Battle With Fire by K.F. Breene
Eight
“Charity’s vision changed again,”Emery said as we got out of the taxis in front of Roger’s secret hideaway in the woods, which had also become the dragons’ secret hideaway. He studied a text message as Darius opened the front door with a key Roger definitely didn’t know he had. Given he didn’t need a key to open locks at all, I had the feeling he was silently boasting. “It seems this time you aren’t in the picture at all, and neither are we. The Seers are feeling very grim, even the Red Prophet. In the vision, the fae and shifter forces are overwhelmed by demons and vampires.”
We’d managed to get our affairs sorted in record time, probably owing to our constant on-the-go status for the last bunch of months, and got in a decent-sized nap before we loaded into Darius’s private plane to head out here.
“I’d thought the fae’s quest visions or whatever didn’t change,” Penny said as we walked into the wide hallway and headed out to the backyard. “Hers seems to change at the drop of a hat.”
I checked the knives strapped to my leg and adjusted the pouch around my waist, holding a plethora of spells in casings.
“When are you going to give up that fanny pack?” Emery asked with a groan.
I held out my hands, looking down at it, then scowled at him. “How dare you,” I said dramatically. “Show respect for the pouch. It is a pouch. Not a fanny pack.”
“Do you know what the difference is?”
“Delusion,” Penny supplied. “That’s the difference.”
“You don’t even need it,” Emery continued, obviously having quite the grudge against my useful bodily attire.
I patted it. “In case I need spells, I got spells. Stop being jealous.”
He rolled his eyes. “Your horrible fashion sense aside, the Seers think the Underworld magic is messing with things.” Emery tucked his phone away. “They can’t get a reading on Lucifer. Not even when he went to your house, Reagan. Karen thinks he is changing the game, and Charity’s visions are changing with it. His magic defies the use of Sight, apparently. That’s what Karen says, anyway.”
“I wish my magic would defy Sight as well,” I grumbled, spying Cahal seated at the patio table with an open book. Darius had gotten in contact with him a few days ago, because of course he’d known how to do that, telling him to stick to the Brink in case we had to make a move. He’d made a follow-up call shortly after the attack this morning. Clearly Cahal had wasted no time. “Well, look what the cat dragged in—if it isn’t the great painter himself.”
Cahal picked up a unicorn bookmark from the patio table and fit it into the pages before closing the book and looking at me. “They had a right to know what the elves did to you.”
“Why? What possible good can it serve?” I glanced at the tree line, not seeing the dragons. “Where is Archion, do you know?”
“They are hunting, and then they will digest so they have energy for what’s to come,” Cahal answered. Darius had filled him in on our plan, such as it was, instructing him to tell the dragons if he got here first. “And the good it serves is to let your friends know what the elves are capable of. If they did that to you, they have done it to others.”
“Many others,” Emery said.
“It’ll also help them understand the risk that you might lose your mind and kill them all,” Cahal continued.
“Kill everyone and take the throne, huh, Penny?” I raised my eyebrows at her before turning back to Cahal. “Apparently that is one of the worries.”
“A worry born of ignorance—they didn’t see you in the Underworld for long,” he said. “The Realm is not your home. You’d be miserable there, and you’d make the world worse.”
“Super. Lovely to have you back,” I said. I took a deep breath of clean mountain air to try to still my nerves. It didn’t work. “So the dragons are up for joining us in battle?”
“Yes,” Cahal answered. “I hear Lucifer visited you?”
“Last night, yeah. He was easy and charming and ready to compromise.” I sat down to keep from pacing.
“I think I will make us a little something to eat while we wait,” Darius said, and disappeared into the house.
“He backed down, then,” Cahal asked, studying me closely.
“Not about killing all the elves, but…” With the help of Penny and Emery, I went over the meeting from the night before, not glossing over any of Lucifer’s reactions or words.
When I finished, Cahal nodded as though a question had been answered.
“What?” I asked. “Good, bad…?”
“Good, for both of you, I think. He tried to be overbearing, you rebelled, and now you both know where you stand. If we weren’t about to head into a large battle that might change the shape of two worlds, I’d say great things came of that meeting. As it is…we’ll see what happens.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “And everyone wants a slightly different outcome.”
“That’s how it always goes, Reagan,” Emery said. “And no one will get exactly what they want.”
