by Jaymin Eve
But it’s not a single lightning strike. Not a strike that hits and disappears. The lightning doesn’t stop. It streams around me on and on. Pain shreds me into tiny pieces and it has no end. I can’t move. I can’t escape. All I can do is scream. Why hasn’t it stopped? Why haven’t I died?
The light is so bright it could be daylight on the cliff. Baelen lies on his side so close yet so far away from me, blood dripping from the deep slash down the side of his face and jaw. He doesn’t move and I can’t tell if he’s breathing. I can’t tell if he’s alive.
He has to be alive! I have to get to him. I have to help him. I have to know that he’s okay. I reach forward, pulling and struggling, trying to escape the storm’s grip, pushing through the pain, stretching out my arms and hands as far as I can. I scream with effort trying to break the lightning’s grasp.
But as soon as I lift my arms, I sense it—the lightning pulsing through me, traveling through me. My eyes widen with horror and realization, but it’s too late. The lightning shrieks through me, through my hands, through my fingers, into the air, across the distance and… into Baelen.
The impact picks him up, a curl of electricity seizing him and lifting him high into the air. His unconscious body glows red and orange, suspended, connected to me through the shining thread. He shudders, jolts, burns. I’m hurting him even more than I already did by pushing him. I’m killing him.
It’s my fault.
It’s all my fault.
I scream with the effort to pull my hands back, trying to curl my fingers into fists and drag my elbows to my sides, forcing my hands down. Finally, finally, I break the connection. The lightning releases him and he plummets to the ground, half on the rocks, half on the ledge, smoke rising from his body in white curls. What have I done?
“Let me go!” I scream into the sky—at the lightning shining back and forth between me and the boiling clouds. It’s a brilliant, white thread connecting me to the expanse above and it widens before my eyes, expanding beyond me, beyond the cliff’s edge, ten feet wide and growing.
At the same time, the clouds explode into thunder and fireworks made of multi-colored lightning. The thunder crashes. The wind howls. A sheet of rain washes Baelen’s blood from the stone.
No, this can’t be… Sobs tear out of me, racking my body. I fight it with everything I have, kicking and struggling, not wanting it to be true.
This is not an ordinary storm. This is… the Storm.
I am the new Storm Princess.
27
I leave my younger body.
I fall onto the wet stone on my hands and knees, clambering around to see my younger self suspended above the cliff’s edge. I try to remember why I’m here, what’s going on, but my thoughts are jumbled with the pain I just felt—the pain that’s still reflected on my younger face.
The lightning had pinned me above the cliff for two hours, completely helpless. Two hours while I watched Baelen bleed out in front of me not knowing if he was alive or dead. The Storm didn’t let me go until the spellcasters finally arrived and cast a spell around me similar to the one in the Vault. I’d pounded my fists against the spell cage, screaming at them to help Baelen first—Help him, not me! When they didn’t listen to me, I threw myself against the cage so hard that I blacked out. I woke up in the Storm Vault. Baelen was gone, the nightmares began, and my future with him was over from that moment.
Now, I try to block out the sound of my younger voice screaming Baelen’s name over and over again. I cross my hands over my chest and try to breathe.
This isn’t real.
My thoughts finally come together to remind me: I’m in a simulation. True, it’s a simulation based on a very real memory, but it isn’t really happening again. It’s all a vision inside my mind.
Teilo Splendor had told us that the Heartstone Chest would create a simulation that was unique to each of us. For some reason, the chest brought me back to this time, to this night. Everything up to this point was a memory. A memory that I’d tried very hard to forget, but it was an event in my life that had burned at the back of my mind for seven years. The Heartstone Chest must have brought me back for a reason, but… why?
I wipe my eyes, trying to clear my vision. My younger voice mutes and the lightning fades. The image of my other self is still there, but it’s gauzy and transparent. Without the lightning, the cliff’s edge becomes dark and shadowy.
On the other hand, Baelen’s younger self remains perfectly clear, unmoving, stretched out over the rocks, right where he’d fallen and damaged his spine.
