Chapter 41

CHAPTER41

Lore stood on the broken, bloodied remains of the battlefield and stared at the tangled mess around her. Yet again. Another mess that she’d caused and more blood and pain than she’d ever thought possible.

This was wrong. She shouldn’t have done this and yet, how could she have done anything else?

They needed saving. She needed this kingdom to be on its own feet, so she could leave it and not be eaten alive by the guilt.

She lifted a hand and waved it in the air. The remaining metal soldiers she’d summoned fell to pieces where they stood. The dwarves would pick their mess up at some point. She’d send someone to help them bring all the parts back to their forges, where fire and embers would melt them into liquid.

What would become of them? Would they be turned into necklaces that eventually noble women would wear around their necks? Never aware for even a moment of what that meant? Of what that metal had once done?

Running a hand over the back of her neck, she wondered if her fear was really how people would remember her. Would they remember a goddess who saved them in the middle of a battlefield? Or would they forget she ever existed?

“This was well done.” Lindon’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and his sylph fluttered in front of her face before landing on the back of a dead elf. “You made the right choice.”

“I used the power you warned me about.”

“You used it to help others.”

“I used it and became the monster I feared I would become.” She’d felt that power running through her veins and whispering in her ear. It had wanted more than what she’d done. It had wanted to tear the entire castle down. “I’m afraid I will never be able to stop listening to it now.”

Lindon clapped his hand on her shoulder, then gave her a little shake. “You have to stop thinking of it as something that lives inside you, Lorelei of Silverfell. You are the magic and the magic is you. You are the one who wanted destruction. You are the one who wanted to tear this entire world apart and set it ablaze. Only then will you reach the peace that you seek.”

And he was right.

She knew he was right and that he’d been right this entire time. It wasn’t the magic that whispered with dark intent in her mind. It was her. She had been the one desiring and wanting and needing to feel blood on her hands and a sky darkened by clouds.

Broken, afraid, she looked to Lindon and tried not to let the tears fall. “What do I do with it now?”

“You choose.” He bent down and picked up his lovely bird, letting it settle on his shoulder before he turned his attention back to the forest. “You choose how you want to be remembered. Me? I will always be remembered as a tyrant and a villain. But you don’t have to walk that path, if you do not wish it.”

Taking a deep breath, Lore felt that desire shudder through her. She wanted to be remembered as a good woman who had helped this kingdom back on its feet and then let it stand on its own. That was what she truly wanted, no matter the temptation of a dark queen seated upon a cursed throne.

So she turned away from Lindon and started back into the castle.

The few humans and magical creatures who were still well enough to stand on their own seemed to stare off into the distance as she passed. Their gazes saw something she couldn’t, perhaps, or their minds only remembered the terror of battle.

Lore first stopped next to Beauty. The little human was still alive, somehow, and she made a gurgling sound around the blood that filled her mouth.

“Shh,” Lore soothed as she started placing Beauty’s guts back into her body. “I’m here now.”

A flutter of magic stirred in her chest and then poured down her hands. She smoothed them down Beauty’s stomach, gentle, oh so gentle, as pristine, soft flesh was revealed in the pass of her palms. Lore knew nothing about human bodies, but her magic did. It healed, it mended, it stitched, and Beauty was bruised and bloodied and battered when she was done, but the little human could stand.

Beauty’s eyes were wide with shock, and she pressed her hands against her belly through the tattered remains of her shirt. “How... How is this...”

Possible? Lore had no idea. She wasn’t about to look at the magic inside her and beg for an explanation, though. Instead, she hooked her hand behind Beauty’s neck and drew her in close.

Breathing in, together they stood in the middle of the battlefield as Lore let out a pulse of healing magic that spilled out of her and onto the soldiers who weren’t hurt quite as badly as who stood around them.

She could feel their wounds healing. The skin that knit together and blood that rushed back into their bodies. She could feel them all, even the ones who had died. The souls she hadn’t locked inside their bodies to save.

Lore released Beauty’s neck and strode toward a small gathering of humans around Zephyr’s body. He should be dead. His heart had stopped beating a long time ago, but his eyes still roved toward her. His chest didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. But she knew he saw her.

