Night Fae by Meg Xuemei X.
Chapter 7
The wards stayed down, despite the Silver mages’ great effort. Anxiety flowed through me, but I understood that spells were complicated matters.
Brigantia’s dark power whipped the air as soon as the wards dropped. The Fae kings’ powers and mine also rushed back to us without the neutralizing spells holding us back.
His sapphire eyes glowing, Rydstrom struck Brigantia with a blend of starlight and nightmare power, intending to blow a hole in her chest. At the same time, the competitive Summer King hurled his sunbeam of terrible heat at the usurper queen.
The two kings sandwiched her, cutting off her retreat.
A brilliant dawn light corrupted with black magic instantly formed, swirling around Brigantia like liquid armor. The Night King’s starlight and the Summer King’s sunbeam bounced off it.
She couldn’t be that powerful, could she? I was livid.
I dashed toward the battling trio, leapt into the air, and stabbed my dagger into her shield. Her black power pulsed, slamming into me, and Netherbane burned in my hand. I screamed and dropped the dagger as the purple wind blasted me off my feet and threw me backward.
Rydstrom moved, twisted in the air, and caught me in his arms.
“Guard Princess Ileana!” Baron roared as he lunged at Brigantia, pitching a fresh solar flare toward her.
The Night King put me down at the back of the hall and growled, “Stay put, Eve.” He then found a few of his knights nearby who were engaged in battling the demonca and barked, “Drake, guard your queen!”
I didn’t understand these Fae kings. Sometimes they let me fight, especially after I bitched about them being overbearing, and then they returned to being overprotective and completely ignored my protests.
If they had their way, they’d lock me in an ivory tower with barred windows.
While Drake pulled his Fae katana out of a demonca and rushed to take over guarding me, Rydstrom hastened toward where he had left Baron and the evil queen to their battle. He brought his hands together, and a swirl of darkness bearing the shape of nightmares engulfed Brigantia.
“Take that, bitch!” I huffed out my approval, especially when I heard a choking, rasping noise from my evil sister. May she die inside my king’s merciless nightmare.
But a second later, Brigantia emerged from the darkness, bathing in it like it was the dark sun for her. The nightmares rippled behind her like a cloak, her Dawn light outlining her.
“You indulge me with your nightmares, my Night King,” she purred. “And now you also see this new side of me. I’m not just Queen of the Dawn Court. I’m also Queen of Nightmares. We’re equally paired. I’m truly your perfect mate, and you just have to open your eyes to see it.”
The dark prince of Hell knew both Brigantia’s and my hidden heritage. He had said that none of the kings knew what she really was, so they’d assumed she had only the Dawn power. It wasn’t her Fae magic but her other dark power that made her this powerful. That was why they hadn’t defeated her.
If I exposed her, I’d have to reveal myself as well. I wasn’t ready for it. Terror coursed in my veins at the prospect of my kings loathing me because of my tainted heritage.
Adele and my father reached my side, guarding me along with Drake.
“I want to fight,” I growled. “I must end that evil bitch!”
“You must not get into a direct fight with her,” Dad said firmly, his expression somber. “Not yet, not before your Turning.”
“Mage Ganon is right,” Adele urged. “If you perish, Queen Ileana, then all we’ve done will be for nothing, and your parents’ decades of sacrifice would be for naught.”
They were all trying to keep me away from the frontline of the battle.
Northton led a group of Silver mages, trying to cut a path through a host of demonca toward me. Waves of darkfae surged toward me, recognizing me as their main target. Then our reinforcements arrived—a large group of mages and knights poured into the hall and joined the battle, yet we were still outnumbered.
A feeling of déjà vu pinged my brain, and the devastated scene of the Fae warriors falling around me under blades and black magic in front of the abandoned Burbank warehouse flashed through my mind.
I would not just stand by. I wouldn’t let any more of our warriors be killed.
“Let me fight!” I roared, fire in my eyes. “If you expect a worthy queen, let me be one. I should and will always fight on the frontline.”
Dad and Adele traded a look, and Adele reluctantly nodded.
“Fine, we all fight,” Dad said. “Sir Drake, please guard the queen’s back.”
All three of them peeled away and formed a formation around me—Drake watching my back, Dad and the Seer by my sides. We cut our way toward the Silver mages who were trying to reach us. Together, we thinned the numbers of the demonca from both ends, although a couple of our warriors fell under the demonca’s lethal claws as well.
