by Grey, T. A.
She didn't know if they understood her or not but she left it alone. Lily, Rosa, and her mother made their way back down the corridor and up the stairs. Her mother moved much slower than they did so they slowed their pace to match hers.
At the top of the stairs Lily heard what sounded like a battle going on in the area of the dining hall. Something compelled her to go, the urge irresistible in her gut. Lily pulled a porting pot out of her bag and turned to her mother. “I need you to drink this. It will transport you out of the rift and to a castle—a safe castle. You have friends there.”
Her mother shook her head, eyes wide and backed up a step. “N-no, no, no.”
Lily heard male voices shout and recognized one of them. God, she didn't have time for this. “Please, just drink it; it'll send you out of here. Don't you want to get out of here?”
Her mother made a break for the door that led to the dungeon. “Shit, get her!” Lily caught her mother, wrapping her arm around her chest.
Even bony and weak she was strong as an ox. “Rosa help me!” Rosa came over and quickly chanted some words then laid her fingers on her mother's struggling forehead. Her mother instantly calmed, her body going lax.
Lily popped open the corked porting potion and held it to her mother's lips. The drink went down with some struggling and gargling noises. She broke halfway through the potion to make sure she didn't drown in the awful drink before giving her the last of it.
“How is she going to say the last of the spell?”
Rosa looked grim. “I can do it for her.” Rosa laid her hand over her mother's forehead and then her mother started speaking the spell from her own lips. Lily and Rosa let go of her and she disappeared before their eyes.
“You should go back too and help her. She won't know anyone there.”
Rosa shook her head. “I'm needed here. I can feel it.”
“Let's go then.”
Lily and Rosa walked swiftly, silently, down a long corridor, the sounds of male voices growing louder. “It's Alrik and Telal. I recognize their voices.”
Lily peered into the room, staying to the wall, and saw Alrik's black magic slithering out of his hand and wrapping around Telal. Telal dropped to the ground, screaming as the black bands squeezed around his struggling body, forcing him to the ground. Hard bounding footsteps tore her gaze away from the sight. Lily tensed as the footsteps came towards them but relaxed as she saw familiar faces.
Lyonis stopped on the other side of the doorway. Alongside him were Rayn and Henry. “What are you doing here?”
Before Lily could respond, a taller, bigger man stepped out from behind them. Kearnyn. His eyes locked so hard onto Rosa the look felt like a slap.
“What are you doing here?”
“We came to free her mother and help.”
“Get out of here now,” Lyonis said. “Most of the guards are dead but a swarm of demon assassins are headed this way. They’ve already killed the Atal Warriors and nearly took out Jackie and Thane. They are incredibly fighters.”
A blood-curling scream brought Lily's gaze back inside the dining hall. Alrik stood like a trembling evil force, his palms facing the ground summoning something from the earth. Insects. Swarms and swarms of them, making a hideous cracking sound as they crawled up from beneath the stone floor in groves and scuttled across the floor to Telal. Lily didn’t know what they were but she knew they couldn't touch him.
Running into the room, Lily chanted a quick spell and thrust her arm out. The beetle-like insects screamed as they were kicked back with a tidal force of air.
She had only a moment to hear Rosa's scream when Alrik's blackened eyes settled on her and black magic shot at her. She ran and rolled on the ground. The blast hit the wall where she'd been, the stone crumbling to the ground, sizzling and smoking like acid ate away at it.
“Get up, Telal!” she screamed.
His wide, angry eyes met her and then he spoke in demonic and white light pierced him, killing the black tendrils covering him. He stood and she saw the blood drenching his leg, pooling around him.
“Get out of here!” he roared.
So much seemed to happen at once that Lily felt struck, frozen in place. Demon assassins like she'd seen at Telal's headquarters rushed into the room followed by Telal's own team. Lyonis roared a sound so piercing she had to cover her ears as he shifted into a great hulking beast like a wolverine full of thick fur, vicious talons, and a muzzle of razor-sharp teeth. He jumped into a crowd of demons, throwing his arms around, knocking them away, snapping at heads and biting them off.
