Chapter 20

20

R hi

Almost on instinct, I reach for the cloaker around my neck. It isn’t there. The ghouls snatched it from me out there in the mist and it’s lost forever now under the water.

Another part of my past torn away from me.

With another kind of instinct, my five mates stand and form a tight circle around me, removing me from Kennedy’s path – wherever the hell he is. I can sense he’s nearby but I can’t see him at all.

Then he steps silently over the sand dunes ahead of us and I can see he’s flanked by others – not ordinary guards or soldiers this time but magicals dressed with that emblem of the fist. Fierce looking – the magical aura around them strong. Kennedy’s face remains cased in shadow but nonetheless, it’s clear he’s sneering at us.

“You know, I had a feeling – one doesn’t have to be a seer to perceive these things actually – that you would end up here eventually, Rhianna Blackwaters. I had a feeling you wouldn’t be able to resist seeking out this prophecy some among us seem to believe applies to you – the chancellor, Moreau’s friend the mutt. It truly is gob-smacking the things that will fall from people’s mouths with the right …”

“Torture,” Spencer snarls, his body straining as he struggles to keep the beast contained.

“Encouragement,” the Lord Protector corrects with a slight smile. “Of course, the chancellor always was a fool and as for the mutt,” he snorts, “those prophecies are not worth the paper they were written on, and this girl is nothing special. Never was. Never will be.”

“Then why don’t you leave her and us alone,” Stone growls. “She’s no threat, of no interest. We’ll take her over the ocean to Aropia and you’ll never have to hear from us again.”

“I don’t think so, Phoenix Stone. Hope is a very dangerous thing. I’m sure you are aware of that. And if people get the idea in their heads that this girl is someone special, someone who is going to save them from their miserable existences, who knows what that might lead to.” He smiles slyly at us. It makes me fucking nervous. “Can you imagine? No, I think it better that she remains here with me. Where I can keep a watchful eye on her. So hand her over and it will save me from having to kill you all.”

“Not going to happen, Uncle,” Azlan says. “She’s staying with us.”

“Your disobedience has grown rather wearisome, nephew. How fortunate that your sister shows more promise than you do. Far more obedient. Far more compliant and malleable – especially receptive to corrective punishment.”

Azlan takes a step forward, jumping down from the boat, both his hands curling into fists, his magic all of a sudden dangerous.

“You touch one hair on Ellie’s head…”

“You’ll what?” his uncle laughs. “You’re outnumbered and if you think you’re going to simply disappear into thin air again like you did before, I will have to disappoint you.”

Without warning, he flings his magic forward. I’m ready for his trick this time and so are Stone and Renzo. All three of us deflect that magic that had encased our hands and locked away our magic last time. No way will it ensnare us a second time. It boomerangs back in Kennedy’s direction, but with a simple flick of his wrist, the magic falters, tumbling to the ground.

The Lord Protector huffs in annoyance.

“Let me make myself abundantly clear. You are either with me or against me. You will either hand the girl over and pledge your allegiance to me, or you will be treated as traitors and executed immediately.”

“Ha!” Renzo says. “The only person who’s popping his clogs LP, is you. Didn’t you read the prophecy? She’s,” he points at me, “your one-way ticket out of here. And I don’t think that ticket is taking you any place nice.”

The Lord Protector growls and flings his arms forward a second time, the many magicals at his side all doing the same so that a torrent of magic comes blasting our way.

“So be it!” I hear him yell over the thunder of magic. “You’ve chosen your path. Prepare to meet your end.”

I watch that assault of magic blasting towards us as if it’s moving in slow motion and for once all my optimism and perseverance whistles away like smoke on the breeze. This man is prepared to kill his own son simply because of an old verse written out on a piece of yellowing paper. He’s that twisted. I don’t see how we can escape this. We are doomed. The magic is too vast and too powerful. There are too many of them. And they aren’t like the gang members in the woods, or the soldiers who tried to kidnap me at the graveyard. They aren’t even like the ghouls out there in the mist.

