“We see youuuuu, Prince and Princess. Our king is coming, and he will tear your heart out. Will tear your kingdom’s heart out. We see you...”
Somehow finding Emory’s hand, they plunged away from the Oilean, and sucking in deep breaths, he concentrated, mentally yelling, “KIANA! RIONA!”
A moment passed. And then another. They freefell, picking up speed in the channel between life and death. Giggles chased at their heels as he swore, allowing that intoxicating power to fill him, as he roared, “KIANA!” once again.
Below them, a silver light ignited. It twisted, bending and churning, shooting up to them. Sweat slicked his entire body, and Brokk dove straight toward it, just as Emory screamed. The inky shadows clawed at their ankles, drawing blood, and the voices attacked relentlessly.
“You will die if you go back. Give yourself to us. We know your heart. How the innocents you killed begged for mercy. How you would kill the rebels to win his heart. To save a man that had died years ago. How far will you go, Emory Fae, to win this war?”
Her blood-curdling scream sliced through Brokk’s core, but he couldn’t stop. Stretching out his hand to the light, roaring, he then collided with it. Slamming onto his back, he could smell nothing but smoke.
“Thank the stars! Brokk? BROKK!” Kiana exclaimed.
The ground was trembling. The smell of wet grass and leaves floated in his senses, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure if he had made it back, if this was reality or just another pocket of magic, one he could access and travel. His eyes fluttered open, and he soaked in the stars high above, nestled in the sky.
Kiana’s face came into focus, as she said, “You did it. Whatever you did. But you must move. Come on, we need a plan, Prince.”
Prince. Snarling, he leaned up and she grinned. “I knew that would get a rise out of you. And you know, it was a team effort after all.”
His anger dissipated slightly. “You helped me back. I can’t thank you enough for that.” Dipping her chin, Kiana helped him up as Riona came up to them, supporting Emory whose eyes were blinking too fast, her skin drained of all color: The blacksmith had ripped out most of the needles.
All his words died on his tongue when he took her in.
Smirking, Kiana looked between them. Sucking in deep breaths, he steadied himself, looking toward the towering mountain range instead.
The arrow missed him by a hair’s breadth, and as it hit the tree behind him, it exploded into green smoke. Behind Kiana, the Oilean stood, their bows sleek, their arrows aimed at their hearts. Their pale shifts stood out like bone.
As they giggled, one voice cut through the others, “Sisters, you did not disappoint with this world.” Adair came into view or at least his body did. His eyes were completely black and merciless. Shifting, Brokk growled, low and guttural, to which Adair lifted the corner of his lips-he charged, shifting from flesh to smoke.
Riona jumped on Brokk’s back, Emory in tow, and Kiana was already yards in front of them, running into the heart of the forest. Following Kiana’s trail, he didn’t look back, as a volley of arrows thudded behind them, each explosion closer than the last.
Chapter Sixteen
Adair
He had always imagined dying would be painful, filled with gut-wrenching agony. That maybe his demons would be waiting beyond the veils. But as he felt that blade slide in between his ribs, there was only a wash of pain before he watched the light behind Emory’s eyes fade as well. Adair wasn’t aware of gravity, of the war raging around them. All he saw was her-then nothing.
He knew, deep down, that he was drifting. He recognized the soft voices around him: his mother, his father, the Faes. Memories from another life, another man that had been long forgotten until now.
Blinking slowly, Adair took in the soft light, the weightlessness of the water carrying him. For the first time in years, he could think clearly. Running a hand through his hair, his muscles relaxed, and he allowed the current to gently pull him forward but stay true to their course. Beyond, he felt the shudder as his eyes flew open. His hair stood on end when he heard his own voice. Except it was far away, words falling into soft hushes by the time they reached him.
Clenching his jaw, he felt the magic of the thousand realities, the thousand courses his life could have taken him. He never thought it would have taken him here. Another shudder, and he looked to the horizon. The river twisted, the water a deep blue, and everywhere around him was light. There was no definition, no ending or beginning. Only the journey in between.
