The Waking Magic (Winter's Blight Book 3)

by M. C. Aquila

  The faery’s already pale face had gone corpse white, the blood drying on her face standing out in stark relief. Even the bullet wound that tore through her shoulder had stopped bleeding freely and slowed to a sluggish trickle. There was not much left in her.

  She barely moved even to breathe, her chest rising faintly, her hands twitching against the restraints, and as she scrunched up her face, a tear tracked down her cheek.

  Another faery had nearly been in her position before, back at the lab in Neo-London. A faery that had reminded him vaguely of his wife in appearance—dark hair, tanned olive skin. Before Levi could draw her blood and magic, Alan, stricken, had ordered him to stop and to bring a different faery to drain. He had faltered in a moment of weakness he hadn’t known himself to be capable of anymore, and that moment haunted him since.

  He did not falter now, not even at the faery’s tears. They could look and act human, but it was all just another elaborate glamour meant to hide what they truly were.

  “Is this how you fooled my sons?” Alan asked her. “With your tears and your magic? Is that why Iain—?”

  The faery’s eyes snapped open at that, a spark of violet anger burning behind them. For one moment, as if garnering one more burst of strength, she pulled against her restraints before falling back limply with a soft groan, her head lolling to the side.

  A final mumble escaped her mouth in a whimper too low and garbled for Alan to make out what it was. But it sounded like—

  “Kallista.”

  Alan froze. She can’t be here… Here, in the middle of this war zone… After all this time?

  Alan shut off the machine, and it powered down with a whirr. “You said something.” He leaned over her and shook her shoulder. “What do you know?”

  But the faery was unconscious.

  There was a knock on the heavy truck doors. With a final glance back at the faery, Alan went to the doors and stepped outside. He left the doors open a sliver, expecting to be back inside soon.

  Boyd stood outside with a handful of other soldiers from his squadron—they were all pale, sweating, dusted with gunpowder or caked in mud and blood. The soldiers were glancing past him at the truck, but before they could ask questions about what creature was inside and why, Alan led them into the clearing, away from the woods.

  “Have you anything to report?” Alan asked.

  Boyd was holding his rifle in one hand, and with his free hand, he pointed to the fairgrounds behind them and said, “General, there’s a hostile Fae monster in the area. It’s been disappearing and popping up again, picking civilians and some of our men off.”

  “Then why are you not out there containing it?” Alan snapped. “Your squadron is not authorized to be here.”

  Boyd’s eyes gleamed with a question, but all he said was, “We’re trying, but it’s got us being herded like sheep. It’s a great big cat. Like a leopard or a tiger, but it’s all black. And it’s got these glowing gold eyes.”

  The Master.

  “Tell your squadron to cease fire and not to engage the hostile,” Alan ordered. “We have what we came for, and now it’s time for us to move out. We will continue to our base outside the Summer Court barrier. Clear out a path and drive the militia back.”

  “Is that what we’re doing now—sparing Unseelie monsters as well as working with them?” Boyd asked him sharply. Dangerous defiance gleamed in his eyes.

  “We all do what we must, Prance.”

  After Boyd and the other soldiers left to fulfill their orders, Alan returned to the truck, expecting to find it exactly as he’d left it. But something had been disturbed, and the air felt electric with traces of magic.

  The door. It’s wide open.

  As he bolted into the truck through the open doors, the faint odor of iron-burnt faery flesh reached him, and he only saw the shackles where the prisoner was once chained to the chair. His pulse thundered in his head as he scoured the small room. She could not have gotten far in her condition.

  Quickly he inspected the shackles, wires, and needles. The iron was corroded and rusted as if it had been subjected to wind and rain for many years outdoors. The machine itself was undamaged, and it was still charged with humming energy.

  Having her blood should have been enough. It was enough to break through the barrier around the Seelie Court.

  But it was not enough that he had her magic; he wanted her life snuffed out. That would prove that he hadn’t faltered and that he wouldn’t again.

  “Find her…”

  Alan looked up, straightening, and narrowed his eyes. There was no one in the room, no one outside.

