Possessed by the Fallen

by Sharon Ashwood

  You’re not a coward. She’d fought plenty of dangerous foes, often on her own. It was the fire she was afraid of. The thought of it alone made her skin hurt, as if her body had stored the memory of pain in every cell. But the pain isn’t real. Don’t give in.

  Lark uncoiled herself, taking a better grip on the knife, and rushed up the steps with a cry. Scraping and scratching came from above, clawing at her every nerve. She caught a flash of something bright and she threw herself to the side just as a gust of flame rolled down the stairs, crawling up the opposite wall. Heat scraped along her skin, stinging her eyes and nose. For an instant, she was back in New York, trapped as her body boiled. Tears leaked down her face.

  She was only there for a moment, wrestling with her courage, when she heard the scrabbling again. She was instantly on the alert, but froze before she raised her knife. Two bright green eyes stared down at her, their expression curious.

  “Well, hello,” she said in the hopeful voice one used with a cranky Rottweiler.

  It made a high-pitched noise something between a croak and a cheep, which surprised her. Dragons roared—unless they were just babies. Sudden hope flared, and Lark caught her breath. Come to think of it, a full-grown fire lizard wouldn’t fit in this narrow passageway. Very, very slowly Lark crouched, making herself small. “Are you a very little dragon?”

  There was a clicking scuttle, like claws on stone, and the curious eyes came closer and blinked. Lark could see the whole head now, with knobby eye ridges and extravagant whiskers. It was scaled, with iridescent patterns of orange shading to gold. Tufted ears stuck up like a cat’s. It had the excited, eager look all young creatures shared.

  Lark tucked the knife in the sash of her skirt, wanting to show she wasn’t a threat. “Hey,” she said, holding out a hand. “Come on, little one, let’s see you.”

  She stayed in that position, not daring to startle it. She desperately hoped it wouldn’t bite or roast her. The creature slithered down a few more steps, the head swinging from side to side, forked tongue flicking the air. It had short legs and a long body with a snakelike neck and tail, and a collar shone just where the neck flared into shoulders. The scales around the leather band were crusted with blood. Evidently the Dark Queen had a thing about controlling her pets with pain. Lark’s teeth clenched with anger.

  She judged the creature was little more than a hatchling since the wings folded across its back were too small for flight. Dragons fed their young for at least a few years—this one should be with its mother. Of course, if you wanted to turn a creature into a vicious guard animal, mistreating it as a baby was the quickest way.

  It sniffed her tentatively and cheeped again, finally coming close enough to touch. She scratched its eye ridges, looking again at the collar. Who could do that to such a young creature? “Shall we be friends, then?”

  She kept at it for a few minutes. Every time she stopped, it bumped her head for more, a strange burbling sound of pleasure emitting from its long throat. Did dragons purr? She paused once, checking the collar for spells and finding none. She quickly unbuckled it, peeling it away from the dragon’s hide as gently as she could. The operation must have hurt, because it skittered away with an unhappy chirp. When Lark tossed the collar aside, the dragon flamed it to ash.

  Then it crawled back and bumped her knee with its forehead, and the scratching started again. Lark gradually stood, one hand keeping contact with the beast. “Shall we go see the princess?”

  The dragon, it seemed, would agree to anything Lark asked as long as it involved affection. She stepped over it, moving quickly up the last few turnings of the stair. It galumphed after her, nails and tail making a racket as it moved.

  The door at the top was of an old-fashioned design, locked only by a bar that sat across two brackets—obviously no one expected an intruder to make it past two ogres and a dragon. Lark removed it and pushed the door open.

  It was Amelie’s room, but Lark’s heart plummeted to her feet. The princess lay on a four-poster bed, her dark hair combed over the shoulders of a white satin gown. In the thin moonlight, it was almost hard to distinguish her from the snowy quilt and bed curtains. Amelie’s face was pale but for the dark crescents of her lashes and the flush of her lips. She was young and beautiful and as still as death, only the shifting reflection of the gown’s beadwork showing she still lived.

