Ruined

by Rebecca Grey

  Torches bound in cloth lit ablaze as the guards drew nearer to the refuge. Voices cried out, along with mine, as men carried them to the refuge. They weren’t just going to dismember the refuge they were going to burn it to the ground.

  “No!” I shouted again and again. The guards heard me, a few even flinching as I shrieked. But the steady beat of their march carried them up to the old bark of the tree.

  Flames caught, rounding over the edge of the door frame. Waves of orange climbed high up the tree and into its limbs. Anyone caught inside wouldn’t make it out.

  Had Shavarra escaped? I racked my brain for any memory of her white blonde curls running through the forest. I hadn’t seen her. I may never see her again.

  Fire raged behind me as they turned to drag me away. The forest floor never passed so quickly as it did then. Cries of the nymphs that were caught followed my procession.

  Guards lead me through town. Citizens caught sight of my cuffs and the sobbing nymphs tied up behind me, and gasped loudly or began to follow. We looked like a damn parade. And not a good one.

  The doors to the courtyard were already wide open. Fae filed in as they saw their king and queen gathered with their court on the steps. It began to feel like it might not be just a slap on the wrist this time.

  As soon as my foot hit the soil of the castle ground my mother’s wiry gaze found me. My father's attention steadily pointed to the crowd that grew. He knew that I had arrived but didn’t have the audacity to look me in the face.

  Fae parted to watch me be dragged to the front of the yard. It gave me the perfect view of my fuming mother. Torrance’s dad whispered to Widger. Where the hell was Torrance?

  “Dace, you have been charged with treason.” Queen Couley’s voice projected over the crowd.

  “On what grounds?” I hummed, trying to sound bored. I refused to play into her show, I couldn’t let my voice ring out for everyone to hear. This was between me and my parents. Everyone else was just here to embarrass me. If only that worked.

  “On the grounds that you went against the law of not only our own court, but the law of the fae. You freed nymphs from enslavement and kept their whereabouts a secret.”

  “And you have proof of that?” I smirked. Inside my mind screamed for me to stop, knowing that I would only make this worse.

  “This is the proof!” she shrieked, throwing her hands up and pointing at the nymphs that trailed behind me.

  Playfully, I glanced behind me, the corners of my mouth dragging down in mock surprise. “Oh, would you look at that.”

  “We have a witness as well that has testified against you.”

  My cockiness and sarcasm melted away. It was Torrance. That asshat. I would kill him for this. His actions doomed the people I worked so hard to save.

  “Where is this so-called witness? Do I not get to meet face to face with my accuser?”

  “He is not here for his own protection.” Her voice was tight in her throat. “And you have lost all rights to that privilege.”

  As if I could do anything with these cuffs on. She was trying to get a rise out of me. To poke at the embers of the fire she had started when they attacked the refuge.

  “You,” my father's voice shook with anger as he finally dared to meet my gaze. “You are a lawless prince who would rather dine with thieves and slaves.”

  “Thieves?” My voice finally rose. “You would call them thieves when we are the ones who stole their freedom.”

  The crowd murmured. A chorus of whispered voices that I couldn’t quite make out as bad or good. It caught the attention of my mother who arched a slender brow.

  “These are nymphs that by law should be put to work. As they have not done such, they have stolen our valuable time and resources. Thieves.”

  “At least with thieves you know what to expect of them. Better I dine with them knowing their trustlessness than sit with you. Sharks. You are the real thieves, masquerading around like king and queen. Do you not see the horror in what you did? The agreement you made with the Heathern Court to tear apart families, to make helpless people your servants. Greed and injustice at its finest. It disgusts me to have to be surrounded by you everyday.”

  My mother shook, her cheeks brazen. Visibly, her hands trembled as she clenched them at her sides. “That is enough out of you. Dace Augustus you have been revoked of your right to the crown.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Ryker

  The tamer showed little mercy in his joyous smile as he dragged me into Ganglin’s throne room. His hand was interlaced with my curls and even though it was hard to keep my sight lifted to know where I was going, I saw her. Bound, gagged, and kneeling before the Heathern Court king. Hattie’s eyes widened as she took me in, kicking to stay upright.

