by Lisa Morgan
“What’s going on?” I whispered to my friends standing beside me.
“Shhh,” Autumn prompted, nudging her heard toward the throne.
The king sat, his eyes resting on me. Fear pulsed as those platinum eyes that seemed to look right though me.
“Guards,” the king ordered, his gaze not wavering off of me, “bring in our other guest and his prisoner!”
The crowd hummed with electricity as they watched two guards exit the chamber. The buzzing grew louder when the guards reappeared. They made their way to stand in the center of the room, and with a raise of King Edwyn’s hand, the crowd silenced.
One guard looked back to where they’d entered, and raising his arm, signaled to something unseen.
A creature, two guards on each side, hobbled into the room. It dragged its left leg behind its body as if it’d been badly broken at one point in its life and never set properly. The being was clad in torn rags that barely covered its withered frame, its skin a muted green color like guacamole, and it didn’t smell much better.
“Incubi,” Seatha whispered in my ear, and to my horror, the thing turned, looking directly at us.
The Incubi’s eyes were a vast pool of nothingness, black orbs that I could see our reflections in. There was no discernible mouth or nose, just solid flesh where the features should be. I could feel icy chills of foreboding climbing my spine as the Incubus stared. The grinding sound of metal on metal rent the quiet from behind the creature, and its attention was drawn to the noise.
Michel stood, his fangs bared and his sword now drawn, watching it stare at me. I held my breath, waiting to see what happened.
“Michel,” the king ordered, observing the stare down. “This Incubus’s a guest of my throne, providing a service to The Realm. You will put away your weapon.”
Michel stood unmoving a few more seconds before sheathing the sword and letting it fall to his side, placing his hand to rest on the hilt. The Incubi looked back to me, and I could feel it was smiling, if only it had a mouth on its face.
Turning toward the direction the creature and guards had come from, I watched for the prisoner to enter. It did not escape my notice that now Luc was lowering his hands measuredly from the hilts of his weapons. If the Incubus wasn’t the scariest thing in the room, then I shuddered to think what manner of monster his prisoner was.
The Incubi drew a thin whip hanging from its tattered clothing, and with a quick snap against the floor, wordlessly commanded its prisoner to enter.
I watched, terrified, as a revenant entered the ballroom. My heart lurched to my throat and ripped at my insides as the skeleton, wearing only a loincloth to cover itself, came before the king with no less than a dozen Realm knights encircling it.
It was more petrifying than seeing them standing in their long hooded robes. The bones in its arms were completely visible, exposing the tendons and muscles that forced the movement of its parts. One leg had rotted flesh dangling above its kneecap, but the bottom was comprised solely of bone. The other leg was mangled and twisted, the foot pointing inward. I could see, and smell, the rotting organs inside it, only bits of skin covering its ribcage.
Vertebrae were exposed in places, holding the revenant’s skull to the rest of its body. Tufts of hair and scalp remained, blond clumps serving as the only reminder of what this creature had once been. The yellow lights serving as its eyes were still glowing, but dimmer than the one’s I’d seen previously. Its arms were bound in a copper looking set of bindings. The walls echoed with the sick tapping noise as the revenant’s foot bones came to rest on the stone floor.
“Creature, I am Edwyn of Celine, true King of all the Realm. You will tell me of Ossa’s plans.”
The revenant made no noise or movement.
With a nod to the Incubi by the king, the whip cracked, connecting with the minute amount of skin on the revenant’s back. Still, it made no sound as the whip pulled away, a twisted bit of flesh ripping free and clinging to the tip. I saw the monster shudder and teeter forward when the flesh tore away.
“You will tell me where Ossa is hiding,” King Edwyn ordered, his voice calculating.
The revenant made no gesture, and with another nod, the Incubi reached for its captive’s arm. Crackling sounds bounced off the walls as the Incubus crushed the bones in its hand. A deafening shriek rang out, and I positioned my hands to cover my ears.
