Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NAMELESS VALLEY

N ot much could have killed my desire then, given how my new Fae body seemed to have needs I was completely unprepared to control. But at the mention of Fayzien, the heat in my veins turned to ice, and I leapt to my feet faster than I was used to, buttoning my trousers.

Ezren laid a steadying hand on my back. “Where?”

He’s here, he’s here, he’s here. A primal charge surged through my veins—activating my every nerve.

“I saw some movement in the valley, so I shifted to get a closer look. It was Fayzien; I’d know those blue eyes anywhere. He has a full Viri company with him.” Parson grimaced.

“Shit,” Ezren muttered.

I forced air through my nostrils, blowing out the fear churning with a dizzying need for revenge. “What’s a company?”

“A Viri company? Oh, maybe five hundred warriors at best, a thousand at worst,” Dane answered from behind us. “Don’t worry, sweet Terra, your lover here can probably kill a hundred Fae foot soldiers with a single fiery exhale.”

My jaw loosened at the word lover.

“I will not slaughter Viri warriors, as I’ve told Jana numerous times. Nor will I expose my shift to a thousand witnesses. But thank you for the clear admiration of my skill in battle,” Ezren shot back.

The blurring fury Fayzien’s name dredged up in me ebbed for a moment. Viribrum was a Fae kingdom at odds with the Witches of Drakkar. So at odds, Jana thought them set to invade. My return was supposed to quell that tension.

“Why would Fayzien have the support of Viri warriors?” He had supposedly acted for the Nebbiolon Witch Queen in kidnapping me—and killing my sire—due to believing I threatened his position. Why would he have thousands of Fae soldiers at his disposal?

“I have no idea.” For the first time, Dane was without an answer.

He’s here. My blood sang for action, to demand why he murdered them, to gift him with the same fear he’d forced on my mother when he stole her life.

We woke the remaining slumberers. Under Jana’s direction, we packed up and headed for higher ground. She wanted a full picture of Fayzien and the company before we made a move.

We crept through the brush. I did my part, thickening the wood for additional cover and parting the foliage when we advanced off-trail. And as I did, I inhaled every ounce of magic I could. Storing—building.

Today will be the last day he draws breath.

Eventually, we came to a clearing with a small rock overhang. We left the horses and a few soldiers under tree cover. Jana, Ezren, Parson, Dane, and I approached the edge, and I let the bushes stretch a little so that we could crouch behind them.

The sky wore a hazy bronze color, indicating the hour before dawn. Even from a mile out with no sunlight, I could tell it was Fayzien. I suppose the combination of my improved range of vision and intuition solidified the recognition, for a female can always sense the wrongness of a male who transgressed against her.

“Can we maneuver around them?” Dane asked. “Portal, perhaps?”

“Dane, you know how dangerous it would be to split up. And don’t think for a minute Fayzien wouldn’t sense the portal and intercept you. We have to be strategic,” Jana replied.

I ground my teeth. “What we need to do is kill Fayzien.”

“Direct engagement is out of the question. He has nearly a thousand Fae warriors with him. And he’ll let every last one of them die before we can get to him,” Jana said.

“You all swore to me that if we were to meet Fayzien again, you would do whatever it takes to help me kill him. You cannot deny me now.” My voice was foreign—cold. I could barely hear it over the sound of my own blood pumping, ringing through my ears.

Ezren turned to face me. “I know you don’t feel a strong connection to the Fae, but they are your father’s kind, your kind. There may be cousins you have never known in that valley, family you should one day like to meet. I have relations I have not seen for a century, friends I have fought alongside in battle, that could lie in wait down there. I don’t doubt you could raise the Earth and end them all, burying them in your rage and vengeance. But trust me when I tell you, it won’t bring your family back. Only a heavier burden to carry the rest of your life.”

I looked down at my hands, examining the point at which the flow of my power sprouted. My throat tightened. “I can’t leave him alive,” I whispered.

“I know,” Ezren said to me.

