Shadow Queen (24 page)

“If what you say is true, then I cannot let this go on.  Anat’s daughter hold’s the gracious effort of patience, whereas I don’t.”  Like a gymnast, the leathered GQ model of a man flipped through the air landing dead center between Cas and Cord.  Two double-edged curved blades sliced their bonds and they were both up and moving in unison against the man.  I felt like a side act, no longer the finale. 

Scratch that.  The Godslayer was aimed over my twin’s neck with not one ounce of lifting trouble from Borgon.  I half jumped five feet through the air landing on the outdoor platform he had this staged at.  Lord Jetten, Cas, Cord, and I surrounded the man with Cas circumventing my entry.  A series of jabs and positions fell into place with the panicky Szar screaming out for one of us to kill, kill, kill.  In a standoff, I chanced a distraction that would give one of the guys a second to make a move.

“It seems your recruits have switched sides.”

He did look the way I expected.  He didn’t fall for the ploy. 
“They were expendable.”

Their bows to their returned lord turned upward and a collective snarl began to gather speed.  “It seems they don’t agree.”

Cas had just thrown a rather large kamikazed Elf who had aimed towards me with a spear of all things, across the entire field away from the scene.  The super power strength was there again, but the sun was gone also. He flew upward, apologized to Lord Jetten, and started moving back towards me.  I pictured in my head him taking Borgon out with one infallible swoop like the Elf renegade, but it didn’t happen.

Whether in rage or an undue respect I saw out of the corner of my eye the surmounting burst of something coming out like a physical aura from Borgon.  Calum, who was adjacent to me, sent a burst of what I felt was the same type of rage, that equally bubbled inside of me reminding me of the connection we share.  In all of the span it took for Borgon to lift the sword and Calum to shift a single foot, I saw the repeat of something I could later call the most tragic of events I’d ever evolved from. 

Calum’s Hunter body collided with mine from the side.  While I am goddess strong, and not without power, I do not hold the stature to withhold a nearly three hundred caveman across my chest.

The sword was above my head gleaming like a sun with a shimmer from the spotlight but away from Szar.  Calum’s cursed yelled echoed above me as the same slow motion I saw before in my head told me he was about to kill Lee all over again and this time it would be my Calum.  My Calum.

All I could think was, the mother wasn’t lying.

The sword entered his body just below his abdomen where his ribs meet his side.  Hope kindled in me a second thinking maybe he deterred it, but the blood told me otherwise.  Feeling my panicky wisps of air surround my thinking skills, I closed my eyes just long enough to breath out.  He was going to die.  My next thought was, Who next?

Borgon cursed the repeat of someone else throwing their body in to save mine.

Without a care to where the dang sword of death was now, I dropped my only knife and grabbed Calum’s weight knowing I would land pinned under his legs.  I didn’t forget that I can’t hold this Hunter up, I just didn’t want him being hit again.  He fell with a thud and me with it.  Borgon was above us ready to strike again like a python to it’s surrendered victim.  Seeing the craftsmanship of the famous Godslayer just above me, I shouldn’t have been thinking how the beauty of a weapon guides the lucky owner to the drive it is sends into its target.  But that’s what my mind did.  Calum’s screams weren’t of pain, just rage.  He wasn’t moving off of me and he wasn’t trying to stand.  I strained to lift each of his hundred pound legs, but it was a no go.  He was bleeding and moving more on top of me than before.

From my stupor I feel the electricity build.  It’s a building strength that is painful and downright awful to witness.  It made me feel weak.  But the second my skin crackled in my brain with the sound of it, I knew what had to be done.  I could win this.  I could save Calum.

I searched for Cord without my eyes.  What I mean was, I found him with my head. 

Cas.  I need Cord NOW.

On the ground he sloped into a freefall position.  Borgon was laughing and making a stupid speech about his day of infamy and hardly spared that Cord fell prostrate parallel to me to get to my face. 

Calum gurgled spewing blood from his mouth.  He was yelling that he loved me and that his death was meant to be.  I screamed at him to shut up.

“Cut me and grab hold,” I thrust out my hand.  “You have to save him.”

His face snarled up with his Were teeth pushing through, but his reaction was quicker than the
python’s
incongruous aim and fail to strike.  He wasn’t the Scorpion meant to strike him down.  Instead he was his savior.

  All at once, I saw three things.

Cord’s half turned to his animal form face healed before my eyes.  Every new cut and slash just shriveled and curled away.

Calum's eyes rolled back just as Lee’s did. 