These magicals are better trained and more skillful, the force of their magic scorchingly hot against my face, much of it dark; I can sense it – magic that was meant to be outcast along with those magicals in the West.

The prophecy was wrong. Or maybe it never applied to me in the first place.

I close my eyes, ready to accept my fate, ready to feel that magic melt the skin from my bones.

It doesn’t come. There’s a flash so bright I see it behind my closed lids and when I open my eyes I find my mates are not frozen in terror like I am but fighting back.

“Rhianna,” Stone calls, “we need you.”

I step closer to them and I set my magic free, let it flow through my body and out through my fingertips, let it hunt out the magic of my mates, seeking it out like it was always meant to be combined. Our magic spins and twists together in a cacophony of colors and it hits the incoming magic with such force all of us are blown backwards.

“Shit,” Renzo says, the colors of the magic reflected in his wide, excitable eyes.

“You aren’t going to take Rhianna,” Tristan calls out to his dad over the hiss and crackle of magic. “You aren’t going to take any of us.” His face is more determined than I’ve ever seen it before, his brow already caked in sweat, the fair hair on his forehead turning damp. I’ve always known Tristan Kennedy was powerful, now I see just how powerful he is as his magic soars against his dad’s. “So fucking stand down, resign your post. Concede! ”

“More!” the Lord Protector roars to his followers and their magic pushes against ours.

My own magic strains at the edges and I’m aware I have more in me, more to give, that dark magic of my own. I think of my aunt’s message, of Pip, and I think of Spencer, my only mate not to have sealed the bond.

Have I been a fool? Clinging on to Pip despite my aunt’s warning, failing to make all of us as powerful as we could be by claiming Spencer completely as my own. Will we fall now because of my stubbornness?

Beside me Tristan grunts and grits his teeth, straining with all his might, his magic streaming from his hands.

On my other side, Spencer’s form flickers and flutters, sometimes appearing more beast and sometimes more human.

But despite our efforts, despite the considerable force of our magic, it isn’t enough. Their magic gains on us, creeping ever closer and closer, pushing ours back into retreat.

“There are too many of them,” Stone grunts, anxious eyes flashing to Azlan.

“No!” Azlan shouts, finding more magic from somewhere, and for a moment it appears to work, our combined magic lunges forward against the assault, sending theirs backward. It only lasts a moment, though, and then we’re ceding ground again.

“Barone,” Azlan shouts, “grab Rhianna and get the hell out of here. Now!”

“Don’t you even think about it,” I spit, glaring at Renzo. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving anyone.”

“He’s going to kill us,” Azlan says.

“If one of us falls,” I say, “we all do.”

I don’t know about any prophecy. I’m not sure I even understand fate. But what I do know more than anything else is we were meant to be together. Living while they are not would kill me anyway.

“Fuck, little rabbit,” Renzo tuts, “can’t you ever do as you’re told?”

I shake my head defiantly. “And don’t you think about knocking me out because–”

“Here!” Renzo says, reaching into his pocket as he continues to blast chaotic, erratic magic with the others. He pulls out the knife, tossing it towards me. It spins and twists in the air and the handle lands firmly in my palm as if it were seeking me out.

“What am I meant to do with this?” I ask, even as the metal hums invitingly against my skin.

“Don’t know, just had a feeling it might help,” Barone says, as the opposing magic inches closer to us.

I stare down at the knife, run my thumb over the engraving and then on instinct I fling it towards the Lord Protector and his supporters.

The knife soars through the air into the chaos of magic and hangs there suspended, caught between the two forces. I hold my breath expecting something, anything.

Nothing happens. Nothing at all.

If that was meant to save us, it didn’t work.

I’m tired, my magic waning.

Do we keep fighting to the end? Or do we surrender and accept our fate?

Several thoughts flash through my mind at once; several memories too, all of it in a rush like a wave hitting me.