  The baby dragon made a short-legged shuffle over to the bed, thrusting its snout toward the princess with a curious wheeze. A thin curl of smoke erupted from its nose. Then it turned its huge eyes to Lark. The expression was unmistakably worried.

  With good reason. The Dark Queen had put Amelie into a spelled sleep. How was Lark going to rescue the princess now? She ran to the window and looked down, down the sheer tower to the ant-like figures below. Not even a fey secret agent could carry a dead weight down that way. She’d have to have been a superhero of the tights-and-cape variety. And there was no telling what removing Amelie or trying to break the spell by force might do.

  Suddenly, the dragon backed away from the bed, chirping in short, tight bursts. It ran to the door, flicked its tongue, and then backed away, ears flattening against its skull. Someone was coming—someone who frightened the little beast.

  Lark had a sudden, sinking realization that she had gambled her life and lost. She could have accepted that if Amelie had escaped, but that hadn’t happened. Instead, Lark had failed.

  Inexorably, her gaze traveled to where the princess slept, lovely and vulnerable and beyond Lark’s help. Numb despair crept through Lark, robbing her strength until the knife dangled in useless fingers. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of the princess any longer.

  Distantly, she heard approaching steps. The door creaked opened and Drusella and Egon Blackthorn swaggered in, a feral grin curving Drusella’s mouth as she pointed her spear at Lark. Egon was silent as usual, his dark eyes in constant motion—checking the bed, the window and finally Lark herself. The dragon scampered away from the pair, wedging itself between Lark and the wall. It was looking to her for safety, poor thing.

  For some reason, its misplaced confidence revived Lark’s courage. Perhaps she could do for others what she couldn’t manage for herself. If there was to be a final hope, a last-ditch effort, this was the time for it. She could hold nothing back.

  “Well, well, little bird,” said Drusella. “Nice try with the rescue. Sorry it didn’t work out.”

  “Yeah?” Lark held the suddenly blazing dagger aloft and showed them what the Light Fey could do with just a blade.

  Chapter 31

  “Ready?” Jack asked Kyle.

  The prince nodded, his jaw set. Jack had to admire him. As a Vidonese, Kyle had been raised to fear magic like poison. He was far more accepting than most of his countrymen, but the fact that he was voluntarily facing it now showed real courage.

  They stood in the forest clearing where Jack had entered the Dark Fey kingdom with Lark at his side. He was no sorcerer, but he knew how to work the gates he had helped to create, and right now he had to get Kyle out. Slowly, he raised his hands and felt the pull of the magic as if it were a magnetic force on his blood.

  Jack had borrowed Kyle’s slender pocketknife. Working quickly, he scratched a symbol onto a large gray boulder at the center of the clearing. The shape of the mark had some power, but its true use was as a focus for what Jack was about to do. Then he dug in his jacket pockets, profoundly thankful the Dark Fey hadn’t gone through them. He took the vial of blood from its case and retraced the symbol in the separating liquid, using it sparingly. He’d added some of Kyle’s royal human blood to the mix as the final ingredient for the spell, and the combination of blood types teased his vampire senses. Once he was done, Jack carefully stoppered the vial and put it away. He would need the rest to seal the gates later. Then he withdrew to a safe distance.

  Jack had slipped th
e wedding ring, set with the blood rubies imbued with the power of the original spell, onto his little finger. Now he made a fist and aimed it at the rock, summoning the power of the Fallen and uttering the Light Fey word commanding it to open. “Ianja!”

  Power ripped through him, slashing pain through his core. Jack staggered, holding himself upright by will alone. No wonder Selena had balked at sending Kenyon home. She’d used raw power to make it happen. Jack had the advantage of a formal spell, and it still felt as if he was being split open.

  A bright light appeared along the strokes of the symbol, growing brighter and brighter, as if the sun itself was contained in the rock. In the next eye blink, the entire clearing blazed pure and bright, filled with potential power. This was the essence of Light Fey magic.