  Where was Randsin?

  My faltering steps echoed within the nearly empty room. Only a few guards stood around the exits but the space still felt empty. Still felt wrong.

  I could feel the evil of whatever magic Ganglin had used against us fighting through my bloodstream and I prayed everything Jerydin had worked for would combat it. It was too soon to try. I had to bide my time and do it well.

  “Oh good, there you are Miss Avery,” Ganglin said, his words slowly rolling from his tongue. “Your sister has been waiting patiently.”

  Neither of us spoke as we watched him stand, walking the few steps down from his self made throne. He smiled. With a snap of his fingers a guard brought forward a small chest. The box was plain and simple. It tugged at something in my memory, an odd familiarity.

  “Does this look like something you’ve been acquainted with?” he said, holding the small box. He paused waiting for some sort of recognition on our part. My mind felt empty of ideas even as something in me knew that I should know what it was. “It’s a sort of family heirloom. Not my family’s, but yours. Well, it’s not actually even the box itself but what’s in the box, you see. I would open it and show you what is in it, but therein lies my problem. I can’t open it.”

  Pausing he tapped his finger to his nose for a second as if in thought. “Story goes, your pesky parents knew I was on the hunt for this little guy so they used those little powers gifted to them by Mother Earth and managed to spell the box closed. The spell took their lives, this you know. What you don’t know is that rumor has it that to undo said spell I need blood from two lives of the same line.” He stopped pacing looking at my sister and me. “Oh here we go… one… two. You and you.”

  I glanced at my sister, my mind spinning at the idea. He had to be a raving lunatic, gone mad with power. Hattie didn’t return my gaze, instead her eyes bore into the chest he was holding.

  Ganglin chuckled, drawing my attention back to him. “It wasn’t even very hard to convince the fae that your people were a threat to our whole existence. Foolish, but just like putty in my hand. All for this little piece of magic.” He stroked along the lock of the box as he spoke.

  “No worries though. I have no plans on taking your lives... yet. I just need your blood. Your life will end after I have some fun with each of you.” He stepped before Hattie and crouched to her level. Grabbing her face, he snarled. “You will both wish you were never the thorns that tried to prick my hands. Your parents will roll over in their shallow graves as your pain will be felt even in the generations that have passed.”

  The tamer’s grip on my hair tightened for a second pulling me back with it. His sword pulling from its home at his hips made a sound that registered. He dropped my hair. The steel sliced up my forearm, its burn singing against my skin. I winced as the blood pooled and ran down to drip at my feet.

  Ganglin rose. In no hurry, he made his way to where we stood in a few strides. Holding the chest under my arm, he dug his nails into the cut. Flesh parted and oozed deep crimson blood. It took every fiber of my being to hold my face straight, to not let him know about the pain that shot up my arm.

  Blood dripped down my arm and splattered on the box, rolling slowly down into the lock or
off the box and onto the floor. The blade of the sword touched the ground, scraping the floor behind him as he made his way to Hattie. Her curls hung flat around her face, her eyes tired, and her mouth a firm straight line but she kept herself upright and her head held high.

  A small hiss left her lips as the blade cut through her arm too. Ganglin smiled at the noise. She clamped her mouth shut, her jaw clenching tight to keep anything else from escaping her. The once simple box was splattered in our blood.

  I could feel the cut he had made already closing on my arm. My hopes confirmed. Glee ran through me knowing I still had all my power. Power they thought they could douse.

  “Well, that’s that.” Ganglin nodded. His hands reached into his pocket, presumably for a key, but they froze before the item was revealed, a cry was heard. Roaring with a powerful ferocity, the noise rattled the building. Everything shook and everybody present stilled.

  Hattie and I locked eyes, smiling knowingly. She had done it. A sound that startled even myself, ripped from my already raw throat, a battle cry to join that of our people.

