Ethereal Entanglements

by Lee French

  “Stay awake.”

  “Tired.”

  Enion scooped her up with his front leg and held her close. “We need you. Lean on me. Heal.”

  She breathed deeply several times, pulling on her link to Enion. Within seconds, she felt stronger. The link could heal all kinds of problems. Knowing this bolstered her even more. She wrapped her arms around Enion’s neck as his essence repaired hers and almost forgot about the fight.

  “Go fight,” Enion said.

  Claire climbed around to his back. “Yeah. Let’s go. We have a corrupted Phasm to destroy.”

  As Enion bounded through the doorway, she took stock of the situation. Justin, Avery, and Khalil faced Djembe, who somehow managed to fend all three men off at once. Claire suspected Caius helped him. Nine dragons surrounded Caius’s horse, which also seemed to be managing despite the odds.

  Drew, Iulia, and another dragon—Claire guessed Leeloo—faced Caius. Several mist snakes formed and slithered around Caius, surrounding him.

  She patted the sheath at her hip and realized she’d lost the butcher knife. Her heart fluttered. “I don’t have a weapon. Enion, I don’t have a weapon. How am I supposed to help without one?”

  Enion’s head cocked to one side, then the other. “You have a dragon?”

  “That’s not enough. I need my own weapon.” On the edge of a panic borne of having to watch everyone she cared about fight for their lives while she could do nothing, Claire thought of Rondy. “Rondy’s not here. Why isn’t he here?”

  “Because you didn’t call yet. I couldn’t walk in on my own.” Like Drew, Rondy appeared behind her. “Get in there, Enion!”

  “No!” Claire shrieked. “I need a weapon so I can fight.”

  “So make one. You can do it, Claire.” Rondy squeezed her shoulder. “Use your own power!” He leaped off Enion’s back and charged into the fray.

  “But…I…how?” Baffled and helpless, Claire watched Djembe lash out with his foot and knock down Justin, Avery, and Khalil without touching them. Caius’s stupid horse vomited black, bubbling ooze that spread toward the dragons and Rondy. Iulia screamed her rage as Caius snared her lightning bolt out of the air and threw it Leeloo while dodging four mist snakes.

  They needed help. One more person and one more dragon would make a difference. Claire covered her face. The horror of this battle made concentration impossible. If she could use her power to make things the same way she used the Palace’s power to make things, then she only needed to focus.

  “Use my own power,” she murmured, pushing away the dragons’ cries of pain.

  “Need to help,” Enion whined.

  “Just give me a minute,” Claire snapped. She wanted a sword, but she’d already tried to make a sword once and wound up with a dagger. Besides, if she made a replica of her Knight dagger, it might fool Caius. More to the point, the one she’d made before reflected who she thought of herself as—a dragon riding knight. Maybe not a Spirit Knight, but a knight all the same.

  The noise and chaos fell away. She pictured a silver, foot-long blade with a curve and a wicked point, like Enion’s longest fangs. The ridged metal hilt ended with a thick barb like Enion’s shortest claws. Hooked wings flared into a guard to protect her hand and wrist.

  With the picture clear in her mind, she sought the place Drew had connected to when he recharged. She carried a well of power. Anne had told her it would keep her going for a long time. If she kept using it like this, maybe that would change, but gaining the ability to kill Caius seemed a reasonable price to pay for shaving years off her life.

  She took a deep breath, held out her hands, and opened her eyes. Her locket warmed until she thought her chest had caught fire. Silver formed out of the air and flowed into her hand, building into the shape of her dagger.

  The moment it finished, she let out the breath. She gripped the dagger, finding it felt more right and comfortable than the old one. Where that dagger had fit her hand, this one molded to her like an extension of her hand. Pointing at Caius with it, she patted Enion’s neck. “Let’s go destroy that ghost,” she said, firm in her determination.

  “Courage,” Enion growled. “Strength of will. Tenacity.”

  Claire grinned, dark and angry. “And ass-kicking.”

  “Yesssss,” Enion hissed. He launched himself at Caius.

  Chapter 39

  Claire

  Enion’s silver skin glinted in the harsh sunlight. He flapped his wings for more speed. Claire focused her attention on Caius, wanting, more than anything, to get rid of him. The bastard had been screwing up the world for long enough.

