Chapter 11

ChapterEleven

“Are you searching for me and determined to interrupt everything I do, Calliophe Sprite?”

I look down at the glittering black floor below my feet, wishing to wake up from this torment, from this nightmare… but I don’t wake. I feel cold wind blowing across my back. I smell death and rot thick in the air, laced with cold, tainted magic. I turn around to find Louie inches away from me, but we aren’t in the river or by the thrones this time… we are within the city I saw in the last dream. We’re standing on a balcony, and it’s made of glittering black stone. High black rails wrap around the balcony, twisted and yet still beautifully designed. There are two gaps in the floor, with the tops of a staircase leading down. Part of me hoped I had a brilliant imagination and none of this was real, hoped the version of my Louie, of the kind, sweet boy, was still real… but I don’t think I could make all of this up. I know I couldn’t. Louie is standing near the balcony, his back to me, the two swords I saw before glittering like starlight. They almost seem alive, and they remind me of Emerson’s sword. I’m drawn to them, just like Emerson’s, and my hands itch to reach for the blades. Louie looks over his shoulder at me, his empty black eyes resting on mine. “Come and see.”

I walk over, my white dress trailing around me. If I do choose these dreams, I definitely don’t choose this dress. By the goddess. My throat goes completely dry as I look over the balcony, down at the many miles of fields around this castle. I see the army.

The Rift army… and it’s more than just monsters made of shadow and death. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people in black armor stand still, watching nothing. I can see far into the distance from here, but I can’t see the end of the people. The soldiers wear shiny black armor with red painted claw marks on their shoulders, but there’s something wrong with them; they look mortal almost, but they’re not. They’re definitely not. Every single one of them stands so still, like they are… dead. They don’t move from their perfect formations. I lose track trying to count how many there are.

“My dead army,” Louie all but purrs. “Of course we have our monsters, and your Fae King making more for us, but do you think we have enough to burn your world to the ground yet?”

Fear makes my words come out hoarse. “How can the dead be an army?”

Louie leans forward. “An old vow of revenge, promised by an old god who no one speaks of anymore. We were the start. I and the other eleven rulers of the Rift. When I was a child, I remember telling you how I wished to be a king and make the world a better place.”

“You never told me as a child how you wished to burn the world down with a dead army,” I deadpan. “If you remember that, then you remember how much I love you, Louie. I’m your sister in everything but blood, and I will save you.”

He chuckles, the sound empty of life. “You can’t save me. I don’t wish to be saved.”

Louie’s laughter ends abruptly, and he grabs my neck, lifting me off the ground. I wrap my hands around his on my neck, trying to pull him off me as I gasp for air. “We are coming for you, Calliophe Estrella. We are coming and we will not stop until we take back the world that drowned our own.”

I croak. “Louie…”

For a second, just a second, his eyes flicker back from black to his normal silver and my eyes widen. He throws me to the ground, and I gasp as he walks away from me, pacing. When he looks at me again, his eyes are black once more, but I saw him. I saw the real Louie for a moment there… and he looked scared. “Estrella? That’s not my last name.”

Louie glares down at me. “It is your real last name. Names come with power. Haven’t the fae taught you anything?”

“Louie…” I whisper, rising to my feet. “You have to fight and get back. You can’t destroy our world.”

“I can,” Louie firmly states, moving to the balcony once more. “Each one of my soldiers has waited for me. They are mine. They are volunteers from this world, waiting for their rulers to take back the other world for their families. This army has been built for hundreds and hundreds of years, waiting for a ruler to come. Waiting for us. The twelve of us.”

“They waited for you?” I ask, looking at the army. “How could they have known?”

“We were promised by a god,” Louie claims. “He left his blood here in the waters of the river you stood in. One drink of it and you become a soldier for these armies. This was built over much time. So many sacrificed themselves, knowing that eventually a ruler would come so we can destroy the world of the light.”

“The people that live in our world, they’re innocent. They didn’t choose this. They didn’t know what the goddess had done. Are you going to leave them alive when you come?”