Calum’s sudden scream mimicked the sealing wound that I now knew was, for certain, a deathblow and would have played out the same as Lee.  It was the same strike made by Borgon to both men.  With the sound of his flesh hissing against the sword, I released everything we'd learned about each other at once.  The electricity, the healing, they were in the act. 

And the final event was far from just supernatural.  The built energy combined with the instant push of light from a supercharged Cord, the Were, and the image of either of them taking the place of Lee in my arm’s from earlier welled up a slow burn through my torso.  Like the wave of a whip, a flash of pure electricity resembling a downed light pole flew from my chest to the sword now aimed centered between Cord and my head.  As it descended, the way it lit up Borgon’s eyes stayed the only picture I could see outside of the glare.  No longer the hard edged pupils of a Hunter, the man above me resembled what I might have formed in my head as the devil with colorless eyes. 

The sword gained momentum just as I saw it lean back up towards Borgon’s shoulders and swing backwards.  Szar attached himself to the back of the man, struggling to pull the opposite direction.  Cas had his other arm.  All of could think of next was how five god powered creatures were fighting a normal Hunter strengthed enemy and still, we were not winning as easily as we set out thinking.  Using power for good was easy.  Using that same power to fight for your life and others doused an amazing amount of strength and energy you only realize you lack when you’re three steps in and one step from death.

Watching my brother battle for control, I built the electricity seeing that it was me left in control over it now.  It’s not random in its movement, but rather heaving like my chest in a pulse back and forth.  I took in the longest breath and sent out the current towards the sword again.  Three times the strength as before, it was like an ocean wave without the ability to drench me in anything but the pressure and sweat beading across my skin.  Whether it had color to it to others or not, I matrixed the shimmery glow of Cas’ eyes in my head because that soothed the rage I felt in other directions.  It was, to me, like a sunbeam warning another that its heat would surpass the coldness of the steel and chill of its aim.  It would never get near me, I told myself. 

Growing wider, the beam seemed to convulse.  Maybe it was me rocking it back and forth with my breathing, maybe it was just that powerful.  I didn’t care if it took out the one thing that would cut me or the people that I care about.  We were going to beat Ted Borgon and his Godslayer.

Kissa.

I heard his voice beside my ear but I couldn’t move or see anything but the same soulless blank eyes and the wave of physical agony going into them.  No, I didn't hear him aloud.  Szar wasn’t touching me, just Borgon.  Neither was Cas.

You have to let go.  It’s killing him.

Within my held breath, I parted my lips for the words to answer him.  I couldn’t.

I know.  I’ve almost destroyed him Cas.

No, you’re killing Szar.  He can’t make it much longer.  You have to stop.

I only heard the word
kill
and
Szar
. 

Like a snake, the whipping beam struck the sword forcibly stronger and then back into me. It wouldn’t stop.  I tore my head a quarter inch to beg Calum to stop it for me.  He had to be doing this, controlling the current.  It wasn't me or it wasn't me alone.  It had to be his Hunter strength electrocuting the enemy and holding back the sword from hurting me, but I couldn’t see his face.  It was gone.  Light and jolts of sizzling pain were my guide.  I looked back up to the eyes above.  They were gone too.

Kissa.

I can’t Cas. It won’t stop.

You have to make it.  You can do this.

I can’t.

I sobbed.  It wasn’t like me to cry, but I couldn’t see my brother or Calum or even Cord’s face.  Something touched me on my face.  It was gone before I could examine what or who it was. The breath from my sob let go the second I searched for the source.  With feeling Calum and Cord on either side of me, it could be either though I couldn’t see them seconds ago.  The light was stronger still, orange and red flames in my head. I sobbed again and the flutter of the light made me blink.  It recoiled and shook.  Through the haze of it I could see Borgon’s figure above and the sword still suspended at his shoulder length, but this time I saw my twin.  His head was lulled sideways and lying across the shoulder blade of Borgon’s body.  Limp.

The last sob held in my throat released and all at once it snapped.  Like a wave hitting the rocks, it slapped into my chest and consumed my body.  My eyes closed, and blackness hit me.  It was familiar to me.  It was a vision like the one before.  The Elf lord stood above Cord and I just like we are now, but Calum was there with us.  He was…dead.  The pale coldness of death was on his face, purple on his lips. 

Except it changed.  The Elf lord's hand was outstretched before me, pulling me to standing. 

I blinked back the darkness and inhaled, sobbed, and shook with the last of the electricity left in me.  My eyes found the light, but it was not the orange glow that had taken over my vision.  It was just the spotlight above. 