  Both Jack and Kyle covered their eyes, stepping back until the flare of brightness subsided to a bearable level. And then they both exclaimed in surprise. Like some photo-editing trick, a perfectly round hole had been punched through the dark woodland. In its place was a sunny expanse of alpine meadow—Jack recognized it as the land below the Derrondine Pass.

  “When I came here the gate was underwater,” Kyle commented. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I wasn’t looking forward to the swim.”

  Jack frowned. Magic gateways weren’t supposed to behave like this. Allowing entrance in one place and exit in another was unusual—and it had happened twice in one night. First, Selena had sent Kenyon home through a portal she’d conjured on the spot—and now this passageway was nothing like Jack had anticipated. The original spell imprisoning the Dark Fey was breaking down. That was certainly more than Selena could achieve using the slow leak of Haven’s life.

  Jack narrowed his eyes, wondering if Selena had meant to show him this when she’d sent Kenyon home. He suspected there was another player here—someone or something Haven had tried to warn them about back in the lab.

  But there was no time to think about it right now. He could see the edge of the lake and the meadows beyond and—much to his relief—a fleet of black Company helicopters dotting the sky.

  Kyle swore in surprise. “Please tell me that’s the cavalry.”

  “The other Horsemen knew where we were going. They sent help.”

  But that wasn’t the whole story. The earthly armies of the Dark Queen were pouring out of the mountain in helicopters of their own, and in tanks, in personnel carriers and on foot. The cavalry might have arrived, but it was busy.

  “They can’t help us,” said Kyle. “They need help themselves.”

  Jack pressed his cell phone into Kyle’s hand. The phone was in a waterproof case and hopefully had survived the trip through the lake. “Call anyone you can think of to send backup. You’re going to be a joint ruler of two kingdoms. Make them pay attention.”

  Kyle grabbed the phone and started for the portal, but he’d gone barely two steps before he turned. “Promise me you’ll save Amelie?”

  Jack could see the choice to leave was tearing the prince apart. “Yes, I promise.”

  With a final nod, Kyle walked through the portal. The distance from one side to the other seemed to jump from one step to the next. Suddenly he was a small figure a good mile away, running as though a demon was at his heels.

  Jack breathed easier with him gone. Kyle wasn’t exactly safe yet, but getting out of the Dark Fey realm was a good start. He raised the ring again. “Fialo!”

  Suddenly the clearing looked normal again; the window to the mortal realms vanished. Jack knew better than to think it truly closed—the drapes had merely been drawn for the moment, hiding it from obvious sight. It would have to stay that way until he found Lark and Amelie and made his final escape.

  The instant he finished, the sky exploded in another nova of light. Jack flinched, covering his eyes against the brilliance. His first thought was that the gate had reopened, but he quickly saw it came from the top of the highest castle tower. The pure, pitiless brightness made what he’d conjured look like a Christmas tree bulb. He stopped, gaping at the sight around the edges of his upflung arm. He’d only ever seen anything like it once before—when Lark’s grandfather had died at the battle of the Star Tower.

  That meant Lark was in trouble, and this was her last roll of the dice.

  Denial sprang to Jack’s lips, but the words died, useless. As he looked again, he saw the light was not pure, white and simple. Just like Lark, the blaze held a complexity of colors and shading, dark and light and a full rainbow of beauty that would take an eternity to catalog with any justice. This was her essence he was seeing spread out like a beacon in the sky.

  She was spending her life, and the only reason she would do that was to protect the princess. Faster than the eye could follow, Jack bolted across the meadow. He raced across the drawbridge, leaping past the guards. Some were quick enough to try to intercept him, but he pushed aside the swords and pikes with his bare hands. Nothing was able to touch him.

  Inside the castle was mayhem. Lesser fey were collapsed everywhere, felled by Lark’s power. Their stronger cousins were either running to escape, or surging toward the tower to stop her. He only had to follow the most foolhardy to know which way to go. Jack pushed forward at a furious pace, soon arriving in a large room. In it was a door. Before the door stood a trio of ogres, and they did not look pleased.

  “Get up there and stop this!” roared the biggest to the others. He had fancier armor than the others, so Jack guessed he was their captain.

