The Faerie War (37 page)

Strange
, a voice in my mind whispers to me.
Why would he do that?

Maybe he’s just as scared as I am. His loyalty now lies with Draven, but he can probably still feel fear. He must know as well as I do that Draven won’t let any of us come out of this alive.

“Ryn, you’ll be leaving this world in a minute,” Draven says, “so if you’d like to say goodbye to your darling Violet, now’s the time.”

A sob escapes my throat, but I can’t seem to get my body to move. It can’t end like this. It’s not supposed to end like this.

Ryn nods and steps forward. His eyes finally meet mine, and he smiles. “It’s over, V.”

No no no it can’t be over!

“Draven has finally given me a cause worth dying for. Don’t try to save me.” He comes closer and places a kiss on my cheek. His lips brush my ear as he whispers, “I’ve already been saved.” His fingers slip behind my back, away from Draven’s gaze, and something sharp cuts the bonds around my wrists. Over his shoulder, Tilly winks at me. Ryn steps back, his meaningless smile morphing into the one I love so much. “Goodbye, V.” He raises his hand and gives me a little wave, and I notice the tiniest smudge on one side of the black ring that marks his palm.

Is it possible . . . ?

“Now,” Draven says, “if you’d just climb up onto the railing so it’s easy for Vi to push you off, that’d be great.”

My stomach drops.

Ryn turns to him. “I don’t think so, halfling boy.” He lunges at Draven, striking him hard in the chin with the heel of his hand and following it up with a guardian dagger straight to the stomach. With a shout of fury, Draven stumbles back.

I can’t move. My brain struggles to catch up. Small hands push my shoulders down, and Tilly yanks the sword from its sheath on my back. “Out the way!” she yells at Ryn. She runs. He ducks. And the glowing sword plunges into Draven’s chest.

Everything seems to stop. Nothing moves except for blurred images in the smoke. Draven takes a shuddering gasp as he stares in horror at the sword protruding from his chest. Then he wraps his hand around the hilt and slowly pulls it out. He drops the sword onto the stones where it lands with a loud clatter.

His simmering gaze rests on each of us before his hand whips out and strikes Tilly with such force that she flies back and tumbles down the stairs. He kicks the sword after her.

I take a shaky step backward as Draven’s eyes lock onto me. Why is he alive? Why didn’t it work? With a wordless shout, he slams his elbow into Ryn’s chest, knocking him backward off the balcony.

“Ryn!” I scream, running forward. Draven catches me and wraps a hand around my neck as my panicked brain screams words at me.
He’s a faerie. He can stop his fall. He won’t die. You have to fight back.

“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Draven snarls. “Looks like somebody found a way around my mark. Drew their own pretty circles on their palms. I’ll have to investigate that once I’ve gotten rid of all the traitors in this tower.” His hands squeeze tighter around my neck.

Fight back, dammit!
I squirm and kick. I claw at Draven’s arms, his face, his neck. There’s a chain there, disappearing beneath his shirt, and for a crazy second all I can think is,
why is he wearing a necklace?

The next thing I know I’m being thrown across the balcony and back into the tower room. I land on my side, the way I’ve been taught, and roll several times before coming to a stop. The shadowy shape I saw earlier moves across the rafters above, then drops down toward me. I scream and swing my body out of the way, but I recognize the figure the moment I jump to my feet.

“Dad?”

Before Dad can answer, Draven comes storming down the stairs. Literally storming. Wind swirls around the room and rain begins to fall. Dad throws a shield up in front of us just as lightning crackles and hundreds of miniature manticores swarm toward us. Darkness descends in the form of heavy grey-black clouds. They grow thicker, filling the tower room like stuffing inside a cushion. The manticores vanish into the darkness. Rain falls so heavily on the other side of Dad’s shield that I can’t see a thing except when the lightning flashes.

“I can’t . . . last,” Dad shouts. I snap myself out of my shock and try to add my own strength to the shield. When it doesn’t work, I remember the metal band on my wrist. My magic wouldn’t do much good anyway. There’s so much power behind Draven’s storm, it’s like trying to hold a dam back with a handful of twigs. “You have to . . . separate him . . . from his power,” Dad gasps. “You have to—”

The storms shatters our shield.

We’re thrown backward onto the slippery stones.

“Violet!” Dad throws his arm out toward me, but lightning hits him, tossing him aside like a leaf.

“Dad!” I try to scramble across the stones, but an invisible force holds me back. I swing around and scream into the drenching rain. One wordless scream packed with every emotion splitting my heart into thousands of pieces.

The rain slows and stops. The wind spins itself into a gentle breeze. The clouds lift, pull apart, drift away. Through the dim light, I see Draven. He takes his time stalking toward me. “It’s just you and me now, Vi. No one left to hide behind.”

The invisible chains disappear from my body. I climb onto shaky legs as I look around. Ryn’s gone. Dad’s down. Tilly’s down. Her motionless fingers lie inches from the sword that didn’t work—and I just figured out why.
You have to separate him from his power
, Dad said. And what were those words in the prophecy?
She is hidden, but the finder will find her. She will break the whole in half
. ‘She will break the whole in half,’ I murmur, my words leaving my lips as little more than shaky breaths. I thought the ‘she’ was Tilly, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s the finder.

Maybe it’s me.

“Aren’t you going to come and get me?” Draven taunts. “I’ve always wanted to fight the great guardian Violet.”

My wet boots slap the stones as I run at him. I know what has to happen, I just don’t know
how
. I grab the tops of his arms and shake him. “Nate!” My shout comes out as half a sob. “Please come back. Please!”

