by Karen Chance
For a second, we were flying, the sheer force of the swell flinging us up and then over before we hit back down, hard enough to leave me rattled. But Pritkin pulled me to my feet and we ran some more, blind and choking and with no idea, no idea—
Until we suddenly cleared the cloud and I saw it, out of whatever was left of my vision. I smeared a mountain’s worth of dirt across my face to stare at it in disbelief, before Pritkin all but threw me down the grassy incline and into—
Water.
Sweet, cool, familiar.
Because there was the bank and there were the trees and there was the goddamned mill I’d honestly never thought to see again and—
And it had worked.
It had worked!
We were back.
Chapter Fifty-one
The water ran over my filthy hands, like something out of a dream, clear and cold and almost miraculous after the pound of dirt I’d just swallowed. I just sat there a minute, listening to Armageddon taking place somewhere in the distance and looking at Pritkin looking back at me. He’d gone from forest sprite to commando: blackened face and body and hair slick with the mud we’d made when our dirt-covered selves hit the water.
I probably wasn’t any better, and my shoulder hurt like hell again, probably because I’d hit it a few dozen times. And it felt like my left ankle might be sprained or possibly broken. And my lip was swelling up, like I must have bitten it at some point, and it was hard to breathe.
And I didn’t care.
I grinned tremulously at Pritkin and got a flash of white teeth in return.
The moon was full and visible through a haze of dust, filtering down on an incongruously peaceful scene. We couldn’t see over the high bank, but it sounded like the battle was trending away from us. And the water felt like balm on my bruised body. And I still couldn’t quite believe it.
It seemed like a miracle.
Well, sort of a miracle, I thought, as a Svarestri leapt down the bank at us.
And, before I could blink, was torn off his trajectory and slammed into a nearby tree, still burning from the bolt through his heart.
But I didn’t let out the breath I’d been holding, because someone else was there a second later. Someone new. Someone with golden armor incised with designs I didn’t know, and golden hair, and a face more human than the other fey’s, so human it might have fooled me except for an otherworldly beauty so great that even here, even now, it made me stop and stare in wonder.
Sharp green eyes played over the riverbank where Pritkin and I lay, motionless. Pritkin’s hand clenched on my thigh, but I didn’t need it. My hand had been outstretched on the bank in front of me. Had been, but wasn’t now, because now we were in water and back on earth and the illusion Pritkin had crafted was so pure, so perfect, that for a second even I didn’t believe we were there.
I guess the fey must have agreed, because the next time I blinked, he was gone.
And I collapsed against the bank, gasping for breath.
“Sky Lord,” Pritkin whispered, almost inaudible despite being right in front of me.
“No shit!” I whispered back, when I could talk.
And then, slowly, slowly, we crawled to the top of the muddy incline. And peered over the top. And saw . . .
A battle like nothing I’d ever witnessed or dared imagine.
What looked like entire mountains were being ripped out of place and thrown at beings who threw them back, aided by cyclones of power that tore at my hair and threatened to send my body flying, despite the fact that the main battle had to be half a mile away now. Lightning tore at the sky, and then through a column of Svarestri, crackling over armor that, for once, mostly held. Except for one guy at the end, who must have already had his weakened, and who was knocked back twenty feet or more.
But the others kept fighting, and a column of golden warriors suddenly disappeared into a fissure in the earth, which immediately closed over them. But they burst back out of it a moment later, not all of them but most of them, in the middle of miniature cyclones that allowed them to tear through the air and flank the Svarestri. Who were slowly being beaten back, toward the portal hovering in the air where there had once been a hill and was now a blown-out cavern.
The warrior we’d seen a moment before with the fancy armor seemed to be directing the fight, but he kept looking back this way, as if something puzzled him. As if he couldn’t see us but nonetheless knew we were there. Pritkin must have gotten the same idea, because his hand tightened on my shoulder, and we started slowly backing down the slope—
Started but stopped, in my case. Because the next second, a boulder the size of a house bounced across the landscape, having been thrown from the fight. And right in front of it, screaming his head off, was—
“Rosier!”
I yelled it before I thought, relief springing the word to my lips before I could clamp them shut, but it shouldn’t have mattered. Not with the symphony of destruction taking place all around. But despite the fact that the wind tore my voice away, three heads swiveled instantly toward mine. Rosier abruptly changed course, running hell-bent for leather in our direction; the golden fey, who had just turned to look at the combat again, jerked his head back around; and a woman I hadn’t seen, because she was right behind Rosier, lifted her chin and looked straight at me.
And then was right at me, pointing finger and flashing eyes and that damned cherry-covered parasol and all—
And then three things happened at once: the golden fey threw an energy bolt, Cherries threw a time spell, and I threw myself at Pritkin and shifted. But not far. Because we had to find Rosier, and where the hell was—
Shit!
I shifted again as another bolt slammed down where we’d been standing. And then another, and another, like the damned fey could feel us or something. We’d no more materialized somewhere than he swiveled and threw again, deadly accurate and so fast that I was dizzy in seconds, just trying not to die. And then—
And then I wasn’t fast enough.