I clamber to my feet and race to his side. I couldn’t help him seven years ago, but maybe I can now. Maybe the Heartstone Chest is giving me a chance. Nothing I do in the simulation will change the real past. It won’t change what really happened, but maybe I can change how helpless I’d felt watching him die right before my eyes.
I reach for my cloak to use it as a bandage around his wound only to find that I’m wearing my armor again. Before I can cast around for something else to help him, a shadow drops over me.
It’s fleeting, but undeniable. I spin, crouching, and study the darkness overhead, waiting for the shadow to appear again. It flies over me once more and this time I follow its path as it circles overhead, gradually descending. The shape grows clearer and larger as a gargoyle soars toward me.
I glance back at Baelen. I may not be able to bind his wounds, but now I know why I’m here, why the heartstone brought me back to this place.
I'm here to protect him from the gargoyle.
Sebastian had told me I’d have to face my fears and this is it. This is my worst fear, because no matter how hard I tried to protect Baelen on this cliff seven years ago, all I did was hurt him. This is my second chance—a chance to save him like I couldn’t before.
I roar a challenge into the night sky as the beast thumps down onto the ledge, its wings outstretched. Instead of folding its wings to its sides, it keeps them aloft, ready to use the daggers at the pinpoints of its wings against me. This gargoyle is the kind the elves fear—glowing red eyes, horns stretching from two points on its stony skull, its teeth dripping as it growls. Its chest is broad and muscled, even larger than the gargoyle I faced on Scepter Peak. It doesn’t make any difference that I know real gargoyles don’t look like this. The real ones might be far more beautiful, but this one is just as dangerous.
I reach for my weapons, discovering that I have none. Damn. I’ve only got my fists and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to help. I cast around as the gargoyle circles me. Without taking my eyes off it, I pick up the nearest rocks, two palm-sized ones. Not exactly knuckle dusters, but they’ll pack more of a wallop than my bare fists.
Wait… bare fists. My gloves are gone. My hands shoot to my veil. It’s gone too, but I’m still wearing the headpiece. It’s not metal and it’s blunt. It was only intended to keep my veil in position away from my eyes, but if I have to, I can use it as a weapon.
The gargoyle takes a glance back at the shimmery vision of my younger self, looking between it and Baelen, growling at him before turning its focus to me. It crouches, wing daggers pointed at me, and roars so loudly its breath gusts across me like a stormy breeze. Lightning flickers in the distance, a backdrop of crackling electricity illuminating the beast’s silhouette.
I don’t wait for it to attack. I take a running jump, knowing I’ll only get one shot at its head. The gargoyle braces as I leap but it doesn’t use its wings to defend itself. My rock-filled right fist connects against the side of its face with a thwack. I’d intended to land the blow and use my own momentum to somersault over it, but the beast anticipated that. It twists, accepting the blow to its face, but swatting me at the same time in one forceful move as it follows me down onto the cliff’s surface. For a moment, its bloodied face hovers over mine, as if it expects me to yield.
I may be winded with a pounding headache on the way, but yielding is not going to happen.
One-two, I knock my fists into
its face first and then follow with a two-footed kick, knocking the gargoyle backward and sliding myself out from under it at the same time. I jump to my feet and fly back at it, exchanging quick blows. It blocks and defends everything I throw at it, but manages to get in a few hits of its own before it circles me again.
The creature shakes its head, takes another assessing look at me, and I realize I’m in trouble. It was just playing with me before. It charges at me, its wing daggers ripping through the air, scant inches from my arms as I jump backward. I have no idea if my armor made of Elyria web will protect me. The gargoyle on Scepter Peak had shown me that the gargoyles and Elyria spiders live in harmony. For all I know, the wing daggers could be just as strong as the web. I don’t plan on finding out.
The gargoyle drives me backward, slamming me up against the side of the cave. One of its daggers grazes my face. I can’t let it pin me against the rock like the other one did. I scream out the pain, grab my wooden headpiece, and shove it right at the beast’s eyes. Wood can’t break that stony skin, but it causes the gargoyle to jerk backward, giving me a slim gap to slide through beneath its wing. As I do so…
A dagger! The beast is carrying a dagger!
