When I arrived here a few weeks ago, I never could have imagined I’d be fighting in a war soon after. Or that my mother would be lying in her bed, completely without magic, without her usual strength. Or that my mum would be dead.
When did life become so crazy?
Suddenly, light flashes in front of my eyes and I’m thrown into Frost’s head. I know immediately that it’s him; it feels like him.
He’s standing in front of a ruined castle. The morning light is only just beginning to shine through the trees surrounding the loch the castle island is surrounded by. It’s an imposing structure, even though it’s got no roof and some of the walls have crumbled significantly.
A thin causeway spreads out before my men, leading towards the castle. They must have timed their arrival well because the tide is out, allowing them easy access to the little island.
How are they here already? It should have taken them longer… but I remember now, time flows slightly different on Earth than it does here. They may have already been in Scotland for hours.
As quickly as I was thrown into Frost’s head, I’m out again and back in my bed. What was the point of that? Well, I guess I know now that they got there okay, but Arc was going to let his contact know anyway. Hopefully, this isn’t the last time I get to see through Frost’s eyes.
Wait… when this happened before, he was in my head while I was in his. Does that mean he felt Crispin pressed against him? I smile. Poor Frost. But then a darker thought grips my mind. If he’s in my mind, is he defenceless in his own body? Gods, I hope not.
I don’t know why these weird mind swaps are happening, and how to control them. They can’t happen in battle, I won’t let them. Somehow. Maybe if I strengthen my mental barriers that will prevent them from happening? As much as I want to see what Frost and the others are up to, it’s not worth risking Frost’s life.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I didn’t get enough of it. I rub my eyes, yawning loudly.
“You’re cute when you’re tired,” Crispin chuckles. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d throw a pillow at him. Instead, I just snuggle against his warm body and pretend to be still asleep. I’m ignoring the fact that Tamara is in the room, and that she just woke me.
“Your Guardians have reached Castle Tioram,” she tells us, and I groan. Her voice is too loud. I want to sleep.
Mornings are evil.
“I know,” I mutter into my pillow.
“How?” Crispin asks in confusion.
“Bond.”
“You can talk through your bond to the others now?” he asks and I realise I haven’t told him yet what happened between me and Frost.
“No.”
“Are you only going to answer with one word from now on?”
“Yes.”
Tamara laughs softly. “I’ll leave you two to it. Council meeting is in half an hour.”
I groan again, cursing life and sleep and tiredness and everything.
What did I do to deserve this?
Oh yes, I was born to a Goddess and a Guardian. Stupid genes.
Crispin gently kisses me on the forehead, running his hands over my shaved scalp.
“Lips,” I grumble and he laughs, his chest vibrating against mine.
He does as I ask and the morning begins to look up a little.
It’s strange not to have Magnus in attendance. In his place there’s a blond-haired Guardian with stubble covering his chin and puffy cheeks, looking excited. Oh my, I hope he’s up to the job. We can’t afford having to train a replacement for our Treasurer now. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to dismiss Magnus after all – but no, he was a liability. Some fresh thinking will help the Council.
“My name is Anthony, Your Highness,” he introduces himself enthusiastically. “It’s a pleasure to have the chance to serve you and the Realm.”
Gwain is rolling his eyes at the young man’s enthusiasm, but luckily, Anthony doesn’t seem to notice.
“Welcome to the Council, Anthony. It’s good to have you join us. Have you been able to catch up on Magnus’s tasks.”
“Yes, my Lady, I mean, Your Highness. I was already doing a lot of those tasks anyway, so it’s not much of a change.”
To be honest, I’m not surprised that Magnus had his assistant do his own job. The Treasurer always had the air of someone lazy and self-entitled.
“Good. Let me know if you need any help or assistance. Now that you’re the acting Treasurer, you should probably have your own assistant. Do you have someone in mind?”
He nods enthusiastically. “My husband would be perfect for the job. He’s had the same training I’ve had.”
“Perfect. I’m sure Tamara will arrange his salary and contract.”
The Mistress of the Household nods in approval and I turn to her, away from the new Treasurer.
“Tamara, how many Gods pledged their allegiance yesterday?”
She looks at her list. “Twenty-three, plus several other previous allies have confirmed that they’ll be fighting on our side again. I’m waiting for more information from most of them, but if I take a rough guess, I’d say that we can now match Angus’s numbers, if not beat them. We’re still outnumbered if we add the Morrigan’s demon army, but they’re not as well trained and equipped as our Guardians. An Epona soldier, for example, can easily take ten demons.”
“I’m feeling a lot more hopeful,” Gwain admits. “This gives us the manpower to not only defend the Realms, but also to be on the offensive. We could attack Angus if you so command.”
That sets me aback slightly. The whole time, we’ve been talking about defending the Realm, and now suddenly, there’s a chance of us throwing the first metaphorical stone?
I’m not sure how I feel about that. Defending makes sense, there’s no choice. If the people of this Realm are to survive, we have to take up arms and defend ourselves. But actively going into Angus’s Realm and fighting him on his own lands… isn’t that what he’s doing to us?
