Chapter 47

So many thingswent through my mind as I watched the brothers stand in a circle. Tristian was looking just fine, his jaw unbroken, and he couldn’t look away from Grey for a single second. He wanted to murder him so badly, I could see it from half a mile away where I stood in the dark, wrapped up in a jacket that was way too big for me. It belonged to Grey. I’d gotten it from his closet because I hadn’t wanted to waste time going back to the fifth tower to get my own.

He’d loved the sight of it. Not his brothers, though, which made it all that much worth it. And it was warm, so I wasn’t complaining about that. The cold didn’t bother me.

The brides—all of them standing ten feet away to my side in a clearing in the woods, throwing me dirty looks every second—didn’t bother me, either. They could kiss my ass for all I cared. I hadn’t done anything to them, yet they treated me as if I’d killed their puppy or something.

They were doing me a fucking favor.

What terrified me, though, was the fact that Valentine and Grey were saying their oaths to Romin in the middle of the wide clearing, and they were going to go through with this challenge no matter what. They were going to have their dragons fight one another any second now, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

God, I was so frustrated.

Didn’t they know that there were much bigger things to deal with? What the hell was Valentine planning that he’d wanted to kill me to achieve it? How dare he pretend he was my friend, that he wanted me, claiming me as his, listening to me playing the piano for him—how dare he make such a fool out of me?!

And how many more times was I going to go through this before I learned how to read these people?

What was Valentine trying to do? Why had he wanted me gone? Why did he go to such great lengths to kill me—why?

“This is wrong…” I whispered to myself. I had to talk to him. I had to confront him about it.

“Of course, it’s wrong. The more Evernights in the world, the stronger the spell that keeps us all alive.”

I jumped so fast my neck almost broke.

Lucinda had been standing right to my side and I hadn’t noticed her even approaching, so consumed by the thoughts in my head. She wore a thick jacket made out of black wool, arms crossed in front of her chest, watching the brothers.

“One less weakens the spell. It’s a shame, really.” And she shook her head.

I looked at the other brides, still standing far away from us, watching us through the corner of their eyes.

“The spell?” I asked as I focused on calming down my heartbeat, my eyes finding Grey again instantly. The brothers were still talking.

“Haven’t you heard the story yet? The spell that keeps Syra under,” Lucinda said, and shivers ran down my back.

No, I hadn’t just heard the story. I’d seen it myself in the Storyteller in Faeries’ Aerie.

“They’re not going to die. Neither of them is going to die—their dragons will be fighting this challenge,” I said, more to myself than to her.

“They will, at first,” Lucinda said with a sigh. “But if the animals withdraw, then the Evernights fight one on one.”

The blood in my veins turned to stone. Was that what had happened with Grey’s father? Had their dragons withdrawn, so that the vampires had fought each other?

Shit, shit, shit.“But they won’t,” I said breathlessly. “Their dragons won’t withdraw.”

“They usually don’t, true,” Lucinda said. “But it has happened before—to Master Grey, you know that. And if the two of them fight each other? It will be to death.”

My hands were shaking so badly I pulled them behind my back. They won’t, I told myself in my head. They won’t withdraw. The dragons will fight.

Unless Valentine decided Shadow was too small to challenge Storm…

“The others hate your guts. I’m tempted to hate your guts, too, but eh.” Lucinda waved a hand. “We’re all the same here. It wasn’t your fault, anyway.”

“Exactly. I didn’t do any of it. The Blood Call, it didn’t?—”

“Yes, yes, we know. We’ve all gone through it. We’ve all been bitten, and we’ve all come out the other side,” Lucinda said with that tone of voice that was monotonous on purpose. She liked to guard her emotions whenever she could. You could never be too sure about what she was feeling. “Still, jealousy is a powerful feeling.”

“It’s a very unfair feeling,” I reminded her.

Lucinda raised a thin brow at me. “All our masters want you. Your blood is compatible with all of them. You’re a threat, Fall. You have more chances of carrying an heir than any of us, and to us that’s unfair.”

I shook my head with a smile. “Well, then that sounds like a you problem.”

Lucinda snorted. “It’ll become a you problem, too, once this ends. If one of them dies or gets banished, you’ll be suffering the consequences—not just from the brides, but from Master Romin and the others as well.”

My heart fell all the way to my heels. Please, Grey…I prayed in my mind, and he turned his head to look at me for just a second as if he heard me. He even gave me a small smile, but I wasn’t reassured.

Please stop this…

But he couldn’t. Only Valentine could withdraw the challenge. Or Romin could put an end to it before it began.