The whispers built, layering over another, calling out to him. Blinking, Adair laid back down, closing his eyes and submitting himself to the waters. No more questions. No more wondering. In the end, he knew he would pay for his actions.
A shiver ran down his spine as he sighed, opening his eyes. Far above him, the light was waning, the pull of the water settling.
“Adair.”
The shivers grew, rumbling along his bones, soaking into his core. Sitting up, he turned around, not an article of his clothing getting wet as the river suspended him. The voice was gentle. A softness he hadn’t earned. Not after years of killing and madness. Years of destroying and breeding fear. A bitter taste filled his mouth. How did he deserve peace?
His pulse picked up with his panic. A cracking-like thunder rang out in the space, echoing for miles as he watched the light disappear, replaced by a roaring darkness looming on the horizon, flashes of emerald lightning slashing against the backdrop. He couldn’t move as a hundred yards away an inky droplet rippled in the water, disappearing for a moment. His breath caught as he squinted against the rolling thunder. A moment passed and then another.
Lightning shot down, exploding as it contacted the water. The darkness spread like a disease, Adair watching as the water around him turned black, and he was immobilized. Lightning streaked across the sky again just as he looked down, only to see a smiling face of one of the Oilean. She was floating underneath the water, grappling at him, wordlessly, all sharpened teeth and empty eyes.
After all these years and the battles, the Oilean had finally come for him.
As if sensing his hesitation, her pale hand shot forward, wrapping around his wrist in a single motion. His scream died in his throat as they hissed around him, those voices and unseen bodies that had owned his soul for the last six years.
“You are ours, Adair Stratton. Never forget that.”
Kicking, Adair tried to swim faster, to get out of their grasp, to allow himself to reach the end. The Oilean dragged him down, as they fell faster, faster, faster. He could taste the electric current in the air, pulsing as if it was trying to resuscitate him, calling him back. Her grip tightened, and they plunged fully into nothingness.
“You thought you could drift away now? After years of grooming you, poisoning your body for our King. Ensuring it would hold when the time came? No, Adair Stratton. War is beckoning us, and we only answer to one call.”
She giggled, as her face blurred, the surroundings becoming suffocating, like a box. His eyes bulged as he clawed at his throat, at his face, at his body.
“This world only ever needed one king. And he has returned.”
Pain peppered his body, making his vision tunnel.
The light broke through as the scene focused, the kingdom burning around him too familiar. The Oilean everywhere—bodies and smoke, magic and mist—and he knew he was lying on the floor bleeding out. The fluttering of his pulse as he was slammed between the edge of life and death shocked him. His heavy eyes shut, and he felt the dampness, felt the life being leeched out of him, and all he could hear was the call for more death.
The stranger’s voice was thick with disappointment. “This boy is the body you wish for me to inhabit?”
Wrenching his eyes back open, he scoured the scene before him. Blood and bone riddled the cavernous walls, and all around him, an army was bred, one that he could have never achieved.
“This is all you have?”
Someone screamed
in the distance as a broken sob escaped him, and he fell back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
“I expected more from you.”
Caving into himself, Adair felt it. A small pressure at first, a tingling through his chest, running down his arms, torso, and legs. Filling his lungs, coursing through his blood, becoming an insistent presence to be known.
“Open your eyes. Look at me.”
Turning toward that deep command, Adair opened his eyes, blinking. The world had bled away as he lay on his back, the enormous figure hovering over him. It was just them.
His adrenaline pumped viciously, begging him to fight, as he realized the Oilean were right. Everything he had done led to this exact moment: The figure’s hand pressed against his chest, and he drank in the pale skin, black eyes, ravenous hunger burning in his features. And all around them was smoke.
He tried to cough, to breathe, to break away, but all he could feel was the pressure building and building.
