A fairy king's explosion will sort of get everyone's attention.
I don't know how they all knew I was responsible, but suddenly, the eyes of my allies and foes alike were on me as all fighting ceased. The guy holding me released his grip, backing up and away. Fear glittered in his wide eyes. It occurred to me then I'd nearly forgotten about my captivity while working the magic. The experience had actually been remarkably like when Dorian kept me tied up. Maybe there'd been more to that method than his own kinky tendencies.
None of Aeson's guards - the few who were left - moved from where they stood. I wondered if it was like in those films where killing the head zombie stops all the rest. Kiyo trotted up to me. Blood and dirt spattered his fur, but his eyes shone with eagerness and anticipation, like he could have fought all night. Volusian stood nearby, watching all with an unreadable expression on his face.
Looking around myself, I received the full impact of what I'd just done. Whatever else wasn't water in the body lay scattered out in a wide radius from where Aeson had stood. I recognized blood and bits of bone, but most of the debris consisted of slimy, nondescript blobs. Bile rose up in the back of my throat, and I worked to swallow it down. God, what a mess. No wonder the guards looked at me like some kind of monster. I had craved the strength Storm King's inherited power could give me, but this...well, I didn't know if I could handle this on a regular basis.
"Sire!"
Shaya came tearing through the trees, breaking into the clearing. She looked remarkably fresh compared to the rest of us, but then, she'd probably spent most of our battle time running back to us, once she'd set the trees in motion. She knelt beside Dorian, cradling his head. I'd almost forgotten him in the aftermath.
Running over, I dropped beside her. To my surprise, he looked more dirty than burnt. His skin appeared to have the nastiest sunburn of his life, and his clothes had singed and melted in some places. He looked exhausted, like he could keel over at any minute, but he still had the strength to push Shaya away when he saw me.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." He struggled to sit up. "Eugenie - "
"How the hell did you survive that?" I exclaimed.
"Earth shield. It's not important. Listen to me, you have to - "
"Your majesty, we have to get you to a healer. We can't stay here."
I nodded my agreement. "She's right - "
"Damn it! You're both welcome to fuss over my body as much as you like later. Right now, you have to act." Reaching out, he grasped my arm, fingers digging in painfully to make his point. "You have to act now if you want to put Aeson to rest."
I glanced around at the gore. "He's pretty rested. And I don't feel his shade. He's gone."
Dorian shook his head. "Listen to me. Find his blood, er, what sort of passes for it." He scanned and caught sight of a small puddle of water that looked to have some dark blobs in it in the poor lighting. "There. Touch it, and then stick your hand in the ground."
Shaya made a small sound of surprise.
"Why...?" Bad enough I'd caused this mess. Now I had to touch it?
"Just do it, Eugenie!" His voice was ragged but forceful, and he reminded me of the time he'd fought the nixies, hard and fierce.
"He's right," came Volusian's more subdued tones. "You must finish what you started."
Still not understanding, I did as they asked. The liquid was still warm, and I felt my stomach turn again as I dipped my hand in it. I sensed a tension in Aeson's guards as they watched, but none of them intervened.
"Now put your hand in the earth," said Dorian.
Frowning, I tried. "I can't really go in. The ground's too hard."
And then it wasn't. My fingers sank in. It was easy. The previously hardened dirt turned soft, like quicksand, pulling my hand in until I was wrist-deep. I wondered if Dorian had done something magical.
He shifted over to me. "Tell me what you feel."
"It...it's soft. And, well, it's dirt."
"Nothing else?" His voice surprised me. Anxious. Desperate.
"No, it's just - wait. It feels...warmer. Hot almost. Like it's moving...or alive." I looked up at him, frightened. "What's happening?"
"Listen to me, Eugenie. I need you to think about...life. Vitality. Picture it in your mind. Whatever setting makes you feel alive when you're outdoors, makes you feel connected to the rest of the world. Cold. Rain. Flowers. Whatever it is, visualize it as sharply as you can. For me, that life is autumn on my father's estate when the oaks are orange and the apples are ripe. For you, it will be something different. Reach out to that. What it looks like, smells like, feels like. Hold that image in your mind."
Still scared, I attempted to focus my befuddled mind into a coherent image. For a moment, his vision stuck in my head, the cool breezes and blazing colors of his land. But no, that wasn't what made me feel alive. Tucson did. Dry heat. The desert's perfume. The sun pouring down on the Santa Catalina mountains. The dull-colored stretches of sandy dirt adorned with splotches of green from low shrubs and plants. The colors and hues of blossoms on cacti after the rain.
That was life. The world I'd grown up with and longed for whenever I was away from it. Those images burned into my mind, so real I could almost reach out and touch them.
