by Emma Hamm
“What are you?” Lyra couldn’t help but ask again.
He smiled his thorny smile once more. “You’ve asked me that before, love. I’m still not going to answer it.”
“You make me thoroughly uncomfortable,” she told him.
He didn’t seem to care. In fact, he ignored her all over again. He gave them both a once over and shook his head. “You aren’t prepared for what you’re walking into.”
“And you know what we’re walking into?” Jasper asked.
“Yes.”
Lyra tsked. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you work for Malachi.”
“I work for no one.”
“So you have an allegiance to no one,” she said.
He pointed two fingers at his eyes and then one back at her. “I watch everyone, and I know everything. That’s the most important thing to remember about me. Now, you’re needed at the graveyard.”
“At the battle you’re not fighting in?”
“Nah.” He shook his head and stepped back towards his shadows. “I’d rather watch.”
Once he disappeared from view, she made a face at the corner he had stood in. “Yeah, I bet you’d like to watch. Sicko.”
She was tired of all this nonsense. She wanted to go to bed with a mirror and stare at herself until she went to sleep. Like any other normal Siren.
But she couldn’t, because she had responsibilities and a conscience. Both were things that any other of her species wouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have them either, but she’d always been the odd one.
Jasper stepped up to her. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she replied as she looked up at him. “You going to put those bad boys away and teleport us or are we off to the races on a winged horse?”
He groaned. “Please don’t call me a winged horse.”
“You’re the same size as one!”
“I knew you were going to say that.” He glowered at her. “Just shut up and get ready to fight, yeah?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She reached out for him and tangled her fingers in his. It didn’t matter that he might be in love with her, and it didn’t matter what Pitch thought of them. They’d watch each other’s back until the very end because that was what they did.
Lyra just hoped that everyone she loved made it out of this alive.
Chapter 13
They materialized into chaos.
Somehow, in the small time they were arguing, Malachi’s forces had struck. Jasper pushed Lyra’s head down as a firebolt was immediately thrown at the them. This time, Wolfgang was not there to shield them.
They were both thrown to the ground as the resulting explosion rocked the stones beneath them. She hit hard, and her elbows cracked. Already she was in pain, and the fight hadn’t even started for her yet.
“Lyra?” Jasper shouted.
“I’m fine!”
She wasn’t fine. She was in hell. Lyra’s eyes devoured the sight before them. The ground was on fire; everything was on fire. People grappled on the ground and fired arrows blindly through the air.
Her team had brought fighters. Or perhaps those were Wolfgang’s meager army.
It didn’t matter who they were; there were so many dead bodies littering the ground like fallen leaves from an oak tree in autumn. Her breath sawed out of her chest as she watched a Minotaur impale a Troll on his horns. At the last moment, the Troll twisted firmly and both creatures fell to the ground dead.
She was flattened on the crushed gravel in the middle of the graveyard. The remnants of what used to be a headstone dug into her ribs. She reached forward to hold the last fragment that was still legible.
“Mungus,” she whispered. Charlie’s grave had been destroyed.
Jasper had crawled to her side. He pulled the stone out of her hand and placed his palm against her spine. “We have to move, Lyra; we can’t stay here.”
“Why are we doing this?” she asked him.
“Because we have to.”
“Why is he doing this?”
Jasper was already looking around them for their next getaway spot. He could only accurately teleport to a place he had been or had seen before. “Who?”
“Malachi. Why is he ruining my life?”
There was something in her voice that made Jasper stop surveying the carnage around them to look down at her. “Get your head in the game, Lyra. I need you here and sharp.”
“Oh, I’m sharp. And I’m pissed.”
She growled as she pushed herself up. Forget fighting dirty. Forget being on a team. Forget everything that the Five insisted they fight with.
There was no honor here when the enemy were people who fought with the man who had taken Wolfgang from her. Lyra was going to fight the way Bones had taught her to fight. Dirty.
“Lyra!” Jasper’s shout echoed, but it did not stop her.
A Satyr ran towards her. His eyes were wild with anger and fire. She did not hesitate. Her hands reached for the serrated knives strapped to her thigh, and she twisted into him. His horns would have locked around her throat if his head had still been attached.
Her hair twirled with her as she spun on her heels. A Centaur rushed towards her. The female was strong, but she did not expect the magical orb that shattered against her forehead. Blood blinded her, and acidic magic burned through her skin.
She fell to her knees screaming before she ever reached Lyra.
Yet another rushed towards her, then another and more until Lyra could not count the people she was slowly cutting through. Eventually her anger waned, and she grew bored with the opposition.
Killing had its place.
These people sided with Malachi because they were afraid. They thought he would bring about the rise of their kind or their people. They thought he understood them and wanted them happy.
They would feel her pain. She tilted her head back and screamed long and loud. Water trickled from her ears. Liquid dripped down her fingertips and sizzled as it hit the burning ground.
All around her dropped to their knees. As she slowly closed her mouth, she surveyed the wide circle around her and curled her lip. Weak. His army was weak.
