Chapter Thirty
I stood on the rooftop of the palace, the wind whistling around me, and watched my army form for battle as the sun dropped slowly toward the horizon behind us. Outside the barricades, the Fate Maker’s army was being pushed across the field, the trolls driving the slaves forward while the giants roared and pounded their chests in the background.
There was a group of men hidden near the trees too, and I knew they were the remaining wizards, hanging back and trying to avoid the fight. Somewhere, hiding with the rest of them, was the Fate Maker, letting other people fight his battles for him.
“Do you think there’s any chance they’ll just turn around and go?” Mercedes asked, coming up to stand beside me at the ledge. “Wait until morning to fight?”
“I doubt it.”
I watched as Rhys sorted his men into groups: foot soldiers, archers to ride on the backs of the dragons, nymphs stationed around the barricades to work their magic and protect our troops to the best of their ability. We were a castle under siege, with ten thousand men ready to fight the minute the first attack came.
“These are our fellow people,” Rhys yelled at the soldiers. I watched him, Balmeer perched on his shoulder, as he addressed his warriors.
“These are not men who have chosen to fight. They were forced, just as all of you have been forced by the Fate Maker at one time or another,” Rhys continued.
The men shifted back and forth, their weapons clanking, and I could feel the fear radiating off of them. Rhys was right. Any one of them could have ended up on that side of the wall. It was possible that some of their neighbors were out there, and now they were going to have to kill each other.
“Try your best not to harm them,” Rhys said, still striding up and down the front line of soldiers. “If they choose to switch sides, do not fight against them, but let them join us. Your objective is not to hurt your fellow men. Save your hate for the creatures that drive them toward us. Turn your anger on the monsters that would make your own people fight you when all of you long for nothing more than to be free,” Rhys yelled.
“I know that some of us will fall. Today, some of you will make your peace and find a place among the Pleiades, but know this. From this day onward, the people of Nerissette will sing of the battle that took place here today. All of us shall be heroes of legend, and when our descendants sing of us many centuries from now, your names shall live on.”
“Wow,” Mercedes said as the mood below us shifted, and soldiers began to cheer as the dragons roared their approval. “That was impressive. You’re going to have a tough time topping that speech. Even with that fancy crown on your head.”
“Would that speech make you fight for him?” I smiled at her and couldn’t resist taking what could be my one last chance to tease her. “Or would you do it just because you think he’s cute?”
“Shut up.” She pushed my shoulder. “Just because he can kiss like nobody’s business doesn’t mean he’s anything special.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, and her skin turned a sort of mottled purple color. “Forget we even had this conversation. We’ve got an army at the gates to worry about, after all.”
“Trust you to use a horde of invading giants as an excuse to get out of giving me the details about what kind of kisser Rhys Sullivan is.”
“You found me out.” Mercedes snorted. “I cooked this all up with the Fate Maker just to deprive you of gossip.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you some days,” I teased.
A large boulder of dark magic flew through the air, directly toward where we were standing, and we all dropped flat against the roof, our arms over our heads as it exploded in the air above us.
“We’ll talk later,” I said.
I heard a thunderous roar and saw Winston launch himself into the air, the other dragons circling behind him. He landed heavily on the roof and gave me his usual annoyed glare—even as a dragon the look hadn’t changed much.
I scrambled up onto his back, thankful for the hunting clothes that Kitsuna had given me, and shifted the sword so that I could help pull Mercedes up behind me. Winston launched himself off the roof—flat-backed this time so we didn’t fall—and circled the castle walls once so our army could see that I wasn’t harmed. We dropped lower, close enough to the west barricade that Mercedes could join the rest of the dryads protecting our flank.
“Good luck,” she said before sliding off Winston’s wing and onto the top of the wall. “Be careful.”
“You, too.” I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze before letting go and straightening up. I put my hand back on Winston’s neck, and he began to drop lower, taking me to the front of my army. Another burst of black magic roared through the sky toward us. Winston pulled back up, dodging the attack, and climbed higher.
“We’ve got to get down there,” I yelled as he circled back around for another pass.
A third shot hit the walls, and the nymphs hurriedly worked their magic to protect the castle.
“To war!” Rhys bellowed below as another volley of evil magic came rushing toward us. The doors of the barricades were thrown open, foot soldiers pouring out of the castle while dragons launched streams of bright-red fire down on the enemy.
Men screamed, and I watched in horror as they began to cut into each other, fighting and dying on the ground below us while magic was thrown between the nymphs perched on our walls and the wizards hiding in the forest beyond.
Gunter rushed out of the castle and straight at a troll, howling with rage, his sword swinging in front of him. Magic exploded around us, cries coming from every direction, and when I looked down at where Gunter had been, he and the troll were both gone and I could no longer see them in the mass of fighting bodies below.
“We have to draw the wizards out,” I yelled. Winston roared in what I hoped was approval and not annoyance. “You have to get me down there.”