Little did they know, I had a trick up my sleeve.
I recalled that the troll and the darkfae had frozen for a few seconds when my blood was spilled on the ground and my magic rose to the occasion. I’d seen the terror and shock on their revolting faces as they scented my blood. And in the last battle, I’d incinerated the demonca with the power of my blood and shadow fire.
I sliced Netherbane across my palm—Adele had found my lost dagger and returned it to me amid the chaos.
“What are you doing, daughter?” Dad asked in alarm.
“Trust me on this, Dad,” I said as I balled my palm into a fist and let my blood drop to the ground. Then I called for my vines.
Just as I’d expected, the demonca sniffed the air and froze at the smell of my blood. I didn’t let the opportunity pass me by.
Black vines sprouted from the ground and the ceiling, even though we were on the top floor. Shoots of vines with my blood on the thorns dashed toward the horde of demonca. I followed the aggressive movements of my vines as they opened the path for my team, and I swung my sword in an arc, cleaving the head off a demonca near me.
My vines and thorns sliced into the enemies, tripping, maiming, and tearing into them.
“Cut them down!” Northton shouted, not wasting the narrow window I’d just created.
His mages surged forward, crashing into a host of giant darkfae. Adele changed positions with Drake to watch my back while the Captain of the Guards of the Night Court fought on the frontline with my father and me.
Our blades slashed into claws and steel. Blood splashed everywhere. Our coordinated efforts cut down over a dozen demonca, and we started to push our enemies back.
“Don’t leave any darkfae alive!” the older mage roared beside his director. “Kill them all!”
The battle frenzy reached its peak.
Northton dueled Sinn near the toppled bar. A light mage and a dark mage flung spells at each other, shouting incantations. Their spells crashed into each other, creating lethal fireworks. Purple beams and silver lights zipped through the air. Wherever they hit, holes appeared and smoke rose.
Just as we started gaining ground, a fleet of winged shadows moved across the window, sending half of the room into darkness. Flying lizards carrying Dawn soldiers crashed through the glass, and more enemy soldiers poured into the grand hall.
We’d meant to ambush Brigantia, but she’d prepared and brought a heavier force. And she’d finally showed her trump card by revealing a forbidden hybrid army.
The Night knights led the charge toward the flyers and Dawn soldiers. Drake leapt forward with a roar, his black longsword swinging left and right and slicing through flesh and bones. A lizard head rolled off a darkfae flyer, blood spurting and tainting the broken glass on the ground and hanging from the broken window.
Another flyer opened its enormous jaw to bite down on Drake’s shoulder. The Night Captain twisted out of its reach and brought up his blade. The Dawn soldier on the back of the beast rammed into Drake, and they rolled on the ground littered with shards of glass. The lizard whipped its spiky tail into another Night knight. The knight pierced the monster’s lower middle with his blade. It bellowed with pain and rage, its tail sweeping the warrior off his feet and tossing him out the window. The knight screamed as he plunged from the top floor, soon to meet his demise.
Two branches of my vines shot out, one branch wreathed in thorns bashing at the beast and binding it despite its angry struggle, another acting as a rope and reaching the falling knight’s ankle just in time, pulling him up. As soon as the knight landed by the window inside the hall, my vine let go of him. He shot me a grateful look before thrusting his blade into a Dawn soldier about to stab a Summer knight.
I scampered toward Drake as a Dawn Fae gripped his throat. Then, suddenly, a spare dagger materialized in his hand, and he jammed it into the Dawn Fae’s ribcage and sliced upward. The sound was terrible and disturbing, and the Dawn Fae stilled, blood gushing out of his mouth.
In the midst of the brutal battle, many of our warriors fell as well. Yet I had no time to grieve for them.
Three Dawn soldiers surrounded me, their swords thrusting toward me. They should be my people, guarding me—their true queen, but they posed as my enemies and tried to kill me.
My eyes burning, my vines and thorns launched at them. I slashed Netherbane back into the gut of a Dawn Fae behind me while whirling like the wind and burying my other blade into the neck of the Dawn soldier on my left side. A blade jutted out of the chest of the Dawn Fae in front of me before he could cut me. His pale blue eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees, revealing Dad towering behind him. Dad gave me a nod and a grin as he yanked out the blade from the enemy soldier’s back.
I grinned at him, a bit savage under the circumstances. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Duck!” Drake shouted at us frantically.