“What the hell did you do to the guy?” Lucinda whispered from my side.

“What?”

“Master Grey. What did you do to him? I’ve been here three years and that’s the first time I’ve seen him smiling,” said Lucinda. “Look at them. Just look at them.” And she nodded her head to the side, to the brides.

I recognized Amita on her knees on the ground, her hands on her face, shaking. Crying.

“Why is she…” My voice trailed off when I remembered she was one of Grey’s brides.

“I bet she’s never seen him smiling before, either,” said Lucinda with a grin, her hand to the side of her face to hide it from the other brides. “You know what? I’ve decided now I like you more. I live for drama.”

Not a single thing came to my mind to say to that.

“This is so wrong,” I repeated because it was. So fucking wrong it was making me sick.

“So, what are you gonna do about it?” Lucinda asked.

Her question surprised me.

What am I gonna do? What could I do?

I’d begged Valentine. I’d begged Grey. Neither of them had listened. I couldn’t physically stop them, but…

What if I could direct their attention elsewhere? What if I could talk to Romin, right now, about Valentine and Emerald and those men, and show them why they had much more important things to deal with than this stupid challenge?

“Fall?” Lucinda said, but I couldn’t even look at her again.

I couldn’t stand by and do nothing without trying one more time, either.

“Please excuse me.” And before I could give myself the chance to change my mind, I strode over to the Evernights as fast as my legs could carry me.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Lucinda whisper-yelled at me, but she didn’t follow.

Instead, the brothers realized I was on my way to them a second later, and suddenly they all turned to me, including Grey.

The words exploded out of me and I didn’t hold back.

“This is insane!” I started, stopping just a couple feet away, pretending I wasn’t afraid of five big vampires who could kill me without effort. My body was still shaking, and they could still hear the way my heart was beating, but I said what I had to say anyway.

“You’re brothers. I don’t care what the rules or the laws are—you all share the same blood. Stop this madness before it goes too far! Nobody here wants the consequences of this challenge.”

The brothers looked at me like I was the mad one here. I could have sworn that Grey was trying to stifle a smile, the asshole, but I wasn’t backing down.

Then Romin said, “We have laws for a reason.”

“Then change your laws for better reasons,” I said. “You can do that. You are the ruler here, are you not?”

His eyes widened like such an absurd thing had never even crossed his mind.

And I knew deep in my heart that he wasn’t going to listen to me. So, I turned to Valentine next.

“Valentine, please withdraw that challenge. You can’t honestly go through with this when there are so much more important things to deal with. Have you told them about Emerald and those men? Have you told them?”

Valentine was always pale, but right now he seemed even paler than usual. “Please back away, Fall. Dawn is minutes away,” he had the audacity to tell me.

“No! I won’t?—”

“What about Emerald and those men?” Grey said. “Who’s Emerald?”

“Nobody,” Valentine spit, but Romin was interested, too.

“What’s she talking about, brother?”

“No—”

“I’m talking about Faeries’ Aerie. I was there two days ago, and I heard a red faerie named Emerald talking to two men about it having started. I was?—”

“Fall, slow down,” Grey said, and he was right by my side now.

“I can’t slow down—you’re really going to go through with this stupid challenge!” And they still didn’t see how perfectly absurd it was.

“So, let me get this straight—you think you were in Faeries’ Aerie,” Tristian said, and he at least no longer looked at Grey like he wanted to murder him, but instead looked at me like I really was delusional.

“I don’t think—I was in Faeries’ Aerie,” I spit.

“Except the Aerie is not in the Whispering Woods,” Emil said. “And you can’t get out of the Whispering Woods.”

“She’s just afraid. She’s making up stories to distract—” Valentine started.

My God, he actually said those words.

I burst out laughing. “How dare you?! You were there! You took me there yourself!”

He blinked at me, a look of perfect innocence I’d fallen for so many times. “And how did I do that?”

“The mirror room! You took me through the mirror in the mirror room!”

The brothers all looked at one another, except Grey. He took my hand in his and squeezed my fingers.

“Baby, I need you to go back to the other brides, okay? We can?—”

“You can’t go anywhere through the mirrors in the mirror room, Fall,” Romin cut me off.

“Of course, I can. I did. I’ve seen Shadow do it countless times before,” I said with my chin raised. If they thought they could make me look like a fool about something I knew with certainty, they were in for the surprise of their lives.

“Shadow is a dragon. No person can use the mirrors as portals,” Romin said, and his words were so…final. He said them like they were absolute truths.

I looked at Grey—Romin was lying, wasn’t he?

Except Grey was looking at me still, and sorry was written clearly in his beautiful eyes.

