by Tasha Black
Kendall let go of Jared’s hands to go to her immediately.
They headed around the school with a couple of the other water witches, most likely to use the fountain and maybe even the school supply lines to fight. As part of a group, it was likely that no one would notice Kendall’s lack of magic, especially in the heat of battle.
Jared marched after them, allowing a bit of distance, but clearly unwilling to let Kendall out of his sight.
“I have to go,” Cori told Reed.
“Where?” he asked.
“Someplace where I can survey the whole battlefield,” she told him. “So I know where we need lightning and strong winds.”
“You’ll be a target,” he moaned. “Stay with me.”
“Reed,” Luke called out from across the courtyard. He seemed to be formulating a plan that probably involved the two of them shifting into more effective fighting forms. I remembered their combined fierceness the last time we faced off against the Order, and a shiver went down my spine at the thought of the primal power. With the added strength of tonight’s full moon, I didn’t envy any warlock who crossed their path.
“Go,” Cori told him. “I’ll see you when it’s over.”
She kissed him in a way that made me almost embarrassed to watch, then turned on her heel and jogged away before he could protest.
“You’re not getting away from me so easily,” the king growled in my ear, bringing me back to my own reality.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” Headmistress Hart said sharply.
The king turned quickly to her.
“You can’t go with her,” the headmistress said plainly.
“I will not leave her side,” he told her.
“They’re using your power,” the headmistress pointed out. “You’re a liability to her. Let her fight for her life, without fearing for yours.”
But before he could answer there was an explosion in the air above us.
Purple sparks flashed in the air, forming the symbol of the Broken Blade.
They were here. There was no more time to plan or argue.
It was time to fight.
30
The Raven King
As the purple sparks fell to the ground, the courtyard came alive.
The witches of Primrose were gathering in groups, according to their magical strengths. They were quite prepared for mortals, and seemed to show very little fear in the face of such a formidable enemy. I had to give them credit for that.
Bella’s group was already augmenting my labyrinth. The hedges bristled with six-inch, onyx thorns that glistened in the cold light of the full moon.
I heard a groan from right behind me and realized the statues were coming to life, just like they had in the fountain.
A marble archer in a toga nocked an arrow without a second thought about his newfound animation. His brow furrowed in concentration as he took aim.
Beside him, a discus thrower stretched with a loud rumbling sound before preparing his weapon for action.
But the sound of something big thundering toward us across the meadow drew my attention.
An undead woolly mammoth with three grinning skeletons on his back lurched toward the school, a crazed look in his bloodshot, yellow eyes.
I could feel myself weakening with every step the thing took. Much as I hated to admit it, the headmistress was right - the Order was draining more of my power with every stupid stunt. Even their opening fireworks had taken their toll on me.
I staggered toward the podium that had been abandoned by the stone archer and propped myself on it. I tried to focus on the trees, but they seemed to shake and shift before my eyes. The world was spinning, and the thought that I was already getting dizzy before the battle had truly begun was terrifying.
But a moment later, it became clear that the appearance of the world spinning was not brought on by my weakness. The trees were actually moving.
Bella and her fellow witches were bringing the forest to life. All around me, trees were uprooting themselves, others flailing wildly as they tried to follow their brothers.
The witches worked diligently, but I could see the toll it was taking on some of them. I wished that I could lend them my powers, but I could hardly stand.
I watched in helpless joy as one of Bella’s trees crushed a line of hellhounds that had been preparing to attack.
A stone arrow pierced the chest of one of the few hooded Order members to show himself this close to the action.
He fell to the ground, but another hooded man sprinted out of the woods to take his place. He must have been controlling one of the undead creatures.
A bolt of blue fire caught the mammoth in the left haunch. It bellowed in agony, but the skeletons smacked viciously at it with the flats of their swords until it staggered forward and kept coming.
No matter how hard the witches fought, the Order’s answer was to push on. No matter how many creatures were trampled by the trees or taken out by stone arrows and magic strikes from the other students, there were always more to take their place.
As long as I had power to drain, they would keep coming.
Bella’s professor was waving for several of her students to go back to the courtyard. One was frozen in terror. A hellhound leapt onto her chest, gnashing its yellow teeth. The professor wrenched her away at the last moment and shoved her toward the courtyard.
The hound latched its teeth onto the teacher’s forearm and two more students fought it off.
Similar things were happening all over the school grounds. The witches would tire eventually. Unlike mine, their magic came at a price.
And there was nothing I could do to help Primrose survive. My powers were doing nothing but feeding the enemy’s troops.
Everything in front of me seemed to shift into slow motion as I realized there was something I could do.
I searched the field for Anya. I would not do this without telling her.
“Madam,” I called out to Headmistress Hart, who was storming past.