Dad and I crouched, and Drake’s dagger sailed over our heads and bit into a dark mage’s throat. A cold draft caused by the flying blade ruffled my hair. The mage dropped in a heap, his eyes bulging with disbelief and denial. Well, it happened, dude.
His killing spells that were aimed at my father and me misfired and fizzled out.
There were so many deaths in the hall, but I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on it. Then a shot of anxiety and fear invaded my every cell at the thought of the safety of my mates. With Dad and Drake watching my back again, I allowed myself a moment of luxury to seek out my kings.
Brigantia’s black magic ripped into Rydstrom, forcing him to stagger back, rage distorting his face.
“Surrender to me, Night King. Be my consort, and all will be forgiven,” Brigantia said, power swirling around her in a blend of smoke and light.
I’d learned about her plan in Rowan’s castle. As soon as Rydstrom caved, she’d force the other Fae kings to submit to her. She’d then claim to be the prophesied queen, and Elfame would be hers. Her ambitions wouldn’t stop in faerie—she was set to conquer the human world as well.
“I’ll never be yours, Brigantia,” Rydstrom said viciously, his Night power pushing forward and knocking her back a pace. “I have a mate, and it’s always been Ileana Evelina, even before she was born.”
“What about your beloved Lady Catlin?” Brigantia snorted. “You’d throw her away like that after being devoted to her for over a century? Will you watch me cut her up and send all the pieces back to you? I’ll allow you to keep her as a concubine if you become my consort king.”
My heart stuttered at her disclosure. Catlin was one of the Night King’s dark secrets. Adele had once mentioned that Brigantia held Rydstrom’s beloved as a hostage in her Dawn Court to keep him at bay and prevent him from being with any other woman unless it was the queen herself.
The Night King laughed chillingly. “I never had a thing for Catlin. For a century, I pretended to care about her, to be besotted even. I took her to my bed, parading and calling her my beloved in my court, knowing she was your creature whom you’d planted in my court all along. I let you take her back. I let you believe she meant everything to me. I even practiced celibacy at your demand and gave you the idea that I was holding out for my ‘beloved’ Catlin. I also dangled the hope in front of you that one day I’d cave in to you and all your disgusting desires. But I only did all these things to protect my true mate who I foresaw coming.” He laughed again cruelly. “How does it feel to finally hear the truth, Brigantia?”
She responded with her foul power—obviously she didn’t take it well—and the Night King assailed her with his wave of starlight. As the two forces collided, the ground cracked and trembled beneath them. At the same time, Baron’s sunbeam seared into Brigantia’s shield.
“Even if and when death comes for me, you won’t breach the borders of the Nightmare Court,” Rydstrom said. “My court belongs to Ileana, my mate and my queen.”
My throat tightened. I wouldn’t let death near my kings. I forbade it!
“And Summer Court stands the same,” Baron said, his eyes glowing molten gold as another sunbeam blasted toward my evil sister. “Ileana Evelina is my only queen.”
What? Why did they declare something like that right now? Fear shot into my bloodstream. This wasn’t a goodbye speech! Something bad was meant to happen. I dashed toward them. I should have been fighting beside my kings.
“You still haven’t truly seen me,” Brigantia said. “You won’t insult me again after I open your eyes. I’m beyond the faerie courts. I’m a goddess, and you’ll all be mine and no one else’s.” She lifted her chin toward me. “That creature you think is your mate is nothing. She’s insignificant and unremarkable compared to me. Now, behold my goddess form!”
Shadow fire blended with black magic and Dawn light, more powerful than anything I could muster, erupted out of Brigantia. The force blasted both Rydstrom and Baron off their feet, sending them flying back. Both kings twisted in the air, and I sent my vines to grab them, but none of us was quick enough this time. The coalescence of the queen’s rage and black power proved to be a terrible thing.
Rydstrom crashed into the sidewall, cracking it, and debris fell on his head. Baron collided with the long bar, breaking it.
Black magic suffused the air, dominating the hall. The battles all around halted. The air turned too solid and foul to breathe. Brigantia was pushing pain into everyone’s heads. The warriors dropped to their knees, gagging and clawing at their chests.
The foul power pressed on my chest like the dead weight of a truck, but I’d learned Brigantia’s trick and prepared this time. I shrugged it off with obvious effort.