The man leaned closer, the smoke closing in, seeping into his blackened blood, and he couldn’t stop watching it soak into his pores, snaking into his mouth, parting his lips on a sigh. The stranger stopped just below Adair’s chin and slowly took in a deep breath. Shivers snaked down Adair’s spine when the stranger closed his eyes, as if savoring his scent.
Ice filled Adair’s veins as empty golden eyes landed on his own. A glimpse of sandy hair, a hooked nose, and a strong jaw was all Adair caught, the rest was darkness.
“You will have to do.”
Adair felt the crack then-the bend of magic, the hush of death. He felt it in every fiber of his being as the man dissipated, crashing into him, consuming him. Being slammed back, he screamed, a broken cry, as one-by-one the fleeting memories came to him.
“Adair.” Her voice was smooth, her excitement ringing in every word. He cringed, sweat collecting on his brow. He turned slowly, clearing his throat, trying to not look at the students around them.
“You must be Emory Fae.”
She tilted her head, amusement flickering across her face. “Something like that.”
He nervously stuck out his hand, shaking her hand awkwardly. The smile blossomed across her face, lighting up her features as she rolled her eyes.
“Come on, Stratton, just because it’s the first day of the Academy doesn’t mean you have to pretend we are strangers. Let people talk.” Looping her arm through his, she had swept him off his feet. And had continued to ever since.
Adair was reeling when he saw her face with such a burning clarity, and then in a moment, it was swept away. It was as if his chest had a hole punched through it, and the pain, the fading of memories, the guilt, the loneliness, and madness consumed him.
Emory Fae had never existed to him.
He wheezed as the shadow man snarled in pleasure, the sound vibrating through his mind. And little by little, everything he once was, had been, and had become was ripped apart, destroyed, and lost.
The Dark King, known as Declan, stood slowly, getting used to his new flesh. The boy had been weak and dying, but his ability was still strong. Declan marvelled in its potent energy as he flexed his blood-stained fingers, admiring the feeling of having a physical body, of walking on a world that hummed with raw magic. Grinning, he looked to his assassins, the Oilean, who bowed their heads to him.
“We have work to do.”
After years of being left alone on Daer, a husk of a world, waiting for the day they opened the channels, it had finally come: Declan thirsted for blood.
The Oilean giggled, and then they were racing toward the scents of the prince and princess that had destroyed so much for him. Snapping his fingers, he felt the consciousness of the hundreds of dabarnes awaiting his command. He sent the same order through their consciousness. “Kill the prince and princess.”
Licking his chapped lips, he relished in how they would taste as he drained them of life. This world would break from his reckoning, and it all started with them.
Part Two
Land of Starlight and Iron
Chapter Seventeen
Emory
The first thing Emory heard as she came to consciousness was the steady stream of curses coming from behind her. Blinking, she took in that first ragged breath, tears brimming in her eyes from the pain blooming in her chest.
“Easy there, Princess,” a familiar female voice said from behind her.
Strong arms held her waist, and she recognized the golden fur, the mammoth size of the wolf underneath them, and the voice soothingly whispering in her ear as they galloped through the woods that had haunted her for the last month.
“Riona?” she rasped.
“The one and only. Let’s concentrate on staying alive before we go through the tedious social obligations though, okay?”
What had happened?
Shutting her eyes, Emory concentrated on taking steady breaths, her panic clawing at her mind as the last twenty-four hours flashed before her: Adair planning on taking her to the King across the Black Sea, to Marquis Maher. His plans to end the rebellion. Planning for the Winter Yule. And the needles plunging into her heart as she had...
The panic attack crashed down on her, ice running through her blood, and she couldn’t move. She had died.
Brokk lunged to the left, as an explosion of bark flew from their right. Twisting around, she squinted in the darkness, her heart thudding. Appearing from the shadows, the Oilean were too close, closing in on them, flanking their sides. Her heart raced as Adair found her eyes and snarled, nothing human left in him. Behind them, Emory caught hundreds of yellow eyes igniting in the shadows, the army of dabarnes trailing them. Shit.