“What?” she demanded, turning to me.
I saw her eyes go wide at the sight. I knew I was weak but the sympathy in her expression made what I had to do easier. I did not want sympathy from a mortal.
“They’re using my power,” I told her, though she already knew. “I can’t allow it any longer.”
“If there’s something you can do about it, I wish you had told me before,” she said impatiently.
“There is one thing,” I told her. “They will stop if they have nothing left to take.”
She blinked at me.
“I’ve had a long life,” I joked weakly, giving her the handsome half-smile that I hoped would distract her. “I just want to say goodbye to Anya first.”
Hart frowned but she scanned the battlefield with me.
“Where is Anya?” she asked worriedly.
31
Anya
I flew through the cold evening air, clinging to Calvin’s feathers as we swept toward the battle long enough for me to unleash an unspoken command to the undead mammoth that was stampeding through the courtyard.
One moment it was staggering forward in a blind rage, the next it sat down hard on its rump, skeleton passengers clattering to the stones behind.
The thing might not be alive anymore, but it was still an animal, sort of. And that was enough to give me some power over it, even if I couldn’t take complete control.
The wind whipped my robes out behind me as Calvin sailed back into the air so that I could survey the battlefield.
Growing Calvin and Hobbes to horse-size had been my first good instinct tonight. And while the Order didn’t seem to be slowing their attack, I felt certain that I was getting the hang of my powers. Eventually, I was going to find a way to stop them.
Calvin let out a cry of recognition and I glanced below to find Headmistress Hart and the Raven King waving to me from the courtyard.
The king looked terrible even from my vantage point. His skin was too pale
, and the purplish circles under his eyes showed his weakened state. He must have taken some damage.
We circled and landed, Calvin’s claws skittering across the stones to stop just short of knocking them over. As I hastily dismounted, Headmistress Hart glanced at the huge raven approvingly, and I felt a warmth in my chest at her show of pride.
“You’re hurt,” I murmured, placing my palm against the king’s chest, wishing I could heal him, but unable to spot a wound.
“They are draining my power,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s why they don’t stop. As long as I live, they will never stop.”
Something about his words disturbed me, though I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“We’ll figure it out,” I told him. “I’m getting the hang of my powers. Did you see Calvin?”
He smiled, and there was pride in his pale eyes, though it was tinged with pain.
“You’re going to be fine, Anya,” he told me gently. “You’re going to be more than fine.”
A ball of purple flame sailed past us and there was a moan of agony somewhere in the fray.
“You will prevail,” he assured me. “But I won’t be here to see it.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “Of course you’ll be here.”
I couldn’t understand why he would leave in the middle of the battle. And without the blade, where would he even go?
“The only way to stop them from draining me to power their magic is to make sure they have nothing left to drain,” he said firmly. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
It came together for me like an explosion in my brain. Suddenly, I was boiling with rage.
“Your big plan is to die?” I practically shouted at him. “And you think that’s going to fix things?”
He took an instinctive step back.
“Who is going to rule the world beyond the veil?” I demanded.
“A new ruler will take my place,” he said. “Someone younger.”
“Someone hotheaded who wants nothing more than to tear down the veil and ruin both worlds,” I told him. “Who is going to teach me how to use these powers?”
“Anya, you don’t need my help,” he said softly.
“Who is going to love me?” I screamed, hot, angry tears streaming down my face.
“I will always love you,” he told me softly. “But I have to do this - for your world and mine.”
Headmistress Hart put an arm around me, as if she thought she could lead me away like one more meek student.
I threw her arm off and screamed again, my soul ripping apart.
Power radiated from me, lifting my hair, splintering out of my fingertips.
I felt myself begin to fly, without Calvin’s help. I was riding the currents he had taught me to find, stepping on the fiery bursts of magic that rent the air.
The two people I loved most disappeared beneath me. I didn’t need them. I didn’t need anyone to fix this.
I only had to destroy the thing that threatened my world.
At this height I could see the hooded man at the edge of the trees, riding a nightmare and wielding the king’s blade.
He was outside the reach of the other witches, but he was clearly controlling much of the action on the field of battle.
Not for long.
I shot myself forward like a bullet, diving for the hooded man and stopping short just above him.
Hovering in the air, I threw a bolt of magic straight at his heart.
The sword came up of its own accord. The metal seemed to glow at the impact of my magic.
The man did not even seem to feel the blow. Instead he glanced up at me, eyes narrowing, mouth stretching into an evil grin.
“That. Doesn’t. Belong. To. You,” I screamed, sending down a bolt of magic with each word.
My eyes widened in shock as I saw that the sword glowed brighter and brighter with every strike.
I wasn’t weakening the sword, or its wielder. The blade was drinking in my power. With every strike, I only made the warlocks stronger.