  I breathed in the gifts of Mother Earth. Stones shifted, wobbled, and broke apart around me. The tamer lost his grip on me and the ground gave way and rose under him. I caught him off guard and took the advantage as I turned willing the earth to pull up around him.

  He stumbled backward. His feet wheeling trying to find ground where I was crumbling it away. His fists beat at the rocks that quickly tumbled over him. Some he shattered sending pebbles down in a shower around us both, but I was already too much for him. Rock overlapped rock. His twisted face was no longer in my vision. Buried in his own personal grave that I had created.

  I wasn’t alone. Hattie’s powers had also filled the room. My hair spun around from the tornado of power she was using to chase the guards out. No longer was she bound. How long had she been unbound? Had she been merely waiting for a chance this entire time as I had?

  She stood tall, her arms out at her side, and the wind whipping her hair behind her. Dark clouds gathered over her head. White lightning balled and glowed inside her open palms before it reached out like a whip, snapping in sparks.

  With the tamer buried, my body twisted to look for Ganglin. Gone. Like a thief in the night he had left, and with him the box he had wanted so badly to open.

  The noise of our people rose and fell in time, a new symphony to tell our story. We had to help free them. We had to get them out of this Mother forsaken court.

  Hattie’s lightning dimmed and her clouds dissolved. She joined me, wrapping me up in her arms.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered into her hair.

  “I’m fine, don’t even think about me.”

  We pulled apart, my hand instinctually wrapping around her wrist and pulling her with me toward an exit. Hattie stopped my sudden movement.

  “Wait, wait! We can’t leave without that chest. Ganglin can’t have it!,” she cried out.

  “Well as heroic as that sounds Hattie, I would have to disagree. Let's get our people and we will fight that battle another day.” Sarcasm laced my voice as dread filled my heart. I knew she wouldn't leave without that chest. We both did. “We don’t even know what’s in it,” I growled through my teeth as she stared where Ganglin once was. Silence ticked away, the sound of rushing guards and frantic shouting an urgent alarm clock. “You aren’t leaving without it are you?”

  Solemnly, she shook her head and backed away from me to venture in the opposite direction. “Go, get our people out. I will meet you with the chest.”

  I lingered at her side, but ultimately had to agree. Ganglin shouldn’t have whatever was locked away in that box. Clattering swords and splintering shields raged in a small battle that was taking place in the Heathern Court. I didn’t regret that it was partially our fault. Separating, I prayed to Mother Earth over my sister.

  Swiftly, I darted through the large doorway. My mind raced through all that had been done to my people as I ran through the familiar halls. Over everything I had just learned. Fear and rage rippled through me and the ground around me.

  Guards met me in the halls as I ventured out, but they were nothing in the face of my fury. The ground opened and ate them alive as it bridged my walk over their deaths. Emotions either overwhelmed my powers or fueled them, and sharpened them when they became strong or urgent enough.

  With an outstretched hand, I reached for the exit toward the war that raged. Pain bloomed in my calf, dropping me unexpectedly to my knee. A warm slender handle stuck out at an odd angle, a dagger planted deep inside my leg. The metal, jagged and sharp, sliced right through my clothing and into my skin. My eyes trailed up to the owner.

  Bloody and pissed, anger twisted his already gnarled features. The tamer who had brought me here stared me down, despite the way his body trembled. His face only fueled my hate. He should be dead, that stubborn bastard.

  I stood, gripped the dagger, and slid it out of my leg in one fluid movement. The cut set fire to my calf. Warm blood flowed down my leg from the wound. Yet, I didn’t care. I wanted to take from him, even more than he took from me.

  The tamer dropped his sword and let fire dance across his fingertips. His hair ruffled and eyes grew wide with anger.

  “You think you can end me?" He sounded venomous as the fire blazed. His flames hurtled my direction as the rapid fire from his palms came closer and closer with each second.