  His breast pocket felt heavy, and he remembered the crystal that the Master had given him. He produced the crystal and the wedding band from his pocket, holding them in the palm of his bandaged hand.

  “Find her,” the voice urged again, coming from the crystal. “Find Deirdre.”

  Beyond that demand, he felt another, familiar pull in his chest—that same sense of wrongness and emptiness that had plagued him and driven him to take the crystal from the Master. It was the call of his heart to break the Master’s deal.

  Find her… Find Kallista. I should find Kallista.

  Alan balked at his own thought, at his own admission. If she were to come back, to walk in on him now, he wasn’t certain what he would do. That realization made his pulse race and his blood run cold.

  “It’s almost finished now,” he whispered to himself. “No going back. No remorse or weakness now.” With a final look at the ring, he tucked it back into his front jacket pocket, leaving the crystal in his hand.

  The cold little gem was heavy in his hand, and as he held it, it whispered again and again: “Find her.” Then he closed his fist around it, squeezing hard. With a crack the eldritch crystal snapped in half in his grasp. It was easy to break, like it was meant to be broken.

  For a moment nothing happened. Nothing stirred around him or just outside the open doors in the deep, dark woods. Then, like watching someone else from far away, Alan witnessed himself fall to his knees on the floor as he doubled over in blinding, white-hot pain.

  Breathing hard, he opened his trembling palm to see the crystal, shattered into sharp fragments, sticking out of his hand in smoking shards like dry ice. The coldness of them spread, and the bandages wrapped around his injured hand flaked away like ashes, floating into the air. Next to flake away was the burned flesh of his hand.

  He was unable to tear his eyes away as something new grew in the place of the decaying remains. The shock of the crystal reverberated through the core of his being, like swallowing a thunderstorm. He stood up, staggering to the door, just glimpsing the shadow of the unnatural shards growing and spreading from his arm.

  The draw of his heart was silenced.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Branches and thistles whipped at Iain’s limbs as he barreled through the forest, heedless of potential threats nearby. His lungs stinging from cold, he raced to find help, replaying in his mind Deirdre’s request of him and the parting image of her fearful but resigned face before the felled tree separated them.

  I’ll bring help, and Deirdre will be fine. She’s strong. And not just because of her magic.

  Deirdre’s greatest strength was the fortitude of her spirit that truly shone. She had not allowed the trials and injustice she’d faced to dampen her spark, beat her down, or harden her heart.

  That’s why she’ll be fine. She’s strong. She has to be all right.

  There was a figure in the woods ahead, hunkered slightly, glancing around a tree. As Iain neared, he slowed down, his boots skidding in the leaves, and he approached with more caution. He could hear faint but booming gunshots in the distance. The figure heard him and turned around, and there was a flash of silver as the man drew his sword.

  “Cai!” Iain ran to meet him.

  Lowering his weapon, Cai asked, “You and the faery get all the bells from the trees? Where is—?”

  “Deirdre’s i
n trouble.” Iain interrupted. “She needs help.”

  He quickly explained what had happened, but most of the details were a blur. “She fell, and she was hurt. Iron Infantry was closing in. This tree fell, and we were separated—” He let out a breath, his mouth falling open as he said, “Deirdre… She used her magic so I could get away.”

  Cold dread seeped into his chest. He was not about to let another person sacrifice their life for him. Especially not Deirdre.

  Cai held out his hand for the pouch with the bells, asking for it. Iain handed it over.

  “Once I get these back to Singh,” Cai said, slinging it around his shoulders, “I’ll gather some of the militia to go after her.”

  But Iain was already shaking his head before he even finished speaking. “We can’t wait. I saw the militia retreating behind the barrier. We need to help them, but they have more time and advantage than Deirdre does right now—”

  “Everyone here is in danger, but you’re putting one person above everything else.” Cai leveled Iain with a scrutinizing stare. “Tell me, Iain, are you thinking like a soldier, putting the lives of the many first, or are you thinking with your heart?”

