Beyond the Mountain

by Lily Archer

  “I am not your princess.” My wings unfurl. “I am Leander’s queen.” I throw my deathly orb as a ruckus sends the room into a frenzy.

  Shathinor screeches as my magic cuts through his whirlwind and strikes him in the gut. I draw the obsidian blade and brace myself for battle when a blast of ice freezes all the soldiers closest to me, clearing the way at the foot of the stairs. Leander surges forward, his face a mask of rage as he advances on Shathinor. His Phalanx have escaped their cage and engaged the crowd, fighting with a vengeance that doesn’t bode well for Shathinor’s troops.

  Pumping my wings, I hover in the air and throw more deathly magic at my father.

  Cenet jumps down the stairs, and Gareth rushes him.

  “Don’t look in his eyes!” I shout to Gareth.

  They fall back into the fray, both of them fighting a vicious sword battle. Brannon takes out an entire row of soldiers with some dark tentacle monster he’s summoned.

  “My king.” Valen throws Leander a sword. He catches it, then turns and hurls it into Shathinor.

  My father yells as the blade slams into his chest and penetrates his armor. He looks down, his eyes wide.

  Leander rushes toward him, but a blast of black magic bursts from my father, knocking Leander onto his back. Shathinor sheds the armor and the sword, black blood barely staining his shirt.

  “He’s already dead.” I drop to the steps beside Leander, the obsidian blade in my grip. I can end my father, stop the war, and keep the realms safe.

  Something tickles my throat, and I cough. I reach up and feel the phylactery, but it burns my hand, and suddenly, I can’t move.

  “There’s no escape from the Spires this time.” Leander summons a spike of ice as Shathinor’s dark magic lifts him off his feet.

  “You and your friends were fools to come here.” Shathinor floats higher, the darkness oozing from his pores. “Getting captured was the last mistake you’ll make.”

  “Mistake?” Leander climbs the stairs. “We wanted to be captured. You just brought the deadliest fighters in all of Arin into your throne room.” He spares a glance to the melee behind us, the Phalanx a whirling dervish of death and ruin. Shathinor’s soldiers are falling or running, only the undead attacking relentlessly.

  Shathinor scowls and sends a rope of black magic to wrap around Leander’s throat. The battle is a cacophony as I try to move, to yell.

  “Taylor.” Shathinor’s voice courses through me as if he’s in my head. As if, through the phylactery, he’s somehow part of me. This damn necklace is cursed just like the old one.

  I gasp as realization hits me. “Oh, shit. It’s a horcrux!”

  Shathinor speaks again. “You will kill your mate. Now.”

  “No.” I try to back away, but I find I can’t. I’m moving toward Leander, my sword up and my shield dissipating.

  Shathinor laughs in my skull. “You thought I trusted you? The child of that summer realm whore? You were pathetic until I found you. I’ve made you strong, and this is how you repay me?”

  “I was always strong.” I fight against the pull, but I’m losing control, Shathinor’s will replacing my own. Chaos reigns at my back, and Leander struggles to free himself from the dark magic that weaves around him like a spider’s wrapping.

  “This trinket is my insurance policy. I will always have you in the palm of my hand. You thought I cared about you? That I would ever let you sit on my throne?” He grins. “You are a tool, a vessel. This body can no longer sustain me. But yours? I will take it as my own.”

  “Not cool,” I grit out and try to backpedal. I don’t. I keep moving toward Leander, almost within striking distance.

  “You will kill him. And then I will devour your soul and wear your skin.”

  “No!” I scream. To my horror, I can’t stop, can’t pull myself back. “Leander.” My eyes water as I fight Shathinor’s hold.

  “Let her go!” Leander shoots a blast of raw ice at Shathinor. It’s enough to stagger him. The darkness around Leander abates, and he takes the opening and throws his ice spear at Shathinor, but the darkness swallows it up. He summons another and another, each of them destroyed by the magic. But Leander doesn’t give up. He rushes my father, jumping at the last moment and tackling him onto his throne of bone. It shatters as they land and struggle, the heart of winter and the pit of death locked in battle. And me, powerless to do anything to help my mate.