Brigantia lashed out with her hybrid black power, striking at my kings when they were down, before I could rush to their aid. My vines sprouted up from the ground, their thorny shoots slashing into Brigantia like dark flashes. Brigantia countered my attack with a gust of purple wind and ruptured my vines. Her black shadow fire charged out of her and burned through my plants.
A jumble of my barbed vines prevailed, coiling around her, cutting into her skin and leaving a bloody trail across her cheeks. Brigantia bellowed, her magic whizzing toward me and sinking its venomous claws into my skin.
I swallowed back a muffled scream at the pain.
My vines withered at the onslaught of her power. The queen’s dark spell speared me. It felt as if a burning knife was peeling the flesh off my bones. I couldn’t help but scream in agony, and my kings roared my name in rage and panic as they charged toward Brigantia with all they had.
My parents shouted my name, but they couldn’t reach me either, as Brigantia’s creatures were assailing them and our allies.
I struggled to my feet.
Brigantia flashed me a sadistic smile before snagging her attention back to the kings. She threw up her hand, shouting out incantations, and black magic, stronger than a tidal wave, tore into my kings.
“Now, Baron!” Rydstrom shouted.
Clenching their teeth and pushing back the ripping pain and the dark force, Baron and Rydstrom leapt toward each other. Their hands clasped, their combined powers forming a twisting storm.
The wind lifted them into the air, and their eyes glowed with terrifying light.
“Raise the ward!”Northton shouted from somewhere. “Recharge the Silver spell!”
Sinn and two dark mages surrounded Northton, hurling purple spells at him unceasingly. The Silver Circle director countered with his incantation, and fireballs of purple and silver smashed into each other. Sparks of fire and trails of smoke spread out in the hall.
Baron and Rydstrom rode their conjured storm and charged Brigantia again. From another direction, I sprang at her with Netherbane, bluish light skidding on the edge of the blade.
“Stay back, Evie!” Rydstrom and Baron screamed their objections as they hurled the twisted bolt of sunbeam, starlight, and nightmares into Brigantia, but the usurper’s purple wind blocked the attack.
Once, all three Fae kings had joined forces and vanquished a host of demons, but now only two kings were left to fend off the usurper queen.
Where was the Winter King? I thought of him with hatred and loathing. I hadn’t seen him anywhere since the fight broke out. I took my mind off the cowardly betrayer and sent my shadow fire and spiky vines toward Brigantia. She sneered in contempt and chucked her black power at me, flinging me to the ceiling.
My lungs burned as smoke filled them, and my head throbbed at the impact.
What the archdemon had whispered about Brigantia’s secrets that night rang in my head—even the three kings’ combined powers wouldn’t be enough to counter hers. Faerie magic had been fading for millennia since the rise of human technology and their expansion of the territories. While magic was trickling away from the immortal land, Brigantia had found another power source that was demonic. Her black magic fed on her victims’ agony and death. And for centuries, she’d figured out a way to siphon others’ powers.
We had no chance of overcoming her before my Turning, but I wouldn’t give up.
I shot to my feet, ignoring the pain traveling through my body, and leapt toward Brigantia again. My shadow fire and thorny vines surged toward her, meeting her second tidal wave of black power. Her power ate up my shadow fire until it diminished like raindrops.
“You’re pathetic,” Brigantia sneered. “Now watch how I handle the kings you tried to steal from me.”
Her foul magic knocked into Rydstrom and tore open his dress shirt. The usurper dipped her vengeful yet lustful gaze to his cut chest as if she wanted to lick him while tormenting him.
I roared, my protective instincts toward my mates and my rage toward my immortal enemy boiling inside me, and I charged Brigantia.
Rydstrom also roared like a beast, his starlight burning and cleaving her power as it tried to bind him. Baron tossed his brilliant sunbeam at the evil queen, intent on toasting her. Just as Rydstrom broke free of the bitch’s grasp, Brigantia morphed her power into purple light and dragged the Summer King toward her with it.
Her claws shot out, extending over ten feet long, and stabbed Baron’s left eye.
No one had seen that brutal, monstrous move coming.
Blood and fluid ran down the Summer King’s beautiful face from his wounded eye socket. He screamed for the first time, his agony ripping into my heart.
I couldn’t draw in a breath in the face of my mate’s suffering.
I screamed in horror, sheer panic freezing my blood. “No, don’t hurt him! Stop. Fucking stop!”