We slammed into existence on the hillside right next to the mill, because, Rosier or not, I was trying to get farther from beautiful death over there. But whether through chance or some kind of weird fey ability I didn’t know about, a bolt was there almost before we were. I had a chance to see it flash, to feel the heat, to think—no.
And then to think, oh, crap, because the bolt just stopped, frozen in the air, inches away from my eyes. Which would have made me fairly close to ecstatic, except that I hadn’t done it. And the person who had was just behind it.
“I—I can explain—” I told Cherries, whose face was currently almost as red as her favorite fruit.
“Explain?”
Okay, maybe not. And then a time wave tore through the air, which didn’t make much sense, because if she wanted me dead, she’d just had a perfect opportunity. But I shifted anyway, before it could hit, and a second later we rematerialized on the roof. Because I needed a goddamned vantage point.
“Who are you?” Pritkin asked, voice full of wonder. “What are you?”
“Fucked, if you don’t shut up!” I said shrilly.
He shut up. But his eyes were wide and he was drinking in the whole scene, from the battle still raging in the background, to the half dozen girls in white fanning out in all directions, to the half-naked demon lord headed this way, until he saw the girls. And abruptly turned and pelted the other way instead, flashing pasty buns as his speed kicked up his shirttail behind him.
And the golden fey, who was suddenly right on top of us.
The only hint I had was a flash of gold to the left, but my nerves were so keyed up that it might as well have been a neon sign. I rolled and threw at the same time, and froze one of those damned energy bolts three inches from my chest. And then tried to scramble out from under it and almost fell off the roof.
Pritkin
caught me, his mouth hanging open in shock, and God, this wasn’t the plan, this wasn’t the plan, this wasn’t the goddamned plan! It also wasn’t the sort of thing you just forgot, sixth century or no. But dealing with what Pritkin had seen was going to have to wait because I was having a crisis and couldn’t seem to breathe, and then I was gasping and choking, and scrambling back, away from the damned flaming spear and the bastard who had thrown it and even Pritkin, because fuck this! Fuck all this!
I grabbed the decorative curlicue on the front of the roof, and held on, my chest heaving. I honestly thought I might be having a heart attack.
Pritkin reached out for me again, after a moment, but I batted his hand away. Which was stupid; we might have to shift again, assuming I was able, which frankly didn’t feel too likely right now, but sooner or later somebody was going to look up. The only reason we hadn’t been found already was the amount of magic flying around, which was raising my hair like electricity and shaking the air around me and making my little contribution seem almost irrelevant.
Or maybe I was the one that was shaking. I couldn’t tell; I couldn’t tell. Reaction was setting in, and no, no, no, Cassie! You don’t get to do this yet. You get to do this after. But my nerves had decided to take a vacation early and, oh yeah, now I was shaking. And crying, not for any reason, not because I was hurt—well, that badly—but because I had to do something and that was what my body seemed to have decided on.
I bit my lip and looked away from Pritkin, who seemed kind of at a loss, which, yeah. And stared around, tears making tracks in the dirt on my face and splashing onto the dirt on my hands and God, now my nose was running. I put up a hand to wipe away that indignity at least, all while telling myself to think, to think, to get it together and think—
And then I stopped.
Not frozen, not spelled, but feeling sort of like it.
Because the golden fey was watching me.
I stared at him, and he stared back. I thought at first that it was just a trick of the light, the golden glow of his frozen spear gleaming in his eyes. But no. The pupils expanded as he looked at me, and then they slid over to the side and looked at Pritkin.
And no. No, he didn’t get to do that. I’d just frozen him, and in my panic I’d thrown everything I had, which was a lot, which was a whole lot, because I was still hyped up on an entire bottle of the world’s rarest potion. That was why I was sitting here shaking with fear and exhaustion and bawling like a baby. It was the reaction that usually came with freezing time, times a couple of exponential points because of my life. But while that little trick might wipe me out, it does something else, too, and stops goddamned time.
So how was he looking at me?
And then he wasn’t just looking.
A finger twitched.
I stared at it, trying to convince myself that I was seeing things, that it was a trick of the light being reflected off the burning trees.
But then it happened again.
“G-give him the staff,” I told Pritkin.
But Pritkin was shaking his head.
“Give him the damned staff!”
“I can’t.”
“Just give it to him, and maybe this will all be over. Maybe . . . he’ll let us go?”
I made the last into a question, and looked back at the fey, who was definitely following this. But he couldn’t move, not yet, so I didn’t know if he agreed or was just waiting for another chance to kill us. But I knew how I voted, ’cause all the light fey seemed to be crazy, murdering bastards, but it was still worth a shot.
Only Pritkin didn’t seem to think so.
“I can’t,” he repeated, his fingers closing on it.
“Would you like to explain why?” I asked pleasantly.
