Chapter 12
A tree branchraking against my back is the first thing that jolts me out of my haze of shock. I quickly turn myself into a ball, bringing my knees up and shielding my face with my forearms. I want to make myself as small as possible. I know I am going to hit all manner of branch and tree limb on the way down, but the smaller I am, hopefully the fewer I hit.
My strategy works, for the most part. At least until one unlucky limb has me doubled over on my side. All the wind is knocked from me. I wheeze and roll off the branch, narrowly missing another one on my way down. A final branch I allow myself to hit. Prepared this time, I’m able to brace myself and catch it with both hands. My fingers are ripped across the bark, torn up in an instant. But it slows my descent.
Though it doesn’t stop me from hitting the ground awkwardly. Luckily, the thick blanket of moss cushions my fall. I’m wheezing and aching all over. My body is covered in bruises and scratches. This is why Joyce forbade me from heights after the roof. Nothing ever goes right when I’m high up.
A heavy thud next to me steals my attention. I get up and rush over to where Davien has landed. He’s so very still. It isn’t until I’m on my knees at his side that I can see his chest moving.
“Thank the gods,” I whisper. I may not know fully where I stand with this man. He might have betrayed my trust in some murky ways. But I know that he is the best chance I have of surviving this world and getting home.
The man who launched the spear descends gracefully through the canopy. He moves from branch to branch on his tiptoes, nothing more than a whisper of smoke between. With a pop he materializes on the ground not far from me.
“You’re alive.” He tsks. “How utterly disappointing. I expected this to be far simpler. To think I couldn’t kill a fae with stinted magic and a human. I’m losing my touch.”
“Stay away,” I manage to say. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Or what?” He adjusts the shadowy scarf that swoops across his shoulders and upper chest. I was right, it is the same as the one worn by the woman from the woods who attacked me weeks ago. “I don’t know why he dragged you here, human, but let me assure you that you are far out of your depth.”
Like I don’t know that. He continues approaching. I hold out a hand and repeat, “Don’t come any closer.”
“I’m waiting to see how you’ll stop me.” He shakes his head with a sinister smile.
I turn back to Davien. He’s my best hope. But the moss around the shoulder the spear tore through is already stained a deep red. I shake his good shoulder lightly and plead, “Get up, please.”
“He’s not going to get up. He’s the last loose end that should have been tied years ago,” the man snarls. His white hair shines in the moonlight as he holds his spear aloft. He takes a step forward and adjusts his weight to throw.
“No you don’t—” Shaye shouts from a distance. I can see her and the others trying to close the gap. But they won’t be fast enough.
I have to stall. I have to do something. “I said don’t come any closer!” I scream a final time. My fear and rage grows within me. It’s a swell that can’t be contained. Emotions and wants that have burned so hot they’ve become something…tangible.
The power bursts forth from my palm, turning into a wall of light. It rushes toward our attacker with deadly force. In an instant, he’s enveloped. Silence fills the air as the man is turned into a reverse silhouette—a solid outline of white that’s too blinding to look at. Then, he explodes.
The force of the magic has me knocked onto my back at Davien’s side. The shock wave rushes through the woods, violently shaking loose limbs from the trees and shearing the moss from the soil and bedrock underneath. My ears are ringing as the forest goes suddenly dark and eerily silent following the blast.
I sit, realizing the pains from my body are as gone from this earth as our attacker is. I blink at the epicenter of the blast—where he was standing just a moment ago. There’s nothing but a singed bit of hard rock. I stare at my hand.
I… I did that? How?A thousand questions swirl in my mind, immediately coming to a stop the second I hear a soft groan next to me.
“Davien?”
His eyes crack open. “What just happened?” he murmurs.
“I think I killed a man.” I return to staring at my hand, waiting for the realization that I just killed a man to sink in.
“He was a shit stain on this earth. Good riddance.” Davien sits, rolling his injured shoulder. He pauses, looking to the wound. Poking his finger through the torn and bloody hole of his shirt, he runs it along unbroken skin and sighs. “It seems you healed me, too.”
“You…don’t seem happy about that?”
“I’d be happier if I was the one to heal and protect myself.” He stands with a scowl and stalks over to the center of the singed earth. Davien digs the toe of his boot into the only remnants of the man, spitting.
“Well, you’re welcome.” I stand and go to draw my robe around me; my hands hit something wet. Davien might be healed, but his blood is still all over me. I cringe at my own filth.
“I shouldn’t need to thank you,” he murmurs without looking at me with those distant and unfocused eyes.
“Excuse me? I saved your life, and because of that I now have to live with the fact that I killed a man. So maybe a ‘thanks’ would ease that process a bit?” My hands are shaking. There’s the slimy, sick feeling I expected that comes from knowing I ended a life.
“I shouldn’t need to thank you because I should have been able to do that myself!” Anger overflows from him, an unbridled, unyielding rage that is far greater than anything I could’ve created on my own. “You stole the power of our kings—and took it for yourself. Just like your kind took our lands and our songs and stories. You took what should have been mine.” His hair falls, scraggly, in front of his face. His breathing is ragged.
