Chapter 46

46

R hi

I find Winnie where I left her, waiting for me by the entrance to the forest, an anxiety crisscrossing her face which lifts when she sees me. She runs forward and engulfs me in a hug.

“Oh Rhi. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Winnie. I’m fine. I promise you, I’m fine. I understand now.”

“But why–”

“Pip was a familiar – just like you said. He wasn’t just any ordinary pig.”

“You don’t say.” She manages a half smile, sniffing. “Then why let him go – why let those spirits go if they were here helping you?”

“To unleash the full potential of my powers. I think I will need all of it for what’s coming.”

“Still, it’s hard to let people go,” she says, a new sadness filling her eyes.

“Rosa?” I say, not sure I want to know.

Winnie shakes her head.

“What happened?”

“They took her – that’s what one of her neighbors told us anyway. We’ve heard nothing since.”

“I’m so sorry, Winnie,” I say, wrapping her in my embrace. “She was such an incredibly awesome woman.”

“She was,” she says.

We stand there, holding each other, both consumed in grief, both thankful for each other.

Winnie’s the first to pull away, steeling herself.

“They’re serving breakfast in the Great Hall. Do you fancy grabbing some together for old-time’s sake?”

She hooks her arm through mine.

I can feel my mates stirring through the bond. They may be wondering where I am but they can feel I’m near, feel I’m okay. I don’t think there’s any need to dash back to them. Not yet anyway.

“Sure,” I tell Winnie, “why not? A breakfast of stale bagels and soggy porridge. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Winnie pinches my arm. “You can’t seriously think they’re going to feed you that. Not when you’re the ‘chosen one’.”

“Chosen one?” I say.

“That’s what everyone is calling you now. You have to admit, it’s an improvement on Pig Girl.”

“Pig Girl was starting to grow on me actually.”

“Fine, I’ll keep using it then. I suspect someone might need to ensure your feet remain on the ground. Oh, and by the way, as soon as people notice the pig is missing, they’re going to start rumors. ”

“I think we’re going to have more important things to worry about,” I say, spotting the sun hovering right above the horizon and the dragons circling above us in the sky.

“Oh, that won’t matter. You should know by now that students at this school won’t let a silly little thing like an apocalyptic battle and their impending doom stand in the way of a bit of gossip.”

I laugh and let Winnie pull me along to breakfast.

We only make it half way to the Great Hall though when a loud alarm begins to blast, shaking the path beneath our feet. I gape at Winnie about to ask her if this is it, when my question is answered. Chaos breaks loose, people running everywhere.

“Winnie!” I say.

“Yeah, I know, Rhi. You need to find those five men. Go, go, go quickly.”

I start to sprint, then skid to a halt and sprint straight back towards my friend, wrapping her in another hug.

“Stay safe, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Me? Do anything stupid? You can’t be seriously lecturing me on the topic of stupid things, Rhianna ‘chosen one’ Blackwaters?!”

“Just promise me, Winnie. I’ve already lost one friend today.”

“I’ll be careful as long as you promise to be as well.”

That’s a very hard promise to make, but I cross my fingers behind her back and make the promise anyway, and then I really am sprinting away.

I meet three of my mates out on the path charging my way.

“Rhi, thank fuck,” Spencer says, reaching me first. He pulls me into a hug as Renzo and Tristan catch up to us .

“Where are Stone and Azlan?” I ask, my words muffled by a very muscular chest.

“Gone to see who has sounded the alarm and where the attack is coming from. We’re meeting them out in the meadows where I’m hoping,” his eyes lift to the sky, “those dragons are going to be waiting for us.”

“They will be,” I tell him.

“Where’s the little man?” Renzo asks when I step away from Spencer. “I thought he was with you.”

“I … I let him go.”

“You let him go?” Spencer stares at me in disbelief. “But you love that pig and he really loves you!”

“I know but it had to be done.”

Spencer and Tristan examine me with curiosity but Renzo nods his head with understanding.

“You had to let him go sooner or later, little rabbit. You did the right thing.” He scratches at the healing wound on his neck. “Although I would have liked the opportunity to say goodbye to the little dude.”