Pritkin swallowed. But his eyes were steady on mine when he replied, “The Svarestri were taking this to court. They must have been. There’s no other reason they would have been on that road.”
“So?”
“So I have to find out why—”
“No, you don’t,” I said, still pleasantly. And that was despite the fact that I hadn’t been hallucinating. The fey’s finger had just twitched again.
But my nerves did not appear to be responding this time. I wasn’t even crying anymore. I thought maybe they’d burned out.
Which, all things considered, would be kind of a plus right now.
“The Svarestri were taking it to court, the king’s court,” Pritkin repeated, like maybe I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“I know that.”
“Then you know they must have had a plan for it. I have to find out what that plan was—”
“So find out without the staff.”
“I need the staff to draw out whoever they were planning to meet. Nobody is going to pay any attention to me without it. I won’t be able to find out anything—”
“You’ll live!”
“But the king may not! We’ve discussed this. What if they plan to hurt him—”
“Hurt him?” I asked, and, okay, maybe my nerves weren’t as dead as I’d thought. “Hurt him?” I threw out a hand in the direction of the freaking clash of the Titans over there. “Do they look like they need any help?”
“Listen to me,” he said urgently, taking my hand. “That just shows how much of a risk they took stealing the staff in the first place. They didn’t do it on a whim; they need it for something—”
“And you don’t think that the . . . these other guys . . .” I waved a hand at golden boy, because I couldn’t remember all these names and alternate names and damn the fey and all their freaking names!
“The Blarestri,” Pritkin said helpfully. “Also known as the Blue Fey, or the Sky Lords, or the—”
“Whatever! You don’t think these Sky Lords are able to find out what their counterparts are up to? They’re all fey—let them sort it out!”
“If they were in faerie, I would,” Pritkin said earnestly. “But they don’t know earth well; even the Green Fey are rarely here and don’t know as much about us as they think they do. But I know the court, and most people in it; I have connections they don’t have, an identity already established that will allow me to move about freely, to ask questions without inciting suspicion.” He glanced at the frozen fey, and why did I get the feeling he wasn’t just talking to me anymore? “I can find out what the Svarestri wanted with this, and then convey the information to the Sky Lords, who can deal with it.”
“And with you!” I said, openly glaring at the fey. “You’ve seen what they’re like—all your life. They left you to rot before; do you really think they’ll hesitate to kill you now? If you don’t find out anything, they’ll kill you out of anger, and if you do, they’ll kill you to shut you up, and either way they’ll kill you! You can’t trust them—”
“I don’t believe that,” Pritkin said, also looking at the fey. “I don’t believe they’re all the same.”
“And if you’re wrong? You’re gambling with your life—”
“—which is my choice, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice soft. But I’d heard that tone before, and I’d seen the set of that jaw. Like a hundred times or more, because that was his do-it-or-die face, and God, I didn’t need that face right now!
“Give it to me!” I said, suddenly grabbing for it, only to have him scramble back out of reach. And damn it, we didn’t have time for this!
“You can come to court with me—” Pritkin offered as I lunged for him again. And missed, because he wasn’t encumbered by fifty pounds of freaking wool!
“I don’t want to go with you,” I told him, hiking up my damn skirts. “I want you to come with me—”
“I can’t do that right now—”
“Yes, you can!” I grabbed for him again.
“You’re not listening to me—”
“I’m listening!” I finally ma
naged to grab the staff and held on. “But there are things”—he twisted it away—“you don’t understand”—and jumped back—“that I need to talk to you—damn it!”—because the infuriating man was like quicksilver. “Would you hold still a minute?”
“Will you listen?”
“I am listening!” And then I lunged.
Which might have worked out okay, because Pritkin was backed against the edge of the roof and had nowhere to go. Although, knowing him, he might have figured something out. Only he didn’t have to.
Because the fey did.
The damned creature moved with liquid speed, tripping me up and sending me thudding into the roof thatch. And then through it, as the rotten stuff gave way under my weight, plunging a leg through. And then my whole body, as Pritkin tried to grab me and the fey tried to kick me, or, no, I guess he was kicking at the roof.
Which promptly fell the rest of the way in.
Which was bad enough already, but then the damned spear fell, too. And I thought mills were supposed to contain grain, not TNT. But we were halfway to the floor when the whole place ignited in billowing red-gold clouds that burst into being everywhere, like the very air was on fire.
And, just as suddenly, froze.
I had been falling butt first, so all I could see was Pritkin’s unmoving, desperate face staring down at me, hand still extended, debris from the roof that was in the process of flaring up, and fiery sparks everywhere, like glowing rain.
That began to move, sluggishly, in the air around me as I fought and twisted.
“The grain’s on fire,” someone said. “Get out!”
“No! She’s fighting it off. Grab her!”
But whoever was talking wasn’t fast enough. I tore myself out of the spell a second later, landing in a panting heap on some sacks of grain, before rolling off onto a dirt floor. Only to be almost incinerated when the air around me went up like a firestorm.
