by May Dawson
“What’s the point of that?” Lake demanded. “As you pointed out, everyone knows. She knows how I feel about her.”
“No, she heard it from the mouth of the man who murdered her mom. Declarations of love might be a little more effective coming from the source.”
Lake stared at me, then cocked an eyebrow. “Declarations of love?”
Apparently, the Fae found me embarrassingly romantic.
“Fine,” I said. “Then at least kiss her.”
The odds were relatively low she’d punch him in the face, weren’t they? Well, maybe not. But that was Lake’s problem to deal with. Even if she did, maybe they could work through it.
Lake seemed to stew over my words, before he said, “I’ll try it.”
“Good,” I said. For some reason, as well as straightening out my court and making sure my people were safe, I wanted to see Raura at least start down the road toward her own happy ending.
No matter how tough she was, she still needed someone to look after her. We all do.
Just then, I heard horses moving fast through the woods ahead of us, breaking branches. Lake and I traded glances as we drew our swords.
Raura and Arlen burst into view, racing through the forest at top speed.
“Go go go,” Raura said.
I was already wheeling my horse around, but given that we fought ravagers all the time, I wondered what we were running from now.
Arlen and Raura were just ahead of us when it seemed as if they ran into a wall of magic. The two of them were thrown back off their horses. I threw myself off my own horse, sword in hand, ready to fight.
“Are you all right?” I demanded, whirling to face the threat.
But the threat was just a lavender-haired girl and the males who rode with her.
“Raura,” the girl said.
“Alisa,” Raura ground back. I held out my hand to help her up, and Raura caught my wrist. I towed her easily to her feet.
“Turn about is fair play,” Raura said, a smile playing around her lips. “It looks as if I’ve captured you.”
“Well, if I ever felt guilty about briefly trying to imprison you, I don’t now,” Raura said with dignity, despite the dirt smeared across her face from that fall.
“Oh, Raura. We both know you don’t really feel guilt,” Alisa teased her.
I stared between the two princesses as they faced each other down.
“I thought you said she’s your bestie,” I demanded.
Raura held out her hand and made a see-saw motion.
“Great,” I said.
“Raura and Arlen and Lake gave me help when I needed it most,” Alisa admitted. “I would like to see them as friends. But royals don’t always have the opportunity to view the world too optimistically, and I heard you were on your way to see Faer.”
“How did you hear that?” Raura demanded.
I decided not to mention how loud she’d been when we stopped for lunch at a tavern along the way. The girl lacked volume control just as much as Penn did.
“We don’t have a choice,” I said. “I need to see Faer, because he summoned me.”
“The problem with that,” Alisa said brightly, “is that I don’t want you to do that.”
“Oh come on,” Raura said. “Leave us out of your fight with your brother.”
“I’d love to,” Alisa said. “But since he wants you to go pledge your loyalty to him, and that doesn’t work for me, we’re going to need a plan B.”
“Alisa.” One of the males, a big dark-haired brute of a man with icy blue eyes, rode up toward her. She leaned into him, the two of them whispering.
“We’ll fight,” she said. “Of course we’ll fight.”
He nodded as he straightened.
Alisa turned toward us. “One of your villages is under attack, just across the border.” Her gaze bounced between Raura and myself, as if she wasn’t entirely sure which of us was in charge. “Against my better judgment, I’m willing to help, if you don’t mind me crossing into your territory.”
“Please,” I agreed.
“Then we can discuss if I’m taking you captive or not,” she said, with a bright smile.
“I think you forget we’re evenly matched right now, Alisa,” Raura warned.
“Are we?” Alisa said, her smile only growing wider.
Out of the trees around her melted stealthy Fae; a branch shook overhead, and I looked up to see a tiger strolling through the branches above us.
“But this is your lucky day indeed,” Alisa said, “because we’re here to help.”
“Lead on,” I said, my mouth dry. Whatever it took to save my people; it was all too easy to imagine Faer’s stringers attacking one of the villages we’d passed.
Together, we all plunged into the forest.
“Why the hell would Faer attack them before we even had a chance to get to his castle?”
“He’s not a fan of the subtle message,” she returned. “This way, you know the stakes. He expects obedience.”
Not long after, we emerged near a village. Flames flickered over the walls, casting smoke up into the air. Faer’s guards were dragging people out of the village, and they were trying to fight back.
“Rain,” I murmured, imagining clouds appearing in the bright blue sky. It was a sky too clear and beautiful for people to hurt each other the way they were now. White wisps of clouds began to form in the sky, then slowly swell, swirling over each other until they expanded. The sun had been falling on my face, but clouds overtook the sky. Then I added, “Storm.”
The clouds turned gray. A rumble of thunder filled the air, and then the sky let loose, lashing rain down on the village. The flames were doused before much damage could be done.
We attacked the stringers, who fought back but soon realized they were no match for the combination of my magic and Alisa’s.
Raura watched them disappear into the treetops; I aimed a last blast of magic at their backs, and some of them fell face-first into the green undergrowth, only to be captured by vines and yanked up into the canopy of trees.
Raura humphed. “Your power is usually wasted on you, but sometimes you use it to good purpose.”