I heard another shriek and turned to see Balmeer beating the head of a giant with his wings, his talons bared, a brilliant crimson in the fading light. Meanwhile, Timbago stood below, waving his hands and dancing about while immobilizing the larger creature from the ground. The goblin finished his spell and the giant’s legs cemented together. Balmeer swiped a lethal-looking talon across the giant’s face, knocking him off-balance so that he fell over, landing heavily on a group of trolls. Then Timbago scampered away, the large bird close behind.
I looked down at the rolling, heaving mass of fighters, and realized there was no way that Winston could land. My army was on the ground, dying, and I was trapped on the back of a dragon.
Forget that. I wasn’t just going to sit up here and hide while the fight went on beneath me. If I was stuck riding dragonback, I was going to use it to my advantage. I was going to be Queen Alicia Wilhemina Munroe the First, my own royal version of the air force.
“Take us higher,” I yelled into Winston’s ear. “We need to see what’s going on from above. I want to see exactly where the wizards are hiding.”
Winston flew farther up, and I saw Kitsuna and her mother—along with Ardere and a few other dragons—follow us. I turned from side to side, watching, waiting for a spell to be thrown.
“What are we doing?” Kitsuna screamed.
“We need to take out the wizards. Without them the rest of the army will crumble. But they’re hiding in the forest somewhere, and I can’t see them. We need to flush them out. ”
“What?” Kitsuna asked.
“We need to flush the wizards out of the forest. I just don’t know how.”
“We’re on the backs of dragons.” She pointed at her mother’s wings.
“Big, fire-breathing dragons,” I said under my breath. “Of course. We can set fire to the forest. That should get them out into the open.”
“What about the dryads?” she asked.
I looked behind me at the tree sprites fighting at the barricades and then down at the men below, dying under the wizards’ attack. There was no choice for me. I had
to keep my people safe, even if it meant that the trees had to die in their place.
Kitsuna nodded grimly and tightened her grip on her sword, its blade dripping with a black goo that I thought might be troll’s blood. I pulled my sword out of its scabbard and wrapped my fingers around it.
“To war.” I lifted the sword over my head and kicked Winston’s shoulders with my heels.
His head shot around, and he glared at me for a second before folding his wings in and letting his nose dip forward, dropping us into a deadly dive, straight at the trees where the wizards hid. I gripped the spike at the back of his neck and slammed my eyes shut, desperately hoping we didn’t crash-land.
I felt a burst of heat and opened my eyes to see that he’d breathed fire onto the trees, the other dragons behind him carpeting the forest in flames at the same time. He pulled up, and my breath caught at the sight of the blaze below.
Everything was on fire. Dark clouds began to amass over the trees, as rain started pouring down only in the forest, and the dragons wheeled upward before turning back and diving again, breathing fire and feeding the flames so that even the wizards’ magical rain couldn’t put them out.
Winston flew straight up, circling once, and prepared to dive again. This time, I didn’t close my eyes as flames roared out of him in a sickening shriek. There was heat at my back and then a sudden, horrible jerk.
I lost my grip on Winston, sliding off his wing and hurtling toward the ground, my sword slipping from my fingers. Time seemed to slow as I watched the giant who’d grabbed Winston’s tail fling him across the field like a piece of dirty laundry.
I hit the ground, and all the air in my body exploded out of my mouth in one giant scream. Everything hurt. Every single thing. Even parts of my body that I didn’t know existed howled in pain. I lay there, trying to decide if I was actually still alive, or if this was that one last clear, lucid moment you’re supposed to have before you die. Some part of me expected to find myself face-to-face with my parents or Gran Mosely, or some guy wearing a robe and big white wings with a golden light around him.
Instead, I got the hideous, twisted gray face of a muscular, six-foot-tall troll, his dirty hair matted with gunk and a smear of blood across his sharp green teeth. Obviously I wasn’t dead, but if I didn’t get up I was going to be very soon.
I threw my hand out and felt for my sword. I wrapped my hand around it and rolled onto my side, pulling the blade free from the mess of bodies it had been tangled in. I rolled back over just as the troll rushed toward me, his ax raised over his head.
Without thinking I pushed the sword out in front of me. He lunged, and we both froze, staring at each other as he crumpled to the ground beside me, my new weapon buried in his chest. I grabbed the hilt of the sword and tugged, trying not to panic, but it held fast no matter how hard I pulled, trapped inside the dead creature. I was alone on a battlefield with a wizard who wanted to kill me lurking somewhere nearby, and I was now completely unarmed. My stomach started to lurch, and it was all I could do not to vomit.
There was another explosion of fire above me, and I forced my gaze from the troll’s body to search the sky for Winston, hoping he was all right. Instead there was nothing but fire and blood and screaming. A black sphere hurtled toward me and I ducked, covering my head as it exploded behind me. I could feel its heat radiating back at us in waves.
“You ruined everything,” the Fate Maker snarled. I stood up, staring at the crazy man who appeared in front of me in ripped robes.
I glanced around, desperately trying to find a weapon while he formed another fireball and hurled it toward me. I dodged it as my eyes darted for a way to protect myself. Nothing. Crap. I was now facing a psychotic wizard in the middle of a battle, completely alone and unarmed. Definitely not good.
“I didn’t ruin everything,” I snapped, still searching for a weapon. A stick. Anything that I could use to fight with. Something, anything, that can keep me alive just a few minutes more. “I’m trying to save everyone. These are people, not pieces on a chess board.”