Henry, Rayn, Draven, and Kearnyn followed bearing an assortment of weapons from double-bladed axes to two sharp swords. They whipped their weapons in a fast circle, so fast the motion blurred together and ran against the demons, slicing off arms and legs in great bloody sweeps.
Lily found herself backing up. Rosa ran up to her and she knew she spoke but all she could do was watching the chaos happen around her. She should be moving, she should be helping, acting but fear, shock, and her own inadequacies overwhelmed her. She couldn't do any of the great things she was seeing.
Animalistic growls sounded in the room bouncing off the walls and then Thane and Jackie were there. Jackie shapeshifted into a ginger-haired cat so much larger than any she'd ever seen. And in a startling move, she sprinted across the hall, bounding up against the walls then pounced on a group of three demons at once, all snarls, growls, and claws cutting out throats and faces.
Thane shapeshifted into a beast like Lyonis' only smaller, without so much hair to where she could see the grisly muscles of the beast. He ran, diving into the fray and knocking demons off their feet, biting off limbs while sustaining his own blows.
Blood sprayed, people screamed, shouted.
Lily turned at last and saw Telal and Alrik in the midst of their own personal battle as if separated from everyone else. Maybe he'd arranged it so that only he would fight his brother or maybe that was just how it'd played out. They shot bolts of black power at each other and with each one Lily saw Telal's face turn paler.
“I need to help him.”
“No!” said Rosa. “Just stay here.”
Lily jerked her arm out of Rosa's grasp and veered right to stay clear of the battle going down. Still, she flinched and stumbled at the sound of breaking silverware, crashing tables, and walls being torn down. Lily palmed her dagger as Telal staggered backwards under the force of Alrik's spell. Whatever Alrik was casting at him he was trying hard to keep it off him.
Lily took the dagger by the blade, steadied herself, then let it fly. The blade speared through the air turning end over end before landing in Alrik's stomach. The demon king stopped casting as electrical surges jolted through his body. He jerked the blade from his gut and threw it away.
Lily had only a moment before the force of his lethal gaze landed on her, making her the soul focus of his attention. Then he yelled something in demonic and several things happened all at once.
Something black and ugly struck her in the gut, lifting her off her feet, then slamming her to the ground. The pain was instant and engulfing, pushing its way inside of her and eating at her. Her lungs struggled to breathe air and blood burst from her nose and mouth. She tried to move but pain only intensified. From the corner of her eyes she watched Telal's shocked expression as he turned on Alrik with the most vicious face she'd ever seen him make.
The pain was too much and Lily let it pull her into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 44
Telal watched Lily fall to the ground and knew she'd die. He knew the spell that Alrik had just cast upon her would bring so much pain she'd wish she were dead until finally the spell worked its magic and strangled the life from her, cutting off her airways and clotting her arteries.
Telal shook with rage. He advanced on Alrik and casted his own magic, using the bit of darkness that resided deep inside him to tear him down to the ground and choke the life from him. Alrik fell to his knees, clutching his neck, the ve
ins on his forehead sticking out thick and hard from the blood pumping in his body.
“It didn't have to be like this.” He stood over his brother's body sword in one hand and picked up the dagger Alrik had tossed away. He came back to his brother and stabbed him in the chest, yanking the blade from him before the electrical currents could ravage his body. He wanted this to be slow, as painful as his bleeding heart.
Telal surveyed the room and found his team winning. Bleeding and hurt, but winning. Rosa was kneeling over Lily and he forced himself away from the sight. It hurt so much to look at her that it staggered him. It took every ounce of strength inside him not to fall to his knees and crawl to her, hold her one last time. Vengeance first. He needed blood.
“It was always going to be like this,” his brother choked out on bloodied lips.
Telal fingered the blades in his hand then dropped one. “You're going to suffer as you've made her suffer.” Moisture gathered in his eyes and he blinked until it went away. His chest felt so tight it hurt to breathe. He only managed to breathe by sucking in air through his nose.