“You can’t fool me, Raura,” I told her. “You’ll be a good queen. Especially with those males by your side.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure we have a story together.”
“Well, give it a try, Huntress. You’re so badass with everything else.”
“I’m not taking advice from mortals.” She watched Alisa ride toward us from the village, and her eyes narrowed. “Even with half her brain gone, she’s quite the would-be queen.”
“Half her brain?”
“She lost her memories. She’s trying to save a kingdom she doesn’t even remember.”
I could understand that. Despite everything that was wrong with the fae world, it was easy to fall in love with it.
Alisa rode back to us, her hair soaked to her head by rain.
“Come here,” Raura said, holding her hands out to her. “I’ll fix you.”
Alisa looked at her skeptically, but Raura used her magic to dry her off the same way she’d done for me earlier.
“I suppose I don’t really want to capture you,” Alisa admitted. “I don’t know why I’d even do with you. I just don’t want to make life any easier for Faer.”
“Oh, believe me,” Raura said. “Tyson doesn’t make life any easier for anyone.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jensen
“I am going to kill him,” I told Rafe.
“When I’m not thinking that about you, I think it about Silas,” Rafe told me.
The four of us had stopped briefly on our way to Elegiah; we needed to stage the vehicle we planned to take back. For a few moments, it was just the two of us; Maddie and Silas were down in the village quietly stealing our supper.
I blew out a breath. “What’s with this maybe I won’t come home shit?”
It was hurting Maddie
, and that made me want to hurt Silas.
Rafe gave me a curious look. “You know this is his home world. Why wouldn’t he stay here?”
“Because he belongs with us?”
“Does he?” Rafe mused, leaning back against the car, his arms folding across his chest. He studied my face, then cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, now you want to kill me, too.”
“Maddie is scared,” I said flatly, because I knew that Maddie’s feelings had to bother him as much as they did me.
Rafe shook his head. “Oh, come on. Just admit it—you’re scared.”
Ridiculous. It was anger that had me taut, not fear. “Ah, no. My life only gets calmer without the boy wizard careening around.”
Rafe shrugged. “And yet. He is your bestie, as Maddie would say.”
“Maddie’s not the one who just said bestie,” I reminded him. “It sounds like something Rafael Hunt would say.”
Maddie and Silas came trudging up the snowy hillside.
“Is it ever summer here?” I demanded of Silas.
“Not this close to Elegiah,” he said. “This is the last village, the last population, we’ll see for miles.”
The four of us sat on the hood of the car or stood around it in a circle while we ate sandwiches. It was a relatively warm morning compared to how cold it was at night. Maddie sat on the hood with her legs dawn up, the cold breeze ruffling her long blond hair around her face. We’d put on our uniforms when we got closer to the penal colony; I hated the thought of seeing her in it for longer than a photograph.
Suddenly the light around us changed, the sky growing dimmer, and I had the sense of something looming behind me. Maddie dropped her sandwich, her eyes widening and her jaw falling open. As I whirled, I could already feel her throwing herself off the hood to stand beside me.
There was a tear in the sky. The tranquil blue sky over the pines gapped open where it looked as if it were being unzipped; another sky full of angry gray clouds was beyond it. Then I breathed in the scent of smoke, and I knew they weren’t clouds at all.
The Greyworld was ripping open and the world beyond it was full of fire.
Silas swore and tore a stick from a tree.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Wand,” he said. “It concentrates power. Sometimes it can make it easier to direct magic in a fight.”
“How come I’ve never seen you with one before?”
He waved the stick at me. “Because it’s embarrassing!”
Then the four of us turned to face the rip as it continued tearing down, through the pine trees until it struck the ground. There was a crashing sound and the earth itself seemed to shake under our feet.
Silas cursed, and he had the look of someone bracing himself.
“We should get out of here before we draw attention to ourselves,” I said.
“Don’t worry, no one’s coming,” Silas said. “The town doesn’t have any magicians to defend them.”
He glanced down the hill at the village below. “We can leave it to burn, or we can fight them off and give the villagers time to escape. We can buy time now. Maybe we can even seal it without them knowing we were here—sometimes rips heal naturally. Just…not often enough, anymore.”
“We’re buying them time from what?” Rafe demanded.
“Dragons,” Maddie managed.
My attention snapped back to the rip just as the first dragon sailed through the gap. It had to be ten feet long, its wings twice that. It felt like we were about to be attacked by a sentient airplane.
Rafe swore and drew his sword. I already had mine in hand; I’d drew it without even thinking.
“Will it come after us?” Maddie demanded.
As if it heard her, the dragon let out a caw that seemed to shake the earth, and headed our way.
“They really don’t like people,” Silas said. “Except as snacks.”
Another dragon burst out of the rip, and then another. The first two barreled toward us, but the third hooked left and flew toward the village. Silas raced after it, throwing his wand out and shouting a word. His magic rippled through the air and slammed into the dragon, who wheeled around to face him.
“Do they breathe fire?” I shouted. The world beyond had looked as if it were in fire but hey, maybe that was coincidence. Maybe today was our lucky day and we didn’t have to fight fire-breathing monsters.