I throw my hand back at the last moment and snatch the weapon, tearing it from the gargoyle’s hip. I slide across the ledge toward Baelen as lightning springs to life around me. Glowing blue light snaps around my body, hissing and crackling.
The beast turns, realizes its weapon is gone, and charges at me. At the same time, thirty black spots appear above me.
More gargoyles! For a second, confusion overwhelms me. The Elven Command said I’d only have to fight one, not so many all at once. All of the new gargoyles speed toward me, blurry forms, only seconds away. I can’t let them reach me. I can’t let them reach Baelen.
I draw on all of the storm’s wrath, vaguely aware that the first gargoyle has skidded to a halt, eyeing me with… surprise? It’s hard to tell, but right now I don’t have time to think.
Electricity crackles around me as I plant my feet and scream, “I won’t let you hurt him!”
The gargoyle jolts, its voice a sharp growl. “You’re protecting him from me?”
I don’t have time to reply. The other gargoyles reach me, a cloud of them, shrieking, mere feet away from me now. They’re reaching for me, for the dagger. With a scream, I drop to the cliff’s surface, turn the dagger upside down, and slam its hilt into the stone with all my might. The electrical thud reverberates around me, pulsing outward.
Lightning streaks in a wide circle from my weapon, bashing into the oncoming attackers. Their teeth and claws light up, bony, glistening, wings snapping as the force hits them, hurling them backward.
All of them tumble away from me. Some of them drop from the sky, clinging to the ledge before sliding out of view. Others plummet down the cliff immediately, but most of them spill backward, the force of my lightning propelling them far, far away from me.
Their screams fade as I spin back to the male gargoyle. It alone is still standing, one arm flung across its eyes, braced against the storm raging around me.
Blood drips down the side of my face. I roar at it. “I will protect Baelen Rath to the death. Because I love him!”
The gargoyle’s eyes widen as my shout reaches it. I take a step back for momentum and then run toward it, electric dagger raised. The creature glances backward—it’s dangerously close to the cliff’s edge—before bracing for the strike. At least, I think it’s going to brace, until the last moment, when it ducks, angles its right shoulder into my ribcage and tackles me backward along the ledge where it forces me to the ground.
Oomph! The air leaves my lungs as I slam into the ground. A ton of gargoyle male drops down on me, but at the last moment, its hand slides up behind my head, cushioning me from cracking open my skull, and its other hand punches the ground to stop its massive body from crushing me. The impact hurts and it takes me a moment to catch my breath. Long enough for the beast to shift its paw to my dagger arm, pinning it and forcing my hand open, compelling me to release the weapon.
I struggle, kicking my legs and trying to get my arm free as it rises upward, straddling my hips. “Stop fighting me, Marbella.”
“Never! I won’t let you hurt him! You… what?”
It leans across me. I lie stunned as it whispers into my ear. “Stop fighting me.”
I shiver, because there’s something so familiar about the way it just leaned into me. “Wait… Who…? B-Baelen?”
He nods. “It’s me.”
I search his features as he helps me rise to my knees, trying to find anything that resembles the male I know. My lips form a startled what the?
“What’s happening?” I ask. “This is supposed to be my simulation. You’re not supposed to be here…”
He growls, “I didn’t know it was you until you held the dagger. You’re the only one who lights up at the touch of steel. That’s when I recognized you.”
“But what do you see when you look at me?”
A rattle of breath inside his chest sounds suspiciously like a chuckle. “Please don’t be offended, but you look hideous.”
I’m too stunned to be offended. “So I look like a gargoyle to you, just like you look like a gargoyle to me?”
He sighs. “I should have known this was all wrong. Gargoyles don’t look like this. Especially not female ones.”
“Then, what’s really going on right now? Have our simulations somehow combined in our minds?” Heat suddenly burns through me. I stare at him. “What happened in yours before you flew down here?”
