Ever Winter (26 page)

She nodded. “Get me some armor.”

Hesitating, Nyol’s confused face only made her more determined. “Please, I’m fighting with my people. I won’t stand up here and watch them fight for me from afar. I have powers and I need to use them for this. I was meant for this. It’s always been for this. They need me, Nyol.” Shade waited, her patience waning as she watched understanding float across his features.

“Of course, your majesty. I’ll send a squire and servants immediately to help you.” He turned and rushed off down the hall. His uneasiness made her stomach churn as she paced back and forth in her room. She could do this, she had to. Everything had been built up to this moment. Her strength, her powers, it was always for this war in Faerie. She was meant to fight with her people, no matter what. And she would.

Servant’s poured in, arms filled with leathers, chain mail and weapons. Floating about her as they took in her measurements and began dressing her with the armor, Shade tried to calm her nerves, breathing slowly in and out and going over in her head Lana’s dire instructions on engaging in a full out war. To observers, she looked crazy, nodding every now and then, confirming a maneuver or two in her head, but no one questioned her and in no time, she was fully dressed and armed to the T.

Clasping the hilt of her sword, she glanced down at the chain mail and faerie armor clasped around her body. The metal was lighter than armor made by humans would’ve been but the weight of it and the chain mail felt oddly comforting to her. She headed out of her room and into the foyer, where she found Jade and Benton awaiting, already fully dressed for fighting too.

“Where are you going?” Jade inquired, narrowing her eyes at the armor she was wearing. “You’re the queen, you don’t go out and fight.”

“I will be there with my people and I will be fighting. They need me, you know this.” Shade held her ground and only stirred from the spot when Dylan came running into the room, followed by Soap. They were also dressed and fully armed and waited for further instructions as they gathered around her.

“Where’s Nyol?” Shade glanced around looking for the NicScren guard’s leader.

“He’s at the gates, already transporting legions to the outer gates of the palace. He said he will be waiting for you.” Paki offered as he stepped past the others and came to kneel before her. Afterwards, he stood and motioned them forward to follow him through the doors and out past the gardens.

This is it, thought Shade. Her nervous stomach gave way to a dangerous calm. Shutting off her feelings, she knew she was out for blood. This was for everything she’d been through up til now, so there would be no mercy, only death and blood.

Transported to the outside gates, she saw her army filtering though openings that were only accessible to leave the grounds. A one way portal. Pulling out her sword, she kept close to Dylan and her mother, hoping things would not be as bad as she thought they would be. The last time she was surrounded by the sluagh hoard of Aveta’s
, they’d been marked for death. This time, she was determined to never fall into such a vulnerable trap again. Following Paki, who led them right behind Nyol, she made her way to the front and stepped through one of the many one way portals.

A flash of light enveloped her and after a millisecond of that and a slight jolt, she was surrounded by deafening screams and thousands and thousands of fighting sluagh, Unseelie fey and NicScren soldiers. There were fallen all over the place, covering the ground with blood and bodies. She rushed forward, slamming into a dark fey warrior who was about to dig his spear into a NicScren soldier who had fallen to the ground.

She groaned as her breath knocked out of her, but she had done what she’d intended. The dark faery landed on his back, but jumped right back up, narrowing their gaze onto her. Smiling maliciously, it ran toward her, aiming the spear at her chest.

But Shade was already expecting it and swung her sword to smack the spear out of its hand before sending a fire ball right into its chest. The deafening screech it let out as the fire consumed its skin so rapidly, made her skin crawl. It collapsed to the ground, already still and unmoving. Shade turned to find another replacing its fallen comrade and began sparring with the creature, hitting it hard with the sword, causing black blood to squirt into the air but not damaging the creature enough to bring it down.

What the hell was it? It looked like a combination of a goblin and salamander, making her skin crawl as its black blood streaked across her armor. With one final stab, she caught it in the neck and it quivered right before falling lifelessly to the ground.

“Shade!” Dylan fought his way toward her and took to cover her back. “Nyol’s army is gaining ground, but taking heavy casualties.” He updated her as he decapitated another dark faerie who had plunged through the line of sluagh and had targeted them.

“What can I do?” She kicked at an Orc which had stomped over swinging it’s mallet in her direction. It was slow and easy to dodge, making it a swift job to maneuver around its swinging arms and stabbed it in the throat. Dark red blood gushed from the wound as she pulled her sword back out. It made the hilt sticky and slippery, but she didn’t have time to get grossed out, for another and another Unseelie warrior pounced onto her with unrelenting force.

Dylan yanked one off her back, sending it crashing into a group of four others. He had his own battle to fight as she continued pummeling through sluagh forming around her.

They kept coming, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to last forever, considering she was a mortal and they were most likely all immortals.

Great.

The fight became a blur of dark, black-red blood and filth. Shade barely felt the slashes across her arms and legs, barely registering the fall of NicScren soldiers around her. She had lost sight of Dylan, her mother and Benton and saw nothing but her own need for blood vengeance. It filled her with exuberance she’d never felt before. It was dangerous to feel this way, but right now, it was all she needed.

A wall of NicScren soldiers pushed the Unseelie army back and she found herself picking off the few that made it through the line. Breathing hard and beginning to feel the exhaustion from the constant fight, she glanced around, one sight catching her eyes like a stiff, sharp pain. It sent a stifling ache
which seized her chest as she ran through the field of bodies of the fallen, almost tripping over them as she stumbled forward.

On the ground, her neck twisted at an odd angle, laid Jade. Blood spattered across her stomach and her sword was still gripped in her lifeless hand.

