not helpful,” I muttered, hurting and tired from the last fight, and in no mood to play games with a god we’d all assumed was dead. “She still needs you, we all do, whether you seem to think it or not.”

  He smiled like a kindly grandfather listening to his grandchild whine.

  I growled.

  “She needs you, Forrest, not us, and it’s time she learn that truth. You are her future, you always have been. Now, when times are indeed their darkest, it cannot be the gods she turns to for aid. It must be you. You two, you are what’s important in this world. Craig and Katherine, Tristan and Sabella. And you and Mori.”

  “Darkest… we’re making headway against Baladon, aren’t we?”

  His fingers roved over the bark of the tree, then reached up and plucked one of the newly formed leaves from a branch. “All triumphs are minor victories until the final battle.”

  “And you won’t give me anything else to go with? When? Or how it’ll turn out?” I waited for him to give me something, hope that this was not going to end the way we all thought but had yet to accept.

  “All I can say is it is coming, and there is no preparing for it,” he finally said, holding the leaf in his palm. “Just remember, you are stronger together. Whatever comes, you cannot let it tear you apart.”

  “None of this makes me feel any better.”

  Thorne tilted his hand, and we watched the leaf fall to the ground against the ashes and dirt that had yet to come back to life. “I do not tell you to make you feel better. That is not my duty. Nothing of this world is anymore. I am handing the world over to the races.”

  “And Baladon? What if he wins?”

  “Then I pray those who would remain find a chance to fight back and destroy him if you six cannot.” He winked and smiled, though I failed to see anything amusing or uplifting about his talk.

  I wanted to ask him more, but he faded right in front of my eyes and I was alone beneath the tree, staring at nothing.

  “Great, that’s great.”

  “Was that… was that Thorne?” Tristan asked as he and Craig met me halfway as I walked back toward the field and the burning pile of corpses.

  “It was.”

  “And?” he pushed. “What did he say?”

  “Stronger together, that about sums it up,” I relayed. “And the gods have officially left the realms to us, to fight Baladon on our own. No more support from them. Nothing...” The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and a shiver raced down my spine. My brow furrowed as I turned in the direction of the mountain fortress. I brushed it off as paranoia, but a second shiver had me rolling my shoulders, wanting to shift to get back to Mori. “Are we finished here?”

  “Just about, yes,” Tristan said. “Forrest?”

  “It’s nothing,” I lied, but didn’t turn away from the trees. I anxiously waited for the fighters to gather together so Kate and I could shift and carry them all out of here. Shifting was painful, and my wing stung, but it worked well enough to get us back.

  My need to see Mori grew, the closer we came to the fortress, and by the time I landed, and my back was emptied of passengers, I was ready to ignore my wound and find her. I went inside and followed where my gut told me to go. The air was strange, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Sabella said something to Tristan about someone using a heavy amount of power, and my steps quickened.

  Mori was not in the hall, and I sprinted all the way up to our room, but she wasn’t there either.

  “Mori,” I yelled, waiting to hear her reply. “Mori!”

  “Forrest, in here,” Lucy shouted.

  I followed her voice through winding corridors and down to a small chamber where Lucy stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. The door behind her was closed, and she kept looking over her shoulder.

  “You can’t go in there, but she’s safe.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s going on?” I demanded, moving around her to bang my fist on the door. “Mori.”

  “You have to wait.” Lucy grabbed my shoulder to shove me back.

  “What’s going on?” Kate asked as she and Craig rushed up. “Lucy?”

  “Mori came to Abby and me seeking answers and a way to know how this final battle was going to play out,” Lucy explained in a rush.

  “And?” I tried to get around her again, but she planted herself right in front of the door.

  “And… Abby gave her a way to try and see the exact moment, or at least her part in it and thereby the rest of your parts, too.”

  “She’s not a seer.”

  “No, she’s not, but this spell? If it works right, sh
e could see what will happen.”

  “If,” I repeated and the worry eating away at my gut intensified. “And if not?”

  Lucy was back to wringing her hands again, chewing over her words, when a scream erupted from behind the door. Lucy tried to hold me back, saying something about the risk of interrupting whatever Mori was seeing, but when a second scream followed the first, I picked Lucy up, set her to the side as gently as possible, and bashed my shoulder into the door.

