Nemesis

by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge

  I’m barraged by images of our friends and family in danger. Kshirin, Etana, Pru…

  Everyone fighting, losing.

  More panic lights me up. “Hold on!” I have to help them. A crazy idea forms in my brain.

  Roue sees it too. “No, Syl, don’t you dare!”

  Truth is, I’d dare anything to save my family.

  Even going deeper into the literal belly of the beast.

  My Roue’s not going to like it, but “I’m going after the hearthstones.”

  “It’s too dangerous!”

  The dragon lurches again. “And what you’re doing isn’t?”

  As Jardin’s flame extinguishes, steam pulsing up from the depths of her stomach. Now! It’s a little tricky summoning my fairy wind outside the bubble (not to mention, inside a dragon), but my Summer power leaps at my call, buoyed by concern for my family. I wrap my bubble shield in it, and then, I push.

  Not up. But down.

  “Syl!” Rouen’s sending cuts off.

  The impact of Jardin’s strike registers in my mind, my girl flying back to hit the throne. For a brief glimpse, I see through Rouen-vision: the battlefield a burning wasteland of heat and ash, shadows from the falling multiverse darkening everything, even the wildly fluctuating Summer and Winter power.

  She drags herself up. Blood hits the ground.

  “Roue!”

  “I-I’m fine.”

  But I know she’s not.

  Desperately, I push myself farther down Dragon Jardin’s gullet, like rocketing down the grossest Slip-N-Slide ever. My sphere rounds a curve of dragon neck, and two glimmers, light and dark, shimmer before vanishing down another curve.

  The hearthstones! Almost there!

  But no matter how I push myself, Jardin keeps swallowing, and the hearthstones keep slipping down, down, down as she tries to digest the sources of all the power in Faerie.

  Meanwhile, Rouen’s practically out of her mind with worry, distracted as she fights. “Syl, you have to get out of there!”

  I eye the super-heated poison saliva trying to eat at my shield. She’s right. I won’t catch the hearthstones in time.

  Not before I slide right into the furnace of Jardin’s stomach.

  I rack my brain for a way to stop it, but her neck is one long, slippery hose— Wait, that’s it. “Roue!” I send, showing her my plan as it forms, half-baked, in my mind. “I need you to put a kink in the hose.”

  “Gotcha!” Roue brightens with the plan. I feel her summon her Winter power, and then I can’t pay any more attention to her.

  Got my hands full chasing the hearthstones.

  I push my bubble shield harder, faster, zooming after the hearthstones. C’mon, Roue, c’mon, I pray as I shove my way through the channel of her mile-long neck until…

  Finally, Jardin’s massive body shudders. She chokes, spasms, and the dragon flesh around me quivers, then closes up.

  The hearthstones stop, rolling up against a kink in the inside of her neck.

  I zoom up to them. “You did it!”

  My dragon captor rocks as Rouen holds that kink in her throat. “I’ve got the archs working together. You should see it.”

  The pride in her voice prickles my eyes with tears. “I wish I could.”

  “You will, princess.”

  But will I? Because here’s the part I didn’t plan for.

  To grab the hearthstones, I have to put down my shield.

  And with all the poison and heat sweltering in here, I’ll die in about two seconds.

  Dragon Jardin heaves again, and Roue’s voice changes, panic shooting down the bond. “Syl, I can’t hold her much longer. You have to get out of there!”

  I look up to see the pink, viscous flesh of her throat closing like a trap around me. Already it squeezes my bubble shield like a vise, her poisonous saliva slicking the sides, hissing. My Summer power burns it away, for now. But all those years of taking AP Bio unhelpfully tell me that I’m zipping happily toward a whole stomach full of fire and poison, waiting to destroy my shield—and me.

  Rouen struggles, her arms suddenly screaming as Jardin fights. “I can’t hold her!”

  It’s now or never.

  Rouen sees what I’m about to do. “Syl, don’t! You’ll die!” Fear unlike any I’ve ever felt—mingled with love and dread—hit me smack in the heart.