My stomach fell. “But…but I went through the mirror.” I’d gone through the fucking mirror—and I’d come back the same way.

“You can’t go through the mirrors. It’s impossible,” Romin repeated.

And Valentine didn’t utter a single word.

No.

They would not mess with my mind like this. I refused to believe them when I’d been there myself. I’d seen all of it myself—they were wrong.

“Tell them,” I said to Valentine. “You took me there—tell them! You tried to kill me with the stupid ring, too—just tell them!”

“Fall, stop,” Grey whispered, bringing his hand to my face, but I couldn’t.

“I have nothing to tell. It’s impossible to go through the mirrors, Fall. My brothers know it. I know it.”

The fucking prick. “You tried to kill me! You…you knew…”

“Fall, baby, look at me,” Grey said, and he brought both his hands to my face and forced me to look at him.

“I’m telling the truth,” I whispered, but the way the other brothers were looking at me, I was doubting my own ears and eyes and sanity right now. I was doubting myself because they would know, wouldn’t they? Romin would fucking know if it was possible to go through the damn mirrors.

Had I…imagined the whole thing?

Had I really, truly lost my mind?

“Take her back. Dawn is here,” Romin said, and Grey had already wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and he was pulling me back toward the trees.

“Grey, please. I’m telling the truth—I know what I saw!”

Grey said nothing until he’d brought me back to that same place I was watching from minutes ago. I kept telling him that I was speaking the truth because for this, at least, a trusted myself fully, and he finally stopped in front of me, pulling up his wings to the sides to shield us from everyone else. He grabbed my face and came close enough so that all I saw was him, and he said, “I believe you, baby.”

My heart skipped a beat. “I was there. I went through the mirror. Valentine took me there, Grey. I spent hours in Faeries’ Aerie, in the Bazaar. I was there.”

“I know, Fall. Look at me—we’ll talk about this when the challenge is over, okay? Right now, I have to go,” he whispered.

“Grey!” Romin called, but I grabbed his wrists to keep him there a second longer.

“You believe me, right? I’m not crazy, Grey. I’m not?—”

“Of course, I believe you,” he said and gave me a kiss on the lips that sent a jolt of electricity throughout me, pulling me wide awake from this trance I was slipping into. “If you say you went through the mirror, then you did. And we’ll figure out what Valentine was planning in no time, I promise you. We’ll figure it out, but I have to complete the challenge first. We’ll talk about it as soon as it’s over, okay?”

Fuck. “Okay,” I whispered because it was. He believed me, and we’d figure out the rest. As long as he believed me, I didn’t have to panic.

“Okay?” Grey smiled but it was forced.

“Yes, okay. I’ll be?—”

Something big and heavy fell on the ground right behind him, shaking me to my core. Grey kissed my lips one more time before letting go, and over his head, I saw big white eyes and a vicious, monstrous face.

It was Storm. He’d landed right behind Grey, and he was looking at me.

I forgot to breathe.

“Don’t be afraid of Storm,” Grey said. “Stay here. I’ll be back before you know it.”

And he finally turned to his dragon.

My God, he was massive. At least fifty feet tall and wide, black and grey scales all over him, spikes as big as my entire body on his back, his tail long and full of barbs, and his claws curved at the tips—not to mention his teeth.

This dragon had actually carried me into the Whispering Woods. I’d flown with him before, and he’d simply thrown me on trees.

“What do you say, big guy? Ready for a snack?” Grey said, and Storm growled deep in his throat, sending shivers down the length of me.

Get it together! I told myself in my head. This was Grey’s dragon. He would never hurt me. He was going to fight for him instead. He was going to fight Shadow, and everyone might think that it was an easy victory, but I knew better. I’d seen how Shadow so easily killed a giant snake within two seconds.

“M-M-Mind your neck,” I told Storm because I’d lost my fucking mind and I was taking to a dragon the size of a small house. “And your heart. He’s small. He’s fast. He can go right through you.”

Storm growled.

A damn miracle my legs hadn’t given up on me yet.

Grey grinned. “Storm says thank you, baby.”

And together, they turned their back to me and walked way.

We couldn’t seethe sky at all from the Whispering Woods, but everyone knew that the sun had already peaked over the horizon behind those dark, angry clouds. Storm and Shadow were on the ground in the clearing, opposite one another, and Grey and Valentine stayed behind them. Romin was in the middle, shirt gone, his wings on full display—bigger and darker than Grey’s, but the same leather and the same claws at the edges.

“Grey Evernight, you have been challenged to a duel by Valentine Evernight, and you’ve accepted the honor.”