“We need to lure him away from the group,” he continued, addressing the others. “If we can separate him from his warriors, Terra and I can handle him. The rest of you will have to use your Witch magic to hold the company, to prevent them from swarming the mountainside.”

“And how do you suppose we do that? What makes you think Fayzien will leave his warriors?” Dane asked.

“Me.” A plan formed in my mind. “He won’t waste a moment if he thinks I’m alone and unguarded. He’ll come running.”

Before Ezren could negate the idea of using me as bait, a loud cracking ripped through the early morning air, and we all nearly jumped from behind our brush covering. Fayzien’s voice cascaded over the valley. “Hello, Terra and rabid band of rebels. It is lovely to see you all again.”

My mouth flew open at the impossible amplification. The others looked weary but unsurprised.

“What a clever trick that was. I’m sure Janathia’s dirty idea, to send a decoy. But don’t you worry, I took care of the Casmerre easily enough,” Fayzien’s chilling voice boomed around us.

“Why is he talking about Casmerre?” Ezren directed his cool words at Jana.

“No,” I breathed, fear twisting in my gut for Leiya, Leuffen, Sanah, and the others. “Casmerre is what I named the ship.”

Dane swore, the words a cry of pain that stuck in his throat. The rest of them looked at me the way the twins had when I said that name. Ezren appeared as if I struck him. “What?” I demanded.

No one said a word. “When I told the twins what I’d named the ship, they acted like I’d designated it the devil’s spawn. They said it was the name of a dog that had killed their parrot. Can someone tell me why my dog’s name is so offensive?”

Jana relaxed just a fraction, still on edge, but not Ezren, whose skin neared the color of his eyes. I narrowed my gaze at him, but then Fayzien’s voice rang once more.

“Terra, my dear, I have something of yours. Sweet, sweet Giannina was so distraught after your disappearance from Argention. What a minx you are to have left her and her handsome brother worrying after you! What a worrier, that one. Quite taken with you, I believe. What eyes he had! Clear as crystal. Just like Gia’s. I had to leave him there, though—he was a nasty complication. But the lovely Giannina, well, she came oh so willingly after I told her I knew where you were…”

I stopped hearing him; my pulse drummed and my head swarmed with rage. Without thinking, my power flowed out of me like lightning from clouds. It rumbled down the mountainside, towards the valley, giving me a strange response from that place. It shook the peaks but left the grass-covered plain of the valley untouched. I felt only a vacuum of nothingness, dark and devoid of life—so unlike the pure existence of the surrounding rocky peaks. It made no sense. I should have heard the call of the Earth, answering to my magic.

Fayzien’s voice cackled in response to my outburst, reverberating against the sharp mountains at our backs.

“Something is wrong.” I shook my head. “There is no life in that valley; I could sense nothing.”

Jana ran a hand through her silver hair. “Maybe it’s of the dead after all,” she murmured.

Before I could ask what that meant, she continued. “Terra, we go with your plan. Get as close to the plain as you can without actually touching it—there should be some Earth at the base of the mountain slope you can use to your advantage. Ezren, do not leave her side. Parson, see if you can get a better look in your shift to make sure he doesn’t have the human with him. If he doesn’t, give us a sign to show our position—a swan dive in your raven form. Once Fayzien sees us without Terra, it’s up to her to get Fayzien to pursue. Parson can help unless the company is overrunning the rest of us. We’ll try to hold them on the lower hillside for as long as possible to minimize casualties. They will undoubtedly begin surging towards us. Everyone must go on foot; mounts will be too slow on the cliffs. Understood?”

We all nodded, Dane struggling to keep the tears from his eyes. I swallowed my own fears, pushing back thoughts of Sanah drowning in the sea amongst our other friends. A moment later, Ezren and I took off in one direction, with Parson flying above us, while the rest of the group headed into the unknown.

I ran faster than before in my new body, but I still willed the Earth to help us both. Within minutes, Ezren and I ran about a mile. We panted when we stopped, attempting to slow our breath and train our eyes and ears.