Rydstrom flew toward the queen with an enraged battle bellow, trying to free Baron. Brigantia flexed her razor-sharp claws, slick with my mate’s blood, ready to impale Baron’s other eye.
We wouldn’t be able to stop it in time, and the Summer King would lose both eyes before the queen did worse to him.
“Brigantia, please don’t hurt him. Please,” I begged. I never thought that I’d bow to her like this, but I’d do anything for my kings. I’d die to protect them, so begging my worst enemy now was the least of my concerns.
We couldn’t win today. We’d lost too much. We had to bide our time to defeat her.
“What’s your price, Brigantia?” I asked. “What do you want?”
She cocked her head, an unforgiving, cruel smirk on her lips coupled with inky darkness in her eyes.
I knew what she wanted most—to kill me in the Wild Hunt and then enslave my kings to warm her bed.
“Release them,” I said, “and I’ll take part in the Wild Hunt.”
“Are you sure you’ll answer the Wild Hunt, Ileana Evelina?”Brigantia taunted.
It was the first time she’d called me Ileana, though I could tell how much she hated to admit that I was the lost princess heir this way. She had to say my true name to officially summon me and get me to accept the terms of the Wild Hunt as the tithe or the prey of the hunt. I guess at this point it wouldn’t matter much to her that she admitted I was Ileana, as she was confident that I’d be killed in the hunting game—and she’d make sure of it.
“Release my kings and my brother and leave the Silver Circle in peace, and I’ll answer your call to the Wild Hunt,” I said.
“Vow it,” she demanded.
“Don’t you dare, Evie!” Baron roared. “I’ll heal!”
But the queen still had him in her vise-like grip.
“You won’t heal but die if I yank your rebellious, callous heart out right now,” Brigantia purred.
“Yeah, kill me. I don’t give a fuck,” Baron snickered, unleashing his Summer power at her, but it couldn’t penetrate her armor; nor could Rydstrom. None of us could take her down today, despite the Night King slamming into her outer shield again and again in an attempt to free Baron, who was trapped inside with her.
The Summer King trained one furious eye on the Night King, not concerned about the blood streaming down his face. “Rydstrom, take our mate and get out now!” He wasn’t giving up, repeatedly ramming his bloody fist lit with sunbeam fire into our enemy’s shield to turn her black magic away from us. His Summer fire fizzled out against the black waves pouring from the usurper queen.
Everyone was shocked to witness that she was so powerful, and it was the first time everyone had seen her black magic, which a queen of the Dawn Court should not possess. And the mortal realm couldn’t diminish her power either.
Brigantia was no longer bothering to cover her trail since she’d declared her dark goddess status.
“Vow it now, little Ileana,” she taunted, her claws tracing Baron’s good eye in a slow circle, “or would you prefer me to blind the Summer King completely before I slay him?”
“Ileana, I forbid it!” Baron shouted.
“Eve,” Rydstrom said in a broken voice.
“You’ll release King Baron, and you won’t hurt either King Baron or King Rydstrom again after I swear,” I said. “You’ll let go of my brother, Nox, and you’ll leave this place in peace immediately.”
“I accept your terms,” Brigantia said haughtily.
I vowed, my blood thundering in my ears and drowning out the kings’ roars of protest.
“It’s done, Ileana.” Brigantia laughed triumphantly and inhumanly. “You were never meant to be anything else but the prey I hunt.” She swept her gaze over the hall before settling on the Night King. “As I told you, I am the prophesied queen, a goddess. I’ll soon have you warming my bed, King Rydstrom.”
“Never.” Rydstrom spat. “I wouldn’t touch you even if you were the only woman left in any realm.”
Wrath curled Brigantia’s thin, deformed lips under her glamour.
“I can probably arrange that,” she said. “However, I’ll wait for you to change your mind, and you will. I always get what I want in the end.”
Baron and Rydstrom were about to attack Brigantia again, which wouldn’t do us any good. They’d only bring more cruelty out of her. The Fae kings didn’t care about preserving themselves, but they were everything to me.
“Summer King and Night King.” I used their official titles. “Please don’t. We’ll get through this together.”
I gazed at them with a steel will and a clear message in my eyes: we lost the battle today, but it didn’t mean we had to lose the war.
We’d endure this moment of horror and misery in order to make a comeback.
“Allow me to help you get through this, Evelina,” Brigantia said. “And make sure my kings remember the consequences of their scheming against me.”
