This Is My Fight
“Where have you been?” Illana asked, catching me at the top of the stairs as I returned to the castle in the Southern Kingdom. “You’ve killed another one, haven’t you? You’re turning into a monster, Denaer. I hardly recognize you.”
“My name is Jackson now,” I said. I ran a hand through my hair, not caring that there was still blood streaked across the edge of my palm.
Of all people, my own sister should have understood how difficult this was for me, but losing our brother all those years ago had not broken her the way it had broken me. She had gone on living her life, while mine had stopped completely.
It was Harper who had brought me back to life, couldn’t she see that?
“You have to stop,” Illana said, touching my arm and gasping at the wound. “You’re hurt again. It’s too dangerous to keep going out like this alone.”
I pulled away and winced as I put my weight on my left leg. The shadow-snakes had done a real number on me, and I needed time alone to focus and heal before the poison spread too far.
“Don’t tell me what I have to do,” I said. “You especially have no right to tell me how to act when it comes to trying to save someone I love.”
She recoiled, her face crumpling and her lips falling open. She shook her head. “Denaer, that isn’t fair at all.”
“At least I’m out there risking my life to save them and bring them all home,” I said. “What did you ever do? You abandoned our brother, just like everyone else. You did nothing to save him. Nothing to help me. You have no idea what it’s been like for all of us.”
“And you think it was easy living in the castle without you?” she asked. “Watching our mother and father struggle every day with the sorrow of losing both of their sons? Having to be everything they needed us to be just to try to keep our family together? To keep our sanity?”
I swallowed and drew my hand into a tight fist. I didn’t want to argue with my sister, but she had no idea what she was talking about.
“I’m sorry if your life inside the safety of the King’s City was so hard for you,” I said. “I’m sure having everything you ever wanted delivered to you on a silver platter was just torture.”
Tears glistened in her eyes and she turned her head to the side to hide them. “I love him, too,” she said. “And I love you. I was scared, Denaer. You have to understand that. We all were.”
“It’s Jackson,” I said sharply. “I will never be Denaer again. I’ve been through too much to even remember who he was.”
“Jackson, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I honestly didn’t think I had a choice all those years ago. I didn’t think there was any hope for our brother, but I’m here now. That has to count for something.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “I mean, other than being kidnapped by the emerald priestess and needing us to save you. Why did you leave the castle in the first place?”
“Because I needed to see you both,” she said, blinking. “I heard rumors that Aerden was free, but our mother denied it. I needed to see for myself.”
I shook my head at the irony of the situation. She left the castle, risking her life to see Aerden, and now he was locked away in the dungeons of that same castle. Maybe whatever god they prayed to in the human world truly did have a wicked sense of humor.
“Too little, too late,” I said through clenched teeth.
I walked past my sister, heading toward the steps that would lead me back to Harper’s room. I could hardly stand after the difficult journey home. I needed to rest and go through the things I had found inside the hunter’s lair.
She hadn’t given me much, but it was the most information I’d gotten from any of the hunters so far. The emerald priestess had a place where she took these girls who had disobeyed her. She had some kind of collection, and I needed to figure out what that meant.
I had to find a way. I had to get her back.
I had to get all of them back. At least Aerden and Lea were safe in the King’s City. Andros, the leader of the Resistance Army, had a man on the inside acting as one of the King’s Royal Guard. He’d sent word to us that Lea and Aerden were captured and thrown in the dungeons. They were prisoners, but they were safe.
Until we had a plan in place, that would have to be good enough.
But where the hell was Harper?
Thoughts of what she must be going through haunted me day and night. I hadn’t really slept in as long as I could remember.
Illana touched my arm, jerking me from my thoughts. I took a deep breath and turned to her. This wasn’t her fault, but she had never once fought for those she loved. She couldn’t understand what this was like for me.
“You have to stop this madness,” she said. “You need to take some time away from this constant search. You’re killing yourself, De—Jackson.”
“I can’t rest until I’ve found her,” I said. “If you can’t understand that, then you might as well go home.”
Her eyebrows twitched as she studied my face. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?” I asked. “You’re only going to put yourself in more danger if you stay, so unless you plan to help me, there’s no reason for you to stick around. You’d be safer back home in the King’s City where the Order can’t get to you.”
A tear fell down her cheek, and she shook her head. “I miss the brother you used to be,” she said. “If this is the demon you’ve turned into, maybe I should go back.”
“Then go,” I shouted.
Her head fell into her hands, and she turned and ran from the room, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
I grunted and rammed my fist into the nearest wall as hard as I could, relishing the feel of blood as it snaked down my knuckles and onto the floor.
I hadn’t meant to make her cry, but the last thing I needed right now was someone lecturing me about what I was doing. It was my job to find Harper.
And if I was even a split second too late, she might be lost to all of us forever.
What would happen to the world if she was gone?