And there it was, a swooping dive from a black raven, rising up and facing the mountain. Parson. Good. That meant Fayzien didn’t have Gia with him. He must have been bluffing. The thought bloomed weak relief, knowing in my gut that it was unlikely. He knew the ship’s name, and Gia’s name, somehow.

Parson flew to the other group, signaling help needed on their front. We need to make this fast.

We pressed our backs together as if we were about to perform a dance we’d rehearsed a thousand times. I raised my palms and chose four trees around us, sycamores that peaked above the rest. I thrust my power into them, sending their tops higher. I asked their sparse leaves to rustle in an unnatural, eye-catching way.

Here, they whispered over the valley, carrying my message to Fayzien. Here, she waits for you.

We held our breath, every minute that passed thick with anticipation. I wished I could see the rest of the group, to know how they fared.

“He’s not coming,” I worried, nauseous at the inaction. My skin itched for a fight I’d held in, a battle I’d waged in my head for weeks now.

And then Fayzien appeared in front of me.

One glimpse, and the last time I’d stood before him rushed back. I was naked, exposed—violation seeping through me. I’d expected to think of my mother in that moment, of the family I’d lost. But even then, he ripped that honor from me, reducing me to the shame I felt and buried, the violation wrapped up in an expanse of grief so wide I’d forgotten all about it.

But of course, I hadn’t truly forgotten.

After an eye’s blink, I registered it was not actually him. Disappointment and relief washed over me. His image blurred as if it were merely a reflection on the water’s surface.

“You really think I’m stupid enough to meet you on my own? My gods, Ezren, I know you have thrice the years of strategy, but how could you think me so novice? I didn’t come to be the Manibu by playing into the hands of others.” Fayzien’s hair-raising cackle rang out, eyes sparkling as he taunted us.

“You monster?—”

“My, my, my, someone has come into her Fae figure ever so nicely,” Fayzien cut in, his gaze running down my body, his tongue running the length of his lips.

Ezren growled in response.

“Oh, I see,” Fayzien drawled. “How delicious this is, two Fae lovers, both forgotten by Viribrum. Tell me, Ezren, do you think of Esmie when you feel her underneath you? Or rather, is it the image of the fine Pri—” Before he could finish, Ezren slashed his blade across the image, anger rippling off him like I’d never seen.

Fayzien’s mirage reformed, now grinning madly. “Ah, don’t want me to ruin the big surprise, do you… Well, that is utterly fine by me. I do love surprises,” he crowed with a wink.

Focus, Terra. “You bore me with your gaming,” I bit out. “Where is Gia?”

“Ahh, yes, Giannina. Such a delicate, lovely girl. Or woman, I should say, for are you a girl if your breast swells with milk for a babe? I will tell you, I have never enjoyed the human scent, but hers? So fertile, so rich. Almost unnaturally mortal. I nearly wish it was me that put the babe there,” Fayzien chuckled to himself. “Well, never say never…”

If fire flooded my veins before, it turned to molten lava now. “You talk incessantly.” I let out a rumble that shook the surrounding peaks, loosening rubble from above the tree line. The noise rang loud, and I let it build, showing him my power.

This is my domain. I am the Earth. Here, Fayzien bows to me.

I knelt in the dirt, taking joy in the feel between my fingers. I sent an image into the Earth, commanding, pleading for help. It rose around us, blurring out Fayzien’s water mirage until it dissipated, hanging in the air like a paused dust storm. I could see very little, but I cared not. I raised the dirt everywhere on that mountainside. “Find him, take me to him,” I whispered to every spec of Earth that dangled in the air around us. The dirt swayed at first, the building of a hurricane. Ezren placed his forearm around my middle, pulling me up into him.

The particles whirled away, surrounding us one moment and gone the next. We blinked our eyes open to see the rumbling storm heading northeast. Towards the valley. I looked at Ezren, guilty and pleading.

Every fiber of my being needed to follow that storm.

He nodded, soot coating his features, knowing my intention at once. “Okay.”

“Will you be able to control it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try.”

“What about the witnesses?”