  “This time they go hand in hand,” Iain said firmly. “If they capture Deirdre, they’ll drain her magic and use it to break the barrier down. So if her life being threatened isn’t enough for you to act, then think about what the loss of her will bring on all of us.”

  Cai blew a breath out of his nose like a bull but then nodded, relenting. “Fine. That’s a fair assessment. Do you trust me to take point?” When Iain nodded, Cai continued, “You watch my back then.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  Not wasting another moment, Iain took off his pack and set it on the ground, covering it haphazardly with leaves so it would not be found and stolen. He didn’t want anything weighing him down, save for the axe he carried at his belt.

  Cai drew his sword and started in the direction where Iain had come from. While they sped through the woods, Iain kept a lookout for any soldiers. An occasional gunshot sounded in the distance. And they were getting louder and more frequent.

  They had to go around the barricade of fallen trees rather than over it—Deirdre and her magic had done a solid job of blocking the area off, preventing the Iron Guard from coming through.

  By the time Iain reached the place where he and Deirdre had been separated, the air had gone still and quiet and there were no soldiers in sight. There was only the aftermath of what had happened: fallen trees and splintered wood littering the ground.

  There were no tanks, no trucks, and no Iron Infantry soldiers. And no sign of Deirdre.

  Think… Think about it. The Iron Guard’s left the area, probably driving the militia back. They could be chasing Deirdre too, but she wouldn’t be able to get far… That means they could have her…

  “Iain.” Cai’s voice broke through the fog of his thoughts. “Do you see anything? Look closely.”

  “Right.” Iain studied his surroundings, taking note of the tire tracks from the military tanks and vehicles. He spotted a strange pattern of grooves headed toward the trees, marked by the occasional large footprint.

  A realization left him winded, like taking a blow to his gut he was unprepared for. These are drag marks. Someone was dragged across the ground.

  “This way,” Iain said, motioning.

  Cai went in the direction of the tracks as Iain followed, staying low and alert, his axe raised. The tracks in the muddy ground led him to a more thickly forested area, and he soon saw a truck parked facing the field, its back end to the forest. Cai and Iain hurried through the three rows of trees between them and the vehicle.

  As they neared, there was a heavy thud from inside of something falling onto the metal floor. After holding up his hand to halt Iain as he moved toward the truck, Cai said, “I’ll keep watch while you check inside. Those gunshots are getting closer, so be quick.”

  The back doors to the truck were slightly ajar, and as Iain stepped out of the forest toward it, his adrenaline-heightened senses were instantly assaulted. Gooseflesh dotted Iain’s skin at the electric feeling of magic in the air, and the smell of iron and burnt flesh stung his nose. A garbled shout came from within the truck.

  There was a crash as the doors were thrust wide open, and Iain jerked back in alarm as a tall figure spilled out of the truck and onto the ground a few feet in front of him.

  It was his father.

  Iain watched, stunned, as his father writhed on the ground, strange white smoke twisting up from the arm he was clutching. He was still after a moment, his groans ceasing. But whatever it was attacking him wasn’t smoke, because the thick tendrils of it didn’t just float into the atmosphere—they were reaching and grasping in different directions like fierce claws.

  It’s Deirdre’s magic, isn’t it? She’s fought him off, and she’ll come out in a second. She’s all right.

  But his hope shattered at the cold sensation the sight of the magic produced in him. It was not Deirdre’s magic at all—it was something he hadn’t seen before. Something dark.

  Cai came up behind him. Before he could speak, Iain said, “That’s General Callaghan. My father.”

  “I’ll take care of this,” Cai said. “If he’s conscious, we can take him prisoner. If not, we’ll have to leave him.”

  As Cai approached Alan cautiously, Iain rushed to the truck, leaping up the steps and inside. Deirdre was not inside the stark, sterile room of metal. Wires and tubes were snaked across the ground. The machine was right in front of him—the one that he knew could be used to break down the barrier around the Summer Court.