I looked at Cahal, tempted to ask about the last heir. Then…I decided against it. The guy had been tortured. The angels had come down to help him—the angels! They’d clearly been on his side, and Lucifer obviously had a soft spot for his blood relations, including my half-brother. Bottom line: it was drama I didn’t need to know about. It was a past that still haunted Cahal. He’d never been anything but good to me and my friends—his ghosts could remain private.
Two hours later,the dragons returned, leaving us only a few hours to get to the Realm before sunrise. The urgency to get moving cut into my joy at seeing Archion again. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that the visitors earlier had been a bad omen. Darius was right—more would come, not to mention we were fighting the clock when it came to those unicorns.
There really are unicorns? Archion thought as we lifted above the trees and headed toward the portal. Emery sat behind me, hands on my shoulders. He was clearly worried about maintaining contact to hold the concealment spell.
Yep. They are a bit bigger than a horse.
What is a horse?
Oh yeah. He was quite sheltered when it came to the Brink.
You’ll see. Roger the shifter might have one.
I tensed as we neared the portal, reaching back to touch Emery’s knee for no reason. Penny and Darius fell in behind us on Saphira, and I assumed Cahal was taking up the rear on Coppelia. He didn’t have a mage friend to cloak him with an invisibility spell, but thanks to his shadow magic, he didn’t need it.
The elves’ fliers are no match for a dragon, Emery assured me as the portal clawed at me, checking my magic and sucking my energy. The orange world of the Realm waited just beyond. Fairies and phoenixes and lamassu—none of them can compete with a dragon. They won’t even try, especially if Lucifer’s heir is riding on the back. They’ll know you can slap up solid air and cut them down, no problem. Save your anxiety for when we need to cut through the elves’ forces to get through the portal near the shifters.
Wise words from a guy who would know.
I nodded, though he probably didn’t see, and thought to Archion to pull back a bit and wait for Darius to take the lead. He knew the way.
You look majestic on the back of that dragon, Darius thought as they flew by. I don’t think I ever mentioned it.
He had, a few times over, often when naked and kissing up or down my body. I tried for a grin, which probably looked more like a grimace, and then we were falling in behind him.
Have you decided what you’ll do about the elves? Emery thought as we made our way, the orange filaments in the sky flying past us. Trees and flowers dotted the way below until we cut across a stretch of flat land with very little landscaping. Clearly people didn’t often walk this way, and if flying creatures did, the elves didn’t care about them. Good news.
I debated giving a half-truth, or making light of it like I usually did. It was a trauma that was in my past—I didn’t want to worry the people I cared about by bringing it out in the open. Other people, the ones who hadn’t been there and weren’t traumatized by it too, didn’t seem to get that trauma didn’t just evaporate at the light of day; it had a habit of lingering. But if anyone could understand what I was going through, it was probably Emery. The elves had mentally tortured him for years, keeping him on the run, not letting him sleep or rest, helping the shitty mages who used to control the guild by keeping him moving.
I heaved a sigh.
“I want vengeance so badly I can barely think,” I said, turning my head so he would hear. “I still wake up in that dungeon, hearing screams that I know are mine. Fighting hopelessness. Waiting for death. After they were done with each session, I looked up at the dank ceiling and begged for Darius to come. I cried because I didn’t feel our bond. Because I was utterly and totally alone. And then, for the next session, I had to pull it all back within myself, stuff it down, and pretend like I didn’t care. I broke a little, I think. Or maybe I just need more time to get over it.” I let the wind dry my glassy eyes. “Or maybe what I need is vengeance.”
Emery was quiet for a long time. The land passed far below us in a blur. I had an insane urge to rip the sky away and kill all their stupid illusions.
Penny sides with Roger about what to do with the elves, and I get it, he thought. I know the Realm needs a ruling force, and someone from the Realm needs to be that ruling force. Why elves, though? Why not the Arcana? Why not Charity? The fae aren’t amazing in some respects, but they aren’t so corrupt it has diseased the whole of their ruling party and most of their people.
He had a point.
Someone needed to head up the Mages’ Guild after we tore it down, he went on, but we didn’t worry about that when we were doing the tearing. We fought our enemies and dealt with the fallout in the aftermath. So why are we doing this any differently?
Another good point. I said as much.