“Absolutely not,” the Baron hissed. He stood and jabbed a finger toward her. “You will back away, witch. You will not touch him.”

She pushed him aside, and every time he tried to grab her, he struck a shield of power around her.

Lore ignored the man’s shouts and threats. She tilted her head and met Zephyr’s gaze. Beauty’s father also crouched beside the young man, his hand over Zephyr’s heart that should have been beating.

“What did you do to him?” Beauty’s father asked.

She stroked a strand of hair off of Zephyr’s forehead. “I kept him.”

And then she slammed both her hands down on the center of his chest, magic and healing energy pouring into him, slicing through his body just as sure as the blade that had cut through him. Zephyr seized, his eyes widening as his heart suddenly thundered in his chest again. He breathed in, sucking in a hissing gasp of pain and then... Then he relaxed. He settled down against the ground, breathing hard and staring up at her as though she really was the goddess they called her.

Beauty staggered to their sides, falling onto her knees with a keening cry. Then Zephyr sat up, gathering her into his arms and pressing her against his suddenly beating heart as he stared at Lore over Beauty’s shoulder. Shock and maybe... horror were in those eyes.

What had she done? His gaze seemed to ask. What madness was this that she could deny death itself?

Lore nodded at him and then jerked her chin toward Beauty. He had more pressing issues right now than asking questions he didn’t want answers to.

The dwarves were suddenly there with her. They shouldered aside the humans who tried to stop them, cursing back at the mortals who dared yell at them, while they all grabbed at Lore’s arms. Making her stand and drawing her to their king, who somehow was still alive.

Unlike the humans, the dwarves didn’t hesitate. They pulled her to Algor’s side with whispered praises and pleas for her to save him. To bestow upon them the gift they had given the humans, for surely they were worthy of such praise after the battle they had fought.

And this was the difference, she realized. The humans saw her as a nightmare, a villain in their story that she would surely become. The dwarves saw her as a goddess, as someone who had come to save them all.

As she knelt beside Algor, passed her hand over his eye and pressed down into the empty socket, she realized she wanted to be neither of these people. She’d never wanted to be a goddess or a villain. They had needed her to be those things and now her story would forever be told by two kinds of people whose mouths would be impossible to control.

Staring down at Algor, though, she thought she’d prefer to be the goddess.

“Honored dwarf,” she said. “Your kind has given me more gifts than I have ever received in my life. You were my friends, my family, and now my soldiers in a war you did not need to fight in.”

His other eye opened under her palm, widening as he realized who hovered over him and that it was not death who was ready to greet him.

“I give you what gift I can,” she whispered, pulling him upright and keeping her hand over his eye. “You, dwarven king, are more than this world deserves. You and your people will continue to be that because the dwarves have always been special.” Tears pricked her vision, turning him blurry. “The last thing I can do is give you this back.”

And then she moved her hand. The dwarves around her gasped, and Algor stared at her with two eyes. One normal, brown eye, and another that looked like glass containing the very stars inside it.

“I cannot regrow what you have lost,” she whispered. “But I can let you see.”

“My goddess.” Algor’s hands shook as he reached up and held her hand in his. “You saved my life.”

“You saved mine.” She drew his hands to her lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “See to your people, greatest king that the dwarves have ever seen.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. She saw the determination blooming in his eyes as he stood and flexed his hands before thrusting them above his head. The dwarves shouted out their victory, and Algor directed them to return to the battlefield to seek any friends who still needed help. If there were elves who had fought with Margaret, bring them to the castle. Do not harm them.

Lore had never been more proud to stand beside a king than she did at this moment. She patted his shoulder and leaned down to say, “There are a few more people I need to save.”

“Go get your dragons.”

She’d kept them alive for too long. Far too long. They were suffering, and they needed her, and she was tired of choosing the kingdom over her family.

Lore could feel them. They’d all gathered together around Abraxas. Her children, wounded and battered, but alive well enough. They’d somehow survived the acid and the fires and the arrows. Though they would hold those scars for the rest of their lives. She had not spared them that.