  If I hurry, maybe I could try to destroy it. I could stop this, and…

  “Cai!” Iain rushed to the open doors. “The machine—you need to break it somehow—”

  A cry echoed through the forest. It was a female voice, punctuated with pain.

  Deirdre. The sound sent Iain into action immediately, and he leaped outside.

  “Go find her!” Cai was leaning over Alan’s body, reaching for his limp arm to check for a pulse.

  As Iain entered the tree line, there was a soft, low noise to his right like a sigh. When he turned toward it, he saw Deirdre on her stomach on the forest floor, one arm under her, her pale hand gripping her injured shoulder. The other hand was grasping at a tree root that rose from the ground like a handle, which she was using to help her crawl across the ground.

  “Deirdre!” Iain slid to his knees beside her.

  She started and snapped her face toward him. Snaking trails of blood were drying down her face. He had never balked at the sight of blood, but seeing it on Deirdre was different.

  Deirdre managed to say, dazed, “Iain, I can’t walk…”

  “I’ve got you,” Iain told her, keeping his voice steady. “Just put your arm around my shoulder—that’s it, Deirdre. You’ve got this. You’re doing well.”

  Each movement was slow, and her face drained white when she tried to move her leg. He was afraid of hurting her further by carrying her over his shoulder like he was trained to do, so he carried her in his arms against his chest.

  Just as he lifted her, there was a shuffling sound behind him. He turned around to look.

  Cai was leaning over Alan, checking his wrist for a pulse. Without warning, Alan sat up and struck out with his hand, his fingers finding Cai’s throat and locking on. Iain let out a shout.

  Cai aimed a punch to his temple; Alan jumped to his feet and then backward to safety.

  Alan then grabbed a rifle from the nearby ferny ground, raising and arming it swiftly. Silent, eyes flashing, he pointed it at Cai.

  “Iain, get her out of here!” Cai called, coughing, as he unsheathed his sword.

  Cradling Deirdre against him, Iain turned and barreled through the forest. A gunshot thundered behind him. He knew that Cai would be fine and not just because of his curse. He had never seen anyone fight like the swordsman.

  An instant later, pres
sure rippled through Iain’s right arm at the bicep. It felt like something had struck him hard with a blunt object, but he felt no pain with it. He realized with strange detachment that a bullet had just grazed him.

  Alan was shooting at them, not Cai.

  Another bullet struck a tree beside him, sending splinters of wood flying. Iain darted behind a wide, thick tree trunk, sliding to the ground as another shot went off. Then he ducked, shielding Deirdre with his body.

  When no more shots went off, Iain got up again. When he lifted Deirdre this time, hot pain pinched his arm where the bullet had grazed him.

  Deirdre whimpered at being jostled, her eyes opening wide. “Iain…?”

  “It’s okay, Deirdre. You’ll be all right.”

  He peered around the tree to see Cai swinging at Alan with his sword. The blade cut through the barrel of the gun with a metallic spark. Alan stepped back but not before the blade gashed his arm open below his shoulder.

  Cai went to strike again, but this time Alan blocked it. He caught Cai’s forearm solidly and held it aloft with effort. Cai grabbed his arm when Alan threw a punch with his free hand. They strained against each other, nearly equally matched in strength. But the knight was stronger.

  Then, as if summoned, the smoke appeared again. It wisped from his father’s hand and slithered out of the fresh gash on his arm like worms. The man let out a twisted, agonized cry.

  As the strange magic appeared again, the air grew colder than ever as if winter had arrived early. Iain could see his quick breaths puffing around him, and the faint swirl of Deirdre’s as she shivered against him. There was a chill Iain could not escape, one that pierced through him like ice.

  Not smoke. Frost.

  As Alan groaned, his hand shifted and changed into something new. White crystal sprouted and grew endlessly from the flesh and then darkened until it looked less like a hand and more like the shadow of a claw—the claw of a monster.

  Cai reared back and struck Alan’s skull with his own, sending his head snapping back. The blow ought to have sent him to the ground. But his body straightened upright again like a marionette’s strings were pulled.