Electricity danced upon her skin, and she slowly turned her blood splattered cheek. She knew who it was long before he walked into her sight. The Lich King.
He stood upon a mound of a fresh grave. His armor was made of moonlight and his crown of the ocean’s deepest abyss. Unnatural eyes stared into hers as he slowly raised his hands.
Malachi thought that numbers would win in a battle. His army existed of fresh meat who had not been trained. They fought with brute strength and fervent adoration of a false god.
Dead men and women crawled from their graves around her. Wolfgang’s army was imbued with his strength, his knowledge, and his anger. Skeletons and rotting corpses shambled towards the front line of Malachi’s men. Lyra was deeply pleased that for once in this Malachi’s existence, he would learn what it meant to fail.
Her eyes found Burke and Wren as they stood back to back in the center of the chaos. Burke’s sword flashed so fast in the light she could barely see it. Wren’s hands were raised and smoke poured from her palms.
She had gotten very good at controlling and creating Juice on a whim. She no longer needed E to create for her. As a combined mind, they were deadly.
Creatures fell at their feet but continued to rush towards them. They were the first fighter’s that the great rush of Malachi’s army met. Some surged past them towards the meager amount of fighter’s Wolfgang had brought up from the depths.
The rest were likely hiding underground. They would wait until silence made their ears bleed. Only then would they attempt to rise from their safe homes and hope that their leader had saved them.
She could see down the long streets that led to the graveyard. They were filled with a mass of bodies. Malachi had more people in his army than she had ever imagined.
They had been so wrong. They thought
he would have a difficult time finding people who would wish to kill Red Bloods. When in reality, he apparently had not found it difficult at all.
“Lyra.” The slowly murmured word echoed across the graves. His voice was distorted but imprinted upon her soul.
Wolfgang was calling to her.
He was a snake charmer, and she was the snake. Lyra was helpless to stop herself from walking towards him. The fire parted in front of her at his bidding. Any who tried to engage her in battle were held in place as hands rose from the ground to pull them into the soft earth.
She walked towards him as in a dream. Never in her life had she thought that the man she loved would be a monster. Now she knew what a real monster was.
His skeletal hand rose for her to take. She knew what he wanted. More power. More pain. Always, always more. A tear trickled down her cheek as her hand rose to hold onto the glass like bones.
“Lyra, don’t!” Jasper’s shout paused her hand just above Wolfgang’s. “We can fight them off; we have enough!”
She looked towards him as her eyes sparkled with tears. “I can’t take any more death.”
“Lyra, you don’t know what he’s capable of doing!”
“No, I don’t.” But she could still see people dying. Wolfgang’s ever loyal people, who feared him more than ever, were dying next to the graves of their loved ones. No one should ever have to die in such a way. “But I can stop this now.”
Her hand slapped down onto Wolfgang’s palm. She stared up into eyes that were the same color and felt herself falling off a cliff towards roiling waves.
“Lyra.” Wolfgang’s words were a cool wind against her heated skin. “Give me power.”
His arm wrapped around her waist and bent her backwards. The tie in her hair snapped as she fell limp in his arms. Her hair was a waterfall of darkness and her body the instrument he played.
Her body burned along with the world. Pain like she had never felt before surged through her nerve endings and exploded from her fingertips. Lightning spread through her body as Wolfgang muttered a spell like none other before now.
No Magician had ever done what he could do. No Magician could whisper a spell that had never been written down. He created a spell of his own and froze time around them.
Malachi’s army stopped. Everyone stopped.
Lyra breathed in the scent of the air and slowly pulled herself up by Wolfgang’s shoulder. His armor bit into her palm. She stared around them in confusion before she managed a weak question.
“What’s happening?”
He ignored her. Instead, his voice boomed with power as he called upon the Void. “Malachi.”
The word rang with power. It burned against her tongue and slid down her throat. It wrapped around the soft bit of her soul that protected his.
“I never thought you’d call.” Malachi’s voice reminded her of an eel. Slippery, devious, and mysterious, the sound appeared though he physically did not.
“You will leave this place.”
“I did not think you would succeed. My prophetess will lose her life for that mistake.”
“No one would ever have prophesized that I would live,” Wolfgang murmured. “For no one has ever truly understood my power.”
“I will not leave. My army will demolish yours, and I will take the rest of the Lords under my wing.”
“You will lose.”
Malachi’s answer was echoing laughter. Lyra pressed her palms against her ears and wished for the comfort of Wolfgang’s arms. Instead, the Lich King held her brutally still.
“I will destroy you, Malachi,” Wolfgang declared.
“You can try.”
Wolfgang’s spell ended just as quickly as it began. Shouting, the crackling of fire, pops of magic, all of it was overwhelming as she tried to catch her breath. Her body was weak and in pain.
His unnatural eyes stared through the army of people as though he had not just spoken with the most powerful creature they had ever battled. Lyra worried. He was supposed to be caring enough to save them all. But if she didn’t know better, she would think he was deciding whether or not to help.
“Wolfgang?” she whispered.