  “But, sir, we won’t survive it,” begged the smallest. “It’s an invisible being possessed of fearsome magic, and it had fangs and claws and a serpent’s tail.”

  “If it was invisible, how could you tell?” snarled the captain.

  “It’s me you should be afraid of.” Jack stepped forward.

  The captain wheeled to face him. The creature’s piggy eyes narrowed. “Who, by all the darkness, are you?”

  Jack’s gaze flicked to the door and back to the ogres. “Get out of my way.”

  The captain’s clawed hand reached for his sword hilt. “I think you need a lesson in manners. Or perhaps you need to learn to count. There are three of us, and one of you.”

  Jack snarled, baring his fangs. The only thing he cared about was getting up the stairs to Lark. Asteriel’s power welled up, blazing along Jack’s nerves and muscles like an electric current. The effect was like strong drink, leaving him light-headed. “I said, get out of my way!”

  The captain lunged with his sword, proving ogres were more agile than they looked. The point bit into Jack’s shoulder with a starburst of searing pain. He twisted aside, whirling close enough to the two guards, that he snatched one of their long-handled axes.

  “Still want to give me a lesson?” Jack snarled. His hold on his demon was giving way, like a zipper drawn slowly down tooth by tooth. The relief of it was indescribable.

  “You won’t make it,” said the captain. “Give it up. We’ll kill you.”

  Logic said he was right, but Jack wasn’t interested. He could feel Lark’s presence now, and it drew him like a magnet. An army of ogres couldn’t stop him from going to her side. “Step away.”

  The captain staggered back at something he saw in Jack’s face. Jack raised the ax, ready to press the advantage and then understood. Arcs of blue electricity were dancing over the blade, over his hands, over his whole body. The air around him was glowing an eerie blue. Asteriel was just below his skin, crackling with force.

  There was no point in wasting the moment. Jack strode forward, ax poised, and the ogres parted. One of them even opened the door for Jack.

  A wise move. Jack could feel himself teetering on the edge of a fine madness, the net that kept the demon contained as flimsy now as a spider’s web. He could feel his heart, normally as silent as the night he was murdered, beating in response to the demon’s magic. I’m losin
g control. I’m losing myself. This was his greatest fear, the point where he could lose everything down to his very identity. Alarm rendered the world razor sharp, as if every color and sound was amplified. But there was no turning back now. If he did, Lark’s gallant sacrifice would be meaningless.

  Jack wasn’t the first to try climbing the stairs—Dark Fey had rushed that way to stop Lark’s spell. They were collapsed, as still as death. Jack ran lightly up the tower, leaping over the bodies as he ascended into the blaze of Lark’s power.

  The door at the top was open, light pouring into the stairwell from the tower room. To either side of the entrance, Egon and Drusella Blackthorn cowered in the shadows, blinded by Lark’s magic. They were the strongest of the Dark Queen’s servants and had gotten closest to Lark, but not even they had been able to face the final weapon of the Light. Her essence was simply too bright.

  And by their own admission, they had been party to the destruction of the Company, the attack on the palace and kidnapping the royals. Jack barely paused as he put a swift end to them with the ax.

  And then he was in the room. Lark stood before the window, a dagger raised in her right hand and a dragon coiled protectively at her feet. She was magnificent and terrible as a goddess, but the blaze was faltering.

  He rushed forward, enfolding her in his arms. He could feel the exhaustion in her limbs, but Asteriel knew what to do. The Fallen’s energy flared and surged toward her, as elemental as a tide. The moment their powers meshed, his blue light sparked and crackled against her dazzling glow. Gradually, the blaze from her dagger diminished as Jack stemmed the flow of her life force. The room dimmed and she sagged against him with a cry.

  “Lark?” He slid his arms around her waist, holding her so that she did not collapse to the floor. Her pulse was as weak and fast as if she suffered a fever. “Lark, can you hear me?”

  She braced herself against his chest, bravely trying to stand on legs that wobbled with exhaustion. Then she stilled, bringing her fingertips to his face with a featherlight touch. “Jack, your eyes.”