The ground below me shook. Startled, I jerked my hand out of the dirt, but the trembling didn't stop. The land groaned, and before my eyes, it shifted and twisted. The guards' low cries of fear came to my ears, and nearby, Shaya muttered what sounded like a prayer. The trees of the forest behind me melted, sinking into the ground they'd sprouted from. The green carpet of grass we'd fought on faded, replaced by gravelly dirt. A moment later, shrubby patches of grass shot up from that dirt, along with small, scraggly plants. Cholla. Agave. The land beyond the fortress rose, forming into sharp angles and plateaus, like the foothills of a mountain range. Thin pines grew on those slopes, covering it in patches. The moisture in the air dropped, and the temperature increased ever so slightly. Finally the cacti came, popping up everywhere, and they were covered in flowers. Too many flowers to be real. We never had that kind of an outburst, yet there they were, a riot of colors vividly apparent even in the dusky light of dawn. Saguaros sprang up among the flowering cacti, in a matter of seconds reaching the sizes that normally took hundreds of years.
The land started to quiet, except for the spot beside me. It trembled from the force of something trying to get out. I scrambled away lest it impale me. Moments later, a tree burst from the earth, springing up with unreal speed. Reaching almost twenty-five feet in the air, its spiky gray-black branches spread out. Purple blooms sprang all over it like a cloud or a veil.
Then all went still. I gaped. I had a Tucson summer around me. Only it was better. The kind of summer you always wished for but rarely achieved.
We all sat there frozen, peering around for what would come next. Only Dorian and Volusian seemed nonchalant.
"What is this tree?" Dorian asked softly, looking upward.
I swallowed. "It...it's a smokethorn." My mother had a couple of them in her yard.
"A smokethorn," he repeated, lips turning up in delight. I stared at him, still in shock.
"What...what just happened?" I managed. The sweetness of mesquite came to me on a light breeze, heady and delicious.
"He's given you a kingdom," said a clear, soprano voice. "You stole what I should have gotten."
Jasmine Delaney stood just on the outskirts of our little gathering.
She looked wraithlike in the early morning light. Her strawberry-blond hair hung long and loose, and a form-fitting blue gown covered her slim body. Her wondrous, enormous gray eyes appeared black without full illumination. Finn stood next to her.
I clambered to my feet. Beside me, Dorian did the same, albeit awkwardly. He touched my arm. "Be careful."
Something was wrong here, but I couldn't put my finger on it yet.
"Jasmine..." I said stupidly. "We've come to take you home."
Her lips formed a flat line, not exactly a smile and not exactly a grimace either. "I am home. After putting up with humans all that time, I'm finally where I should be."
"You don't know what you're saying. I know you think you want to be here, but it's wrong. You need to come home."
"No, Eugenie. I'm saying what you should have been saying all along. I recognized my birthright, and I came for it. Whereas you..." She shook her head, anger kindling in her words. The intensity of that hate seemed absurd with her young, high voice - as did the fact that she'd actually used the word "birthright." Too much time with the gentry. "You became the biggest rock star around here. You could have had it all, but you couldn't handle it. You spent all your time bitching and moaning, acting like it was so hard to be you. It was stupid, but they all ate it up. Even Aeson did."
She sounded near tears, and a lump formed in my throat. Not because I felt sorry for her but because I knew with a deadly certainty what she was going to say.
"He thought because you were the oldest and had your stupid warrior thing going that you'd be the one to have the heir, not me. He was going to toss me aside, even though I've been faithful to him the whole time - even before he brought me over. It didn't even matter. He was ready to get rid of me for you."
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to block out her eyes. Those enormous gray eyes, gray like the sky on a rainy day. Just as mine were the violet of storm clouds gathering. Wil's words came back to me, lamenting their childhood: Our dad was always off on some business trip, and our mom was constantly sleeping around on him. Their mom had indeed slept around - with one of the gentry, on one of Storm King's assorted liaisons in the human world. There had been a reason Jasmine reminded me of myself.
"Jasmine...please. We can deal with this...."
"No. I'm tired of you, Eugenie. You're the worst sister ever, and you aren't going to be the one who gets to have the heir and start the conquest. I am."
I glanced over at the lanky form beside her. "Finn...?"
He shrugged, as chipper as ever. "Sorry, Odile. I gave you the chance. I spread your identity around, hoping you'd see reason. You think I wanted to be some shaman's toadie? I picked you because I thought you were going places. You blew it, so I traded up."
My shock over these developments shot into anger. Finn had betrayed us. He'd let Aeson know we were coming. He'd even tried to stack the deck against us by separating Dorian from me earlier.
Before I - or anyone else - realized what I was doing, I strode over to where my captor had tossed my assorted weapons. In a flash, I held the wand. I touched Persephone's gate and said the banishing words. Finn's mouth dropped open in astonishment, but he was such a weak spirit - never meant to be more than a toadie, after all - that his resistance was a nonevent. My will, channeled through the wand, pulled him through the pathway I'd created. A moment later, he vanished, transported into the Underworld.
Banishing him didn't really fix the mess I was in, but it made me feel better.
Jasmine's face darkened, her eyes narrowing with bitter hatred for me. Christ. I still couldn't believe this. She was just a kid.
"Your staff got downsized," I told her.
"I've got more."
I felt a surge of water in the air and a dozen translucent, feline forms appeared beside her. They reminded me of lions, but their bodies moved like water swirled inside them, dynamic and restless, just underneath their translucent skin. Their eyes glowed an almost neon blue, and their teeth and claws looked about ten times longer and sharper than a normal lion's.