Telal held his palm to the ground and called forth the dark energy of the earth, of the darkness that lay deep in the rift. His powers were weak, still sapped, but still he coaxed the dark powers to heed him and answer his call. A vibrating energy flowed over him—a sickly feeling like a cold sweat over his skin. Black, twisted, gnarled hands, then arms cracked through the stone floors. Skeletal bodies with dead skin hanging from their bodies, some with eyeballs hanging from their sockets, pulled themselves out of the floor. Clothes still clung in tatters to their bodies, reminiscent of the demonic robes of royalty.
“Do you recognize them?” Telal said, gritting his teeth between words. Sweat poured from his body with the effort it took to call the dead from the grave. His thighs and arms shook, burned, his heart pounded too fast to be healthy, and he was sure that at any moment he'd collapse.
Alrik's head lolled before he finally saw the beings coming towards him. His eyes widened with terror. “It... it can't be. I had them killed.”
“Exactly.” Telal controlled the summoned dead, previous victims from Alrik's treatment and sent them toward their new victim. “You'll pay for touching Lily.”
Telal didn't know how they died but knew Alrik had been the culprit. The undead fell on Alrik with scratchy snarls, bony fingers and jagged teeth. Then a white beam of light shone down upon them, so bright he turned away from the sight lest his pupils sear. When he turned back around Arianna stood in front of Alrik, the skeletal bodies crushed ashes beneath her sleeping robe.
“Telal Demuzi, I will not let you kill him.”
“Renege the throne and I won't kill you, Alrik.” He was glad his voice sounded steady because the room kept shifting around him. He hoped like hell he was standing still and not teetering around like a baby because that's what it felt like.
“Never,” his brother hissed.
“Step away, Arianna.”
Her soft eyes looked at him beseeching. “Please do not kill him. It's not under his control; it's never been.”
Alrik cursed then stood so fast, Telal saw two of him, and he shoved Arianna to the ground. Even her cry didn't stop him. As he squared off against him, shoulders back, legs spread, hands open and ready to cast.
“I'm stronger than you now. You can't best me.”
Telal felt himself stumble and knew that wasn't part of his imagination. Whether it was from the damage to his leg or the attacks on his body, he didn't know, but he fell to the side, catching himself on a table and pushing himself back up.
“I've always bested you and I always will.” He referred to the times when they were young and playing with wooden swords in the fields, learning how to fight under a trainer. He always won then and he had no intention of losing now.
“Your problem, brother, is that you've always been far too arrogant.”
And then both hands shot out to him and Telal's whole body seized up tight, shaking and clenching, muscles twitched with violent pulses. His breaths came in quick bursts as he fought against the magic. It didn’t work. Alrik’s powers were too strong. His throat started to squeeze shut, he could feel his neck being pinched off as if a hand was there or a thick length of rope. His body was lifted into the air until his feet dangling off the ground.
Time slowed. His eyes fell across the floor below him. He saw Arianna struggling to get up, saw her nose and hands bleeding from her fall. If he cared for her, how could he hurt her so? His eyes moved across to see the woman he wanted to see, because if he was going to die then he wanted her beautiful face in his mind before he went.
Lily lay lifeless on the floor, her eyes open and unblinking, her legs and arms kicked out from her like she'd been making an angel in the snow. What really caught his attention though—what stole his last wish of focusing on his woman, his mate, his love—was Rosa shining so brightly above Lily that it was like looking upon a heavenly angel.
Glowing luminescent light poured out from Rosa from her head to her toes. The colors swam in a mixture of bright gold and pearly white wavering and mixing in a tremulous effect. Her hands were held over Lily's heart, and in a sudden action, Lily's chest thrust off the ground as if she'd been zapped. Telal felt moisture cross his eyes.
She was going to save her. She was trying to bring her back. Telal had his own powers to do so but he still wasn't back to capacity. Telal's vision blinked out then back in, fading. It seemed like every time he sucked in a breath for air he was missing oxygen. Rosa pushed away from Lily and he had the joy of seeing her eyes blink, of her chest bursting with breath.
She was alive. Joy and love sprung from inside him and he wanted to laugh. Her life gave him hope. Some untapped strength grew inside him, gave him the power to push away the power eating at him. He felt Alrik's grip on him falter and when his feet touched the ground again he knew he'd won. He wasn't going to lose now. He had Lily and he was going to spend a long time showing her how much he loved her.
