Authors: Rebecca Ethington
What was that?
I asked, the scorched street still imprinted in my mind, despite knowing we were surrounded by much bigger issues.
Wynifred. It’s the fire magic.
I didn’t even dare ask for clarification as Ilyan pulled us into another wide road, the buildings here a rainbow of stone, the street a river of red.
It was all I could do not to scream.
All I could do not to destroy every last beast that littered this road.
The mortals screamed as they ran from the things, trying to escape into the seemingly safe buildings we were surrounded by. Most were already infested by the Vilỳs, their wings flapping against windows and breaking through glass as they went after their prey.
I tried to stop, but Ilyan pulled me on, the message in his mind clear even if he could not find the words to express it.
There were more here, more Vilỳs than humans. If we were to stop and fight here, we would be lucky to escape alive.
Right now, we needed to get to the clock.
The clock.
I could see it perfectly in his mind—the old building with the massive round clock faces placed against its façade. I could see the door off to the side that would take us to the top story where the tiny safe house lay that Ilyan had kept since the fifteen hundreds.
I could see it, but I could also see the door from my sight. I could still feel the pull of that door and whatever was hidden behind its marred surface.
I knew the clock was safe, but the pull to that door was stronger.
I needed to find it.
Ilyan towed me along as he turned toward yet another alley, only to find a wall of black wings, the mortal screams that echoed behind it wrenching through me in a powerful vice that wrung my gut into a tense ball of pain.
I stared at those wings as I felt my magic flare, felt the heat in my body grow and heard a child scream for his mother from somewhere beyond that endless wall that was closing in on them. The wall that would kill them.
I didn’t even move as my magic erupted out of me, a wall of wind and power spreading from somewhere deep inside of me and rippling over the alley, over the street like it was nothing more than a rock thrown in a pond. The ripples of magic moved an explosion of destruction that tore through the street, shredding the wall of Vilỳs into strips of flesh and smoke, sending them all crashing to the ground in troves as the bomb that I had become ripped through them.
In a way, it was beautiful, watching the once beautiful creatures fall from their prison, their broken bodies free from the poison that ran through them. The humans that surrounded us were now free from the death that they would have certainly found.
I knew what I had done.
The magic that had flown from me had been an explosion that had ripped the sky apart with the light that the Vilỳs had blocked out, showing millions of them our exact location.
Ilyan exhaled beside me with a chuckle, his hand running up my arm as I turned toward him. I expected to find his face hard with the frustration he normally held when I acted out of turn, but he only smiled, a pride I was sure I did not deserve shining from behind his eyes.
“I don’t care what anyone says,” he whispered; “you were made for me.” His lips turned up in a tiny smile as the light from the blast faded back into darkness.
The temporary silence was cut with the shrill shriek of the Vilỳs, a warning of what was coming reverberating off the stone we were surrounded by.
I should have been scared.
However, I couldn’t be, not anymore. Not with Ilyan’s magic flowing through me, not with his lips pressed softly against mine.
“To the clock,” he said as he pulled away, his hand moving around mine again as he pulled me down the now clear alley, lifting the small, whimpering child into his arms as we passed. The child was so scared, so injured that he did little more than cry as the tall stranger threw him over his shoulder.
We said nothing to the child as we ran past the lifeless body of his mother, past the flow of blood and into yet another street. This one was narrow enough to be an alley. If it wasn’t for the intricately carved doors that stood beneath drawn postcard windows, I would have still assumed it to be one.
The old street was lined with the bodies of the creatures I had killed. One or two that had somehow survived the wave of destruction sat clawing at doors as if they were a lost dog looking for a home.
I watched one of the mud brown creatures as we ran, its movements growing more frantic with each step. The thing was oblivious to our presence thanks to the shield and to the heard of creatures that followed us, covering the sound of our steps.
It wasn’t that it hadn’t noticed us that caught my attention, though. It was its movements. It was the empty street that had graced my sight only moments before. It was the way the blood ran through the cobbles and the windows that were shuttered with heavy panels of carved wood. I had been here only moments before.
I stopped in place without realizing it, Ilyan’s hand slipping from mine as I felt his panic accelerate alongside my heart rate. The heavy thump of my heart against my rib cage was almost painful. The pulse had been heavy since the sun had been cut with black, and this was no different, except it wasn’t in fear. It was in numb disbelief.
Joclyn,
Ilyan pleaded as he took my hand once more.
We have to move.
The clock is just here.
We can’t go to the clock, Ilyan.
I finally pulled my focus from the door to my mate, to his bright blue eyes that, although confused, I knew at once would follow me anywhere, no matter what I said.
He intertwined my fingers with his in silence, his grip strong as his magic flooded me, as the scream of the Vilỳs increased, as they began to search the alleys around the explosion for us.
Ilyan was right, we needed to move.
My magic fused with his as it swam away from me, soaring through the tiny maze of streets we were closeted in, the hidden fear ramming into me from somewhere off to our left.
I ran without looking, ran into yet another narrow street, past more grimy doors and ancient stoops that were splattered with blood and bodies. Focused on the way the emotions were surging, I listened to the heightened screams of our pursuers as I swung down another side street, this one even smaller than that last.
Finally, I faced the door so covered with scratches and blood I was surprised that there was any wood left to it.
“Here.”
Ilyan said nothing through his confusion. He only pushed the door open with a pulse of his magic then pulled us into the dark space as a warm, pungent wind moved past us, the door closing as a dozen tiny bodies hit against it.