  As they charged, Leeloo pounced on Caius from behind. He staggered under her weight, yet still managed to slash through a mist snake, dissipating it. Leeloo clamped her jaws around his neck. Caius ducked, causing another mist snake to lunged at Leeloo’s head, forcing both to rear back.

  Iulia held a lightning bolt ready to throw, but waited. If she hurled it now, she stood as much chance of hitting Leeloo as Caius. As Claire and Enion closed the distance, Caius stomped his foot. The ground heaved. Suddenly shoved twenty feet in the air, Enion squawked in surprise. Claire peered over his side and saw Leeloo land on her back while Caius remained standing.

  She flicked her gaze over the battlefield and saw Rondy cut the horse across the flank while it kicked a dragon so hard it flew into the distance and snapped another dragon’s neck with its teeth. The horse offered at least as much of a threat as Caius, but she thought the horse would go away when Caius did. Even if it didn’t, the horse would be much easier to deal with.

  Farther away, Djembe still kept Justin, Avery, and Khalil busy. Djembe seemed bigger than the other three men, and his sword moved with unnatural speed. He somehow parried three blades at once despite having only one of his own. They also needed her to distract Caius enough.

  Enion recovered as mist swirled up around Drew. In the time it had taken Claire to survey the scene, Caius had dispatched the rest of Drew’s mist snakes and now stormed toward him. Enion plunged into the mist to pounce on Caius but instead hit solid rock. His claws crunched into the ground and stuck.

  While the thick mist hid Drew, it also hid Caius. Claire patted Enion and touched a finger to her lips. Noise would give them away. He wrenched a claw out of the ground with a shuddering heave, cracking stone and shifting rock. Afraid Caius would come to the sound and find them both helpless, Claire slid off Enion’s back and took several steps away. She could still see his him through the fog.

  Lightning crackled nearby. Iulia screamed. Heavy wind gusted through, shoving Claire several steps sideways before she braced against it. A dragon squawked in shrill pain. Wind shredded the mist, revealing Caius with a grip on Leeloo’s tail, his back to Claire.

  Claire trudged forward, driving herself through the wind. Caius snapped a hand to the side and the wind died. At the same time, he heaved Leeloo through the air, throwing her at Enion. They crashed and tumbled. Claire sprinted at Caius and leaped onto his back, wondering if she’d ever done anything stupider in her life. To her great surprise, Rondy charged Caius at the same time.

  Caius parried Rondy’s blade and grabbed Claire’s shirt at the same time. Claire managed to scrape her dagger across Caius’s arm before he threw her to the ground. She hit sharp rocks with a groan and blinked up at him. Thick, black blood seeped from a shallow cut on his bicep without healing.

  “How interesting,” Rondy said. He lunged.

  Caius dodged and their swords clashed. “I’ve already killed you,” he snarled. Pillars of rock shot up, raising the pair thirty feet off the ground. Their swords clanged, the ringing echoing painfully in Claire’s ears. She rolled to her feet with a wince and saw she’d been caged in by a ring of stone columns.

  “Yes,” Rondy said. “I remember. You said you accepted my sacrifice on her behalf, but that wasn’t the truth. You judged me unfit because I accepted her as an equal. As a Knight. You had to take away her support.”

  “Trai
tor,” Caius snapped.

  Claire stabbed at the rock, chipping off a few tiny shards. Though she wanted to scream in frustration, she swallowed it. If Caius forgot about her for a minute, the stone might grow weaker.

  Rondy snorted. “You’re an idiot, Caius. She has so much potential, and all you can see is her gender.”

  Something big slammed into the stones. The pillars cracked and swayed. Dust and pebbles rained down on Claire.

  “Trying to distract me, Rondy?” Caius laughed. “You can’t shield her this time!”

  The stones shook again and Claire saw the columns crumble from the top, threatening to bury her.

  “Enion, wait!” Drew cried out.

  Mist blocked out Claire’s vision. Drew’s arm wrapped around her waist from behind and the mist dispersed. She stood outside the stones, watching Caius and Rondy fall as the stones under their feet crumbled. Had Drew not rescued her, she would’ve been trapped under all that rock.