He smiles, slow and strong, seeming to enjoy the blush that blazes across my cheeks. “A memory. One I haven’t forgotten.”
“Oh.”
He clears his throat, suddenly serious. “Which ended when I hit my head.” He gestures to his younger self. “After that, I floated way up high, and I thought the simulation was over, but then I plummeted back here. It felt like I was actually falling.”
He shakes his head as he peers around us. “I can’t see anything beyond this cliff. I can’t see the arena. I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t feel like I’m sitting in the chair anymore.”
I think back to the moment when I fell out of my younger self. I’d fallen too, as if something had released me—or pulled me out. Had we both fallen out of the chairs of truth at that moment?
“Then… what does this mean? Are we stuck in the same vision but our bodies are moving in real life now? Bae, if that’s true, we could have killed each other!”
I look around us, searching the sky, the cliff, the rocks, trying to find a clue about what’s happening. It’s too silent. Too quiet. There’s no breeze, no moving clouds anymore. The simulation has… paused.
“What about the other gargoyles that attacked just now? If you look like a gargoyle to me, and this is somehow really happening, then who were they?” Fear shoots through me, sharp and terrifying. “Who did I hurt?”
His expression is shadowed. “There were too many of them to be the Elven Command.”
I gasp. “My Storm Command. Our friends. They were trying to get the dagger away from me. They must have been trying to stop me from hurting you.”
A shriek rises in my chest, but I push it down. I meet Baelen’s eyes as panic threatens to overtake me. It’s the first true panic I’ve felt in seven years when I thought he’d died. I don’t know what’s really going on around us and not knowing whether my ladies are safe is killing me. “It has to be the Elven Command. They’ve done something to us, to the chairs. And now my Storm Command is hurt…”
Bae doesn’t pause a moment longer. Even in his current gargoyle form, the concern in his eyes shines through. He’s already assessing an exit, a way down the mountain, reaching for my arm.
“We’re in danger. We need to move.” He scoops me upward, but just as he rises to his feet, he roars, his eyes shooting wide.
He pushes me away from him as if he’s trying to protect me. I r
ecognize the way his arms move forward in a quick, desperate motion. It’s the same way I pushed him out of the path of the lightning strike.
I stumble backward, grazing my hands. “Bae!”
He arches back against something I can’t see, something that’s clearly hurting him. With a sickening crack, one of his wings snaps right before my eyes. His line of sight descends to his chest, but I can’t see a wound.
“Baelen!” I snatch up the dagger, ducking to avoid Bae’s wings as he spins. His outstretched fist connects with an invisible object. There’s a thud. He hit something—whatever it was that was hurting him.
“I can’t see… I can’t see it!” I wave my weapon around, trying to see where I need to attack, but there’s only silence again.
Baelen drops to his knees. “Marbella, come here. Quickly.”
I run to him, driving the dagger into the ground at the last moment, but within arm’s length so I can reach it if I need it. I try to catch Baelen as he slides to his knees, one of his legs at an awkward angle.
“Bae? Where are you hurt?”
He doesn’t answer. His good wing curls over the top of me and pressure builds across my shoulder blades and lower back as he compels me toward his chest. He gathers all of me up inside his wing, even my feet, fitting the wing snug across my whole body, cocooning me. I have no choice but to turn my head into his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin. He smells like… icy rain and a warm sun shower both at the same time.
I am small. And afraid. “Bae?”
“Stay here, where it’s safe, until the simulation ends. They won’t come for you yet.”
I don’t think I want to hide here. Something has hurt him and I can’t see his wound, but it’s bad. I know it’s bad. Otherwise he would get up and fight. Nothing could stop him. Nothing could keep him down. Pressure builds inside my chest, a world of fear and dread all balled up inside me, and I’m ready to scream.
He sighs. “Marbella Mercy… I love you too.”
My heart stops. Whatever I want to say, whatever I feel, it all chokes inside me. His wing slides away from my back, releasing me enough to allow me to lift my head, using both hands to push away from his chest.