The sound of the thuds, of the screams, and of the claws as they ground against the wood was deafening in the pitch-black space we had moved into. The noise flooded us, the frustrated screams growing in intensity before they began to dissipate. My tense body slowly loosened as I remembered to breathe, though I still wasn’t sure it was safe to.
It came out in a massive exhale while Ilyan’s free arm wrapped around me, pulling me against him, his mind still swimming with questions. Instead, he said nothing, choosing to pepper the top of my head in grateful kisses.
“It’s okay…” I gasped, my words heaving with the fear that I hadn’t registered until now. “We’re okay…”
“Who’s there?” The voice shook through the dark with an intensity I hadn’t been expecting.
I jumped, and Ilyan’s arm became nothing short of a vice as he held me against him, the limp body of the child pressing against me.
I stared into the dark as Ilyan’s muscles tightened, his mind moving as fast as mine had in trying to figure out what we had walked into. What we were trapped with.
What I had done.
“Answer me!” the voice came again, this time the decidedly female tones shaking with fear.
Ilyan relaxed a bit at the shake, even though his arm still stayed tight.
“We mean you no harm,” Ilyan began, his voice that gentle calm I remembered from the first day I had spoken to him, his accent thick as he rolled his consonants around. “We needed shelter…”
“Ilyan?” the voice interrupted, the shake entirely gone now as the one word expanded into a babble of whispers in the dark that surrounded us.
I tensed at the use of his name, while Ilyan relaxed, a swelling joy moving through him as his heart rate thundered in my ear.
“My lord?”
“Yes.”
It was one word, but with it, the darkness erupted in light and color, flares of magic tingling against my own as concealed magic broke free of binds that I didn’t even know you could place. I cringed against the light, pressing my face into Ilyan’s chest as he held me, his hand a wide span against my back.
The torrent of noise, of surprise, of awed whispers only grew as the light did. The rustle of amazement was so loud that I turned my head enough to see the battle worn people that littered the dilapidated space, their faces gaunt and haggard, their clothes singed and torn, but their eyes were bright with a hope so strong I was sure they hadn’t felt the emotion in ages.
They looked at us, at Ilyan, in awe before, as one, they bowed to the ground, their bodies bending the same way I had seen in the courtyard so long ago. The respect was so deep I could only stare in open-mouthed wonder, the carnage that we had left forgotten at the scene that was unfolding before us.
“Our lord, the king of our people,” they said in harmony, their voices loud as they swelled inside of me. Ilyan’s body was a tense calm underneath me. “We bow before you in allegiance, in devotion. We serve you now and for as long as the magic flows within the earth.”
“Accepted,” Ilyan growled, his voice deep in what I could only assume was a formal greeting.
Their heads lifted with the word, the respect only growing as their vision shifted from Ilyan’s tall frame to the tiny simpering child he held to my shivering body that Ilyan held against him then to the long ribbon that trailed down my back and the intricate braid that still graced my head.
“My lady,” they gasped as their heads snapped back down in reverence. “Our Queen.”
I had never hated the term “my lady” as much as I did in that moment. I hadn’t wanted to hide in quite some time. Hell, I didn’t really want to hide right now. However, with the way they were all looking at me, I was starting to reconsider my options.
The moment the lights had flared and the war shorn Skȓíteks had come into view, it had only taken the last of Ilyan’s people a moment to see me, to see the ribbon that Ilyan had bound into my hair. The looks of wonder had come less than a moment later along with the mumbles of awe, the few people rushing toward me on their knees and kissing my hands, pressing the long length of ribbon against their foreheads.
I didn’t think I had ever felt so uncomfortable.
I also wasn’t going to take this moment away from them, either. As much as it made me uncomfortable, I could tell by the look in their eyes, by the look in Ilyan’s eyes, that this meant more to them than even I could understand. So I smiled in awkward thanks, glad when the formalities ended, and I was given the opportunity to sit sandwiched between Ilyan and a wall.
I wasn’t going to hide, but I did have to admit the buffer was nice given the situation.
Everyone was speaking a language that I hadn’t mastered yet, moving around an unfamiliar space, while I stayed still where I sat beside Ilyan in the shambled room.
The ancient furniture looked even more derelict in the dim light, a fact that was probably enhanced by the screams that still echoed from the streets outside, the pleas for help ripping at my heart. I had tried to get up to answer their calls several times, but I knew it was foolish. Just because time had passed, it didn’t make it any more probable that I would defeat the little beasts.
At least the screams were getting farther apart now, although I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
Ilyan was tense as he spoke to the pretty girl who had apparently taken over Talon’s role after everything had happened. Second in command, desperately trying to keep the few remaining survivors safe. It was no wonder she was excited to see Ilyan.
I would be, too.
She was as tall as Ovailia and Ilyan, her body lanky and built, with a sheet of strawberry blonde hair that fell down her back much the way Ovailia’s did. It was a comparison that should have wound my insides into a knot, but from what I could tell from the Skȓíteks I had seen, they all looked fairly similar—tall, slender, oddly ethereal people.
Besides, this girl Risha had a kindness in her eyes I knew at once Ovailia could never obtain, no matter how hard she tried. Even through everything that had happened the past few weeks, she didn’t look nearly as careworn as the rest of them.
Risha stood over what they had been using as their strategy table, a hand drawn map carved into the old, wooden surface. Small, everyday objects were scattered around to display where camps, Vilỳs, or Edmund were.
At least, that was what I would assume. They were speaking Czech so fast I couldn’t make out individual words. I knew I could pull the words out of Ilyan’s head if I really wanted to, but at this point, it was becoming abundantly clear that I needed to learn the language. “Pass the leaves” was no longer going to cut it.