  Drew panted and sagged against her. “I’m done,” he gasped. “That was it for me.”

  “Stay clear, then.” She ran to the pile of rubble. Enion backed away in horror until he saw her.

  “Trying to free you,” he whimpered.

  “Aren’t you resourceful.” Caius rose from the rubble. He held a limp, dazed Rondy by the dreadlocks. “I’m not going to stop this time, Claire.”

  Claire scrambled over the rocks, unable to speak as she watched Caius thrust his sword through Rondy’s chest and toss him aside. With a wave of his hand, the rubble disappeared. “You’ve learned a great deal, Claire. But this isn’t going to end like you hope. Look around. The dragons are dying. Iulia is as good as dead. The boy is drained and now hides. Your fellow traitors can’t even defeat one of my Knights.”

  To shocked by Rondy’s apparent second death to think straight, she spat nonsense at Caius. “I bet you make all the ladies swoon with lines like that.”

  “Women in my time had less fire in their bellies than you.”

  “Oh yeah? Iulia seems pretty fiery.”

  Enion darted in, jaws wide and glowing with fire. Caius slammed his fist onto her dragon’s head, knocking him aside. “True enough. Now, anyway. Then, not as much.” He paused with his sword raised. “Of course, with the ability to command so much loyalty, you would make an excellent consort.”

  Claire gulped. Even while controlling the scenery, boosting Djembe, and bantering with her, he’d delivered a blow so tremendous that Enion staggered back, unable to collect his wits. She focused on getting and keeping Caius’s full attention. If she could narrow his world to her, everyone else would be able to converge and beat him.

  “Is this the part where you offer me a lollipop?” she sneered. “Because I’ve heard that one before. The skeevy old man tries to get the girl to abandon everything she cares about because the old man knows something he doesn’t want to admit.”

  Though she didn’t want him to, her dragon leaped to pounce on Caius. The ghostly bastard somehow saw it coming. Caius twisted and sidestepped, then slashed Enion’s side open. Enion flopped and slid away, squealing in heart-rending pain and landing in a limp heap.

  Caius flicked silvery blood off his blade and scowled at Claire with far too much arrogance. “And what’s that, little girl? The power of hope? Rainbows? True love?”

  Claire pushed away her reaction to Enion’s pain. He would heal. He had to heal. She stepped closer and held her head high. “No,” she said. “The part where you look around and you see a group of Knights and dragons united against you, and you realize what that means. The part where you realize you may stop us today, but someone else will come. And then someone else. It may take a while, but you’ll be stopped. And you know it. Once someone opens their eyes, it’s only a matter of time before everyone else does too.”

  “I think you overestimate the intelligence of your fellow Knights.”

  She stood inside the range of his sword now and they both knew it, but he didn’t swing. Not yet. “I think you’re an asshole. Maybe we’re both right.”

  Caius’s lip curled. Someone shouted her name. Someone else shouted Caius’s name. Caius swung his sword. Claire dove for the ground. His swing missed and he carried it through to slam the tip into the ground the second after she rolled aside. She kicked the back of his knee. It buckled enough for her to hop to her feet.

  He growled at her and thrust his sword at her heart. “You should have taken the hint,” he snarled.

  “What hint is that?” Claire snapped as she tried to sidestep. The blade plunged into the meat of her still numb shoulder. Shock jarred her, but not pain. She pushed through it to fling her dagger at him. Though she tried to stab him in the chest, the blade hit bone and sliced a line up his chest to his neck. He bled more black ooze.

  Claire growled and kept pushing until her dagger plunged into the side of his neck. Gasping and gagging, Caius wrenched his sword toward her heart. Weakness crept over Claire. Blood, both red and black, covered everything. Her arm refused to cooperate and cut Caius’s head off. She ground her teeth and refused to allow herself to scream as he sawed through her ribcage with raw, jerking heaves.

  Caius breathed rot and stink into her face. Somehow, with a knife stuck through his neck, he spoke. “My loyal Knights pushed you. They prodded you. They threw you into an Ordeal, and you kept coming back. Like a stupid puppy.” His voice thumped in her brain and her soul. “Girls cannot be Knights, Claire. Girls are for using. Your power belongs to me, just as your progeny do. It was entertaining to watch you flail, but when you attacked me, it became time for this little joke your father played on us both to end.”