  I yelled furiously as the door held and Mori’s screaming continued.

  Craig appeared at my side and together, we rammed the door, finally crashing through it and into the room.

  I straightened, ready to attack whatever was going after Mori, but she was with Abby, and otherwise alone. They sat on the floor, across from each other, eyes closed. Had I simply imagined the screaming? Mori appeared perfectly fine, but then, another scream sounded, and I whipped around, confused when her mouth didn’t open, though the sound was real.

  “What is this?” I asked loudly, waving my hand in front of Mori and Abby. “Lucy? What are they doing?”

  “Trying to see what will happen during this final battle.”

  “Where’s that screaming coming from?”

  “Whatever she’s seeing,” Lucy said. “You can’t reach her, not until she comes out of it.”

  I had no idea how this magic worked, but another scream echoed through the room, and I growled in frustration. I couldn’t just stand here and listen to her screaming in pain, in fear. Whatever she saw could not be worth this, could it? I went to her again, waving my hand in front of her face, willing her to come out of this vision or whatever she was trapped within…

  I crouched down in front of her—

  Blood dripped from her nose.

  “Damn it! Is this supposed to happen?” I demanded.

  Lucy rushed over. “I warned her it could be too much,” she whispered, taking Mori’s shoulder and shaking it. “Mori? Mori, you have to come back to us now.”

  But nothing happened.

  “Mori, come on, snap out of it,” I growled, cupping her cheeks in my hands. “Whatever’s happening it’s not real, and it’s not worth it. Get out of there, right now. Come on.”

  Another scream made me wince. Mori’s eye twitched. I reached for her hands, squeezing them as I willed her to open her eyes and get herself out of this vision or whatever she was seeing.

  But as soon as my hands closed around hers, the mark on my chest from the ceremony burned hot, and I felt myself falling. My feet finally touched down. I glanced around me, trying to understand what I was seeing, but it was like I’d fallen straight into a nightmare.

  Fog surrounded me, swirled around my feet as I took a few slow steps, trying to get my bearings. Lightning lit the sky, highlighting the massive thunderheads rolling in.

  At first, I thought it was thunder I heard, but then the sound grew closer, and I heard another, higher pitched battle cry.

  “Mori,” I whispered and took off straight for the sounds. “Mori.”

  A bright flash of red light lit up the fog, and Baladon’s massive body appeared in front of me.

  There was a blast of white light attacking him over and over again, and I realized as I got closer, it was Mori. But he slammed his staff into the ground, and she was thrown back from the blast, tumbling head over heels.

  I ignored Baladon and went to her to help her up, but my hands passed right through her.

  And she looked through me as if I wasn’t even there.

  “What? No… Mori. Look at me, this isn’t real.”

  “Kate, now,” she yelled, and ran through my body.

  I spun around to witness Kate charging Baladon, the Vindicar shield at the ready. She slammed right into him, and he staggered backward from the blow. Before he could right himself, Sabella appeared, blasting him with her light magic. He dug his feet in, but the force of her attack forced Baladon backward, his feet digging deep trenches in the ground as he roared, failing to stay upright.

  Kate and Mori moved in, keeping up the attacks as I watched, stunned, not able to do anything else.

  My pulse hammered and for those few short moments, my hope rocketed that this was going to work after all, if this was what would truly happen.

  But when Baladon threw his arms up and seemed to collapse in himself, the explosion that destroyed everything he was hit Sabella, Kate, and Mori, throwing them far and wide.

  I shielded my eyes, straining to see, as until the fog cleared and I had a perfect view of the destruction left behind.

  “No… no. Mori!”

  I fell to my knees beside her broken and bleeding body. She was limp when I picked her up, not breathing, and there was no pulse. I yelled her name, but she was gone.

  Kate, Sabella, neither one of them moved either. They’d fulfilled the prophecy, destroyed Baladon and gotten themselves killed in the process.

  I hugged her close, tears streaming down my cheeks until a hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped.

  “Forrest?”

  “Mori?” I glanced from the body in my arms to the woman standing behind me. “What’s going on?”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, but her eyes were on the dead version of herself in my arms. “I came here to see… see the truth,” she went on, her voice shaking as she tore her gaze from the dead Mori and glanced at the dead bodies of Sabella and Kate. “This is not what I hoped to see.”