I wasn’t going to be able to penetrate its defenses. My magic, the infinite power of the fae realm, was only a liability here. The harder I fought, the more harm I would do.
The warlock below sent out a massive pulse of magic to his subjects, feeding more power into their attacks - more power stolen from the Raven King. It was too much.
There was a tug at my heart, as if my soul were a tapestry being unwoven, and I knew that back in that courtyard, the king was dying.
My friends were losing the battle. By the end of this endless night, there would be no Primrose, no witches, no guardian, no Raven King. There would only be the Order.
Two worlds would be lost.
Maybe the king had been right after all. It was time for a sacrifice.
I alighted on the ground beside the hooded man and his mount.
The tree beside him had been hit during the battle, a massive branch lay on the grass.
I snapped off a huge chunk of it and approached him, swinging wildly. I wasn’t going to give him any more of my magic, but I needed his attention.
He laughed, a high-pitched, evil sound, and swung the sword at me.
I held my branch aloft until the last possible second.
Then I let it fall to my side.
As the blade tore into my flesh, I hoped with my last breath that the king was right.
I hoped that I really was fae - that my spilled blood would end the pact he had made with the blade.
I hoped that his powers would return to him instantly, that the battle would end in a heartbeat, and my friends and their way of life would be saved.
The pain blossomed as I fell to the grass. But I felt my faith blossom too, warm and true.
For you, I mouthed soundlessly to the Raven King as my eyesight dimmed. And for Primrose.
For my home.
32
The Raven King
I tried my best to hold onto the world, but it was fading from me. The color had drained from the magic that sailed across the sky. And sounds seemed to be coming from very far away.
Anya…
I had to stay for her. She didn’t want me to go.
But letting go was the only way to save her.
I felt myself tearing into pieces as the Order drained my strength further with every second that passed.
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my chest.
My power snapped back into me with a force so great I felt like I had been struck by lightning.
The night was filled with color once more - the midnight blue of the sky, red balls of magical fire.
I could smell the sour rot of the undead warriors and feel the cold wind on my skin.
How...?
I searched the sky for Anya, but she was nowhere to be seen. My power was back, magic was blasting from my pores. There was not even a hint of anything draining me. I had to let her know.
And then it hit me.
The blade. My power was back because the blade had spilled fae blood.
Anya…
Dozens of undead creatures were falling to the ground all around me, the magic that had animated them gone as it rushed back into me.
I skirted piles of snow-white bones from the skeleton warriors, and leapt over the rotted, smoking flesh of the creatures they had been riding when my power was sucked from them.
I had to find Anya before it was too late. If she died, I didn’t know what I would do.
I didn’t know who I would be without her.
The witches were celebrating all around me. They had no idea what this meant - that my world was breaking amidst the sounds of joy and relief.
I pushed past them, sprinting for the meadow and the tree line where I could sense my Anya.
Flying so fast I couldn’t feel the grass beneath my feet, I arrived to find her limp body in a circle of blood on the ground.
Anya looked so small. Her brave actions belied her tiny form in life. But now she l
ooked almost like a child.
My sword lay beside her, its metal dull and plain now that it no longer held my power.
A few feet away, a hooded man desperately tried to get out from under a collapsed nightmare as the flames of its extinguishing mane caught his robes.
“Go,” I screamed.
Man and horse turned to ash before my eyes. They disintegrated and blew away in the cold wind.
I fell to my knees at Anya’s side. There was so much blood, so very much…
“Can you hear me, love?” I murmured, taking her head in my lap.
Her eyelids fluttered but did not open.
There was still time.
I placed my hands on her chest and called on all my power to heal her.
The rush of magic that responded nearly took my breath away. I let it flow into her, willing it to bring her back to me.
I pictured flowers blooming, vines wending their way toward the sunlight. I showed her baby rabbits hopping out of the nest and little birds sailing through the air for the first time. And then I let go and saw grass pressing through the soil, a great oak growing from a tiny acorn.
Someone had joined us, maybe more than one someone. I could feel a supportive presence behind me, adding their hopes to mine.
Anya’s chest moved under my hands as she took a shuddering breath.
I opened my eyes to see that the meadow was covered in flowers. Calvin and Hobbes circled above us, back at their normal size.
And Headmistress Hart stood beside me, the students of Primrose filling the meadow as we all watched Anya come back to life.
“Y-you saved me,” she murmured.
“And you saved me,” I told her, bending to brush her lips with mine.
There was a murmur in the crowd, but there were no sounds of disapproval. Not even from the formidable headmistress Anya seemed so fond of.
“Is it over?” she whispered when I pulled back a little.
“The battle?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Yes, my love,” I told her. “We won.”
Her radiant smile broke my heart.