  “I got this.” For my family. I take in a deep breath. “You’ll be a great queen, Rouen.”

  As Rouen loses her hold, as Jardin’s neck spools open again, I drop my shield.

  Instantly, I’m swamped with heat and poison, her throat closing like four walls, crushing me. I lunge for the hearthstones, but they slip away into the darkness.

  Everything is heat and fire and death.

  One last ditch effort. I reach out and touch the inside of her throat.

  30

  ROUEN

  Love is weakness

  Love is the enemy

  What would I do without love?

  “Vulnerable,” Euphoria

  The light goes out of my heart as my soul-bond with Syl fades, then dies. My breath catches in my throat. I can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t think. Syl is— no! I can’t accept that. I won’t.

  Syl’s alive. She’s alive, dammit!

  And I must keep fighting.

  Even now, Etana drags herself from the ground, bruised and bleeding. Mizumichi steadies her with one hand, his other on his bloodied sword. Even the dark Fae kids tire, Miz’s water funnels growing weaker, Kshirin lagging as she swipes at Jardin’s coils. Syl’s arch-Ýdyll throw themselves at the dragon, hammering away with swords, staves, pixie dust, and gramarye. They don’t give up, especially Laguna, fighting hard for his sweet Summer child.

  I fight too.

  Blasts of Summer and Winter power hit Jardin, all of it rebounding off her armored skin.

  We’re losing. Bad.

  I eye the crashing multiverse above—the dimensions so close they seem as brilliant and dark arcs carving through our sky. All of Faerie shudders, then with a ruttering roar, it splits in half. Torn by the gravity of the dimensions. Loss waves over me, threatening to drown me in despair.

  But Syl wouldn’t want me to give up.

  “All right, Jardin.” I fill myself with power, more than ever. Violet lightning crashes around me, and snow picks up into a screaming squall. I mold it with my hands, shaping it into a massive ball. Cold fury sweeps through me.

  Hellfire eyes blazing, she opens her jagged jaws. “I’ll swallow you too!”

  “Just try it, you overgrown lizard!”

  Snarling her fury, she attacks, striking like a cobra.

  “Choke on it!” I release the ball of lightning and snow, hoping to all the ancestors I can at least slow her down. It caroms toward her, smacking her right in the throat. She lists and pitches, shakes it off.

  Blast and bloody bones! I gather my power again, but I’m exhausted.

  Suddenly, Jardin jerks upward. Her body spasms and contorts. A comical look comes over her face. She grabs her belly as it gurgles louder than the crashing dimensions.

  A tiny flame of hope kindles inside me. “Syl, is that you? Please let it be you!”

  Dragon Jardin bares her sword-size fangs. “You’re going to die, Miss Rivoche, just like your little girlfriend.”

  But her body contorts again.

  This time, it looks like something it inside her, kicking, pushing to get out. Ggguuuuurgggle! “No, no, NO!” Jardin’s clawed hands go to her belly. It distends, swelling outward, pushing, pushing.

  I lock gazes with her and smile. Whatever’s happening, it couldn’t happen to a nicer dragon.

  She screams in agony, and then…

  Ker-wham! Dragon Jardin explodes.

  Her body rips apart, detonating then deflating like a popped pool float, and a red dragon encased in fiery white flame pulls free from the gory wreckage.

  My heart stops. I can barely dare to hope. By the ancestors. Syl???
r />   The dragon staggers as if wounded. Its grey eyes lock on mine.

  “Syl!” I windwarp to her as she collapses, the impact shuddering through the ground. I pull up short and then throw myself on her. In a flare of white light, she turns back to my sweet Summer girl, lying on the ground.

  She’s coated in saliva and guck. I pulls her close and wipe it off, not caring that it gets all over my leathers. “Syl! Bloody bones, Syl!” I hold her, crying her name over and over as I practically crush her.

  Syl coughs, holding me with one arm.

  “That was dangerous!” I scold her nonsensically. “How did you—?”