He creepily smiles. “No. They deserve to suffer. Only my people will live. Our people. You’re not from there. You’re not mortal; you are from the Rift. You’re a changeling, like all of them. A mortal mixed with old, ancient fae blood. The same as everyone in this world. We are the outcasts.”

It’s hard to see anything but evil in his eyes. It’s hard to feel anything but evil around him. Something is very, very wrong with Louie, but I saw him and he isn’t gone. I can save him. My eyes inch up to the crown on his blond head. I wonder if I pull it off, will he come back to who he was? I’m sure this is more than just the crown, but it’s a good place to start. “Don’t you want to ask me if your family is alive? You can ask me, for a price. I will tell you everything.”

I know he is baiting me. I know it… but I’ve wanted answers for so long. I finally have a name… one I think he didn’t mean to tell me. “At what price? And how would I know it’s real? This is just a dream.”

“You wish,” he laughs. “Dreams are real, Calliophe. As real as I am. We’re connected, me and you. Connected through the Rift. You are not the only one at the center of a curse anymore. This crown. Your blood. All of it is connected. Ask me why you should come here. Ask me what your real name is. Ask me if they are alive.”

“No,” I whisper.

He moves closer, like a snake stalking its prey. “Is it because you fear what you might find? You should fear the truth, because when I come for you, for your world, I’ll be coming for you first.” He wraps his hand around my throat, his movements so swift, so quick, and tightens his grip. “I can’t kill you here, but I will kill you, sister. I’ll kill you to save us all. I’m coming for you, so don’t bother coming here.”

He throws me straight off the balcony in one quick move, and I scream as I fall.

I wake up slowly, my heart beating fast, my head resting on Emerson’s chest. I listen to his heartbeat for a while, letting myself soak in the sound to calm myself down. To forget the look in Louie’s eyes as he told me point blank that he is coming for me. He is going to try to kill me the second I’m out of here, but he isn’t in this world for now. I can’t imagine anything is stopping him from coming here. I try to just think of the real Louie I saw for a second, hidden in the darkness of his own body. I have to get him back and make sure Emerson doesn’t kill him for going after me. Of course, I have to make sure I defend myself, too.

Goddess, how did we get here? Everything is going wrong, everything except Emerson and me. We at least have each other, and I know we can face everything that awaits us. The last test has to come soon. Posy and Nerelyth aren’t doing well, and Emerson can’t heal the worst of Nerelyth’s internal injuries. He can’t heal Posy at all, and if she keeps losing blood and if she doesn’t wake… I’m not sure she will last another night.

We’re back in the cavern, our safe place, but it doesn’t feel safe anymore. None of us spoke much on the way back here, and we just lay down in silence, in our small groups, hoping the night doesn’t bring death along with it after Emerson and I got back from our useless hunt. We convinced the others not to go out to look for food or anything to heal them after we explained how we were attacked and how the god spoke to me.

His voice still haunts me, even if I didn’t really hear him rightly. It was like an echo, and it was likely he wasn’t anywhere near me. I think about his story, how he loved a mortal who loved him back until he disappeared. She chose to have a life and a family, and was happy I bet. The god was jealous of her and killed her sons in revenge, even when they did nothing wrong. The parallels to my life aren’t lost on me, and that must have been why he told me his past. He is going to kill the people I love. I can feel death in the air, waiting for my friends, and I’m not sure how to fight it off.

I look over to my left to see Posy lying on Lorenzo’s chest. Lorenzo is awake. I’m not sure he slept much. I know I didn’t. He is looking up at the ceiling, stroking Posy’s wing softly. “Nightmare?” he asks.

“Yes,” I whisper, glancing at Emerson, who’s still sleeping. The healing and test drained him so much I don’t want to wake him. I roll over, Emerson’s arm still underneath my head as I face Lorenzo. His green eyes are bright in the dim light, but gone is the playfulness I usually see. Instead, his eyes reflect the fear in my own. “Louie was in my dream again. He’s an adult now and lost in whatever magic made him like that. It’s twisted him, but for a moment, I saw the real Louie. I saw him, within the darkness.”

