Evanescent (20 page)

“Bring him back,” I shrieked as two of the woodsmen reached us and grabbed my arms, pulling me off him.

He shifted his weight so he could stand as I fought against the two men holding me. “I did you a favor. One last favor before you die.”

“Then do me a real favor and bring him back.”

“No. No more favors. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of your whining and I’m sick of your rule,” the Fate Maker said. “You will take me to the tear, and then I will end this silliness.”

“Then why don’t you untie me and make it a fair fight?”

“And why in the name of Fate would I want to do anything as stupid as that? Last time I ended up trapped. And let me tell you, young lady, you don’t want to know what sort of magic I had to do to find my way home.”

“Yeah?” I sneered at him. “Well, I hope you know some sort of magic that will bring you back to life because when I get out of these ropes I’m going to kill you.”

The Fate Maker cocked his head to the side. “That doesn’t really give me a reason to untie you, does it?”

“But if you don’t untie her,” John of Leavenwald said, his voice low, “I’m going to let the dragon eat you.”

I looked up to see him standing in the clearing, Winston, Rhys, Kitsuna, and Mercedes behind him.

The Fate Maker turned to stare at them. “What?”

“I said, untie her.”

“Men.” The Fate Maker flicked his gaze to the traitors who had joined him. “Seize them.”

Before any of them could obey, Mercedes had raised her hands and vines grew up around their ankles, tying them to the ground. “I don’t think so.”

The Fate Maker wiggled his fingers and the vines around him burst into flames, the fire licking at the grass around my boots. “Did you really think that would work on me?”

“I can come up with other things that might.” Winston stepped forward, his form wavering between teenage boy and black dragon.

I started to scoot closer to him, trying to ignore the way the flames on the vines were licking at my legs.

“How do you think you’ll rule this country if you kill her?” Kitsuna asked. “How do you think you’ll make them follow you?”

“I have an army.”

“But you don’t have the tear,” she pointed out. “You wanted it for a reason. If you kill her you’ll never find it. Never be able to use it.”

“Then all the better,” the Fate Maker said. “Without her, the relics will stay lost, and then the last of the great prophesies cannot be fulfilled and magic will flourish in Nerissette.”

I had gotten close enough that I could lean onto my hands and lift my legs. I pulled them into my chest and kicked them out at the back of the Fate Maker’s knees, pitching him forward. He rolled and brought a fist up, slamming it into my jaw and making my head jerk back. He sat up quickly, grabbing for my throat, and I brought my head forward, hard, slamming my forehead into his nose.

“You—” He flung an arm out, knocking me off him, and then started toward me on his knees. Before he could move any closer, though, Kitsuna threw herself onto him, pinning him while Mercedes held her hands out. Vines shot up from the ground to tie around him, lacing around him like a cocoon.

“Now, you.” John looked at the young woodsmen who had betrayed us. “When she unties you, you’re going to run away. And if I see any of you again your lives are over. Forevermore you are banished from the Leavenwald, your names stricken from the scrolls, and you will be forgotten.”

The vines dropped, and I watched as Eamon’s soldiers bolted for the trees, melting into the forest around them within seconds, leaving his body behind. They didn’t even look back. The cowards.

John was staring at Eamon’s body, his jaw tight. He swallowed and his shoulder tensed before he turned to me, his face betraying nothing. Like finding out his son had died while betraying him was nothing.

“Um, guys?” I tried to sit up from where I’d toppled over, staring up at the trees around us. “Can someone untie me please?”

“On it!” Kitsuna came over and took the knife from my belt, cutting my wrists free before moving to my ankles.

“Do you think this changes anything?” the Fate Maker asked. “Do you think that because you’ve captured me you’ve somehow won this world? You’re still not safe. Even if you kill me that won’t stop your aunt. Or the giants. The monsters. They’ll still come. What will you do then?”

Instead of answering I reached into my shirt and grabbed the necklace, letting it dangle in front of me. “Why did you want this so bad if you claim you weren’t going to send me to the Bleak?”

“The tear,” the Fate Maker breathed.

“Why have you been searching for it?” I asked, my voice hollow, as I dropped the chain against the front of my shirt. “You said something about a prophecy. About the end of magic. What does that have to do with me? Or the tear?”

“Isn’t that obvious? I want the tear so that I can keep you from having it.” He smiled up at me, and his dark eyes glittered. “I had to keep it from you because if you had it, one day you might grow enough of a spine to use it. The prophecy will be fulfilled, and the world of magic will die. Then where would I be?”

“The same place you’ll be when this is all over.” I leaned over so that we were face to face. “Inside the Bleak. Now what do you mean, a prophecy?”

“Are you really going to do it?” he asked. “Lock me inside the Bleak?”

I straightened and turned to walk away from him. “Of course.”

“Really? Are you so cold that you can sentence a man to the space between worlds? A place where there’s nothing? No beginning, no end, a place of eternal nothingness. Can you really condemn someone to that for all time?”