Draven was with them. She launched herself over the wall and landed on the dirt behind the castle and saw her friend standing at attention in front of them. He was dropped low, in a position that said he was ready to fight anyone who dared come near those he cared about. The last remaining dragons were under the protection of the Ashen Deep.

And then she saw a ring of more elves. Ashen Deep, who had surrounded her family with grimdags bared and eyes watching for any movement that might approach.

They had protected her family.

Her people. Elves who saw her for what she was. They had protected her family.

Draven noticed her first and immediately snapped to attention. He put his grimdag away and strode toward her, his face lined with worry. “We’ve done all we can, but he’s...”

“I know.”

She didn’t tell him she was here when Abraxas had been injured. She didn’t even look at the hole where she’d thrown Margaret. The elf was dead. Lore had made sure of that. Her body meant nothing when Lore’s family was right here.

Nyx and Hyperion looked up, their massive heads swaying back and forth over Abraxas’s body.

The acid still steamed where it had slowed, but still burned through his flesh. The white bones of his ribs stood up out of his body, gleaming in the dim sunlight, and she could see that he wasn’t moving at all. Like the others. Like all the others she’d forced to stay here in unmeasurable pain.

Dropping to her hands and knees in front of him, she pressed her palms to his nose and kissed the scales that were slowly cooling.

She could feel him in there. The pain and the heartbreak and the worry. Even now, locked in the prison of his own body, he feared for his family, not himself.

“My love,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. But I cannot let you go.”

Magic flowed over him, pulsing in visible rays of light that rocked over his body and surged through his wounds. She healed him from the inside out, using all her magic and power and concentration to rebuild a massive body that was even stronger than before. Lore felt the limits of her abilities stretch and grow and the pain of it rocked through her because this was her fault. All of it. Every injury, wound, and moment of pain was her fault. She could have done more. She should have done more.

And then Abraxas took a deep breath.

His ribs expanded, now covered with a thin stretch of flesh and the fine glimmer of ruby scales that would grow bigger and stronger as he healed. A wing spread over her, protecting her from the gazes of all those who surrounded them and from anyone who might hurt her.

Even now, her dragon sought to protect her.

The bump of a cool blue nose pressed against her side, then a flicker of green tucked against Abraxas’s healed belly showed her that he hadn’t just protected her. He’d gathered up his family underneath those massive wings and held them close to his sides.

His eyes opened, those golden orbs staring straight into her soul. A low murmur echoed through him, and Lore patted her hand to his muzzle one more time.

“I’m not done yet,” she said quietly. “Keep your strength for now, my love.”

“I didn’t leave you,” he replied. “I didn’t want to.”

“Oh, you think I would let you leave us that easily?” The darkness flared inside her again, but then she banished it with a soft smile. Lore leaned her head against Nyx’s side. “I’m sorry, Abraxas, you’ll have to try a lot harder than that if you want to get away from us.”

His soft snort pushed her back in the dirt, her knees sliding away from him until Nyx shoved her back against his now warm scales. “I would never want to leave you.”

She smiled at him and looked at Hyperion and Nyx, who stared back at her. They were all covered and tucked in by the strength and power of a crimson wing, and she knew deep in her heart that this was all that mattered now.

She’d saved the kingdom again. She’d set up a court and a way for all the magical creatures and humans to talk. That was it. She was done. They could figure out the rest of this on their own if they actually wanted it to work. And if it didn’t, then they would deal with the consequences on their own. She was tired of being a goddess, and she’d never meant to be one, anyway.

Tears pooling in her eyes, she struggled not to blink, so they didn’t fall down her cheeks. “Do you want to go home?” she whispered. “Just say the word, my love. I will take us all out of here and we will leave this moment.”

Abraxas shifted his head in the dirt and drew them all closer with his massive wing. “Ah, but my home is right here. My home is in you, in our children, in our family. I’m already home, Lore. Always have been.”

And the shattered pieces of her heart knit back together as her little family breathed each other in.

Alive.

Full of hope for what their future might be.