“He knows you cared about him,” I say.

Renzo’s eyes widen. “Did I?”

I squeeze his arm. “Yep, you did.”

We hurry down to the meadow and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see all the dragons crouching in the long grass as if they’ve been waiting for us.

Gwenhwyfar rumbles and I walk up to her and lay my hand on her snout. It makes the men with me shuffle on their feet uncomfortably. I don’t think even Renzo entirely trusts these dragons and my hand looks tiny against her vast size, like a mere pimple. If she wanted to swallow me whole right now, she could do it with one snap of her jaws.

Her eyes swivel over me and she’s looking for Pip.

“He’s gone,” I tell her too. Did she know who he was? What he was? She seemed to recognize him all those days ago back in the mountains. Had she known my mom? Did she understand?

The dragon rumbles and is that my imagination or does it sound mournful?

I pat her snout.

“No time to be sad,” I say and I wonder where I’m finding this strength. I hear rustling in the grass behind me, my bond tugging, and then Azlan and Stone are here too.

“What did you find out?” Tristan asks them both.

“It’s your father,” his cousin answers him. “And it’s as we suspected. He’s brought an entire army.”

“Just for me,” I say with a smile.

“I’m guessing the Lord Protector believes more of the rumors about the Fourth Prophecy than he’s letting on.”

“And we’re really just going to let them come?” I say, peering down the hill and out across the countryside. There’s movement on the horizon. A lot of movement. “We’re not going to take the fight to them?”

“That’ll be what he expects us to do,” Tristan says. “He’s always accused me of being rash and reckless. If we head down there to meet them, we lose all our advantage.”

“We stay and we wait,” Spencer says.

“But we have dragons!”

“Something he knows. Something he’ll have prepared for.”

I turn back to address Gwenhwyfar.

“We have a job to do. They’re coming.” She stares at me hard and I know she understands. “But you’re going to have to stay here and wait. We will come to you when we need you.”

Then I walk back with the others through the academy campus. Students and teachers alike are stationed in strategic positions. Tristan and Spencer give them encouraging nods or a few words of advice as we pass, and then we’re walking right around the academy mansion to wait at its front. The drive up to the academy is our weakest point and we have our strongest fighters here. Principal York, Coach Hank and several of the magicals who make up the resistance including Winnie and Trent.

With my five men beside me, I stride right to the front of the small crowd of people and stare straight down the hill. The movement on the horizon has morphed to a grayness that crawls over the countryside like rot. It moves at speed, slithering closer and closer and we can see the tanks and the trucks and the aura of magic around them.

I peer back towards the meadow where the dragons are waiting as ordered. I could climb on Gwenhwyfar’s back right now and fly over those troops and that machinery and blast them all away with Gwenhwyfar’s fire. But Tristan is insistent that that is what his dad wants us to do. To attack with a recklessness that will see us fall.

I chew my thumb. Winnie’s always teased me about my lack of patience. It definitely isn’t one of my virtues. But fate gave me these men for this reason. I have to trust in them and their plan.

Azlan removes my thumb from my mouth and grips my hand tightly in his.

“Are you nervous?” he asks.

“A little,” I admit.

“You shouldn’t be,” he says with all that self-assured confidence I love about him. “You have us. We have each other. I felt it last night, how strong the bond between us is. I don’t think even a dragon like Gwenhwyfar or a dark magical with an entire army could break that apart. It’s more than just magic,” he adds with a whisper, causing a shiver of electricity to spiral down my spine. I understand what he means.

Still, it’s hard to stand back and watch them come, knowing the danger they bring to all the people I care most about. Especially as a gray cloud seems to spread out in front of the army, racing towards us.

“What the hell is that?” Spencer asks.

“Spider’s rot,” Tristan answers. “One of his favorite tricks. Brace yourselves! It can penetrate through the shields,” he calls out to the others before it hits us a minute later.

It’s like a hurricane. The sky darkens above us and the wind whips around us, attempting to knock us off our feet, dust battering our faces. We form our circle, battling to force the wind away up into the sky, although that darkness remains, looming over our heads.