He laughs and pushes me away as easily as if I were made of paper. I trip over Tilly’s arm—she groans in pain—and fall backward. Draven crouches down beside me and holds a hand over my chest. “Do you know I can boil you from the inside out?”

I grasp the sleeves of his jacket and tug weakly at them. “I know you’re in there, Nate,” I sob. I reach out with my mind, searching desperately for the guy with the laughing eyes and the beautiful smile. If he’s still there, I’ll find him. “Nate, come back.” My chest starts to burn. The breeze around us whips itself into a rising wind. “I’m sorry.” The wind swirls into a hurricane gale. “Come back,
please
!” Burning, burning, unbearable heat. “
I loved you and you broke my heart and
I’m SORRY!
”

The heat and wind vanish. His gaze falters. He shudders. The glow in his eyes intensifies, then seems to lift away into the air. Wisps of green drift out of him until he’s surrounded by a green haze. I see him through it. Startled. Confused.

“Vi?” he whispers.

A hand brushes against my hip. Tilly. I look over at her. Our eyes meet. I grasp her hand, wrap it around the sword, and lift it. “I’m sorry,” I gasp out. “I’m so sorry, Nate.” I bring her hand down, along with the glowing sword, straight through the green haze and straight through Nate.

We let go. Tilly’s hand flops to the ground. Nate’s eyes bulge in shock. He falls away from me, onto his side, as the green haze seems to tighten around him. Then it rushes outward, filling the room for an instant before vanishing.

“Nate?”

A brilliant flash of silver light bursts forth from his chest. I throw my arm across my eyes to shield my face. A rushing sound fills the tower, and a gust of wind swirls and twists and spins like it’s trying to suck the life out of the room. Just as I’m about to rise off the ground, the wind scatters. My wildly blowing hair falls onto my shoulders. The light fades.

I slowly lower my arm.

Nate is gone.

I twist around, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The sword is gone too. A groan at my feet makes me scramble to Tilly’s side. I push her wet hair off her face. “Tilly, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

“Mm hmm.” I help her to sit up. “Crud, my head is
seriously
throbbing.” She looks around. “What happened? Did we do it? Is he . . . really gone?”

“I think so.” I feel a shuddering in my chest, like I want to collapse in on myself. The relief that crashes into me is exhausting. I want to cry for days. It was all just . . . so . . . much.

“V? V, honey?”

My hands shake as I push myself to my feet and look around for Dad. Holding his wounded arm close to his body, he comes toward me. With his good arm, he pulls me to his side. Careful not to hurt him, I wrap my arms around his waist and start crying. I cry myself empty as the same thoughts play over in my head.
It’s over it’s over and I don’t know how many people died and I don’t know where Ryn is and I don’t know what’s going to happen now and I wish the real Nate hadn’t had to die but it’s over. It’s over.

When the tears are gone, I pull away from Dad and hurry across the tower room to the stairs. The cloud-screen shows Fireglass Vale and the people who survived the battle. They’re helping each other up, checking the fallen for those still alive, hugging, crying. I walk across the balcony, slowing as I near the railing. If I see Ryn down there, on the ground, the pieces of my heart will never become whole again. I grip the railing and look down, but I can’t see enough past the wisps of cloud and tree branches to know if he’s there or not.

“V?”

I turn around, and the air rushes out of my lungs at the sight of him. I don’t seem to be able to move, but joy bubbles up inside me and escapes in a half-cry, half-laugh.

“Is it you?” he says, and I know what he’s asking.

My fingers go to my neck and lift the tiny key hanging from the chain. “Guessing Game Number Twenty-Four,” I say. “This is the answer. The gold key from my mother. You threw it down the singing well in Creepy Hollow, and I didn’t see it again for years. But you found it. You gave it to me the night of our graduation. The night I finally realized how much you meant to me.”

He crosses the balcony in a few quick strides. He takes my face in his hands and rests his forehead against mine. “I missed you so much, my Sexy Pixie.” He presses a soft kiss to my lips.

Bright colors explode in the cloud beside us. Firework sparks rise high above the valley and shower down on the victorious fae below. Blue, green, red, gold.

I smile against Ryn’s mouth and whisper, “I love you. With all my heart.”

Fae dressed in every color of the rainbow line the banks of the Neverending River. A little higher upstream, the Infinity Falls thunder down, creating a cloud of spray that reaches further than you’d think. I watch the spray and imagine all the places in our world where fae are gathering to say goodbye to their fallen loved ones.

This is my fourth celebration-of-life ceremony—the first three were for my mother, my father, and Reed—and it’s by far the largest; there are many who lost their lives in the past months. I’ve only been here with faeries before, but the mingling of races on the banks of this river is a testament to the way we came together to fight for our world.

Ryn lays a kiss on the top of my head, and I lean against him for a while. Filigree wriggles in my pocket, then settles. His tiny presence comforts me as much as Ryn’s does. I look down at the garlands of fresh flowers in my hands. Normally there’d be a canoe to place the flowers in, alongside the fallen body, but some of the lives we’re celebrating today were lost months ago. Like Tora.

“You ready?” Ryn asks. I nod and squeeze his hand. I look over at Flint to let him know. He comes forward to take my hand, and we walk down the bank to the river. We hold the garland together, whisper our final goodbyes, and toss it into the water. He’s saying goodbye to his sister; I’m saying goodbye to a friend, sister, mother, mentor . . . I’m not sure I’m even aware of all the roles Tora filled for me. I squeeze my eyes closed and feel the tears dripping down my cheeks. For someone who spent so many years determined not to cry or feel any kind of distressing emotion, I’ve certainly made up for it in recent months.