Americana Fairy Tale (46 page)

But they had not been just stories.

And they were no longer children.

Taylor listened through the silence of the slumbering mundanes. Ringo and Honeysuckle remained at his side. At his left, the remains of the gazebo and the sour-smelling Twine Ball were scattered over the grounds.

The dark clouds grew still and parted into the clearness of a bright sunny day. Idi fell into view, tumbling from the opening sky. There was a flicker of blue across Taylor’s field of vision, heading in the direction of Idi’s falling corpse.

“Atticus…,” Taylor growled and followed the light, springing forth and sailing over the destruction in a bounding leap. Ringo and Honeysuckle trailed behind him, their magical contrails winking in zigzagging patterns. He pushed off another chunk of concrete and bounded over a football field’s worth of carnage.

Taylor’s heart flooded with the joy of knowing his purpose, his path, his way in the world, his mission to honor Princess Zellandine’s memory and care for the power of her draconic soul, alive in his body. To be the Sleeping Dragon.

But he had a bigger mission.

Bring Corentin
home
.

Idi crumpled into a heap along an empty Kansas wheat field. Corentin was inside him somewhere, and Taylor was going to carve him out.

Taylor bounded again, and the world whooshed by underneath him. He landed in a sprinting run in the field, the stalks of wheat batting at his armor plating. He halted when he found Atticus, stunned by what his brother had become.

Gone was Atticus’s dark cropped hair, replaced by long sheets of silver. His armor was broader, heavy, made for a general of an ancient army. The blue tint to the silver plates cracked, revealed as coatings of ice and frost.

Atticus pressed his gloved palms to Idi’s snout and hissed sobbing words at the corpse.

Taylor fell silent and trained his ears on the conversation.

“It’s going to be okay….” Atticus said. “You’ll fly again. You’ll take to the skies again.” He choked a cry. “No one can hold you. No one.” He hung his head and smacked his hand to the flesh of Idi’s snout. “You can’t leave me again. You can’t leave me alone with…
him
.”

Atticus turned, and Taylor stiffened at the sight of Atticus’s lilac eyes gone deranged with power. Atticus held out his hand, and a shaft of ice formed in his grip. The layers built into spines of ice crystals, and with a clench of his fingers, the frost shattered, leaving an iced great axe in his hand. Blue engravings of blessings pulsed with light on the silver axe head.

He held up his left hand to Taylor, beckoning him forward. “You know the dance now, don’t you?”

Taylor adjusted his grip around his lance and readied himself. “Oh yeah, let’s dance.”

T
HE
W
ALTZ
OF
S
NOW
W
HITE

AND
B
RIAR
R
OSE

Cawker City, Kansas

June 14

T
AYLOR
KEPT
calm, his attention at a pinpoint focus as Atticus darted forward.

Atticus came at him like a charging rhino. His armor clamored like a furious army of thousands. He swung his axe at Taylor’s ribs.

Taylor tilted back, dodging the blow. Taylor then planted his lance and pole-vaulted over Atticus. With Atticus to his front, Taylor swept the large spearhead of his lance under Atticus’s knees. He took care to use the flat of the blades and not cleave Atticus’s legs off.

Atticus turned with the contact but lost his balance and then crashed to his back.

Taylor backed away, permitting him the space to stand.

From the sidelines, Ringo and Honeysuckle flittered in anxious trails. “Taylor?” Ringo asked and raised a finger.

“I got this,” Taylor said in a firm tone. He stepped back from Atticus but found himself in a corner with Idi’s gigantic claws.

Atticus lunged forward, swinging his axe high. Taylor hopped, using Atticus’s own shoulders as a springboard, and then pushed off onto Idi’s elbow joint. The axe blade sliced into Idi’s claws. The severed claw tips slammed into the grass.

Atticus recovered from the swing as Taylor leaped off Idi’s elbow. He planted his feet on Atticus’s chest and sent him tumbling. Atticus rushed to his feet. “You know he’s not dead, right?” Atticus asked and then licked his lips. “He’ll come back. He always comes back.”

Taylor kept his cool as they circled each other.

“He comes back for
me
, Taylor,” Atticus said in a low growl and raised his axe again. “He loves
me
. And he will do what it takes to stop
you
.”

Atticus charged again, and Taylor raised his lance. He had the distance with the lance, but Atticus made up for it with the power of his blows. Taylor had been sizing him up and waiting. He wouldn’t show his full hand just yet.