  They trade blows, their fight a blur of speed and ferocity. I can feel Leander’s pain, but I can feel his resolve even more. He will die if it means he can take Shathinor with him. The mountain shakes with their cries and the strength of their hurled magic. Soldiers try to run past me to help their leader, but the Phalanx mows them down, dragging them back into the fray.

  My father summons me closer, his voice pulling me toward him, commanding me to strike Leander with the obsidian blade, to run it through his heart.

  “Leander, you have to stop me.” I force the words out despite the burning in my throat that demands I stay silent. They don’t go far, and Leander and Shathinor are too locked in battle to hear me. The mountain rumbles louder, rocks falling from the ceiling as Leander slams Shathinor to the ground. With fists of ice, Leander lands several hard blows to the necromancer.

  Shathinor’s wasted body is dying, but his laugh echoes in my mind. “Let’s show him what you can really do.”

  Death seeps from my fingertips, filling the air around me and circling the obsidian blade. If I strike Leander, there will be no coming back from it. I try to fight the pull, but I’m locked on my course, my feet climbing the stairs, shards of bone crunching beneath me.

  Leander keeps fighting, using all his magic and his strength to slay Shathinor. My father’s cursed life is dwindling. I can feel his wasted flesh tearing apart, his rotted heart beating out of rhythm. Soon, it will stop altogether.

  “Lean—”

  Shathinor silences my voice completely, constricting my throat with my own magic, blocking the bond that ties me to my mate. Tears roll down my cheeks as I raise the blade behind Leander’s back.

  “Now. Strike now!” My father’s voice booms inside me.

  With a scream, I slam the blade down.

  16

  Leander

  Blood leaks into my eyes from a gash on my forehead, and I wrap my hands around Shathinor’s throat, freezing it as I squeeze. His ruined face twists into a grin as he stares up at me.

  Pain sears through me, ripping my heart in two. My mate. “Taylor.” I let go and turn to find her on the stairs, her body limp and the obsidian blade rammed through her chest.

  “Taylor!” I roar and rush to her, pulling her into my lap as her eyes flutter open. “No, no, no.” I touch the blade as her hands fall from the hilt. Her precious blood spills onto her dark blue gown. It’s warm on my fingers as the bond between us begins to shrink, to wither like a vine. “Taylor, no.” I brush her hair back from her forehead. “Why?” My vision blurs as the battle rages on around us. It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does. “Why, little one?” I stroke her cheek.

  Her blue eyes, still so bright, look into my soul, into my shattered heart. “Had to destroy Shathinor’s horcrux. The necklace. Controlling me. Wanted me to kill you. Wanted my body.”

  A smear of black blood from the destroyed phylactery mixes with hers, staining her fair skin with death.

  “Don’t go.” I rock her. “Valen!” My yell carries on a winter wind.

  “I’m sorry.” Tears roll from the corners of her eyes, and I wipe them away. “Hurts.” She tries to reach for the blade, but her hand drops.

  I can feel her life draining away like water through my fingers, the stream flowing far too quickly for me to catch. It takes me down with it, my will ebbing as I hold her.

  “Don’t be sorry.” I lean down and kiss her lips gently. They are too cool. “Never be sorry. You brought me to life.”

  “You are mine,” she whispers. “And I am yours.” Her eyes flutter closed.
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  “No.” I yell for Valen again. “Stay. Valen can heal you. He can—”

  “Delantis calls.” Her brows furrow. “She calls, and I must go.”

  I gasp, agony wrapping around me like a fist as her breaths grow slower. “Taylor, please. Little one. Don’t go to the Ancestors. I need you here. I need you. Please.”

  “Do you hear her?” A trickle of blood rolls from the corner of her mouth.

  “Oh, no. My queen.” Valen crashes to the stairs beside us, his face bloody. “She’s—”

  “Help her.” I can’t stop the helpless tears that escape, can’t do anything to help my mate. Her suffering is mine, and I would do anything to take the pain from her.