“I think you’d be surprised about what I’m capable of, especially where you’re concerned.”

“So what will you do?” the Fate Maker asked.

“Your Majesty,” John of Leavenwald said, his voice throwing me back to what the Fate Maker had shown to me. John had been sitting on the couch, watching a baseball game in a green T-shirt, with his arms open to me. In the fantasy I’d been offered, we’d never been apart. He’d never missed a birthday and he’d brought me chocolate ice cream the day after they took my tonsils out. He’d let me cry when we put my dog to sleep, and he’d sneaked me cookies when I was sick.

I blinked, and the man from my fantasy was gone. Instead I was face-to-face with a man covered in dirt, his eyes red-rimmed and tired, with his arm bandaged and a nasty bruise turning black on his left cheek.

“No mercy,” I said quietly. “There can be no more mercy. But whatever we do, it needs to be done in public. Where everyone can see.”

“Then follow me,” John said. “I know the quickest route between here and Dramera.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

I followed John and Mercedes out of the trees as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, the others following behind us. Winston carrying Eamon’s body draped over his back and Rhys dragging the Fate Maker along behind him. John of Leavenwald’s head was still held high but I could see his shoulders trembling every so often, and every so often Mercedes would reach over and touch his arm. I wanted to go to him, to say something, anything, but I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say that wouldn’t make it worse. When we came to the grassy knoll next to Lake Dramera, I found myself staring at a group of stunned dryads. All of them sat on the ground, their hands buried in the roots of the trees at the edge of the forest as they crooned songs in a language I didn’t understand. They were dirty and tired, but from what I could see they weren’t hurt.

“What? Where?” I tried to take in what I was seeing as soldiers began crowding together along the side of the lake. “How?”

“Queen Allie?” Darinda’s face was covered in smoke, and she had a long, bright-red gash on her arm. Instead of bleeding, though, the cut leaked tree sap and she pressed a pile of leaves against it like a bandage. “Thank the trees you’re alive.”

“I’m fine.” I moved forward to hug her, resting in her strong, branchlike arms. “We’re all fine. What happened here?”

“Nothing. They stayed on the other end of the lake. The wizards…”

“What?” I pressed. “What did they do?”

“They threw balls of dark magic at us all night. I don’t think they were even trying to hit us—they kept throwing them at the trees and blowing holes in the side of the cliff. And now they’re gone.”

“Gone?” I asked. “They just left?”

“The Fate Maker’s army disappeared about an hour ago. One minute they’re throwing magic at us shaking their clubs in the air, then nothing. Just
poof
! It was like they had never been there. We don’t know what happened.”

“They must have realized that he had failed,” I said quietly. “Someone on their side was watching him, and when he didn’t manage to kill me they ran and left him behind. They chose to run rather than fight to get him back.”

“Cowards.” Darinda wrinkled her soot-covered nose. “But you, Your Majesty, are now in possession of both the Fate Maker and the tear.”

“Yes.” I nodded and licked my lips.

“What will you do now?” she asked.

“I’m going to keep us all safe. No matter what it takes. It’s time for something more permanent,” I said. “Something he can’t come back from.”

“The Nymphiad will support your decision.”

“More permanent?” Tevian asked as people began to crowd around us. Rhys dragged the Fate Maker into a small cleared-out area at the front of the crowd, just behind me. He let go of him and stepped into the crowd to face me.

Winston put my half brother’s body down and joined the rest of the crowd. I watched as the woodsmen stared at the limp form in front of me, and I swallowed as I met my father’s red-rimmed eyes, his face still a blank, emotionless mask.

“Eamon of Leavenwald died saving me,” I lied, my eyes never leaving my father’s gray ones. “He died defending our people. However you honor your dead, know that I will never forget his sacrifice for me.”

All of the woodsmen, except for John, bowed low, their hands pressed together, palm to palm, and they brought them to their chests. Two of the younger woodsmen moved forward, lifting Eamon’s body and disappearing into the forest with it, others trailing behind them.

“Your Majesty?” Darinda stood to one side of the crowd, the rest of the Nymphiad beside her, while Tevian and the Dragos Council stood on the other side of the group, their dark eyes fixed on me, their faces covered in smoke, unreadable.

My father stood with the rest of his men between the dragons and the Nymphiad, a head taller than any other man standing near him. His face was tight and his jaw clenched. My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the gesture as the same one I always used to keep myself from crying.

“No mercy.” I lifted my head, trying my best to look like a queen was supposed to, and I turned to the Fate Maker, keeping my eyes fixed on his.

“Last chance,” the Fate Maker said, his voice barely more than a whisper as I closed in on him. “It’ll be so real that you’ll never question it. The perfect life. I’ll even give you your brother back. I’ll snap my fingers, and he’ll wake up. How can you resist? ”

“Because no matter how perfect it is, it’s not real. It’s not the life I was meant to live.” I pulled the tear over my head, holding the crystal tight in my hands. “That’s not what Fate has in store for me.”