Atticus swung at Taylor, and Taylor spun away out of the attack. He brought his lance back around to slice at Atticus’s armor. Atticus danced back. The tip of Taylor’s lance screeched across the metal of Atticus’s breastplate. Taylor followed the momentum, spinning the lance around his body and then lunging forward at Atticus. Atticus sidestepped, bringing the handle of his axe around to jab into a chink of armor at Taylor’s kidneys. Taylor gasped with the burst of icy pain and tumbled forward. The lance disbursed into pink flecks of light.

Taylor rolled to his back, gasping for breath. Atticus raised his axe, and Taylor came to the crystal clarity that Atticus had every intention of killing him. “I’m your
brother
,” Taylor screeched and summersaulted backward out of range. He held out his hand, and the lance reformed once again. “Where the fuck is your
conscience
?”

He charged at Atticus. “I am your brother,” he said and drove the lance forward with a thrust of the arm. He hit his target, the axe, and it flew from Atticus’s hand. “I love you,” Taylor growled and slipped around Atticus. He brought the butt of his lance back on Atticus’s knee, causing Atticus to collapse forward. “I would do anything for you. You know that.”

Atticus spit his hair from his face. He looked at Taylor like a rabid animal. “Like leave me? Like run off with a fucking huntsman?” Atticus spat at Taylor’s boot.

The draconic soul roared in Taylor. He spun his lance around and jabbed it toward the bridge of Atticus’s nose. The calmness in Taylor burned away, replaced by consuming heartache.

“His name is Henri Corentin Devereaux,” Taylor said. “He is strong. He is brave.”

Atticus smirked. “And he’s dead.”

Taylor barely held the lance steady. The point drew blood from between Atticus’s eyes. Taylor snarled, as the dragon’s wrath wanted more from him. “His
name
is Henri Corentin Devereaux,” Taylor growled. The fire in him raged. “He is honorable. He is noble
.
”

Atticus laughed. “And he’s dead!”

“Say his name!” Taylor howled. The lance in his hands trembled, and an upward slice on Atticus’s forehead took shape. “Say his name so you can know what the sound of honor is like, you miserable shit!”

Atticus smiled a blithe and contented expression. “
Idi
is his name.”

Taylor screamed and yanked the lance away. He threw it, and it dissolved into the ether. Taylor then launched himself at Atticus and tackled him to the ground. He brought his gauntleted fist across Atticus’s jaw, and blood splattered.

Atticus’s laugh was an infuriating one of delight. “Does it make you feel better, you maggot? To pathetically beat up on your brother?”

Taylor gripped Atticus’s shoulders and shook him. Atticus’s head thumped against the ground. “Look at all you’ve done! Look at all of this!” Taylor screamed at him. “Do you have any idea? You could have come to me. We could have worked it out. We would have—”

“Thought of something?” Atticus asked, cutting Taylor off.

Taylor slammed Atticus to the ground and then pushed to his feet. Taylor reached out his hand, and the lance winked back into existence. “Corentin told me this was about making decisions. Just make one and go to the next. Don’t think about it. Just keep making choices until there are no more choices.”

Atticus hopped to his feet and summoned the ice to his hand. The ice crystals shattered, and the axe was born anew. “And what’s your choice right now?”

Taylor smirked. “The unthinkable.” Taylor sprang into action, leaping high over Atticus. He landed behind him and swept his lance at Atticus’s head, this time taking no care to use the flat of the blade.

At the time, Taylor had thought he wouldn’t know what to do when this moment came. He thought it could all be smoothed over. He thought the love he had for his brother and the love his brother had for him would break any witch’s curse.

But those are just fairy tales.

Corentin was gone, but Idi would return. This much was true. Atticus would be vindicated. Atticus would continue to terrorize the mundanes at Idi’s side. The Witchking would rise with his lover the Witch Butcher.

Atticus ducked forward, out of the near decapitation. Only a sheaf of his hair was cleaved away. Atticus spun, swinging his axe for Taylor’s ribs.

Taylor dodged too slowly, and the blade connected, cracking Taylor’s armor. One of the shards gouged into his ribs. Taylor shuddered a sigh from the blow.