“Fuck it,” he returned his blades to his back strap and unfastened it. “We need to move, turn around, and spread your arms.”

I did, and Ezren tightened the leather harness around me. I felt the comfortable weight of the swords and he placed a hand on the back of my neck.

“If anything goes wrong,” he said, his voice low, “if I lose control, one well-timed throw of your knife to my eye should do it. Don’t hesitate.”

I didn’t have a moment to object—he ran more than a dozen yards away from me and began to change. I hadn’t seen him shift into Dragon form before. It looked far less graceful and far more painful than the twins or Parson shifting. His Fae body seemed to fight his will—he screamed, his head twisting in unnatural angles, veins threatening to burst from his neck. Green scales emerged, his limbs contorted—until fiery eyes and a slowly swishing tail swung at me. I approached him, but he reared on his hind legs, flaring his nostrils and flapping his wings.

Roots sprang out of the ground and circled the Dragon’s ankles, tightening under my direction. Distant screams, pitched and unnatural, rustled the trees. No time for games.

The Dragon did not like the restriction and roared alongside the sounds of the company. I darted behind it, dodging breaths of fire thrown haphazardly in my direction. A nearby vine tossed itself to me and I caught it. I was flung into the air and landed in a crouch on the Dragon’s back, gripping the horns that sprouted from his spine.

“It’s me!” I yelled at the Dragon as it reared against the restraints. My voice did little to calm him, and he continued to pull at the binds, so I loosened the roots around his feet. A moment later, we were airborne, the Dragon’s long and mighty wings flapping, carrying us above the trees.

The Dragon bucked and twisted in the air. I thanked the gods for my new Fae body, which somehow had the strength to remain seated. I gripped the scaled beast with all the might my thighs could muster, my skin rubbed raw from clutching his spikes.

“It’s me,” I whispered, sending a tingle of my magic down his spine. “Just me.”

A breath later, the Dragon settled into flight, no longer trying to throw me from him. I could see my Earth storm gathered in the middle of the valley. It whirled like a tornado now, Fayzien at its eye. He had no Water to aid him, so he held it back with his spells, firing slips of magic around him in a battle I knew he could not win. I reached out to the tornado, attempting to call it to further action—to neutralize Fayzien until I got there by filling his lungs with debris. But I received no response. The Nameless Valley sucked the life from my storm. The Earth seemed to only operate under the original intention I spelled it with.

I’d lost the advantage Jana told me to hold, but I didn’t care. He was close—so close. I nudged the Dragon with my knees, as one would a horse, and he barreled towards the storm.

I gently pressed down on his spinal spikes, steering straight for the storm’s center. C’mon, Terra. For them.

I stood on the Dragon’s back, careful to keep my balance, and drew Ezren’s blades from the harness he’d fastened to me. Right before I was above Fayzien, I leaped, landing in front of him, one knee to the ground. The Dragon flew off, roaring into the sky without any apparent direction. The Earth dropped, satisfied with the completion of its mission, the falling dirt forming a battle ring around us.

Moonlight gleamed off the blades out in front of me. Fayzien was covered in Earth, looking worse for wear, and my lips parted, the corner of my mouth tugging up in reaction to his struggle.

He looked at me with an unmasked hate. “You foul bitch,” he spat at my feet.

I had dreamt of this moment many times since I’d seen him last. Now, none of my fantasies came to me—none of the fear and shame from minutes before. Only a coldness settled deep into my bones.

I twirled my blades in my hands, which to Fayzien may have looked like show but was meant to test the weight of my swords. They felt more natural now, given my new strength. He whispered, a spell of sorts, and two swords of his own appeared. I called to the Earth, searching for a root or a rock to trip him. But like I’d felt earlier, if life existed on that plain, it did not respond to me. Neither of us would have our elements, then. Blades it would be.

Fayzien lunged at me, like he knew I tried to draw upon my power and failed. I blocked his blow with ease. He struck fast but with less strength than I had faced against Leuffen or Ezren. Likely, he was drained from spelling.

I was not.