The king sat in his throne again as the echo of the wail died away. “You have suffered greatly,” the king offered, almost sympathetically to the creature who’d cried out. “But do not mistake me. You will find no mercy in this court. You will speak, and we shall grant you a quick death. Or you will remain silent, and I will offer you more torment than you imagine possible.”
I thought back to the punishments that had been meted out by King Edwyn in the past and shuddered. He’d ordered the extinction of an entire race. I had no doubt he’d torture the revenant and probably take glee in doing so.
The creature bucked suddenly, its back cracking and arching its chest upward, and its feet rose off the stone floor. The crowd began to raise its voices, muttering and frightened by what it was witnessing. Michel, Luc, and the guards drew their swords in a collective shriek of metal. The revenant’s head twisted in an unholy way and its arms shot to its sides as if it were being crucified.
“What magick is this?” the king boomed out, standing and looking to the witches for answers.
“Sire,” one of the witches shouted back in response. “This is not from us. This is dark magick. We have no control of it.”
The yellow glow of the revenant’s eyes grew brighter and brighter, seeming to absorb all the light in the room before finally, the light exploded and cast toward the ceiling in a blinding beam.
A cacophony of horror broke out from the crowd, creatures of all types pushing others to escape. I stood fast, not because I wanted to, but rather because I was unable to move my feet in the fray erupting around me.
“Edwyn of Celine,” a dark voice bellowed, the timbre resonating off the high ceiling, shuddering the glass dome overhead. The crowd drew to an abrupt halt, turning to look at the lord the voice has called for. The light from the revenants eyes had manipulated itself into a form, even as the body remained in a suspended state, bent backward at almost ninety degrees. A hooded figure, composed in the yellow beams as a projection, stood in front of the king.
“Ossa,” the king spat out, straightening his spine and firmly planting his feet to match his resolve. One of the king’s guards slashed at the image, but his sword went through the figure as if it was smoke, losing its shape momentarily before coalescing once again.
Ossa’s voice boomed from the image. “Fools! You cannot strike me down like this. I come bearing an offer for peace, so perfectly delivered to you imbeciles in the form of a mindless minion.”
The crowd was frozen in silence as they listened to Ossa’s words. My eyes flickered between The Realm princes. Michel was standing in front of his father, Luc at his side. Both of the princes were snarling and had their weapons drawn.
“You will give us the Phoenix,” Ossa commanded, and my eyes whipped to the revenant leader’s visage, my heart threatening to leave my chest, “and we will offer you a swift and true death.”
“Never,” Luc bit out as the king walked down the steps to stand between his sons.
“Or?” the king counter offered. Luc turned to his father, obvious disbelief washing over him that the king would even consider such an exchange.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jumped. Seatha stood at my side, holding me. Autumn was on the other with her hand on my back, holding her breath.
“Or,” Ossa went on, “in twenty-four hours’ time, we shall go to war, and I will strike you all down and take the girl myself.”
The king looked at Luc and then to Michel before opening his mouth to reply. Silently, the ruler appeared to be weighing his options.
Those seconds passed by at a snail’s pace, dragging
out my future like individual specks of sand falling one by one through an hourglass.
The king took the final step off the dais, facing the smoking representation of Ossa. I closed my eyes and held my breath as King Edwyn gave his answer.
“Then … we go to war.”
“You foolish vampire,” Ossa replied in slow, well measured words, even as a sinister smile grew across his skeletal face. “We all have our bones, Edwyn de’Celine … secrets we keep to spare those we care for. This day, you have made yet another grave error in judgment. It seems so selfish to put the needs of one above the needs of the many. You will regret this choice, mark my words.”
The light that had comprised the revenant leader exploded, shattering the glass dome above us in the ballroom. Screams rang out as shards of glass rained down, injuring guests as they tried to seek safety. Seatha pushed me to the floor and covered my body with her own while Autumn used her magick to redirect the glass away from us. Within seconds, the room was silent again with exception to whimpering from the injured and calls for healers.