I come from a line of women who never gave up, who kept fighting, and that is what I will do.

I smile to myself. I gave it a good try. I lasted on the run far longer than Stone ever gave me credit for. I’ve done things some people could only dream of. Soaring on the back of a dragon for one.

It’s as that last thought somersaults through my mind and the knife glows in the flow of magic that I hear her. High above us in the sky, somewhere lost beyond the clouds. The whistle so faint I wonder if my desperate mind imagines it.

But then I hear it again, a second time.

I meet Renzo’s eyes and he glances upwards.

Yes, I think in my mind, yes, come, please come.

And she does, swooping down through the clouds, her vast size whipping away my breath. The knife radiates with light, reflecting off her golden scales and everything stops and stares. The magicals, the magic, the very air we are breathing. Everything stops to stare at her in wonder, and the knife tumbles to the ground.

She glides low over our heads, her wingspan so wide, we’re all plunged into darkness and she whistles again, calling to me.

“What?” Christopher Kennedy says. “What is this? Where is her rider?”

“Right here.” Renzo grins, thumbing towards me.

The Lord Protector lowers his gaze from the sky and stares at me with disbelief.

“Then you really are your father’s daughter,” he sneers at me.

The dragon lunges down towards his supporters and there are screams as men and women drop to the floor, covering their heads with their hands. The dragon does nothing though, simply skims over them, her long talons tucked into her body.

The Lord Protector calls out to his supporters. “This dragon is theirs. Attack her. ”

I gasp, willing her away, and she spirals up into the air as the scores of magicals fire their magic up into her belly. She howls as it hits her scales, the magic splintering and sparking as if hitting thick metal shields.

“Leave her alone!” I yell, flinging more magic of my own their way. Some of the magicals divert to attack us again and then the dragon is twisting in flight and whistling again.

But this time it isn’t me she’s whistling to. Other dragons appear – one, two, three – out on the horizon and heading this way. Each of these dragons with a rider on their back.

The large golden dragon sweeps towards the ground. A fierce rumble issues from her chest and it seems to glow even more golden in the dull cloudy light, then a stream of fire bursts from her nostrils, cooking ten magicals at once. I avert my eyes, the smell of burned flesh strong in my nostrils, the cries of the dying magicals loud in my ears. Wings crack above my head and when I open my eyes again, the dragon is looping back up into the clouds as the remaining magicals pelt her with magic. For a moment she’s lost behind the thick blanket and then she reappears behind Christopher Kennedy’s people, blasting them again, several of them scattering and diving to try and avoid the jet of fire.

Chrisopher Kennedy spins and launches magic so dark it seems to suck the light from the sky. It sears towards the dragon, hitting her square on the jaw. Immediately her fire extinguishes, clouds of smoke billowing from her nostrils instead. She thrashes her jaws in anger, grabbing two men in her front talons and taking off into the sky, dropping their squirming bodies when she’s almost to the clouds.

Christopher Kennedy, the self-imposed Lord Protector, spins towards us, his eyes wild with madness like the assassins. He laughs as the dragon circles above his head – the other dragons not far away now, almost at the Gray Isle .

“You think this is the end?” He laughs manically. “You poor deluded, stupid fools. So na?ve, so clueless. You don’t know who she really is. You don’t know who he is.”

He glances towards the coming dragons and then back to his remaining supporters.

“Away!” he yells. And suddenly we’re all consumed in a thick dark blanket of smoke, so thick I can hardly see, the vapors choking me so I’m coughing and spluttering for air.

“No!” Tristan cries out and then he lunges forward, crouching down to pick up my discarded knife. He flings it through the air, the metal singing as it flies through the thick smoke in the direction of his father.

I wait for the thud of metal against skin. I wait for the retaliation of magic.

Nothing.

The cold wind sweeps away the black smoke and the sand in front of us is empty.

Christopher Kennedy and his followers are gone.