I quickened my pace, letting my blades fly, knowing I could afford the effort to tire him.

And he did. I knocked one of his blades from his hand with my left, and my right blade grazed his leg. He yelled out, and I sent my heel into his manhood. He bent over, crouching, as I approached him, my sword gleaming in triumph from his blood. I shook with a fury fueled by the memories of the last few weeks and the smugness on his face when he spoke about Gia.

Not Gia.

He stood as soon as I reached him, unhurt by my strike to his groin. When he did, a silver rope appeared in his hand, shimmering with magic. I dropped my left scim and placed both hands on the emerald hilt of my right blade, figuring I’d need double the strength to fight his enchanted whip. Fayzien raised his arm and sent the silver rope towards me. It collided with my blade in a loud snap that sung through my bones. He attempted to tighten the whip around my weapon to disarm me, but I yanked, and he skidded my way. I sent my heel to him once more, this time into the bleeding wound I had left on his thigh. He yelped at this, stumbling, but used the momentum to loosen his whip and swing it around while he spun towards me. The weapon connected with my back and sent me a good ten feet to his right.

My ribs crunched beneath me as I landed with a thud on the ground. I grunted, gritting my teeth against the stabbing pain radiating into my abdomen. Heat pricked my eyes, threatening to impair my vision, and I choked down a cry. I pushed myself onto all fours, spitting blood and forcing air back into my lungs. It was all I could do to keep hold of my blade when the enchanted whip cracked on my backside once more.

I groaned and Fayzien pulled back his weapon, laughing through his huffs. “Well,” he breathed, “this is a demeaning position if I’ve ever seen one.”

I spat another mouthful of blood and looked back at him. The fire burned inside me—hot, hot, hotter than I’d felt before. “I am going to kill you,” I growled.

“No one will be killing anyone today, sweet Terra. I have no interest in your rebel friends, and it is time we go home. But first, I’m going to have my fill of fun.” He winked and raised his whip once more, this time aiming it at my head.

I rolled onto my back, raising Ezren’s emerald-gilded blade to protect my face as I sent my power through the weapon. It was a frantic move—I threw whatever magic I’d built up into it in desperation—in hopes it would strengthen my sword.

The emerald on the hilt glowed, a soft shimmer at first, and then blinding us in a moment of what looked like… Ezren’s light. Power flooded from the blade to my veins in an ecstasy I had never known—and likely wouldn’t come to understand for some time. It connected at once with Fayzien’s whip, and instead of the contact reverberating through me, I felt the ease of a clean cut. At once, the severed rope shriveled up, dissipating in the air.

I had no time to gape at my small victory or to wonder where the strange and foreign magic came from. My muscles felt an urgency my mind did not. In a fluid motion, I removed a throwing knife strapped on my thigh and flung it, sinking it into Fayzien’s shoulder. I prowled to him as he fell to his knees, clutching at the blade. Before he could remove it, I clenched my hand around his neck, squeezing with enough strength to hurt, but not kill. Fayzien’s eyes opened wide to mine, and his hands went to his throat, attempting to loosen my grip.

“I have never ended a life, but for this, I will carry no guilt. You will hurt no one else, you violating, murderous piece of filth ,” I whispered, willing the tears to stay behind my eyes as I raised my blade.

“Wait,” he gasped laboriously. “Gia—if you kill me, she, she dies,” he croaked. And if all he wanted was hesitation from me, that’s what he got. He took the advantage and sent his fist deep into my abdomen, the blow connecting to the ribs I’d already cracked. I released him, doubling over, screaming at the sharp pressure.

I tried to rise to my full height, but pain lanced my core. My arms formed a protective cocoon around my midsection as I huddled there.

I am going to lose.

Instead of trying to land a killing blow, he took a step back from me, conjuring another weapon. He had no time, because the Dragon descended from behind me. And Ezren’s neck coiled back in a deep breath, before he let out a lethal strike of fire, incinerating Fayzien in an instant.

The blue-eyed man was gone, leaving nothing behind but a smoking pile of ash.