“No, it isn’t,” Crispin whispers, so quietly that I’m the only one able to understand. He’s taken Storm’s seat in the Guardian’s absence. “Think of what they did to us. What the Morrigan did to you. It’s still defending, just not in our Realm.”
“Are you reading my mind again?”
He shrugs. “Can’t help it. It now seems to happen occasionally even when I don’t touch you.”
An issue for another time. As handy as it is to have him hear my thoughts in times of trouble, I really don’t want him to be able to read my mind at all times. I don’t have secrets from them, but my mind is mine and mine alone.
“Should we prepare our troops for a possible assault on the Summer Realm?” Gwain asks and the room falls completely silent. Everybody is staring at me.
My mother should be sitting in my place. It should be her making the decision.
So many lives could be lost.
Lives will be lost, no question about that. People I know and love could die.
Is it worth it?
A flash of light tears through my vision and I’m in Frost’s head again. There’s noise, so much noise, and smoke, and the smell of blood. He’s lying on the ground, his legs twisted and hurting. Pain is fogging his thoughts, but he’s clinging onto consciousness.
“Frost!” I shout, not sure if he’ll be able to hear me. Maybe he’s seeing the Council staring at him… me, rather than the dark stone corridor I see at the moment.
A shadowy figure bends down to me.
“I’m going to enjoy playing with you, sweetie.”
That voice is familiar. So sweet and so poisonous at the same time. The Morrigan.
She’s got Frost.
Suddenly, she’s thrown to one side by a massive gust of wind. Storm! He’s still fighting. That’s good. I can’t see Arc but hopefully, he’s there as well.
“Can you stand?” Storm asks his brother but I shake my head. My legs hurt too much. They’re broken, I’m sure of it. I need a healer… no, Frost doe
s.
“Arc!” Storm shouts. “You carry the father, I carry Frost!”
The father. My father? My dad? They’ve got him?
“Not so fast,” the Morrigan cackles, and it’s the last thing I hear before I’m flung back into my own body, back in the Palace.
“Wyn?”
Someone is shaking me by the shoulders. “Wyn? Are you alright?”
My legs are tingling with Frost’s pain. I need to help them.
“We need a distraction,” I say into the quiet room. “Gwain, ready the troops. We’re going to attack Angus. Tamara, Zephyr, let our allies know. Crispin, take twenty of our best fighters and travel to the Gate at Castle Tioram. They need a healer.”
“How do you know…?” Gwain asks, bafflement clear in his voice.
“No time to explain. We need to act quickly, while the Morrigan is distracted. She isn’t expecting an attack on Angus. If we manage to strike them both at the same time, they’ll not be able to assist each other.”
“Princess, it will take hours to get our army to the nearest Gate, let alone to the Summer Realm. We need to plan, we need time. Preparing an attack like that takes days.”
I sigh. “Right now, in this very moment, three of my Guardians are fighting the Morrigan. They don’t have a chance against her, but it’s a distraction. They…”
What did I just say?
The truth.
She’s a Goddess. They’re three Guardians and one of them is wounded.
They’re as good as dead.
They were never supposed to fight her. It was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission, with the hope that they might be able to free my dad.
They might be dead already.
Something shatters within me. My heart, maybe?
No, it’s my magic. She’s screaming, and I join her, screaming together as the heart cave around us crumbles, stalactites falling from the ceiling, stones crashing into the ground.
Blinding light is everywhere but I can’t close my eyes. I stare as the cave that I thought was protection for my magic slowly collapses.
No, it wasn’t protection. It was a prison.
The light increases, pouring into my magic. She’s growing, from the size of a large house cat to that of a lion. Her screams become deeper as her voice changes. Her claws extend, each as sharp as diamonds. Her eyes are glowing brightly, watching in glee as the stone that was once her cave crumbles into dust.
She’s free, and so am I.
I was never meant to be just a Demigoddess.
My magic takes a step towards me and I do the same, meeting her in the middle. I hug her tight.
We’re no longer separate, our powers are merging, becoming what we were destined for.
We are one.
We are a Goddess.
Epilogue
Storm, two hours earlier
There’s only about twenty demons guarding the Gate within the castle ruin and we dispatch them with ease. We’re a practised team: Arc freezes a bunch of demons with his mind, my brother drowns them, I round up the others with gusts of wind to get the same treatment. Brutal, but effective. We don’t have time to play nice today.
The Gate in front of us looks very different from the ones in the Winter Realm. Rather than the typical two standing stones covered by a large third stone slab, this one is a doorway that’s part of the castle structure. It’s a clever way to keep it from the attention of humans. Not that they can see the shimmer of magic covering the doorway like a spider’s web, but standing stones attract tourists. Just look at Stonehenge, that Gate hasn’t been used for a long time because it’s been taken over by humans.
Frost wipes his bloody hands on his shirt.
“I hate demon blood,” he complains. “It leaves stains.”
“Have ye suddenly turned into Crisp?” Arc teases and Frost gives him an indignant glare.
“Stop the banter, we’ve got work to do,” I admonish them and stride towards the Gate, leaving a pile of demon corpses behind. They follow and together, we step into the Morrigan’s domain.