Romin’s voice echoed in my head, raising goose bumps all over me.

“You know the rules. Your dragons will duel, and the challenge will be completed if one of your dragons withdraws, if one of you wins, kills the other, or if one of you declares their surrender. The victor will be celebrated and will choose the destiny of the defeated and his dragon.”

My heart fell and fell and fell…

“May the strongest Evernight triumph. Begin.”

Beating his wings once, Romin jumped and disappeared into the dark sky instantly, so fast my eyes couldn’t even process it. I only had one second to look at Shadow, sitting on the ground on his back legs, looking as harmless as a little puppy, and Valentine was behind him, perfectly calm. Looking at me.

What the hell do you think you’re doing?! I said to him in my mind. Whatever games he was trying to play, Grey was not going to let him go through with any of it. Whatever he’d wanted to do to me, Grey believed me. I was not on my own. He should have known better than to lie through his teeth like that.

Unless…he was afraid of his brothers and knew they’d kill him if he told the truth?

At that point it didn’t even matter. He’d made me doubt my own self for a minute there—they all had. And I’d never forget it.

Then, the dragons moved.

They jumped off the ground so suddenly, flying into the sky. A scream escaped my lips, but I wasn’t the only one. The other brides hanging out together a dozen feet to my side screamed, too, and the Evernight brothers on their side of the clearing watched. We all did.

It was possibly the longest half hour of my whole life.

The trees whispered. The wind howled. Storm roared like a beast, barely noticeable so high up in the sky, Shadow completely invisible.

And then they began to attack one another.

Storm spit fire, leaving a trail of it all around himself as he chased a lightning-fast Shadow, spinning around him about twenty feet off the ground. Grey and Valentine had their arms to their sides, their eyes on their dragons, and they didn’t move a single inch.

I held onto my chest, afraid my heart would beat out of me any second. I didn’t dare even blink because I didn’t want to miss something vital. The way the dragons were moving was absolutely insane. It was like they were dancing around each other, one attacking, the other retreating, then coming back again from the other side, moving up and down almost too fast to make out in the dark—especially Shadow.

While Storm attacked Shadow with his large hands, throwing him miles away into the air before he came back again, Shadow’s only play was to wrap his wings around himself and spin around like an arrow or a bullet, just like he had done that morning with the snake. I couldn’t even understand why, but I was more terrified of him when he did that than I was of Storm when he roared and basically squashed Shadow between his large hands. So much more terrified—maybe because Storm was big, and you knew exactly what to expect of him. You saw all of him clearly, to the very last sharp tooth on his jaws, but with Shadow, anything was possible. He was small, almost invisible, cunning.

And minutes later, my biggest fear came true.

Storm caught him by the tail and spun him around and threw him to the side, into the trees, but Shadow came back soon, spinning fast, and this time Storm couldn’t stop him. This time Storm couldn’t swat him away like he usually did.

Shadow spun his slim body to the sides to avoid his claws, then struck Storm right in the face.

The roar that came out of him shook the ground. Storm fell down so hard most of us were on our knees. He rolled only a couple of times, but because of his size he was already slamming against the tree line right where Emil had been watching until a second ago. Now, he’d gone to the other side with Romin and Tristian, grinning ear to ear, all of them enjoying the show.

Blood everywhere, and Storm seemed to be clawing at his face, wailing in pain, while Grey, holding onto his own face, raised a hand toward him.

Storm stopped instantly. He pushed himself up on his back legs and took his claws down to reveal the left side of his face—and his eye. His missing eye.

Across the clearing, Shadow was snickering, licking his small jaws, possibly having swallowed Storm’s eye already.

Valentine smiled proudly, his eyes challenging Grey.

No idea how my legs were still holding me.

Storm beat his wings again and rose in the air with a furious roar. He chased after Shadow, spilling out so much fire it was like the sky was burning with the rising sun for a moment. I kept my eyes on them, though for a long time I could hardly see anything, just a blur of movement. Shadow escaping through Storm’s claws, and Storm slamming his large body parts onto Shadow, knocking him to the sides until he gained his balance again.

On and on they went, and I didn’t dare hope that the dragons would get tired, and I didn’t dare hope that one would knock out the other.

Fuck, they were brothers. How did they not see the absurdity of this entire situation? How could they not see that killing one another—or killing one another’s dragon—was pure insanity?

Then a loud roar took me out of my trance. More dragons—another three of them—were in the air around us, watching the fight. Balthazar, Blackheart and Rider had come to witness the fucking show.