My legs were free and my body was buzzing with the familiar after effects they always did when Calum was near.  My head twisted and ached from the headache that Cord always sent my way.  It was ebbing its way into my soul and I worried it might stay with me for hours.  I knew neither of them were touching me because I was standing and I could feel Cas arms around me.  Energy seemed to flow through the air like the wind. 

When I opened my eyes fully, on the ground was Ted Borgon with the sword in his chest straight through his heart.  Above him, Lord Jetten held the hilt.

After the initial tear of realization that it wasn’t me that gave the final blow to our enemy, I searched for the guys.  Cord was beside Cas and I holding his temples.

Calum was leaning on the podium wall ledge holding his side, alive.  I hauled myself five steps to leap into his personal space checking for how bad the wound was.  It wasn’t there the more I removed his clothing that was in shreds anyway.  Touching his mark, he was completely fine.

Puzzled, I looked to his eyes. His smile was stupifyed and smirky all in one. Through garbled breaths he joked, “Did you get permission from Thorn to manhandle me?”

Jerking my hands away, I growled at him.  “You were hurt.  Then you healed.  Then you were dead.  How?” I stared down at his stomach.

“You happened, Stace.  You!”

I ignored the comment remembering my brother.  Lord Jetten had the sword in his hand, cleaning it on Borgon’s very own jacket.  Beside him was my twin brother, Szar. 

I flew across the terrace platform and wrapped my arms around him.  He fell back on the opposite ledge with my force, still weak apparently.

“Sis, stop it.  I am fine,” he choked. 

“No, your not,” I snapped taking in his disheveled hair and burn marks across his face.

“Kissa, he is fine.”

“No Cas, look at him.”

“I watched it, love.  I assure you, compared to what he was, he is fine now.”

“Yeah, now he actually might get a girl with that face,” Cord buzzed by me to get to Calum in overdrive.  He was picking up lose weapons and piling them up.  "Hurry it up, Green. An arsenal of weapons are at our disposal. Jetten may need to sell some to get his manor rebuilt."

Cord and Calum both were in adrenaline overkill from the affects of our energy sharing. In other words, they were delirious.

“What do you mean, Cas?”  He handed off the two archaic blades he’d retrieved to Cord.

“Whatever it was, it fried Borgon enough Lord Jetten slid the sword from the man’s hand and into his body without much effort.”

All stopped and centered a long awaited breath of ease at the dead man lying before us.  He was finally gone—after all the fear and anxiety.  Ted Borgon was gone.

I wanted his death explained better, but my attention went to the Elf lord.

“Why did you do it?”  He and I had a bargain.

“I never said I wouldn’t.  I just questioned your motives.”  His perfect posture he eased into wound around the body below us.  He searched his pockets to be sure he had nothing else of his people.  One of the Elves stepped up to tell of his hidden underground stash.  He'd been stealing money as well.

“You will keep your bargain?” I asked watching him hold the Godslayer like it was a cherished heirloom. 

“I will return this to where it belongs.”

Curiosity made me ask, “And that is where?”

The smile he hasn’t owned since meeting him surfaced with mischief.  I decided then he looked about twenty, but knew my history books hinted that hundreds of years have passed since he was lord. 

“Ask your mother.  She is the one who had it taken in the first place.”

My mother.  “I will.”

He chortled low and said his goodbyes.  I watched him shake Cas’ hand and tell him something with his head in my direction.  I would ask about that and about my brother later.

All of this spanned over a few minutes, even the mourning of the enemy's death, but the weapons were in mounds and the Elves were gone.  My father and the others surfaced from the room I knew now they were locked inside of.  After they were moved in, they were locked in.  I’d like to think the events of the night were a great shock to me, but my father’s hug was the most astonishing of the night.  It was the second one he'd given me ever.

He told me something I needed to hear.  This wasn’t the future he saw.  The one he knew was worse.  Somehow, we’d changed it.  Listening to him made me realize something.  We’d built ourselves to be the gods we were told we were made from but in reality, the grand finale wasn’t all that grand.  For the most part, it was over fast.  For all the time it took to get to this point, it was really over.  All the energy built and spent to this end, was anticlimactic. Yet, there the dead men lay.

And Dyer Lee. 

The court was damaged, but not beyond repair.  Cleaning was essential, but wouldn’t be a forgotten memory before too long.  I made my way to where I left him.

Dyer Lee.  His body still lay on the front lawn.  The four guys helped me.  I think he was the only one of us who truly was a god that day.  He died for me.  I could never repay that debt.

I went through every single memory I knew of him.  Many were good memories.  If I am able to have children, I knew then how to make his memory live.