Atticus came at him again, using the axe in an upward swing for his face. Taylor dived to the right, into the wheat. Atticus loomed over him, ready for the killing blow, and Taylor couldn’t move. The pain was too great. The ice of Atticus’s blow to his chest was solidifying in his lungs. Taylor gulped for air like a dying carp on a chopping block.

He had a split-second decision to make. The glimmer of the axe blade caught the light.

Taylor had to save himself.

By any means necessary.

Atticus brought the axe down at the same time as Taylor threw his hand up. Briar vines bloomed from Taylor’s palm and streamed outward. The vines ensnared the axe, curling around it and then over Atticus.

Atticus struggled against the briars as they closed around him. He screamed, howling curses of his brother’s name, and then vanished into the prison of the briar bundle.

Taylor dropped his hand and struggled for breath. “Ri-rin-go-gooo….” Taylor croaked breathlessly. He felt along the injury to his side; it felt solid and frozen. His heart hammered. “Rin-rin-gooo!”

Ringo appeared in a blink with Honeysuckle a blink later. Honeysuckle clapped her hands to her mouth. Ringo took control and fluttered to the wound. “You need to relax,” Ringo said and pressed his palms to the frozen flesh. He drew back from the biting sting. Ringo shook his head at Honeysuckle.

Honeysuckle pulled her hands away from her mouth and put on a beaming smile as she hovered over Taylor. “Now, sugar pop, you need to watch me, okay?” Honeysuckle swished over Taylor’s head and sang a childish melody. She nodded at Taylor. “You’re watching right, sweetie?”

Ringo drove his hand into Taylor’s wound up to his shoulder.

Taylor’s vision blanked out with the inability to scream. He flailed at Honeysuckle.

She waved her hands. “No, no, sweetie,” Honeysuckle said. “You need to watch me. Okay? Watch me?” She continued to twirl and sway over Taylor.

“It’s in there deep,” Ringo said. He pushed farther into the wound with his arm.

Taylor’s heart felt as though it would burst. Ringo poked something in just the right spot, and Taylor’s body jerked with a convulsion. He gasped for air, none of it filling his lungs. The coldness was all over him. Filling him. Stiffening his limbs.

Something cold slipped out of his side, and the sudden surge of body heat tore into him from the bounce of temperature shock.

“Now, honeybee! Now!” Ringo snapped.

Honeysuckle wiped a gathered tear from her eye and then shoved it into Taylor’s gasping mouth, rubbing it across his tongue.

Taylor went still as the relief coursed through him. His heart thumped slower and slower and finally eased into calmness. His frozen lungs thawed and fluttered with soothing breath. The gash from Atticus’s axe sealed and rippled with the tickling brush of a feather.

Taylor took in a first breath as if he had been sleeping for decades.

He sat up with a broad smile, and Ringo and Honeysuckle latched onto his shoulders for hugs.

“You’re okay!” Ringo wailed.

Taylor laughed and petted Ringo’s hair. “Yeah. I’m okay.” Taylor looked up at the wad of briars looming over both of them. He frowned and clenched a fist.

Honeysuckle looked at Taylor. “Sweetie? Did you? Is he?”

Taylor pulled his knees to his chest. “Corentin talked about making decisions. I made a decision,” he said softly.

Ringo shook his head. “You didn’t….”

Taylor watched the briar ball. “No. I imprisoned him. He may be the Witch Butcher, but I don’t have the right to play judge, jury, and executioner. There will be justice. For Corentin.”

The pixies nodded solemnly. Taylor stood and turned to Idi’s gigantic corpse. He summoned his lance again and frowned.

“Let’s bring Corentin home.”

With a twirl of the lance, he slashed along Idi’s throat. Taylor propped up the loose, slimy flesh with his lance and peeked into the mucus-filled cavern. He waved Ringo over. “Give me a light, will ya?” Taylor asked.

Ringo fluttered to Taylor’s side and flicked, his wings blooming into a bright golden ball.

“Heeey…,” a voice carried from deep inside.

Taylor and Ringo blinked widely at each other. Without a second thought, they dived into Idi’s open throat. Taylor slipped and slid down the esophageal membrane, and Ringo lit the way. “Corentin!” Taylor called out.

“Heeeeey…,” the voice said again.

Ringo bounced. “It’s definitely male.”

Taylor inched his way along. “Corentin?” he called into the belly of the beast. “This better not be a trick.”

Ringo glowed brighter, and Taylor gasped as his light fell on a human shape.