No.

“No, no, no…” Shade dropped her own sword as she scooped up her mother, clutching her to her chest and checking her thoroughly for any sign of life. Closing her eyes, she sent her healing magic deep into mother’s body, feeling around for any spark of life to grip onto and brighten once more.

But there was none. And the fingers of her power could find nothing to heal anymore.

“No, mom, come on, mom.” She shook her mother’s body, not realizing the tears and sobs that filled her choked breathing. Her blood mixed with that of the dark army’s remains smudged across both their armors and skin. Shade’s body trembled as she cried, screaming for her mother to awaken and make it all alright once more. But, she didn’t move. Her skin paler and free of the blush a life force gives a body. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a braid, now matted with drying blood and bits of gore from the fight. Shade pushed a few strands of her hair away from her mother’s face. Afraid to let go, afraid to realize this was all real and not some godforsaken nightmare she tended to think was life now.

Slowly pulling away from her mother’s body, she scanned around, blinking away the blur of tears as she searched for the one’s she loved. Dylan was not too far away, still fighting back a group of sluagh and taking hard hits to his side from one particular Troll. Benton was nowhere in sight but from the fiery pillars of smoke coming from the west side of the battlefield; she knew he was having a time frying the enemy. She stepped forward, finding a breach in Nyol’s line of soldiers where an outpouring of Unseelie made their way toward her.

“You won’t win.” Shade whispered under her breath, closing her eyes and reaching her power out toward the earth and the wind. She set free her magic, which had lived in her all this time without release and sent its fingers crashing through the dirt, upheaving the land into a wave of mud and rock, pummeling the leak of sluagh deep into the ground. The ones behind them paused momentarily before continuing to pour in through the breach.

This only made her madder. She curled her fingers into her palms, cutting into her skin and feeling her blood drip softly into the earth. Her face plastered in a grimace as she breathed in slowly, letting her heart beat calmly as she pulled in more energy from the earth. Fire, it burned inside, begged for release as she let her breath out.

Let the Unseelie burn.

She held out her arms and splayed her fingers apart as she called her fire powers and they balled up inside her palms, growing in intensity.

The little fireballs multiplied in size and power spreading out before her until a wall of fireballs stood readied in front of her. As more sluagh made their way toward  her. Nyol was now nearby, watching in a fascinated horror as she gathered more and more fire until it was funneling firestorm around her. Just before the enemy made it to her, she sent the flames toward them, igniting the line of Unseelie.

Their screeches echoed around the battlefield, bringing all eyes of the NicScren toward the inferno consuming the Unseelie army, spreading from warrior to warrior so rapidly, and miraculously avoiding the NicScren and Shade’s loved ones. Everyone stilled in their steps, the horror of the power jumping from soldier to soldier, consuming them until nothing more than ashes remained.

The ring of fire extinguished some ways from Shade as she exhausted her power. She stumbled back toward Jade’s body and sank to her knees, sobbing and virtually worn out. Tears were still slipping down her dirty cheeks as she scanned the land around her once more.

The NicScren soldiers had pushed the remaining Unseelie back even further, but were still fighting the vast horde. Where was Dylan? Where’s Benton? She prayed they were okay, that this insanity had not taken them from her too. How to find them in such chaos?

She fingered the blue orb dangling from her necklace, another gift from Dylan, who had given it to her on the dark desolate beach of her recovery. Those days on the beach and healing with Soap and Dylan seemed decades ago as she sat in a puddle of blood, bits of soldiers and her mother’s body. The summoning orb reminded her of loyalties broken, but somehow, she knew that one loyalty wasn’t really broken. Camulus had given the orb to Dylan to give to her. In a way, he must’ve done it to make sure she knew he’d always be there for her. Somehow, that assumption felt right. He had left them at The Great Divide, to her dismay, but it was under Ursad’s command, who couldn’t disobey Corb. She knew that now. Lana’s voice echoed in her head, reassuring her that her feelings were correct, that the elven-pixie would come if she summoned him, and he would take her wherever she needed to go.

She held the orb to her lips softly rubbing her fingers over it as it pulsated and turned into a milky white. “Camulus, help us.”

A moment later, a bend in the air and a jolting whoosh of air brought the green skin
ned, orange-eyed teleporter next to her. He kneeled to bow before her and searching her for affirmation and forgiveness.

“Shade, I’ll take you wherever you need to go. Tell me, quickly.” His eyes darted toward the fighting faeries not that far away. The wall of warriors, Seelie and Unseelie alike was closing in and Shade had to get Jade’s body out of there now.

Gripping onto her mother’s hand she held out the other toward Camulus who gripped it and held onto Jade’s other flaccid hand. “Take me to the Scren palace foyer, now!” Shade hollered over the screams of the dying. The jaunt, shook the air around them, keeping her more and more sober as they landed back inside the Scren Palace.

“Benton, Dylan and Soap are out there! Find them, please!” She begged Camulus before letting go of his smooth, green hand. He nodded and immediately disappeared.

She prayed he was successful. She prayed for so many things at this moment.

Still clutching her mother, whom she’d cradled in her embrace, feeling numb and lost, one by one Camulus would reappear and drop off Dylan, Soap and then finally, Benton.

“Shade?” Anna entered the foyer, having impatiently paced the palace as she waited for them to return. She collapsed next to her and their mother, looking at Shade in disbelief. “What’s wrong with mom? Shade?”

Shade couldn’t answer. Her voice had been swallowed in her throat and remained there. Anna shook their mother, wailing and screaming as Benton appeared and dropped at their sides, soot and blood streaked across his face.