I don’t know, he finished. I’ve had firsthand dealings with them. So has Vlad. So have you. I’m sure Darius has more opinions than he is sharing. He sees the folly in allowing the vampires or Lucifer to sit on the throne, but he hasn’t weighed in on what he thinks you should do, right?
“No,” I answered, and it was amazing that he hadn’t. Usually, Darius would talk me through a situation much more thoroughly than I’d like, going through the possible ramifications of every decision, but I got the feeling that he was letting me fully captain this ship. While he’d made it clear he would fight by my side, he didn’t plan to point me in any particular direction.
I wondered about that. Maybe this situation had gotten too big for even him, and he wanted to see which way the wind would blow before making a call. Or maybe the days of manipulating me were long since done.
I was not sure I believed either of those.
Regardless, it was becoming increasingly apparent that no one knew what was best. Roger and the fae didn’t understand what they were up against. The king and queen’s enablers weren’t about to out themselves as bad guys, so a lot of them would end up back in positions of power. And where was the representation of the other creatures in the Realm if only the elves ruled? Shifters didn’t even have proper representation now, and they’d all worked dutifully for the crown. Had for many, many years.
I rubbed my temples. The whole thing was giving me a headache, but this time I couldn’t just shove the mess aside and go hunt something. This time I was all in.
So what did I really want in this game?
I wanted to be able to come and go to the Underworld, a right that Lucifer had granted me, and to learn enough that I could help him rule. For that to happen, the Realm had to be stable. The dragons and other creatures needed to be able to roam freely. Royalty should once again visit one another across world lines, and they should share ideas.
“Why does this all rest on my shoulders?” I was ashamed that my tone came pretty close to a whine.
Because you’re a power player now.
“I don’t know that I will fight my father.”
It doesn’t seem like he has any interest in fighting you. He has a grudge match with the elves, same as you. Same as the elves do with him. No one is innocent in this, not even me.
I laughed without humor. “You made an illusion, Emery. Give me a break. Lucifer’s castle is full of them. For funsies.”
Different strokes, he thought.
Different strokes was right.
We’ve said it before, but I believe you’re overthinking all this. I think you need to handle things the way you usually do.
Show up and kick ass.
“I have to grow up sometime.”
Maybe. But when there is no right answer…
“Stop making good points. It’s getting annoying.”
He chuckled as I clued in to our surroundings. I recognized the rock area near the vampire lair, full of big boulders and wandering rock beings. We flew over the path that wound from it, our trip drastically shorter thanks to the dragons.
My stomach curdled as I saw the figures zooming through the lands, headed in the direction of the nearest Underworld entrance. Vlad’s people, it must be, and they were on the move. The sheer number of them was enough to push my heart up into my throat.
“We’ve run out of time,” I yelled, leaning forward to push Archion a little faster. Ahead, Saphira had put on the jets too, meaning Darius had also noticed the exodus.
We soared along the path that led to the unicorns, passing the waters that held flesh-eating serpents. Last time I’d been this way, Darius thought it odd there weren’t any sentries. I didn’t know if it was odd or not now, but they were equally absent.
Warm light rained down on the unicorn lands up ahead, not actual sunlight but close enough. The small island, surrounded by swampy water, was covered in lush greenery, from leafy trees to wide meadows. They weren’t natural, those too-green trees, but created from magic. It was something I hadn’t noticed the first time I was here, since the illusion was done so well.
Saphira circled, and we followed, Cahal behind us. Great, regal beasts herded together below, silky-smooth fur catching the soft light from the faux-sun. One neighed, shaking its head and white mane before rising on its rear hooves. The gilded horn sparkled.
“Wow,” Emery said with a release of breath.
I’d have to agree. They were lovely in the way the dragons were magnificent. Imagine riding into battle on one of those beauties: your enemy would stop with a dopey smile that wouldn’t leave their face until your unicorn friend plunged that beautiful horn into their middle.
Figures stood within the greenery at the southern tip of the island, most wearing black and standing as still as statues. One figure was huddled close to the largest unicorn in view, standing amid the poppies and daisies on a bed of plush green grass. I couldn’t see the face, but I recognized the stature of our great buddy Vlad.
“Land.” I tapped Archion. “He’s trying to make off with the unicorns! We have to stop him.”