I’ve been in the Demon Realm before, many times, but this part of it seems unfamiliar. We’re in a large cavern, illuminated by a glowing mould or moss covering the walls. There’s nobody here. Strange. I had expected guards.
Slowly, we make our way through the cave, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. The sound of our breathing echoes in the empty space, far too loud for my liking. The dark entrance to a tunnel looms up ahead and I point towards it, letting the others know our destination. The tunnel is completely dark, no glowing moss here to help us see what’s waiting for us.
I extend my magic, looking for disturbances in the air. Someone is breathing not far from us, maybe fifty feet away. Only one though. Carefully, I wrap a wind lasso around them, and with a strong yank, pull them towards me. A demon flies through the air, landing heavily on the ground in front of me. It’s a higher demon with four arms and a gaping maw. Surprisingly, it’s not making a sound. Good for us, it means it won’t alert any of its fellow demons.
Darkness swirls around him, its tendrils reaching out for us.
Before his magic can touch us, Frost slams a spear of ice into the demon’s chest. He sinks back to the ground, twitching, before his body goes limp.
“That was too easy,” Frost whispers, echoing my thoughts. Either the demons here have grown complacent, or this is a trap. I hope for the first. Maybe the Morrigan isn’t here to keep them doing her bidding. She’s enslaved them, so there’s always the hope that they’re fighting for her unwillingly. That would give us an advantage.
A trap is unlikely. Nobody knew we were coming here, except for Wyn, Gwain and Flora. I trust Gwain with my life, Flora has nothing to gain by betraying us, and Wyn… well, she’s our Wyn. Enough said.
We make our way through the tunnel, with me checking for air disturbances every few minutes. There are no signs of life.
The tunnel never seems to end. It’s too narrow for us to extend our wings, so we have to walk. Most demons can fly, so why wouldn’t they have a better access route to the Gate? Maybe it was never intended as a Gate to be used for anything but an escape route. Maybe only the Morrigan uses it, who can teleport there in a flash.
We’ve been monitoring the other demon Gates, but we don’t stop the demons from leaving or entering. That would be too much of a waste of resources. All we do is watch to see if larger groups of demons leave that might mean trouble. And more recently, our scouts have been looking out for the Morrigan and her allies. Not that they ever saw her – of course not, she has her own Gate in the middle of nowhere.
It takes us half an hour to reach the end of the tunnel.
“Finally,” Arc whispers as a shimmer of light beckons in the distance. We increase our pace, glad to get out of this endless tunnel.
Just before we reach the end, I make them stop and extend my senses once again.
“Twenty demons up ahead,” I say quietly. “Two of them are very large.”
Arc cracks his knuckles and takes a large sword from his back.
“Let’s have some fun,” he roars before jumping out in the open, ready to hack at the demons waiting for us.
Frost grins and me and runs out as well, icicles flying from his hands, right into the chests of several demons. I join the fray, wrapping ropes of wind around the waists of two demons and ramming them into each other.
Blood paints the ground red as we kill the demons as quickly as possible. It only takes a minute to dispatch all of the demons, even the two big ones that are about twice my height.
We’re good at killing; it’s what we were made for.
“Where the fuck are we?” my brother asks, and I finally take in our surroundings. We’re in another cavern, but this one is so large that I can’t see where it ends. It could be several miles long, for all I know. The ceiling is so high that you could easily fit in some of the tallest towers of the Royal Palace.
More of the strange glowing moss is c
overing the walls, giving enough light to illuminate the massive fortress up ahead.
While the Palace in the Winter Realm is imposing and beautiful, this fortress feels threatening. The black stone shimmers unnaturally in the darkness and its jagged turrets seem to almost scratch the ceiling of the cavern. There are almost no windows, instead, small arrow slits are dotted around the walls. Two large ones above the main gate look like eyes staring into the distance, watching for intruders.
Basically, it's how most people would imagine a demon castle to look like.
"What are we going ta do, walk in through the front entrance?" Arc asks, looking at the fortress in disgust.
"Let's have a look around", Frost says, but I stop him.
"I have the darkest wings, let me."
His turquoise and Arc's copper wings would stand out too much, even in this darkness. My own are a dark blue, but in this light, they look black.
I jump into the air and fly towards the fortress, keeping close to the shadows. The closer I get, the more demons are down below. It seems like there are settlements at the foot of the castle, housing hundreds of demons. That definitely won't be the route we'll take.
Luckily, nobody spots me as I circle above them, looking for a way into the fortress. The back of the castle is built into the rock of the cavern, leaving three walls to search for an entrance.
Once, I get too close to a demon and he's about to cry out, but a quick burst of wind through his mouth and into his lungs stops him. He collapses, his lungs exploded.
I fly higher, hoping that there won't be barriers preventing us from flying into the fortress from above - but sadly, there are. Damn it. The bloody demons actually prepared for intruders. Maybe it's back from the times demons fought each other. I don't suppose they still do, now that they're all ruled by the Morrigan.
Winter Queen: A reverse harem novel (Daughter of Winter Book 3) Page 15