“You might not be able to save him, little faeling,” Lorenzo softly tells me. “I know you want to save him, but it sounds… Well, some people don’t come back from the darkness.”

I close my eyes. “He is all I have left of my mortal life. Him and Posy… and look at her. Louie claims he knows who my family is, and he called me a last name I’ve never heard. I hope it’s a clue, but I’m more concerned that he said he’s going to come and kill me.”

I open my eyes and Lorenzo’s have narrowed. “He will have to go through the entire Wyern army to get to you.”

He strokes Posy’s face, her breathing too shallow. “I want to know why he wants me dead. I don’t know the answer, and I feel like I’m missing something. Like there’s something big I’m missing, and I can’t put my finger on it. He has an army, Lorz. He could get to me, and I need to find a way to stop him. He is coming for us all. Why can’t I figure out what I’m missing?”

Lorenzo is silent for a while. “We all feel like that, and it’s because there are gaps in our past. Life is always a mystery when you don’t have the answers of who you are, where you came from, and it’s natural to seek those answers. I did once, and I wish I didn’t know my past. My mother all but raped my father to conceive me. I will never understand why she did that, knowing she would die for it. I will never know that answer, and there is no way to make it right. I’m here and she is not, and my father is gone in everything but his body. Not everything in life has answers. Sometimes you just have to accept what you have and make a life out of it.”

I softly smile at him. “Sometimes I forget you’re old until you say wise shit like that.”

Lorenzo chuckles and I smile with him, for a moment letting myself forget the Conquest and my friends in so much trouble. I sit up, wrapping my arms around my legs and looking at the small fire, which needs kindling. I go add kindling to the fire, stoking it before looking at Nerelyth. Felix hasn’t left her side, and neither has Zurine, both of them on either side of her, keeping her warm. I watch her chest rising and falling for a long time until the water begins to get a little brighter, marking a new day. I go back to my spot between Lorenzo and Emerson, stroking Posy’s wing. “She’s got to wake up. Both of them have to,” I whisper.

“I won’t stop until she survives this,” Lorenzo all but growls, his voice protective and even possessive. “She may be a total bitch at times, but she saved me, and she is mine to kill for pissing me off, not some god’s.” He frowns at her. “Why did she do that? She hates me.”

I think about it. “I think it is because I asked her to, but a deeper part of me thinks that she’s a good person and that’s why. Posy doesn’t reveal that part of herself often, but she did in that test. We all knew she might die saving you, and she is too smart not to have known it too. She’s a good person and I agree, she can’t die here. Neither of them can.”

“We—”

All of them suddenly sit up, and I look at Emerson, touching his arm. He doesn’t look at me, but his head turns to the side. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I question, listening, but all I hear is our heartbeats, breaths and the water falling. I can hear what sounds like a storm in the far distance. “The storm? It’s likely outside this place.”

“No, not the storm. It’s a song…” Lorenzo drifts off mid-sentence, looking dazed. He still holds Posy close to his chest.

Nerelyth rises to her feet, her eyes closed. I rush to her, cupping her face. “You’re awake. Open your eyes.”

She doesn’t move, her eyes firmly shut. I look at Zurine and Felix, who see right through me. “Wake up! What is wrong with you all?”

At the same time, they begin to walk out of the room. “Emerson?”

I rush to him, pushing against his chest, but he’s too strong, and he pushes me aside. He just carries on walking next to Lorenzo, the others following. I follow them back into the main cavern, which sounds like a storm, and my heart jumps into my throat. The cavern is filled with tornadoes, ice and rocks whipping around in circles, and people are being lured into them. The ice and rocks rip them apart in front of my eyes, and blood briefly tints the water at the base of the tornadoes. They scream for only a second as the wind carries their pleas away.

I don’t have long to look as my friends keep walking straight towards the nearest tornado. They’re being lured somehow, and it’s only me who can’t hear it. “NO! Stop! Wake up!”