When we look across the landscape again, we find Christopher Kennedy’s troops already surrounding the base of the academy’s mound, hundreds and hundreds of magicals, some of them soldiers and guards – the like I’ve seen before – others dressed in those robes with the badge – more skilled magicals like the ones we faced on the beach. Mingled with them is weaponry and machinery. But, though I search, I don’t see the Lord Protector himself, although in the next moment I hear his voice, echoing across the campus.

“Students and teachers of Arrow Hart Academy,” he says, his voice amplified and intimidating, “among you dwell traitors to our great republic, dangerous fugitives who pose an evil threat to your safety, to this nation’s safety, to all our safeties. Hand them over at once and I will deal with them personally. There is no need to be afraid. You will be doing a great service to your country. Several more unsavory degenerates removed with your help.” He pauses. “Unless the fugitives themselves would be gracious enough to hand themselves over.”

I glance at the others. Azlan shakes his head stiffly and Renzo chuckles.

“As fucking if.”

But I can’t help glancing behind us at the others, at all the students out here waiting to face battle. Are they as sure? Is this the moment where they have a change of heart and swamp us?

I hold my breath, my heart thumping in my chest.

No one moves. No one even stirs.

Then York’s voice rings out. Just as loud, just as determined.

“We shall do no such thing. We will not be complicit in your reign of terror.”

“Reign of terror?” Kennedy scoffs. “The only terror you should fear is the chaos that girl will bring on all your heads. You think she is the light. You think she is some sort of savior. You do not know who she really is.”

I think he’s going to tell them, reveal who my dad is, who I am, the dark magic I have in my veins. He doesn’t. I guess he’s about as impatient as I am to get this over with, because in the next moment, hundreds of arrows of magic fire our way, glittering like fireworks in the sky.

Spencer is right. The academy is protected with old magic and the arrows shatter against the surface of those spells and wither to the ground. It doesn’t deter Christopher Kennedy. More magic hurtles up towards the academy crackling against the old spells.

“How long will they hold?”

“Long enough,” Tristan mutters. “Let them use up their magic breaking through. It will only weaken them. ”

I nod and look up, watching the sky as if I really am at a firework display.

The magic fired towards the academy becomes heavier, denser and more powerful and finally a crack appears in the old spells, a bolt of magic zooming through and hitting the ground behind us. The earth shakes and the grass singes.

“They’re through,” Azlan yells. “Be alert!”

I raise my hands. Above us great golden cracks appear in the sky, racing towards the ground, and then the old spells are crashing towards the ground in great chunks and we’re forced to raise our hands and cover our heads. There are whoops of delight from the troops below and the magic comes streaming towards us. Between us, we deflect and dodge it, sending our own magic down the hill and causing holes in their ranks and soldiers to scatter. But we are outnumbered, vastly outnumbered. Kennedy knew how many people we had here at the academy and he’s brought with him twice as many at least.

“This isn’t working,” I shout to the others.

“It is,” Tristan yells back. “This is what we want, Rhi. To weaken them.”

Although, as a bolt of magic hits the shoulder of the woman beside me and she staggers to the ground, I can’t feel as confident.

Magic crashes against the mansion and behind us into the campus. Great holes appear in the only recently repaired roof, glass windows smash and brickwork tumbles to the ground. Behind me I hear a man grunt as he’s hit and a woman scream.

This is too much. It isn’t worth it. Why are we fighting like this when I have the dragons? I could break free, run for it and be on Gwenhwyfar’s back in a matter of seconds.

“They’re coming,” Azlan calls. “Retreat. Pull back. ”

He’s right. They’re streaming up the hill, plowing right towards the mansion.

Is this still the plan? Is it working?

Stone pushes my shoulder, and then we’re running back into the heart of the campus, joining the students there.

“Once they reach the mansion,” Spencer calls out to all the gathered students, teachers and resistance members, “they’ll be caged and we attack.” People raise their arms, grit their teeth, bounce on their toes. “Rhi?” Spencer says.

And now it’s time for dragons. I run that way, down the old familiar paths, around the gymnasium and right into the path of Summer fucking Clutton-Brock.