She lashed out, faster than a sinful thought. Her claws slashed across my face: one sliced over the bridge of my nose, one split my lips, and the last one ripped across my left eye and would have blinded me if I hadn’t had the shadow fire lurking inside to shield me.
Blood gushed out of my wounds and flowed down my face. Although pain thudded in my head, I kept a firm grip on Baron and Rydstrom’s arms to prevent them from going after the vile queen. They’d stood on either side of me instantly to shield me as soon Brigantia’s black power released them.
“Bear the mark as a seal for the call of the Wild Hunt, Ileana,” Brigantia said in a singsong voice. “That’s also a reprimand for stealing my kings. Only a naïve harlot like you would think you could keep them.”
“Have some dignity, loser,” I told her. “When a male says no, it means no. And they’ve shouted no at you over and over for centuries. Now, get the fuck out, you piece of shit.”
Brigantia ignored my insult and swept her spiteful gaze over the hall until it found Adele. I instantly moved, but I was already too late. Her wrist flicked, and her claws lashed out, extending like my vines and thrusting toward the Seer.
“No!” I screamed.
A branch of my thorny vines darted toward Brigantia, and another branch formed a shield in front of Adele, but Brigantia cut through my vines and pierced Adele’s heart.
Pain bloomed on the Seer’s beautiful face. Brigantia giggled and withdrew her claws, which dripped with blood and black poison.
My parents looked utterly shocked and grief-stricken as they rushed to her. Adele had aided them in secret for years. Brigantia’s intention was loud and clear—with the Seer’s demise, no one else from the Dawn Court could testify that I was Ileana, the true heir to the throne.
Dad caught the Seer in his arms before she dropped to the ground, blood pouring from her gaping wound. Unbearable sorrow overwhelmed me as I knelt beside Lady Adele, who had looked after me since my birth. I’d failed to protect her. If it weren’t for her and my parents, I’d have been long dead.
Rydstrom guarded us. Dad shook his head at me. There was nothing we could do for the Seer.
I held her hand and sobbed. “I’m sorry, Lady Adele.”
Adele turned her glassy gaze to me with a fading smile. “Don’t grieve…over me, my queen. I’ve seen…this death. I bear no regrets. You’ll rise…the bright star…of the Dawn Court.” Her eyes turned sightless.
My father closed her eyelids gently. “May heavenly peace carry your spirit, Lady Adele.”
I wheeled to face Brigantia, cold wrath pounding in my blood. “I’ll end you, Brigantia. The day will come, and I’ll erase every trace of your garbage existence.”
My parents held me back to prevent me from charging recklessly at the psycho bitch. If I was dead, what good would I do to the people and the realms I needed to protect? I sank my nails into my palms, letting the pain remind me to control my rage. I could not let rage overwhelm me if I wanted to win the final war.
The queen’s pitiless, coal-black eyes pierced into me like knives. “One last gift to you, Ileana. As the host of the Wild Hunt, I’m within my rights to call for the Night King and Summer King to join the hunt. They’ll hunt you down like a beast in the arena, and they won’t rest until they sink their hands into your tearing, gaping flesh.”
The bitch had screwed us all over. Even though she’d broken part of her promise by murdering Adele, I couldn’t evade the summons of the Wild Hunt. I’d felt the ancient, wild magic binding me the moment I made the vow and answered its call.
Blood roared in my ears at Brigantia’s last strike. This was a black day, even though my parents had returned to me this day. All our plans had gone awry. We’d failed to slay the evil, and she’d gotten exactly what she wanted. And the worst part was, she’d bound my kings to the savage magic of the Wild Hunt.
Rydstrom and Baron’s eyes were on fire as the realization sank in.
“Kill the usurper bitch!” Baron roared, a storm of rage and horror boiling in his good eye. “Don’t let her get out alive!”
We would suffer more losses going after the queen now, but the kings no longer cared. They’d lost it, and not even I could hold them back.
With a furious bellow, Rydstrom transformed into his gargoyle form, his obsidian wings beating in the wind and lifting him. Even Brigantia stepped back at the nightmarish sight. A blade appeared in the gargoyle’s claws before it flew straight toward the evil incarnate.
Brigantia vanished in a plume of smoke, taking her remaining hybrid army with her.
“Today was only foreplay, my kings.” Her soulless giggles drifted behind her in the wake of the carnage. “May we meet again soon.”