Seatha uncovered me and helped me to stand. Turning, I looked around the room. All that remained of the revenant prisoner was a pile of dust. I saw that a fairy, with a shard of glass severing her wing, lay dead at the foot of the King’s riser. A vampire hung limply, a jagged piece of the window’s stained glass impaling it to the wall. Searching for Michel, I found him assisting a healer to one of the guards, a bloody gash that looked to have cost the guard his eye.
“Maggie!” Autumn called for me, but her words were distant, as if she were under water.
I couldn’t speak as I slowly turned around, my eyes scanning the room. Guests were bent over friends; knights were barking orders to each other and shuffling the uninjured from the area. Elvish healers jogged about, some in pairs carrying stretchers of lifeless looking beings and trying to form a triage.
“She’s in shock,” I could hear Seatha answer, but she was wherever the young witch was, someplace in the distance, the words low and distorted.
I was aware of Autumn’s arms wavering over me as Seatha placed her hands on my face. They called my name and whatever magicks the two were using, pulled me out of my fog abruptly. I shuddered at my sudden rejoining to the world. I shook my head and reassured my friends I was okay, just as I saw the king was raising his hands.
“Subjects of The Realm,” the ruler commanded. The volume in the room lowered, but did not fall silent as it had when he’d spoke during the celebration. This time, the painful moans and the sobs were unable to be quashed completely. “In twenty-four hours, we go to war. Make ready.”
As the uninjured members of the crowd roared for the battle, I watched as the king looked to Luc, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder almost with affection before his father left the room.
“I need to find my grandfather,” I told my friends absently, watching the King leave through a hidden door behind his throne.
“I’ll tell Michel,” Seatha assured me. “Autumn, you better check on the covens.”
The witch was nodding her head in agreement before speaking to me. “Are you sure you’re okay, Maggie?”
“Yeah,” I lied. I was scared to death. “I just need to find Liam.” I didn’t wait for my friends to reply as I strode from the chaos.
As I went in search of my grandfather, the castle had become a flurry of activity. Guards carrying litters of the injured or dead, many with weeping family or friends trailing close behind. The uninjured ran the halls, some barking orders, others taking them. It was all surreal. I carefully wove my way through the fray.
Finally, I spotted him. He was sitting at a table in what must have been a banquet hall, surrounded by kitchen folk packing extra-large baskets and bags with what I assumed to be provisions for the upcoming fight. My stomach was in knots as I approached my grandfather. Liam seemed unfazed by the events around him, as if this sort of bustle and urgency were normal. He had a large leather bound book opened on the table, seeming to study the words he’d found in it.
“Grandfather,” I spoke, pulling him from what he was reading.
“Margaret.” He smiled, standing to embrace me. He held so tight I couldn’t breathe and was forced to pull from him. He offered a quick apology. “I am so pleased to see that you weren’t injured.”
I nodded, reassuring him I was unscathed. “That thing? It was Ossa?”
“Not really,” Liam explained, sitting back down and bookmarking the page he’d been researching. “More a manifestation of Ossa, an image he wanted to project to the king and his subjects.”
“A manifestation?”
My grandfather nodded. “Ossa found some form of dark magick that he used to broadcast a likeness of himself through the creature the incubus had captured. He’s grown significantly in power since the last Revenant War.”
Liam’s assessment crawled across my skin.
“Can we win this? Can we defeat Ossa?” I asked, sitting next to my grandfather and watching his face for honesty.
Liam spoke almost wistfully as he held my chin, smiling. “This time we have you, Maggie dear. That’s something we didn’t have before.”
I argued, tears threatening, “I can’t even control my power. I can’t swing a sword. What good am I? The whole Realm is counting me as some great not-so-secret-weapon, and yet, I almost set Luc on fire because he was busting my chops. I almost burned Michel by just kissing him.”
“Maggie,” my grandfather exhaled heavily. He looked tired, and I worried for his wellbeing in all of this. Abruptly standing, he began to walk away from me.