"Yeshin," Dorian murmured in my ear. "More water creatures."
I caught the implied message. Maiwenn had had nothing to do with the fachan or nixies. Jasmine had sent them, using the power inherited from our father to attempt to kill me. She'd wanted to get me out of the way so she'd be the only one in line to fulfill that crazy prophecy. Maybe I should have been outraged, but mostly I felt jealous. Jasmine could summon water denizens, and I could not.
The yeshin moved toward me with a sinuous grace, saliva - or was it simply water? - dripping from their fangs. For a moment, I couldn't act. Then Kiyo moved in a golden-orange streak beside me, tackling one of the yeshin to the ground. Their limbs and claws bit into each other as they wrestled, rolling over and over in the dust.
I came to life, grappling on the ground for my gun. Finding it, I ejected the clip and dug through my coat pockets until I found a silver one. Meanwhile, four other yeshin advanced. Dorian waved a hand, and a small dust cloud rose up and swirled in the creatures' eyes. With his other hand, he pointed at me and yelled at the guards.
"All of you! You know your duty. Defend her."
The guards stayed fixed, staring uneasily between the yeshin and me. Then, one stepped forward, sword raised. He let out a battle cry and charged forward to the yeshin nearest him. A moment later, the others followed suit.
"Stay back from this, your majesty," I heard Shaya say. "You're too weak now."
She was right. Dorian was pale beneath his burns, barely able to keep himself upright. Giving me a brief glance first, Shaya closed her eyes in concentration. Seconds later, two saguaros ripped themselves from the earth and lumbered toward a yeshin. Their weight and grappling helped immobilize it. I took aim and fired until the yeshin moved no more. Straightening back up, the saguaros plodded on to their next victim. I followed them, ready to repeat the process.
Nearby, Kiyo looked to be on his third yeshin. I watched as he pinned it down, his sharp teeth tearing into its skin. Liquid leaked out, not blood but water. Still, it made a valiant effort to fight him, one clawed paw snaking out and gouging his side. Blood appeared on him, but it didn't seem to faze him. He kept moving, tearing into the beast until it died. Then, without hesitation, he moved on to the next one.
The guards - my guards? - fought yeshin in small groups while Volusian aided with his magic. Shaya had created another set of moving saguaros but looked tired. She had her sword drawn and hovered near Dorian, watchful and protective through her fatigue.
The saguaros had another yeshin pinned. I fired and heard only a click. I'd run out of bullets. This was my second silver clip; I'd brought no more. Swearing, I stuffed the gun away and pulled out my wand. Fixing on the yeshin the saguaros held, I sent the creature out of this world. It took more energy than firing a gun. Working my earlier magic had apparently tired me out. No wonder Dorian and Shaya were weakening.
Three yeshin were left. Kiyo was moving onto one of them; I swore he'd taken down half the group himself. Blood covered him, but he bared his teeth and lunged at his next foe. One of the saguaros went down to a yeshin's attack, but the cactus' partner distracted the cat enough for a banishing. The guards had encircled the third and were having a rough time of it. One of them was thrown from the fray, landing roughly and painfully. Another fell in the way of the yeshin's claws and screamed.
I still didn't entirely get why they fought for me, but I moved to help them, trying to get a good fix. Suddenly, as I approached, I heard a horrible, strangled cry from where Kiyo fought. I knew it wasn't the yeshin, but I couldn't turn around. I had the guards' yeshin in sight already and had started the words. Forcing myself to stay on task, I drove it from this world. The guards turned to me in surprise.
"Thank you, your majesty," one said gratefully. I didn't dwell on the fact that he wasn't thanking Dorian.
The last yeshin was stalking away from an inert form - a fox-shaped form. My guards were on the cat in a flash, and it succumbed almost immediately. It had already been severely weakened.
Jasmine, I barely noted, was nowhere in sight.
Without giving her another thought, I fell to Kiyo's side. He wasn't moving. I rolled him over to his back, trying to feel a pulse or breath. Nothing. I screamed his name, wondering what to do. Could you perform CPR on a fox? Desperate and hysterical, I shook him, saying his name over and over. A hand reached out and took my arm, moving it away.
"He's gone, Eugenie," Dorian said quietly. Shaya knelt beside him, face sober.
"No," I whispered. "No."
"Can't you feel it? His spirit left this body. It travels to the next world."
I blinked, suddenly back in control. Traveling. Maybe not there yet. A banishing sent the spirit on instantly. Real death had a slight delay; that was how people had near-death experiences.
"But not quite there," I said, relaxing my body and clearing my mind. The butterfly burned as I reached out to Persephone. I was already in the Otherworld, one step closer than usual to the world beyond it.
Dorian shot me a look of alarm, recognizing what I was doing. He reached for me. "Damn it, don't - "
He stopped abruptly, realizing I was already gone. Disturbing me in that state would be deadly. I vaguely saw his hand drop as he stared helplessly at my entranced body, the body that no longer held my spirit.
I had moved on - on to the land of death.