  Enion’s agonized wails faded into the background. Claire wanted to help him, but she had to help herself first. She vaguely heard someone calling her name again. Every ounce of her strength and will went into moving her dagger. She needed to cut off his head before he cut out her heart.

  “Claire.” He sneered down at her, his tone patronizing. “Do you really think you want me dead more than I want to kill you?”

  His words, felt more than heard, made her pale. No one could want anything harder than Caius in his own realm. But she saw Justin running to help. If she could keep Caius distracted for another ten seconds, she’d succeed no matter what happened. She spat in his face.

  “I really think I was right. You’re an asshole.”

  Caius wrenched his blade again, cutting through her bones and making her scream. She tried to tighten her grip on her dagger and couldn’t tell if it worked. With another jerk of his sword, Caius’s roar filled her ears. He had no attention to spare for anyone else.

  “I win,” she whispered.

  Chapter 40

  Justin

  Justin slammed his baseball bat into Djembe’s side and the man barely flinched. Djembe had edged them away from both Caius and the horse, and Justin could see Claire closing to fight Caius. She shouldn’t do that. In his head, he screamed for Claire to stay away from him. She ought to ride Enion and let him help her.

  Avery kept using the butt of his shotgun to try to knock Djembe down. Justin and Khalil likewise kept trying to take out his legs or knock him unconscious. This man had once been a friendly colleague to all of them. Killing him went beyond the pale.

  “Claire!” Drew shrieked.

  The boy’s anguished terror cut through everything in Justin’s head. “Avery, shoot him!” Justin bellowed. He swung for Djembe’s head. No matter how little he wanted to kill the man, he had to put their mission—and Claire—first.

  Avery flipped his gun around and fired. Acrid smoke teased Justin’s nose. Djembe staggered into Justin’s swing. Khalil crunched Djembe’s knee from behind.

  Justin snapped his head around to check on Claire. Enion lay on his side with Drew checking on him. Though Justin thought he remembered noticing Rondy abandon the dragons to help Claire, he saw no sign of the elder Knight’s ghost. Iulia and her dragon lay in unmoving heaps. That left Claire facing Caius alone.

&
nbsp; He ran with all his heart to reach the young woman who’d burst into his life only weeks ago. In that short time, she’d shown him exactly how little he knew. Despite turning his life upside down, she’d been a big sister to his daughters and a little sister to him and his wife. She’d brought Drew into their lives and reminded him what they really fought for. Because of her, he’d faced the dark parts of himself buried deep inside and come out wanting to be a better man.

  Caius stabbed her and she spat in his face. He couldn’t imagine how she could possibly make anyone prouder than he felt in that moment. His legs pumped as hard as he could, carrying him across the flat ground too slow. Claire screamed and he sped, reaching them as she crumpled.

  Justin leaped over her, swinging for the dagger lodged in Caius’s neck and covered with dark sludge. His bat connected and jammed the dagger all the way through. Caius gaped. Gloppy black muck surged out through the ragged wound. His head pitched back and disintegrated as it fell.

  Justin landed on his feet. The ground trembled. He crouched low to avoid falling. Drew scrambled to Claire’s side despite the shaking ground. With a great, shuddering heave, the flat plain disappeared, leaving them in a large stone room. Aside from the pillar of white light in the center, it resembled any other empty room in the Palace.

  The remaining four dragons, aside from Iulia’s and Enion, pounced on Caius’s horse and ripped it to shreds. Avery and Khalil pinned Djembe to the floor.

  “No,” Drew sobbed, snapping Justin’s attention back. Drew gathered Claire into his arms with Caius’s sword still sticking out of her chest.

  Justin grabbed the sword and yanked it out, then he tossed it aside. “Claire, wake up.” He dropped to one knee beside her and Drew. Blood soaked her shirt all around the gaping hole left by the blade. Slick meat made up her chest. Justin patted her cheek. The wound would heal. It had to heal. She’d been brave, strong, and determined. She couldn’t die now, not after everything she’d been through.