My sister said she was grateful our brother had been freed, but she didn’t seem to understand that none of that would have been possible without Harper.
For more than fifty years I had searched for a way to free my brother from slavery. I sought out wise men, mystics, oracles, even dark magic users, searching for answers. There had to be a way to free him from his bindings as the Prima demon of Peachville. But no one, not even the wisest and oldest of them had answers for me. Nothing I tried made any difference.
Until her.
I leaned my head against the cool stone and closed my eyes. I could still picture the way she looked down at me from the window of her bedroom at Shadowford that first day. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulder and the sun glinted on the glass, covering her in golden light.
Something inside me changed that day. She was the one, and I knew it. The one hope I had of ever saving my brother.
I never expected her to save me, too.
I couldn’t lose her. I would risk everything to save her, and it was killing me that it had already been four long months.
God, what were they doing to her?
I slammed my hand against the stone again and pushed away from it. I had to find another way.
Killing hunters wasn’t working. If they couldn’t betray their priestess without dying for the crime, I would never get more than just a few quick confessions as their bodies turned to ash and acid. It wasn’t enough. I needed to find someone who knew where to find the emerald priestess’s collection. But who? Where?
I climbed the three flights of stairs to the north tower, the pain so great now that I couldn’t even focus enough to shift to my demon form.
I took a deep breath and paused outside the large wooden door. I rested my palm flat against it, feeling the smooth grain of the juniper tree against my skin before I pushed through as quietly as I could.
When the sky came into view through the
open archways in the tower, I was shocked to see that the moons had risen and the suns were gone. It had taken me more than a day to get home after killing the hunter.
More time wasted, with almost nothing to show for it.
This room had become like a sanctuary to me. A place I came to pray to whatever god might be listening.
The candles had long worn down, so I conjured fresh ones, placing them in the holders spread evenly throughout the room. It was a simple rotunda with no furnishings except for the carved table that held the cocoon and a simple wooden stool.
I sat down and pulled the stool up as close to the table as it would go. I reached into my pocket and took out a folded piece of paper that had become so weathered and worn that the image I’d drawn onto it had become smudged and torn at the edges.
I unfolded the square of paper, fresh tears finally falling freely.
I ran my thumb along the edge of the sheet, touching Harper’s crown and staring down at the silver eyes of our son. I couldn’t see our faces in the picture. I had only drawn us from the back, but I was sure that there were smiles on our faces. It was the only hope I had left of the future.
No matter what we were going through now, someday this would be our life. I had to believe it.
The paper fluttered to the floor, and I clasped my hands together as I bent over the still cocoon.
“Zara,” I whispered. “I need you to wake up. Please. Come back to us. I need you.”
I rested my forehead against my hands.
Zara was the last one to see Harper before she was taken. She was there when Harper fought the emerald priestess.
What happened that night?
What did the emerald priestess do to Zara? How did she defeat Harper?
Not having any of the answers was eating me alive.
I was the one who had promised to protect her. How did I lose sight of her during the battle? I hadn’t even realized she was gone until it was too late.
“Zara, if you could just tell me what happened,” I said. “Maybe you could give us some clue about where they took her.”
I had no idea if Zara could hear me. The shaman had said that Zara was still alive, but going through some kind of mystical transformation. No one knew how long that transition might take. It could be weeks or it could be decades.
All I knew was that I wanted her back.
I wanted Brighton Manor back, and I wanted it to be full of family again. Many of us were living here in the castle now. Mary Anne and Essex. Angela, Harper’s half-sister, had stepped in to rule the kingdom in Harper’s absence. My sister Illana was here, and sometimes Lea’s best friends—Mordecai, Erick, Joost, and Cristo—were often here for short periods of time.
I was grateful for them, and I was glad we had a place to live, but it wasn’t the same. This place was empty without Harper, but we’d been a family back at Brighton Manor.
We’d been happy.
Our time together hadn’t lasted nearly long enough. I would have given anything to go back to those times before the emerald priestess took it all away.
“Jackson?” A small voice echoed in the chamber just outside the tower room. “Are you in there?”
“I’m here.” I sat up as Mary Anne walked into the room.
“I thought I might find you up here,” she said. Her normally bright blue eyes were clouded with worry.
It was a look I’d seen a lot over the past few months.
Everyone was worried about me. They thought I was being reckless and stupid, acting on anger alone instead of stepping back to make a plan.
But where had their plans gotten them?
Harper was still missing. My brother and Lea were still locked away in the dungeons with an entire army guarding them. Courtney was still dead. And Zara? I wasn’t even sure if she could hear us from inside her cocoon, or if she would ever return to us.
“Illana told me you killed another hunter,” she said.
I tensed, waiting for the judgment that I knew would follow. No one approved of my plan to try to bleed information from the hunters. They all believed it was far too dangerous for me to keep chasing after them, but what they didn’t understand was that I needed this. I needed something to keep from going insane, and tracking hunters was the only outlet I had these days.