  I rose to my feet and took her hand. “Doesn’t matter. We have to get you back to the fortress.”

  “How are you even here?”

  “This spell, whatever you decided to do? It’s not exactly going according to plan,” I informed her. “I didn’t mean to come here, but at least now we know.”

  She nodded sadly, but I saw resolve in her eyes. “Now we know.”

  Thorne’s words whispered through my mind, but then we were falling again, and when I blinked, I was crouched in front of Mori back in the fortress.

  She shuddered and gasped, clinging to me as Abby took a deep breath and asked if she got the answers she needed.

  “I did,” Mori replied, wiping blood from her nose. “But I’m not ready to talk about it, not yet.” She shifted and stared at me, telling me without words she needed to get away from everyone else. Then she spotted my bloodied arm, and her whole demeanor changed. “What happened to you? You’re hurt.”

  “You can fuss over me when we get back to our room, alright?” I helped her to her feet, and though I could tell everyone wanted to ask her questions, they let us leave the room. Silently, we made it to our chamber, then I shut the door.

  I expected her to sink to the bed, worn out from what she’d just been through, mentally seeing how this battle was going to end, but instead she dragged me to the bed, sat me down, and kissed me fiercely. She turned to the wound at my arm. When she found the others on my back, she cursed and started shredding a spare shirt to clean them with.

  “You going to tell me what happened out in the field?” She poked at the wound on my arm. “What did this?”

  “Ghouls, nasty little bastards,” I told her. “And yes. But only if you’re going to explain to me what I just saw. That battle… that wasn’t a definite outcome, right?”

  She pressed hard against the wound at my arm, not answering.

  I reached up and held her hands, pulling her around to face me.

  She stared at the floor between us until I lifted her chin with my fingers.

  “Talk to me, please. What did we just see?”

  She chewed on her lip until I threatened to refuse stitches in my arm unless she told me.

  “It wasn’t definite, but Abby said the way it worked was that I would see a possible outcome of the final battle,” she said quietly. “That, what we both saw, there’s a chance it’s how we’ll end up.”

  “Just a chance, though.”

  “Yes, but after seeing it… being there and feeling how bad it could get, or will get, my hopes
aren’t too high that it won’t be the outcome.”

  The image of her bleeding body in my arms would stay with me for a long while. I drew her to my chest, and she wrapped her arms around my neck as we held onto each other firmly. No matter what we went through next, we were going to face it together. I couldn’t bear to spend a moment alone without her in my sight, not knowing when this final battle would strike.

  When would be my last moment with Mori?

  “Forrest, there’s more I need to tell you, tell everyone,” she started to say.

  I shook my head and pulled her mouth down to mine.

  “Later,” I whispered against her lips. “Right now, I just need to erase a certain image from my mind.”

  I expected her to argue and tell me that stopping Baladon was more important than proving to myself she was alive and what I’d seen was just a figment of some distant future that would not come to pass.

  But she kissed me back, and the pain from my wounds vanished, and all that mattered was holding onto Mori for as long as I could.

  18

  Mori

  “You should’ve let me do that hours ago,” I told Forrest.

  He grimaced as Lucy stitched the wound on his arm now, after having to take care of the ones on his back that he’d ignored in favor of, well, other important issues. I’d wanted to argue with him to take care of his injuries, but seeing my dead body had me shook up, too. Holding onto him for a few hours was a comfort I was not ready to go without.

  “It’s fine, I’ll live,” he said with a wink until Lucy tugged a bit harder and he growled.

  “Next time, do not wait so long, huh?” She finished bandaging the wounds and said he was good to go. “The others are waiting for both of you in the hall.”

  “Good, we have much to discuss,” I said, trying to sound less depressed than I felt.

  “When don’t we?”

  Forrest gingerly stretched his right arm and his back, but he seemed to be holding up fine. Once he was ready, he slipped his hand into mine, and we walked into the hall together. He’d asked me earlier what else I’d talked about to Abby and Lucy and called me out for hiding something, but I only wanted to go over everything once. I only needed one headache today and didn’t want to make it worse every new time I had to relay the details I’d withheld.