“Aren’t you the one who always says that each person should choose their own fate?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “That there is no goddess of destiny for you to worship?”

“Who says I haven’t chosen this?” I forced my fingers to brush over his forehead, and I immediately felt my soul contract, pulling away from the bleakness that surrounded the two of us. Instead of panicking I opened my eyes. Our gazes locked, and he paled, his eyes wide as they darted from person to person. He licked his lower lip once before he focused on me, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

The world around us melted, and everyone else disappeared, leaving just the two of us staring at each other. Everything around us was gray and wherever we were, there was no one there. There was nothing, thousands of millions of miles of nothingness in every direction.

“I want you to know,” I said, keeping my eyes on his, “that when this is over I will pass a law that will prevent anyone from ever saying your name again. If it’s the last thing I do I’ll make sure you’re forgotten.”

“You can’t do this,” he said as I pulled my hand from his forehead. “Please.”

“Yes, I can. And because of what you did to my mother and my brother and the rest of my family, I’m going to enjoy every single second of it.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember Winston’s face. The darkness around me began to swirl, the air pressing in on me like I’d been caught inside a whirlpool. Warm light caressed my skin. But this time I knew the light wasn’t an illusion. This time it was the way home. I concentrated on sealing the wall between the World of Dreams and the Bleak, leaving the Fate Maker behind.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking directly into Winston’s dark ones. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt us ever again.”

“I love you.” He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me.

“I love you, too.” I buried my head in his chest and tried not to cry. “And thank you for coming to save me.”

“You’d have done the same for me.”

I heard a cough and lifted my head. John of Leavenwald coughed again, and I stepped back from Winston and wiped my hands on my trousers. John wouldn’t meet my eyes. “John?”

He sprinted the few steps between us and wrapped his arms around me so tightly that ribs creaked as he buried his head against the top of my head. “Thank the stars I didn’t lose you too,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I lost both of you.”

“You’ll never lose me again,” I promised.

“We’ve got so much time to make up,” he whispered. “So many things for me to make up to you.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I stood on the Cliffs of Fesir, looking out over Dramera Lake, and watched the sunset, staring at the crown that I’d finally managed to go back into the forest and retrieve. It didn’t feel right to wear it. Not now. Not with everything we’d lost today.

“So, John of Leavenwald is your dad, huh?” Winston sauntered toward me, his hands in his pockets. “That’s got to be weird.”

“A bit.” I smiled as he sat down beside me and took my hand in his. “It’s a good weird, though. Better than having a psycho, homicidal wizard for a father.”

“True.” He nudged me with his shoulder.

“He might make the whole prince consort thing a nightmare for you, though. You know, being my dad and all.”

“He’s already threatened to wire my jaws shut if he ever sees us kissing again.”

“Ouch.” I wrinkled my nose, and we both laughed.

“I think we’ve got a few days before he actually does it though,” he said quietly, his voice becoming serious. “Since he’s leaving with the rest of his woodsmen in a few hours.”

“He’s leaving?” I asked, stunned. What did he mean my father was leaving? We’d just gotten each other back.

“The woodsmen do their funerals at dawn,” Winston said. “They’re going to…”

“Bury Eamon.” I nodded. “They’re going to bury my brother.”

“And then they’ll be back,” Winston said. “Your father made sure to tell me that. They’re going to take care of Eamon and then they’re coming back. He’s coming back.”

“Good.” I sniffed and tried to ignore the sudden relief I felt. “That’s good.”

“Allie?” Winston asked. “I’m curious about something. Something besides what happened with Eamon.”

“What?”

“What did the Fate Maker offer you earlier?”

I turned back to the lake and tangled my fingers in the grass to keep from fidgeting. I couldn’t tell him the Fate Maker had given me a chance to go home and I’d refused it. That I hadn’t bargained for a way to get us all home. I couldn’t tell him that I’d had that chance and had let it go to get revenge instead.

“Before you sent him to the Bleak, he told you it was your last chance. What did he mean by that? Your last chance for what?”

“Nothing that I want. Or at least nothing I want enough to give up what I already have,” I said, deciding that the truth was always a better than lie, even if it didn’t really answer his question.

“So what are you going to do with it?” He touched the Dragon’s Tear still hanging around my neck.

“Timbago said that when I needed to destroy the tear, I would know how. So I’ll keep it safe until that happens.”

“What are we going to do about your aunt? Her army is still massed at the borders, and several of our warriors said they’d seen her at the palace. She took part in the attack.”

“I know.” I yanked up a tuft of grass and tossed it angrily at the lake. “I saw her, too.”

“She will come for us at some point,” Winston said. “What do we do then?”

I didn’t meet his eyes. “Then we fight. Just like we’ve fought every other time. We fight until we win or we die. We don’t have any other choice.”

“When that day comes, no matter what happens, I’ll be right by your side.”

“Together,” I said and smiled at him.

“Always.”

“Always.” I pressed my lips against his and let the world around us slip away. Tomorrow was soon enough to start worrying about what lay ahead.