  She coughs again. “Stole her power.” She holds up a gore-streaked hand. “With a touch.”

  “You…” All my words die. I want to kiss her and kill her all at once. I pull her close to me and feel the presence of the archs all around us.

  “Roue, I lost the hearthstones.” Her guilt and despair beat down the soul-bond.

  But I won’t accept defeat. “We’ll just have to make a new one, princess.”

  Syl’s hand touches mine, our thoughts syncing up. “One hearthstone. One Faerie. It’s the only way.”

  “You got it, princess.” I help her up, and we stand before our people beneath the cracking of our world.

  “We need to work together,” Syl tells them. “Everyone at once!”

  Wounded and weary, the arch-Eld and -Ýdyll, the dark Fae kids, and Pru all straighten and summon their power. Water funnels and curse touches, magical swords, sorceroscience, troll strength, and will-o’-wisps, magical runes, Siren’s screams. Together, we pour everything at the collapsing multiverse.

  And Syl and I link hands and call upon our power as queens to direct it all.

  Our hearts and minds are one. Just as Faerie should be.

  I picture it in my mind’s eye: Faerie whole, sound, Winter blending into Summer blending back into Winter. Not warring, but an endless cycle, where light appreciates darkness appreciates light.

  All made possible by love. Our love. And the love of our people.

  “That’s the key,” I say in wonder, looking at all the faces of our loved ones. The beautiful, the ugly, the short, the tall, the fat, the skinny, and all those in between. I love them all too, and that love fills me and Syl up.

  “My queens!” Etana cries, and the others take up the call.

  “My queens!”

  “The queens of Faerie!”

  “Majesties!”

  A shockwave goes through all of Faerie—through the multiverse too.

  Slowly, slowly, it shudders, and everything begins coming together. Our people pulling with their power and us directing it, weaving reality, stopping the dimensions from crashing in. Our mingled power casts light and shadow, the shadow forming a new Shroud, the light healing it, until finally, the multiverse whirls and spins, and rights itself, dimensions, galaxies, planets, all wheeling back into their original orbits. Debris hangs in the air, falling like shooting stars.

  All around us, Faerie settles into place, light and dark melding into a twilight gloaming, everything silvery and warm and cool all at once. A light snow falls on a summer’s day, crocuses poke up from wintry drifts while bright sands stretch out into pure white beaches, seashells and tiny crystals pounding the shore.

  The two castles, bright Caernarvon and dark Knockma loom.

  “Brace for it!” Syl shouts.

  The fortresses slam together and, in a shattering like a thousand glass rods breaking, the two shudder into each other, dark and light warring, then melding, melting, stained glass and oriel windows, white fluted columns and dark heavy arches, halls both dim and radiant.

  Faerie made whole again. As it once was. As it will be. Now and forever.

  I sweep Syl up into my arms and kiss her as our people cheer.

  Epilogue

  Syl

  Peace is never perfect

  -Glamma’s Grimm

  The throne room in Faerie is nothing like what I expected. The two thrones are still there—one a coiled dragon, the other emanating rays of sunshine. Black adamant threaded with sunsteel, brilliant sunsteel shot through with adamant.

  A part of each other.

  Just like me and Rouen.

  We turn, hand in hand. Our wisest elders stand apart in the throne room, still separate, the arch-Eld on the Dark Faerie “side” and the arch-Ýdyll on the Fair Faerie “side.”

  Rouen and I bring them in, into a hesitant circle. We’re a family now, and although family doesn’t always see eye-to eye, we’re all willing to work on it. Nuwala’i crosses to Etana’s side, and the two clasp hands. Just like that, the tension breaks, Mizumichi and Thu Leian shaking hands, Griffa Gris and Gorishka comparing hammer and fists, Vanya and Fausto and Mag and Pluck regaling everyone with the favorite parts of Jardin’s untimely death while Dooley snickers and Zoba’ah and Dahari compare wind and fire powers.

  Warmth fills me up, warmer than any Summer day.