Besides, the fewer hunters there were in the world, the better.
“You’re injured,” she said, reaching for my arm. “You should go see Angela.”
I waved her away. I would deal with my injuries in a minute. For now, I just wanted to sit here and rest.
“Did she give you any useful information?” Mary Anne said. It wasn’t really a question.
“None of them do,” I said, not wanting to talk about what I’d learned. Not until it meant something real.
“Then why do you keep hunting them?”
“Because I want them all dead,” I said. “I want the emerald priestess to know that I’ll hunt down every single witch in her covens if that’s what it takes.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Oh yes, I do.”
“What about Eloise and her daughters?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “You know what I mean.”
“It’s hard to know what you mean these days, Jackson,” she said. “I can see from the way your whole body just tensed up that this isn’t what you want to hear, but I’ve been letting this go on too long without saying anything. I can’t do it anymore.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Watch you tear yourself apart,” she said. “I can’t watch you practically destroy yourself looking for her. You’re not even sleeping, are you?”
“I don’t need sleep,” I said. “I need Harper.”
I cleared my throat and adjusted my position in the chair. It was one thing when my sister lectured me, but it was much worse coming from Mary Anne. My sister had never met Harper. Not really. Harper had saved her life and they’d never even gotten the chance to speak to each other.
Illana couldn’t understand what this loss meant to all of us, and she certainly didn’t have any place telling us how we should be acting.
But Mary Anne was a part of this family. She’d been extremely close to Harper, and I knew she missed her just as much as I did.
I didn’t want to hear her lecture me about this.
“Jackson, you need to slow down,” she said. “I know how much you’re hurting, but you have to understand that we’re all hurting. We all love Harper, and we love you, too. We miss her just as much as you do.”
I turned away.
“I can’t slow down,” I said. “I have to find her.”
“We will find her,” she said. “But we need to do it together. We can beat them, Jackson, but only if we work as a team. A family. Alone, we’re nothing compared to the Order.”
“I can’t listen to this,” I said, standing. “This is my fight, Mary Anne. I’m the one who needs to find her. It’s my fault she was taken. I should have been with her. I should have been looking out for her.”
“You have to stop blaming yourself, dammit. You’re just sitting around wallowing in this self-pity, and frankly, I’m tired of it,” she said.
Her harsh words threw me off balance.
“Wallowing? I’ve been working my ass off, looking in every wretched corner of the Shadow World for clues. I’ve been contacting every person and demon I know in the human world, looking for answers. I’ve killed more than a dozen hunters. What have you done?” I shouted.
Unlike my sister, Mary Anne was unaffected by my anger. She seemed to have been expecting it. She crossed her arms and stared at me, moving her feet into a wider stance.
“If you spent any time at all with us, you would know the answer to that,” she said. “Essex and I have been making important contacts with as many of the emerald gate Primas as possible, gathering some information about where the emerald priestess might live.”
“And what exactly have you found out with this peace
ful exploration?” I asked. I hated the sound of my own voice, but rage was always on the tip of my tongue these days. I didn’t seem to have any other tone to use.
“We’re putting together a profile, Jackson. We’re getting closer every day.”
“Well, while you’re safe here putting together your little notes, I’m out there risking my life trying to find her.”
“Which is exactly the problem,” she said. “You have to stop running off without telling us where you’re going. You have to stop going off alone without help. You’re going to get yourself killed or captured, and then where will we all be?”
I swallowed and turned away. The truth of her words only made me angrier.
“What else am I supposed to do?” I said, trying to cut the edge of anger out of my voice. “I can’t just sit here while she’s being tortured or hurt. While she’s forgetting us.”
My voice wavered on the word.
There had been shards of green stone strewn across the floor of the hallway at Winterhaven. They’d been covered in blood, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it at first, I knew that blood was Harper’s.
Rend had taken the shards to a mystic woman in New Orleans who had performed a special identification ritual on them shortly after Harper disappeared.
Yes, the blood was Harper’s, but there had been something else inside those shards of glass.
There had been memories.
Harper’s memories.
They had oozed from her wounds like blood.
What if she was out there somewhere right now and she didn’t even remember who I was? What if I rescued her and she didn’t even recognize me?
I lowered my head, not wanting to face the possibility of it.
How could I sleep not knowing the truth? How could I slow down?
“I’m not asking you to stop looking for her,” Mary Anne said. “I’m just asking you to acknowledge the fact that you’re not alone in this. We are stronger together than we are alone, Jackson. You know that’s what Harper would say if she were here.”
She was right.
Harper would fight for us to stick together and work as a family. She was always bringing us together, which was the only way we’d been able to defeat the sapphire priestess in the first place. Together, we were stronger.
Forgotten Darkness Page 4