Using the last of his power, bringing it forth from the depth of his soul, he thrust all the dark magic at Alrik. Alrik fumbled over words to block the spell, but it didn't matter, because Arianna leaped into his arms. The blast of magic tore into her back, ravaging her skin, blackening her white dress in swirls of black smoke. Telal staggered towards her, stunned. Time stopped. Everyone froze.
Alrik's eyes widened as she slowly slid out of his arms and onto the floor. He dropped to his knees before her, his hands cupping her face. “No, no. Why did you do that? Why did you do that?” Black tears fell from his face, dripping onto her pale skin like wet ash.
Telal dropped to his knees his own heart burning with grief.
Arianna smiled up at Alrik but a trickle of blood spilled from her lips, marring the beauty of it. “I love you, Alrik. Please, be good. I know you can.”
Alrik’s panicked breaths sounded loud in the room. He cradled Arianna to his chest, tucking her head against him, laying his chin atop her hair. Sobs shook his big shoulders, the harsh sound of crying tearing down Telal's own defenses. Then Alrik threw back his head and screamed...and screamed until his voice turned hoarse and the sound died out. Telal breathed heavily at the sight of his brother's pain. His own heart seemed to be broken, the pain so awful.
“Alrik...” He didn't know what to say. That they should stop this already and be as brothers should? That enough blood had been lost? Alrik gently put Arianna back on the ground and leaned down to kiss her lips. At the last second, he twisted his head away and pressed a kiss upon her forehead. As if he was unworthy, wondered Telal. God, he wanted to embrace his brother, not fight him. He wanted to hold him and tell him he'd make everything better. One look at Arianna’s dead body and he knew that wasn't possible.
Alrik looked impossibly darker, more dangerous. His breaths came out in black smoke like a dragon's breath without fire. He stalked to Telal, his finger pointing hard at Arianna.
“Fix her. You can fix her.”
“I can't, brother. My powers were sapped by your dargens. I came here only with enough to fight and even then you've seen how weak I am.”
His brother screamed, his face contorting with anger and pain. “You can do it! I know you can do it!”
A thought struck Telal. “I cannot, Alrik. But you can.”
Alrik stopped as if slapped. He looked back at Arianna confused, deranged. “I-I used to. I don't know if I can anymore.”
Telal didn't know either, but where each of his family had the power to kill they had the power to save life. Telal just didn't know if there was any more goodness in Alrik's heart to save her.
Alrik kneeled beside her, laying his hands upon her chest. Tears splashed on her dress, darkening it in wet spots. He started to speak the words. Ones Telal had used a year ago on Alpha Lyonis Keelan. The amount of power it took to do such a spell had left him immobilized for a week, barely able to stand or feed himself. Without the help of his trusted guard Kearnyn, he might not have made it.
Alrik chanted and chanted and Telal tensed, waiting to see if the white energy would flow for him. Minutes past which felt like hours. Telal realized the room was silent save for Alrik's chanting and he looked around and found the demon assassins dead and his team behind him, waiting for him, watching Alrik with a mixture of sorrow and pain. After some time, nothing happened and Alrik sobbed, his tears falling faster.
Suddenly he whirled around, seething with rage. “You did this! You killed her!”
“I could have saved her if you hadn't sent the dargens after me. Relinquish now before more get hurt, Alrik. You are not right, but if you stop this now we’ll fix it.”
Alrik stood, panting like a beast. His eyes slowly trailed away from him and locked on Lily who was struggling to sit up.
“Fix it? Fix it!” he roared. “You don't deserve to have a woman!” Then he took off on a hard sprint. Telal went after him, pumping his legs hard and fast, panic guiding him. He stayed several steps behind him no matter how hard he ran. Lily screamed then crab-walked backwards in a rapid motion. Telal used a burst of energy, tapping his already nearly empty reserves and launched into the air, catching Alrik in a tackle and taking them both to the ground. He slammed his fist into Alrik's face hard—once, twice. It had to hurt him more to do it then it did Alrik to take the blows.