  “I’m drained, but I can try. But first—” He grips the obsidian blade and yanks it free.

  Her scream shatters my consciousness as I hold her close, rocking her as Valen summons a weak green orb and presses it to her wound.

  She gasps, her body going rigid, her heart struggling to beat.

  I can only hold her and pray to the Ancestors for her life. My love. My everything. I only live for her, and I would happily give my life so that she can see another day.

  “She’s being pulled away.” Valen collapses onto the stairs, his skin a sickly white. “The blade is too powerful. I can’t stop it.”

  “Try again!” I howl. “Please, don’t go.” I’m being torn apart, the link between us dark as the grave as her blood continues to pour onto my hands, soaking my shirt with her waning life.

  Valen gets onto his knees and summons another ball of healing and tries again, even though his eyes roll back. He presses it to her wound, the green glow entering her skin as he falls back, his magic spent.

  She coughs, blood pouring onto her chin as a few more tears ease from her eyes. “Leander, it hurts.” Her whisper rattles out on a breath, and then she doesn’t take another one.

  “Taylor.” I clutch her to me. “Taylor, no. My light. Please stay. Please.”

  I feel the exact moment the bond severs, the link between us disappearing like a wisp of smoke into a cold, dark night. There is nothing. Just an emptiness that can never be filled, a void of darkness that will never again touch the light. She is gone beyond my reach, clutched in Death’s jealous embrace.

  My roar of grief shakes the mountain to its roots.

  17

  Taylor

  “Wake up.” Delantis pats my cheek.

  My eyes fly open, and I reach for my chest. But there’s nothing there.

  “Am I dead?” I sit up and stare around at the black obsidian world.

  “Yes.” Delantis sits next to me, her eyes bright silver, and her body clad in a skimpy dress, her necklace glinting in the strange light.

  “You’re young.”

  She shrugs. “I can choose how I appear.” She gestures toward my body. “You can, too.”

  My midnight wings are gone.

  I’m back to my changeling form. “Huh.” A creeping fear invades my confusion and bursts like a bubble. “Leander!” I jump to my feet. “He’s in danger. They’re all fighting for their lives. I have to go to him.”

  “He’s not here.” She rises and takes my arm. “Let’s walk.”

  “Where?” I peer around at the obsidian world, ridges and peaks of black rock as far as the eye can see.

  “Anywhere.” She waves a hand and my dorm appears just as I remember it.

  “How—”

  “So, now you know what you are.” She leads me up the front stairs. “Have you decided who you want to be?”

  “I’m dead, so I guess it doesn’t matter. Can we help Leander, please? He needs me.”

  “I’m afraid that’s beyond my abilities.” She seems truly sad about it.

  I have to stop and lean against the visitor sign-in desk as the enormity of what happened rolls over me. “I’ve lost him.” It feels like I’ve been stabbed through the heart all over. “I’ll never see Leander again.” My knees weaken, and I sink, the cold floor changing to the stone of Shathinor’s throne room. Empty now, it looks as it first did—the white throne intact. My gaze strays to the stairs where I … died.

  “I’m really dead.”

  Delantis kneels next to me. “Take heart.” She tilts my chin up until I meet her eyes. “All is not lost.”

  “It’s not?” I press my palm to my chest. “I stabbed myself with the obsidian blade. I’m here. Leander is—” I look to where he held me, the stairs empty. A sob rocks me. “He’s there.”

  “Here you are.” A blue smoke materializes beside me and forms into a woman.

  “You again.” I cradle my head in my hands.

  “Me again.” It sits next to me. “I would have told you about all this if you’d only come with me and stayed in the otherworld.”

  “I’m never supposed to follow the magic.”

  “Why not?” It leans back against the bone throne. “I’m not so bad. I’ve been trying to help. I even told Queen Aurentia about you.”

  “You mean you’re the reason her soldiers attacked Leander at the border?”

  It shrugs. “I told the queen what would happen if you reached the winter realm. She wisely tried to keep you from fulfilling the prophecy. But prophecies are funny things.”