“Emoryyyy.” The Oileans’ voices echoed within the night, as Riona yelled, “EMORY!”
She felt Riona’s grip around her waist tighten, as the blacksmith unsheathed her hammer in the other hand, swinging it as it crashed with a burning emerald light, exploding like a thousand stars upon impact. Brokk yelped, and Emory found her hands searching, feeling the softness of the fur under her skin, and the tears fell, all at once, her body shuddering against the whispers curling around her mind.
“Emoryy.”
The Oileans’ call jolted through her as her tears fell across her skin, her sobs turning into hiccups. Her grip tightened as the innocent faces of the men and women Emory had killed raced across her mind, one-by-one. Their pleas for mercy. All she had taken and all she had lost. And it stirred within her. Stirred her broken heart with her pain and resentment, confusion and grief- igniting her intention.
Heat surged through her as she looked down to her necklace; the once deep purple gem was now an inky black. Swallowing, she twisted, locking eyes with Riona, and the blade buckled on her back. “Anithe?”
“Like I would leave that piece of artistry behind,” Riona said.
With that confirmation, Emory lunged, slamming her body into Riona’s, knocking the blacksmith down. Landing on the forest floor, they rolled, her scream cutting through the chaos. Brokk skidded, digging his claws into the ground, the sound a sickening crunch.
“The sword. Now.” Riona looked behind them, the army racing toward them. “NOW!” Emory repeated.
The blacksmith moved with grace, and shoving the hilt in her grasp, she shakily clasped it.
“Make for the docks. Adair was preparing our ship. We sail for the Shattered Isles. I will meet you there.” Emory urged. The air dropped several degrees, their breath coming in quick pockets of mist. Riona stalled as Emory said, “Trust me.”
Plunging into her ability, Emory shuddered against it. Something was different. Anithe surged to life, black flames running up the steel. Run, run, run. The thought screamed against her instinct, and she breathed, just as frost started covering the ground.
“I admit, I imagined more of a chase in my mind.” Adair appeared, his inky eyes lazily moving up and down the length of her body. Behind him, the Oilean hissed, their bodies cracking and moving in angles that defied having a bone ma
ss.
“Well, we can’t always have what we want. I presume you have a name other than King.”
Adair is gone. He is gone.
His chuckle bounced around the forest; he watched her, weighing her words. “You are very right, Princess. May I formally introduce myself? Declan, the ruler of Daer. And my faithful servants, the Oilean. It’s a shame that we are born enemies of each other. I quite enjoy your...spirit.”
“Well, claiming war on our world—that’s hard to move past from.”
The wind picked up as he circled her, the Oilean giggling behind him. “I’m not the one who ignited this war. Adair had already done my bidding; he just didn’t understand it. He thought he was climbing to power.” He smiled. “Adair Stratton was weak. And now his fate awaits all of you. To be wiped from the face of Kiero.”
Jutting her chin out, Emory stilled her raging heartbeat, reining in the power that was begging to release from her and kept this verbal sparring going. “He was my friend, once. I like to remember Adair as he had been. Not as the monster you bent him to be.”
Assessing her, Declan’s cruel smile grew. “You truly believe that you can make a difference? That you aren’t just as weak and insignificant as everyone before you that has claimed to rise as a ruler? Come now, Emory.” He tutted, like he was scolding a child, and she gritted her teeth, her body quaking.
“I may not know exactly who I am yet. I am weathered and broken from this world. But not even death can stop me from trying to save it from you. And that is something worth fighting for.” The back flames grew more from Anithe, and she couldn’t hold on. Seething, she said, “Let’s see exactly who will turn the tables of this war.”
His face darkened, and a hush fell over the forest, the Oilean watching her, their bodies too still, the hundreds of dabarnes now awaiting Declan’s order. Roaring, Emory buried her blade in the half-frozen ground: The world exploded in flames. The wall of fire grew and consumed, the sheer force of the heat making them stagger back.
Queen to Ashes (Black Dawn Series Book 2) Page 16