One of them helpfully answered by diving toward Silas, flames shooting out of its mouth like a flame thrower.
Today was not our lucky day. It was never our lucky day.
“Yep,” Silas said, blasting magic at the dragon with his right hand, then raising his left arm to throw up a shield of protection.
The golden shield shimmered around us, absorbing the fire that seemed to beat against it. Flame danced over the surface of the shield and it was suddenly far too hot in my coat.
“Do you guys want to be bait?” Silas asked. “If you blast magic at them, they’ll focus on you. Then I’ll freeze them.”
He spread his fingers out, and icy blue magic whirled around his fingers.
“Want, no,” Rafe said. “Will I, yes.”
“Let’s see it, boy wizard,” I said. I dove to one side to get away from the others, then sent a blast of magic toward one of the dragons.
“You have a lot of faith trusting me to shield you while you call me names,” Silas said, but without much rancor.
I was already raising my own shield, a sheet of green shimmering magic that expanded in front of me as I parted my hands. The dragon dove as me, breathing out flame, though I was just as terrified of being flattened into the ground by the enormous body.
But Silas’s shield was there first, a powerful golden wave of magic that overshadowed my own. Then his attack magic blasted the dragon sideways. It slammed into the earth, shaking the ground beneath our feet. Icy magic rippled over its body, and a few last wisps of smoke crept up from its giant nostrils.
Maddie and Rafe were both attacking other dragons. Silas moved so quickly his magic was a blur; although they shielded themselves, he threw his own shield over them both.
But just as the last dragon slammed hard into the ground, it opened its mouth, breathing out a final blast of blue flame into Silas’s direction.
Silas threw up his arm, raising a shield, just before I lost sight of him in the flame and smoke. I coughed, trying to get to him. The ground shook beneath my feet as the last dragon slammed into the ground, eyes closed.
When the smoke cleared away, Silas wasn’t standing where I’d last seen him.
He was on the ground.
“Silas!” I shouted. I fell to my knees next to him, quickly checking his vitals the way I’d been trained to do. He was still breathing, his pulse strong, and his eyes fluttered open a second later.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, pushing me away. “Don’t mother me, Jensen. It makes me uncomfortable.”
I scoffed and got to my feet. His blunt words actually prickled on my skin; I’d been terrified for a second that the dickhead was dead.
“Then get up and help us seal this rip,” I said.
He sat up, propping his elbow on his knee, and said, “Help?” in a pointed tone.
None of us knew how to seal the rip ourselves. He got to his feet, and as he reached to brush himself off, Maddie threw her arms around him. Silas grinned and hugged her at least; I would have been pissed if he hadn’t dropped everything to hold her after scaring her.
“Welcome to the Greyworld,” he said. “The rips are getting worse all the time. The Establishment wants to seal ourselves off from the other worlds and let them burn, but the Rebels want to heal the whole universe. Meanwhile, the rest of the Greyworld’s real ambition is just not to be eaten by dragons.”
“They were like Ravagers with wings,” Maddie said. She sounded far more filled with wonder than I felt; I can’t admire anything that tries to eat me. She added, “Beautiful, though.”
“They’re extinct in most of th
e worlds,” Silas said. “Or we tend to be. Man and dragons didn’t co-exist well even back in Arthur’s time.”
“Are you going to seal the rip?” I prompted Silas.
“Yes,” he said, but he was still gazing at it, his eyes troubled. “It’s a big one. Usually I’d have…”
He cut himself off, but I knew what he meant. Help. Usually he’d have help.
“Why does the Greyworld think you’re so bad if you go around sealing the rips?” Rafe asked.
“Well, that’s really not all we do,” Silas said with a mischievous smile. “They’ve banned travel between the worlds, but they use it to move freely in this world. Either way, they’re tearing apart our world even as they try to convince the Greyworlders that the Establishment is our salvation. And well, we make the Establishment look like the fools they are.”
“I can help seal the rip,” Maddie said, holding out her hand to him. “Just tell me what to do.”
I was rarely jealous—we all shared Maddie easily—and yet for some reason, annoyance flickered through me as Silas wrapped her hand in his.
“Does she need a stick too?” I asked sarcastically.
“That would be great, Jensen, if you’d look around for one,” Silas said.
That was how I ended up wandering around looking for kindling while Maddie and Silas healed the rip. Her magic flickered around their joined hands and seemed to flare steadily from the tip of Silas’s wands; the rip in the sky wavered, then began to slowly seal from the edges. Sometimes a few feet would close up all at once, then rip back open. The tear in the sky seemed to undulate.
“Your wand,” I told Maddie with a flourish.
She smiled at me. “Thank you, Jensen.”
She held it out toward the tear, joining Silas in murmuring the words of his spell. Magic flared from her wand, a steady stream of power rippling across the sky.
Silas lost a beat as he gazed at her, wonder and uncertainty written across his face. Just for a second. Then his voice was steady again and then the rip was healed.
But as soon as it was done, I grabbed Silas and dragged him to one side. “What is it? What’s going on with Maddie?”