He looked down towards her, and she couldn’t help but raise her hand. She missed his gaunt cheeks and the scar on his brow. Her fingers danced across his cheekbone and felt the ridges of his exposed teeth. She trailed the lingering touch along his jaw to hold his attention.
“You must help them,” she said. “Otherwise, who are you?”
He grumbled. The sound was a deep growl that rattled his ribs against her chest. But he began to stride forward with her.
“We fight,” he growled.
She was relieved. At least he was on their side for now. That was enough for her, even though her eyelids threatened to fall and send her into the Dreaming World.
“Lyra!” Burke shouted. “Look out!”
She flinched against Wolfgang’s armor and felt the shake of magic as it struck his shield. Her neck craned to see where they were walking and immediately she felt faint.
A creature was walking towards them. It was immensely massive, the same size as Wolfgang if not larger. Its armor was made of glowing red lava and great horns rose from its head. Red eyes glared at them as steam rose from the helmet in a great exhale. It batted aside its own soldiers with great meaty arms.
“What is that?” she cried out.
“Elemental.”
“You sound excited.”
“I am.” Wolfgang’s teeth clacked together. “It will be a great battle.”
“Are you forgetting that I’m stuck to your chest?”
“You will assist me.”
She pounded her fist against his armor. “This is not my Wolfgang! My Wolfgang would never put me in harm’s way!”
“Remain quiet.” He squeezed her hard. “Your Wolfgang is gone.”
They were the words she did not want to hear. They were stalking towards his prey as though she were a barnacle stuck to a whale. This was not what she wanted. Worse. This was not what Wolfgang would have wanted.
Her hands raised to frame his skull and force him to stare down at her. “We do this my way and my way alone. You fight him. You end this now. And then you give me my Wolfgang back.”
The Lich King appeared amused. “You are fierce for one so small.”
“You are not the first to tell me that.”
He nodded. “Stay quiet now.”
She hoped the nod was in agreement to her plan. She held onto that hope as pain bloomed at her hip. She didn’t know what he was doing until a long whip of electricity spun from his fingertips.
He cracked it towards the hulking Elemental who hardly flinched when it struck its shoulder. Lyra heard the faintest grunt. The Elemental picked up its pace until it was running towards them.
The Lich King squeezed its skeletal hand on her waist and spun at the last second. His other hand raked across the Elemental’s back and left deep blue gashes that sunk through its armor. Lyra’s ears ached as the roar of outrage echoed around her.
She was stuck to the Lich King’s armor. She could do nothing but endure the pain and hope that the battle would end in their favor. Whiplash made her vision skew as they continued to twist back and forth.
Only once did the Elemental manage to strike them. She took most of the damage. Her leg was caught on fire that barely touched her thanks to her enchanted leather. Still, it managed to frighten her enough to send her heart racing.
“Wolfgang,” she cried out. “End it now!”
He grunted, but her fearful tone must have cut through to the man she knew. A great swath of angry electricity arched up from her hip. She tossed back her head and screamed in the way only a Siren could.
The Lich King amplified her cry as he charged forward. A great sword made of blue fire and lightning formed in his hand as he thrust its length through the Elemental’s rib cage. It growled, groaned, and then its fire flickered.
Lyra felt its hot b
reath against the back of her neck as it fell onto the ground. Death was never pretty. She remembered vividly her first kill as vomit rose in her throat.
“I’m going to be sick.” She listed to the side, and the Lich King let her go.
She hit the ground and wretched. Snot trickled from her nose, and water leaked from her ears. But the remaining army of Malachi’s stared at the giant man standing next to her. He was larger than life. Powerful and feared by so many now.
As one, they took a step back and then another. Just like that, the battle was over. The Lich King had won as Malachi’s army fled in fear of the unnatural monster beside her.
She was so tired. Lyra slumped towards the ground, just managing to hold herself up by an elbow.
“I want to go home,” she whispered. “Wolfgang, please bring me home.”
“Your Wolfgang is not here.”
She looked up at him quickly, and fear bloomed in her chest. He stared down at her with no expression, no emotion. She was stuck in a dream that he was steadily turning it into a nightmare.
“You promised,” she pled.
“Come. We go to strengthen my army.”
His hand was reaching for her. She shook her head firmly and tried to crawl away from him. “What are you saying? No!”
The Lich King wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the remainder of his army and her team. His blue eyes were critical as he surveyed them and nodded. “They will be a welcome addition. Generals, they shall be; it is an honored position.”
Her heart broke. Shattered. She could hear the sound of breaking glass as everything Lyra was disappeared. She was a shell of herself because her world had been reduced to ashes.
She choked on a sob as she sat up and slowly reached for him. She sniffed loudly. “Wolfgang—”
“Do not argue.”
Lyra fell silent as he pulled her against his chest once more. She entertained the idea that perhaps he wanted to hold her because there was some remnant of himself still there. Deep down, she knew that was a lie.
Her hands traveled up his shoulders and neck as she turned his head towards her. “Wolfgang, I love you.”