Saphira landed first, but Archion ignored me and did another lazy circle around the island.
Why aren’t you landing? I asked as I peered down through the trees. More unicorns stood within, but they weren’t grazing or moving toward the vamp visitors. They were staring northward.
Frowning, I looked in the direction they did, not seeing anything to raise suspicion…at first.
Wait, I thought, turning to look over Archion’s shoulder. Something is…
Archion adjusted his course, flying east to west, giving me a sideways view. Boats dotted the murky sea. Five rowers to a boat and at least two dozen boats. They weren’t manned by vampires, though—those willowy forms with their permanently windblown hair could only be elves.
“Look.” Emery pointed ahead of us. Dots moved along the eastern pathways, too far away for any detail, but they had humanoid forms. They could’ve been vampires, but they were coming from the opposite direction as the Lair, and with the elves coming from the north…
“Hurry,” I yelled, tapping Archion’s shoulder in the direction I needed him to turn. “Get back to the others. The elves are going to try to wipe out the unicorns and probably anyone else around.”
“Vlad was almost too late,” Emery said, gripping my shoulders as Archion put on a burst of speed.
We sailed to the southern tip and dipped down.
Get off now; it’ll be faster, Archion urged. I need to look for a larger landing place. Take the mage.
I whipped my right leg around, grabbed Emery’s arm, and jumped. Rather than follow, he tried to yank me back, almost ripping my arm out of my socket.
“Come on,” I yelled, using my magic this time and forcing him off Archion.
“Warn me next time,” he hollered, his voice tight. “I don’t usually just leap off dragons mid-flight.”
“How would you know?” I sped us toward the ground quickly. “You’ve only ridden one twice.”
“This…is…terrible,” Emery said as the ground rushed up to meet us.
I slammed on the hover-brakes as Darius and Vlad turned to look at me. Penny stood off to the side, head back, eyes wide, her attention firmly fixed on the unicorn matriarch rather than her fiancé’s dive through the air.
“Reagan, so good of you to—”
I cut Vlad’s posturing short. “Elves! Quick, elves are coming!” Something occurred to me. “Shit, we should’ve warned the unicorns on the north side of the island. Will they know to run? Will they be fast enough?”
Vlad’s eyes narrowed marginally, as if he suspected a trick, and honestly, maybe it would’ve been a good one if I’d thought I could pull something like that off on a vampire. Darius, however, knew better.
“Where are they coming from?” he asked, surveying the vampires around us. “How many?”
I closed my eyes and repeated what my perfect recall had printed onto my brain.
“Is this everyone?” I motioned around the clearing at the vampires standing idle.
Vlad’s head snapped right, where his second-in-command stood in her leather bustier and spiked high heels. “Send someone for backup. We don’t have enough to keep the elves at bay for long.”
“No.” I put out my hand, sparing a glance for Darius and hardening my resolve. “No.” I met Vlad’s eyes. “Take a team and get the unicorns out of here. Get them down to the Underworld. Find my father and tell him they need protection. Tell him to make them comfortable.”
Darius studied me for a moment, but he didn’t question my command. He turned and nodded to Vlad.
“How magnanimous of you,” Vlad said, nodding at his assistant. She zoomed off and started barking orders.
“It isn’t about me.” I turned to the great beast beside us, the matriarch, her radiance stopping my breath for a moment. Her soft mane fell down her velvety neck, glowing in the sun. Her deep eyes took me in. “You saved my life once. It’s my turn to save your…herd.” Man, I hoped she’d be cool with me calling them that. “Go. Hopefully one day we’ll meet again.”
She neighed and shook her head, drawing my attention to that foot-long horn.
Clouds rolled and boiled above us, and I looked up in confusion as I turned back to the others.
“An enemy has set foot on the island,” Darius said, stripping off his clothes, Vlad doing the same thing beside him.
“It seems the elves aren’t here for tea and a friendly chat,” Vlad said.
“Reagan, take them by air,” Darius said.
“You plan to fight them by foot?” Emery asked as the unicorns started to move, running toward a team of assembling vampires directing them south toward a land bridge.
“We are their protectors, Mr. Westbrook,” Vlad said, dropping his folded clothes to the ground, “a troth we take very seriously. They have young ones that can’t run as fast. We need to give them a fighting chance.”