“Wait!” I yelled, standing so quickly I knocked my chair to the floor. “I need answers, Liam, not riddles! I need help! I can’t do this!”
“When the time comes, I have no doubt you will do what needs to be done,” he answered, his face set in determination. He turned away, leaving me standing with no more answers or reassurances than I’d had before I found him.
Twenty Nine
Hours later, the cover of night still shielding us, the army of The Realm transported in waves to what had once been farmland, now swamped with canvas tents and the sounds of blades clashing against each other.
Seatha transported with me, trying to offer her hand to ease the unfamiliar form of travel with that emotion controlling thing she could sometimes do. I’d refused, and when we arrived at the encampment I promptly vomited, just as my grandfather had warned me could happen.
We’d been given one hour to pack what we’d need to go to war. I’d consulted with the fairy, having never gone to battle, with the hope she’d offer pointers on the ‘what not to wear to war’ ensemble. She’d told me she’d see to it that I had armor, provisions, and all else I would need for this.
Everything, I’d thought dismally, except fighting experience or the ability to wield fire, which was the whole reason I was here.
My fairy friend walked with me over the trodden earth, showing me around the encampment. She’d explained that every camp was essentially the same set up. One area for dining, provisional storage areas scattered around the makeshift stronghold in the event a siege should overtake us, ensuring we’d still have some rations available.
She slowed and pointed to a large tent, the silver crescent moon emblazoned on a blue-black flag that flew high above its precipice. “The king’s quarters. All strategic decisions, battle plans, and troop movements will be directed from within.”
I nodded and we continued on, weaving our way around canvas tents and poles bearing assorted banners. As we passed, the fairy educated me on what faction of The Realm was housed inside. Some were loud, the sounds of revelry drifting out of the tent flap, while others were as silent as the grave as the beings inside made ready to battle.
Those who saw me bowed their heads as we passed by, a few muttered My Lady to me, but none attempted to engage in a full conversation. All of them hoping it was me that would make a difference when they marched out to face Ossa’s army at dawn.
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br /> “Whose tent is this?” I asked when Seatha drew us to a stop outside a large octagon shaped tent, not finding the telltale pole waving a banner at the entrance. Seatha said nothing as she pointed to the peak of the tent. Snapping and wavering in the night time was a black flag barely visible except for the campfires that burned nearby. Reflecting down to me was a bird sewn in solid red with its beak and wings pointed skyward. The beak looked as if it were open, crying outward to the heavens.
The feathers on the wings were made of flames.
I was stunned as I realized what this canvas building was for. “This is mine?”
My companion nodded in answer. Seatha drew back the heavy curtain that served as a door, and stumbling ahead, I entered.
“It belonged to your parents when they fought for The Realm.”
I spun on my heels at her information, finding my fae friend smiling tenderly at me.
“My parents,” I whispered. The canvas tent was no longer just a place to sleep or stay dry to me. With Seatha’s words, it had transformed into a tangible, physical connection between my parents and me.
I paced around inside the housing, tracing my hands over the bindings that held the sides together and wondering if my mother or father had ever done the same. How many nights did they sleep beneath this very roof? How many mornings had they exited from the same opening I’d just used to come inside? My father had held my mother inside this tent, and the pair had been happy.
There was a cot with a sleeping bag laid out on top of it, as well as several trunks scattered around that held items I assumed I’d need. There was no electricity. Oil lamps burned, casting shadows on the walls of the tent.
“Tomorrow, no matter the outcome, know that it’s been an honor to know you, Maggie. And a treasure for you to call me friend,” Seatha spoke somberly.
“Why do you say it like we’ll never see each other again?” I questioned Seatha as I faced her, my examination of the interior paused.
The small fairy girl smiled politely at me. “It is fae tradition. On the eve of battle, we make rounds, letting those we care for know how much they mean to us so we may enter battle without the regret we forgot to share those feelings, should we fall.”