  I turn to Rouen and gently take her face in my hands. “I’m yours.”

  “I’m yours too, princess.” Her lips touch mine, and I open to our kiss. Dizziness grips me as she pulls me close, all the urgency of the battle, of nearly dying, and then saving Faerie blossoming inside me. My stomach’s doing flip-flops.

  A strange itching prickles my shoulder blades.

  I pull slightly away from Roue but stay in her arms. “What’s—”

  Wings sprout from my back, Faerie wings glittering bright like summer sun made into delicate panes of fluted glass. I flap them, and gentle music sounds. I laugh. And turn to Rouen.

  Oooh… Dark wings shoot up from her shoulders, like those of a purple monarch butterfly.

  We’ve become true queens of Faerie. At last. And we’ve brought peace to our people.

  Peace.

  It’ll come hard and slow, but we’ll take it.

  It’s not perfect peace, but it’s a start.

  Rouen

  Syl and I are still buzzing with excitement by the time we get home. But this excitement is different, a little more vulnerable and little more heated. Syl and I became one today. One Faerie, one people. No war. And though our minds and souls are irrevocably linked, we haven’t officially been together yet.

  And I don’t want to push.

  By the whole way through our celebratory dinner with Georgina, Glamma, Miss Mack, and the Dark Fae kids (who would not be left behind), I feel her desire coming off her in waves.

  An inevitable gravity pulling us together.

  Finally, dinner is over, we’ve come home, and Glamma and Syl’s mom have gone to bed.

  It’s just us. No catastrophes. No war.

  Only a comfortable silence between us.

  Syl takes my hand and pulls me into her bedroom. Before we even get the door closed, she’s in my arms, her slight weight, the light scent of vanilla and bodywash making me dizzy.

  “Roue.” Her grey eyes burn. Her arms loop around my neck. She pulls me gently down, brushing my nose with hers before her lips touch mine, opening to me.

  Her kiss is everything.

  Soft, warm, sweet, hungry, her fingers tangling into my hair…

  I lose myself in her, but then I pull away slightly, keeping my arms loose around her. “Syl?” I open the soul-bond to her fully, letting her see my love, my devotion. And my desire.

  I want her to be sure.

  “I am.” She meets my gaze, grey eyes luminous in the half-light from the lamppost outside, and she opens to me, meeting my desire with her own. “I want to be with you, Rouen.”

  My heart leaps into my throat, and it’s like those wings I sprouted are dancing in my stomach. I gently brush her cheek with my fingers. “I want to be with you too, princess.”

  “All of you.” She tugs insistently, kissing me again, pressing against me.

  Wrapping her in my arms, I lift her off her feet, kissing her back, all my urgency bubbling up as I carry her to the bed. Gently, I lay her down on the comfort
er.

  She pulls me down to join her. “I’m a queen now. You have to treat me like one.”

  Smiling and so in love with her, I follow her down to the soft covers, her body softer beneath mine. “I will.”

  And I do.

  Syl and Rouen’s adventures continue in:

  EIDOLON

  Book 5 of THE CIRCUIT FAE

  Available for preorder now

  Review Request

  Dear Reader,

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  Thank you greatly from the bottom of our hearts. For your time, for your support, and for being a part of our reading community. We couldn’t do it without you – nor would we want to!

  ~ Our Firefly Hill Press Family

  For the full CIRCUIT FAE experience, start with:

  MORIBUND

  Book 1 of THE CIRCUIT FAE

  Available now

  Then read:

  DERAILED

  Book 1.5 of THE CIRCUIT FAE

  Syl. Rouen. mortal enemies turned star-crossed lovers

  Available now

  Continue with:

  OUROBOROS

  Book 2 of THE CIRCUIT FAE

  Syl wants to get close to Rouen, but when you can kill with a touch, a normal date night’s not in the cards

  Available now

  Then don’t miss:

  DETHRONED

  Book 2.5 of THE CIRCUIT FAE

  Will Rouen be dethroned before she even becomes queen of the dark Fae?