It made me sick to my stomach, but then Storm spit fire out of his mouth not even fifty feet over us, and I had no choice but to look. No choice but to see how he stood perfectly still right there in the air, hovering like gravity couldn’t touch him at all, even though his wings weren’t beating.

And Shadow was coming.

Right after the fire burned out of Storm’s mouth, Shadow came fast as lightning, aiming for Storm’s face. For his other eye.

My heart stopped beating altogether. If Shadow succeeded, the fight would be as good as over.

But Storm must have been expecting it. That’s why he was standing so still, arms to the sides, waiting…

And at the perfect moment, he slammed them together, catching Shadow in between his hands.

I gasped, and so did everyone else watching.

Shadow fell to the ground, motionless, and Storm followed. Valentine was on one knee, but that’s all I could see before Storm landed in front of Shadow’s limp body with a gut-turning roar, wrapped his claws tightly around him and pulled him up to his open jaws lined with two sets of razor-sharp teeth.

Storm was going to eat Shadow.

Suddenly, it all felt like a dream. There was no way this was real. Shadow—the tiny dragon I’d named myself, who liked to hang out on Valentine’s shoulder, who’d hung out on my shoulder, too, once. He’d plucked the eye off Storm’s skull and now he was going to get eaten by him. Eaten right in front of my eyes.

Then Storm stopped, and a much smaller figure was right over his head, beating wings as black as the clouds.

It was Romin and he was looking at Grey, while his own dragon, Balthazar, flew not thirty feet away, just over the trees.

“Grey Evernight,” Romin said, his voice as strong, as dark as ever.

Grey had barely moved since the fight began, and he had his eyes up on his brother, too, jaws locked, hands fisted tightly to his sides, wings spread all the way.

“Valentine’s dragon has chosen to not withdraw, and Valentine has chosen to not surrender. You have the chance to end this, now, or you can spare your brother his dragon. You can choose to demand his banishment, or the banishment of them both so that they may perish together, or you can allow them to remain in the Whispering Woods.”

My eyes closed for a moment and I tried to get my shit together, to continue to pretend that I had myself under control.

“The decision is yours. Once you make it, to take it back is considered treason,” Romin continued. “So, choose—what will it be?”

Valentine was on his knees, looking up at Storm, about to eat Shadow. He seemed in pain, and so did Grey. I barely saw his profile, his hair all over the place, but he seemed to be shaking.

If only my legs would carry me all the way to him so I could hug him. Just to take some of it away.

“Grey,” Romin said again. “What will it be?”

Grey finally turned to look at me.

Our eyes locked. I didn’t dare speak or try to tell him anything with my expression because this really was his decision. He was challenged. He accepted. His dragon lost his eye in the fight, and now he could choose what to do next.

But still, I couldn’t help but beg, deep in my heart—please, please, please let him go.

After all, Shadow had saved my life once. After all, Valentine had been the closest friend I’d had in those long days in the castle.

For Grey’s sake, though, I smiled. I forced a big smile on my face just to let him know that it was okay. Whatever he chose to do, it was okay. We would get through it one way or the other.

“Let them stay.”

His words rang in my ears, his voice crystal clear. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been holding my breath until I released it, the same second Storm released Shadow.

He was awake now, flying, though slowly, and he went straight for Valentine. Storm backed away with a roar, like he was pissed. Like he’d wanted some dragon meat, and he was angry that Grey made him back off.

The other brothers stepped forward.

It was over.

Fuck, the challenge was actually over, and nobody had died. A goddamn miracle if I’d ever witnessed one.

The other dragons all flew in circles over our heads. The brides were crying—they were happy—but my eyes were stuck on Valentine still.

My God, he seemed furious. He seemed mad, his eyes bloodshot as he slowly stood up with Shadow on his shoulder, licking his wounded wings.

Words he said before came back to me like ghosts from the past. I will never be a coward, and my instincts fired up again right away.

That’s when I realized this wasn’t the end at all. This wasn’t over, not for Valentine.

Not for me.

Too late.

My body froze when I realized Shadow had taken flight again. My voice didn’t work, and my mind refused to accept the view in front of me, even though it was perfectly clear. The other brothers were by Grey, congratulating him, shaking his hand, and Valentine was looking at me from under his lashes as Shadow launched himself forward with his wings folded and his tail pin-straight, coming for me.

Coming to finish me off.

The scream got stuck in my throat. It all happened so fast that I barely had time to think of Grey’s face. That’s all that flashed in front of my eyes in the three seconds it took Shadow to reach me—Grey’s face. Grey smiling. Grey looking at me like I was his own personal wonder on Earth.

Now, I die.