“They’re nothing!” He threw another fireball at me.
I ducked.
He came forward, anger flickering in his eyes. “This is my world, and I won’t let you take it from me. I won’t let you destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for.”
“Haven’t you heard?” I backed away from him. “The world doesn’t revolve around you.”
“You know,” he said with an evil smile, “your mother said the same thing, and now she’s as good as dead, trapped inside the horrors inside her own mind. When I’m finished with you you’ll be begging to join her there.”
Without thinking, I quit retreating and I threw myself at him, my mind full of rage. I didn’t care how powerful he was, I was going to destroy him. I was going to kill him with my bare hands, and then it would all be over. All of it. This war and the pain I’d felt since my mother’s accident left me alone. I could end him and then I’d find a way back to her and I’d make the wizards fix her, bring her back to me. I’d force them to at the point of a sword if I had to. All I had to do was end him and then everything could go back to how it was supposed to be.
I tackled him around the waist, and we both tumbled to the ground. I scrambled up and starting punching, trying to find a place to hit him that would hurt the most.
I heard a familiar screech above me. Balmeer. He dove in between me and the Fate Maker, his talons bared, and I was flung backward.
The Fate Maker brought one of his arms up to beat back the enraged roc and threw his other arm out to grab my wrist. In an instant the world fell away, and we were being pulled between one place and another.
Chapter Thirty-One
There was a puff of smoke and the world lurched as we landed, hard, on the floor in the West Tower, next to his worktable.
Instead of waiting for the nausea to pass, I lunged at him, swinging my fists, trying to hit him somewhere, anywhere, before he could recover. “I’m going to kill you,” I screamed.
“You’ll try.” He brought his hand around to smack me in the ear with a force that caused stars to spin in front of my eyes and twist my stomach. “You’ll fail like everyone else, but you are welcome to try.” He slapped at me again, his aim off this time.
Instead of punching at him, I buried my knee in his ribs and looked for something to use as a weapon. If it was just the two of us I was going to need something to even the odds, if only a little. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I could take on a wizard on my own.
I spied the Orb of Fate. Just a ball of glass, Esmeralda had told me—a ball of glass with a silly magic spell on it. Nothing more than a weapon to use against him.
I wrapped my fingers around it and hit him with it. The glass exploded in my hand, cutting deep gashes in my flesh, and my blood splattered across the floor.
The Fate Maker fell back with a shriek of rage, his hands covering his eyes, and I pulled myself to my feet. I kicked him in the ribs as hard as I could before running for the door, desperately trying to get away from him.
“Where do you think you can run to?” he taunted from his spot on the floor. I spun around to see him sit up, blood running down his face as he glared at me. “I can find you anywhere. Ask your mother. She thought the two of you had escaped me, and I found her. If I can find her across all space and time, there’s nowhere someone like you can run to get away from me.”
“I’m not my mother.” I let go of the door handle and turned to face him. “And you don’t scare me.”
“Liar,” he said. He laughed, his voice low and cruel-sounding. “I terrify you.”
“No, you make me sick.”
“That’s fine, Your Majesty. I didn’t ask for your approval, just that you sat on your throne and did exactly what I told you.”
“Never.”
“No? Then you’ll die in this room, and I’ll leave your carcass hanging from my walls as a reminder to the people of Nerissette just who rules here. They will se
e your body, and no one will revolt against me ever again.”
“You think the army is just going to let you take over again?”
“Do you think they can really stand against me? Against giants? Trolls? Do you think those sniveling weaklings will still fight once you’re dead? Or do you think they’ll go back to cowering?”
I shook my head. “You can’t control them anymore. You’ve lost them. You’ll never rule them again. Not without a fight.”
“I will. I’ll force Esmeralda to bring through some other pathetic girl as Rose. I’ll shower her in love and attention, and she’ll never question me because there will always be the whispers of what happens to stupid, silly queens who try to think for themselves.”
“Is that really your plan?” I asked, rolling my eyes at him so that he knew just how stupid of an idea I thought that was.
I spotted The Chronicles of Nerissette sitting on the table and smiled. This ended here. Today. With me. No one else would ever be pulled into this world, ever again. No one else would be taken without any say. Even if it meant that I could never leave. It was worth it to keep the rest of the people safe.
“You dead, new brat in place. Seems simple enough.”
“Nothing is ever that simple,” I said.
I grabbed the Chronicles. It was time to end the lies, to let the people know that their lives were so much greater than any prophecy could imagine.
I heaved the book into the fire, and the flames burst upward, a bright, violent blue, to consume the book. “So much for another queen.”
“It’s a book,” he said, his voice cold, “nothing more than words on a page. Magic spells for weak-willed wizards in need of guidance.”
“How do you intend to bring a new queen through without the book? You can’t use the Mirror of the Nerissette without the other relics.”
“The cat will tell me where they are. And if she won’t, then there are others who can find them. Others who will do the spells, who will break and give me the powers I need.”
Everlast (The Chronicles of Nerissette) (Entangled Teen) Page 25