I scream at them, jumping in front of Emerson again, pushing against his chest with all my strength, but it does nothing. I can’t stop him from taking another step. I go to Zurine next, trying to stop her, but she slides around my arms, carrying on over the rocks.

My heart pounds with fear and anger as I panic. I reach for my power, intending to burn their feet to the ground if that’s what it takes, but instead, something cold cracks in my chest. I don’t reach for the fire; I find… I reach for something new that calls to me.

As I slam my hands onto the rock in the middle of my friends, sheer ice spreads out of my fingertips. Power that I’ve never touched, that I secretly always knew was there in the back of my mind, explodes out of me. I scream with the power, sending every inch of it to my friends, to my family, to the people I love the most in this world to stop them. My ice spreads across the floor before getting to their feet, freezing them to the ground and spreading up their legs. Sweat pours down the back of my neck with the power it takes, my heartbeat loud within my ears. I collapse to the ground, gasping and relieved as I’ve stopped them.

I hear the ice cracking, but I refuse to believe it. Refuse to even understand what I’m seeing as Emerson’s shadows slither around the ice at his feet, cracking it. “No, no, no!”

I run to Emerson, my body aching, and jump in front of him as he snaps through the ice. He carries on walking, and I scream, pulling the last of my power to slam a wall of ice in front of him, trying to make it wrap around him completely, but my power is draining, and the more I push, the more I feel myself going too far. He slams a fist through the wall of ice, smashing it to pieces before he walks right past me, to the tornado.

I can’t hear anything over the sound of the wind in my ears, whipping against my skin with every step. It becomes harder with each step I take after Emerson, small chips of ice cutting into my face and hands. I hold my arm over my eyes, screaming, “EMERSON!”

The winds fight against me, making every footstep harder to get close to him. Eventually, right before the worst of the tornado, I grab his arm. He just keeps walking, pulling me with him, right into the winds. I scream, never letting go of Emerson, as the winds pull us both high into the sky, rock and ice slamming into us both. I cry out in pain, holding my body to Emerson’s as I wrap my legs around him and kiss him.

His eyes widen, snapping out of it, and he grabs me tightly as his shadows suddenly make a sphere around us and his wings spread out, holding us in place. He slowly flies us down, using his shadows to protect us from being ripped apart by the winds, the ice and rock falling everywhere around us.

He cups my cheek as I stand on the rock in front of him. “What happened?” he asks.

I lean up, softly kissing him. “Be my mate.”

He pauses, kissing me once. “I love you, Calliophe. I’m yours.”

Tears fall down my cheeks. “Then we get out of here and save our family. When we go back, I want to be your mate and be at your side, no matter what life throws at us. I want forever with you, Emerson.”

He kisses me fiercely, like he is kissing me for the last time. Emerson’s hands tighten on my waist, his lips a breath away from my own. The world is falling apart around us, but I only see him. I’ve always only seen him. “You’re mine. My mate. My queen. Mine forever.”

I barely notice that he’s walked us backwards until he pushes me straight out of the tornado with all of his shadows protecting me, leaving him defenseless, and his pain-filled shout is the last thing I hear from him as I fall backwards on the rocks, outside the tornado.

“NO!” I scream, crawling to my feet. Desperately, I look around for help. For anything. I don’t know how to get back to him, not without killing myself.

He saved me.

He sacrificed himself.

“No,” I gasp, pain shooting through my heart. I see all of my friends slowly breaking through my ice, trying to walk straight into the tornado. I take a step, only to fall to my knees as pain lances through my stomach. I look down and see two massive icicles sticking through my stomach, my blood pouring down my legs.

I’m going to die.

Blood pools in my mouth as I fall backwards onto the rocks, unable to move from the pain. The sound of the tornadoes drifts away, and I swear the world seems to pause, to go so still that my breathing seems loud.

A beautiful male moves to stand over me and offers me his hand, his skin glittering like gold in this paused world. His eyes are pure waves of the sea, crashing against the edges, and his hair the darkest, deepest blue of the ocean, falling in long locks down his back. “Congratulations, my winner. Do you wish for me to save your life?”