  “What does it matter now?” My insides are cold, barren. I now realize how much I’d come to enjoy that link with Leander. Even when it was spread thin, it was always like a warm blanket, reminding me that he was in the world. But now, I’m empty.

  “What does the prophecy matter? It matters.” The magic inspects its fingernails. The form it’s taken is almost familiar. “You underestimate me.”

  “Who do you look like?”

  It blinks. “You like this look?”

  “Just tell me who.” I’m tired of its games, sorrow weighing me down as I struggle to keep my tears in check.

  “Your mother.” It shrugs.

  “Callandra?”

  “That’s the one. She’s with the Ancestors, but I thought this would be a nice touch.”

  “I met her once.” Delantis smiles. “She was a beauty. That golden hair. But she was sad. I didn’t know about you then. But I think keeping you secret and asleep weighed on her heavily. That’s why she sent you to earth. To give you a chance to blossom out of your father’s shadow. And it worked.”

  An idea strikes me, and I turn to the magic. “Can you go to the mountain and help Leander? Help all of them?”

  “No.” Magic shakes its head. “It’s more fun in here. This blade is wild.” It waves its hand and we’re back in the expanse of obsidian, sparkling black sky and all.

  “But they need help! Please, save them.”

  “Why would I save them when you can do it yourself?” The magic shrugs.

  “Tell me how.” I reach for its hand, then pull back.

  It snaps its fingers. “I will for a price.”

  Delantis frowns. “You’re just as bad as a high fae with the bargaining.”

  “I’ll pay it. Whatever it takes. I have to go back. I have to make it right. The things I’ve done to Cecile, to the other Taylor. The things I’ve left unsaid with Leander. I can’t leave it like this.”

  “You’ll pay it, no matter what it is?” The magic grins like the Cheshire cat.

  Delantis grabs my hand. “Taylor, you don’t nee—”

  “Done.” The magic stands and stretches. “I’ll be seeing you in the otherworld shortly.”

  “That’s the price?” I rise.

  “I want to dance beneath the dark moon and tell you my secrets.” The magic starts to sway, its smoky dress moving to some silent music. “You’re the child of prophecy, a changeling but not, a high fae but not. You are the legend. I want you for my own.”

  “For how long?” I swallow hard.

  “Does it matter?” The magic pirouettes around me. “You already agreed to whatever I asked.”

  “I guess it doesn’t.” I take a deep breath and turn to Delantis. “I know who I am now. And I
know what I have to do.”

  Delantis sighs. “You didn’t have to make that deal.”

  “I can’t leave Leander. Not like this and—”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I mean you didn’t have to make that deal.”

  She points as a silver wisp appears in the air, hanging down from the obsidian sky like a rope.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your mate bond. Your own magic called it forth.”

  “My magic?”

  “You have the power of death.” She touches one of my hands and the black swirl of darkness appears above it. “But also life.” She touches my other hand, and a green spell twirls up.

  “I thought it could only reanimate the dead?” I lift the green magic and peer at it. “That’s what Shathinor said.”

  “Because that was Shathinor’s magic. Yours is something different. Something greater. You have the power of death and life.”

  “How?”

  “It’s an inherited talent from your mother. Your mate bond activated it.” Delantis smiles. “I told you before. Don’t reject the bond. It will save you. When your soul joined with Leander’s—the love you share awakened your talent. Just as it made his winter powers stronger, it granted you the ability to give life instead of only death.”

  “Cecile.” The connection clicks in my mind. “She has the same talent. Giving life.”

  “Also from your shared mother, yes.”

  I shake my head, then cut my eyes to the still-dancing magic. “You just made a deal with me knowing all the while that I didn’t have to make it!”

  It shrugs then shimmies.

  “I tried to warn you.” Delantis sighs. “Magic is wily.” Her white light glows brighter, her fingertips almost translucent. “It’s time for me to go and be with the Ancestors. Time for a rest.”

  I hug her hard. “Thank you for everything.”

  She strokes my hair. “I go to the Glowing Lands, but I’ll see you again.” Reaching behind her neck, she unfastens her soulstone and holds it out to me.