  Power thrummed through me as the earth and I teamed. I felt one with the space around me, the feeling of where the walls anchored into the ground and where the large stones had weak spots. My years in the Heathern Court had made this place familiar to me. Rock pulled down from the building around us, with a yank of my hand through the air and a jolt of power, exploding as they came in contact with his flame. His powers cast our shadows in the hall until they died out.

  His advancement on me was swift, the impact of his body against mine splintered the door. Air left my lungs. My limbs reached out to defend myself. His weight crushed me as we fell to the ground together with muffled grunts.

  Our strength was almost equal as we grappled together on the ground, a half beaten fae and a rusty nymph who wasn’t quite trained. The only difference was that I was angrier. His hands wormed their way around my throat, crushing what little air I had. The tip of his nose mere inches away, his breath heavy against my cheeks. Blood from his wounds that I had inflicted dripped down across my face as I lay there scratching at his fingers. Drop. Drop. Drop.

  “This is not a fight you will win, you worthless nymph.” He spit on my face and the heat of his flames started to burn at my throat. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this day and I won’t let you ruin it...”

  Twisting and fighting, I could feel the world blurring around me at the edge of my vision. I let the room shake with my rage, I wasn’t giving up. The flooring cracked and began to fall away, an endless mote around where we lay.

  His eyes flickered in recognition of what was happening but he only rose up to shove me further into the ground. Stone buckled under us and cracked. I lifted my knees pushing him forward with the force I had left.

  Losing his balance, he let go of my throat to catch himself, giving me the second I needed to swing my arms up and meet his chest with my fists. He teetered backward, slipping down over the edge. His fingers grabbed at the floor, and rock gave way under his hands as he began to tumble further into the hole I created for him.

  He deserved this. And if I could end one cruel man from hurting us any longer, why couldn’t I finish the rest? I couldn’t look away as his mouth gaped and a shriek of fear fell in horror as he descended into the darkness.

  Air finally filled my lungs and I laid in place coughing. Gently, my fingers traced the burnt skin along my neck. In time, I would heal.

  The noise of the battle outside was beginning to quiet so I bridged the gap between me and the door, letting rock rise where I had crumbled it away to catch every foot fall. With a push of the door, I found the m
any steps to the yard lined with the bodies of the Heathern Court keepers.

  I stood above my people, watching as the battle ended. The sounds of the nymph’s powers colliding with those of the fae rang around me. Bodies were left in the wake of an angry, awakened people. The last of the Heathern Court’s immediate army was dying before my eyes, or fleeing from the battle they had so clearly lost. We were powerful again and this time the nymphs would fight back.

  I was panting as I stood soaking in the war before me. I could still feel the tamer’s drying blood across my face. The image of his death did not soothe the hollow feeling he left in me after my years in this court, after the threat of what he could do to me when I was powerless. Somehow I still felt his body pressed against mine as he forced me to watch Graceson.

  My gaze caught on red hair below. Graceson. The man, the myth, the legend, was somehow in the midst of the battle with Daethian at his side. Daethian? My heart stuttered, my head aching with confusion. When they caught sight of me, they sheathed their weapons and began walking up the steps. Their gazes were crisp with emotion, black circles clear under their eyes. Graceson’s wings were tucked in against his body but the occasional wind would pick up the scraps of flesh in its breeze.

  Daethian sent his own gust of wind through the thick air that framed my face. An invisible hand cupping my cheek before they had even reached the top.

  Daethian’s features seemed to melt as he looked up at me. He turned and looked back at Graceson making his way up the steps behind him. Graceson’s face was still pale, his lips tapered into a frown. Daethian began taking the steps faster, two at a time, till he met me at the top.

  “What happened? Did he hurt you?” His hands grabbed my face and arms, looking me over, trying not to touch the quickly healing burns on my neck. “I will end his damn life and send him back to the hell he was born from!” He bared his teeth, growling through his lips. His eyes tensed with panic, hate, and overwhelming sadness. He stilled as he found the deep claiming teeth marks higher up the side of my neck.