CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sorin
I fell with a thud to the ground.
The unfamiliar room reeked of the Blood King and his magic.
And of Zurie.
Bone shrapnel littered the floor.
“Holy shit, what the hell happened?” Emma asked as she took in her surroundings, gaze lingering on my sister’s nude form.
“That’s a good question.” Callum wrapped the queen’s sidekick in a hug, then turned to me. “What did happen?”
“It was the Blood Heir. He was the last thing I saw before falling here.” I had no memory of the time between then and now.
“Does anyone else feel strange?” Verrill asked, pinched expression lingering on his features.
Callum nodded. “What is that?”
“It’s power.” Jadzeera flexed an arm, conjuring an ancient runic glyph to appear in her palm. “A great deal of it.”
The magic within me hummed as it always did. Deep within, a new sensation stirred, begging to be set free.
Verrill gasped, gripping his cousin’s arm to keep from falling, complexion blanching as he gazed at me with horror in his night eyes. “Zurie. She’s dying. We must go to her.”
The Shadow King shimmered out and each of us followed in his wake.
Zurie laid on the ground, dress streaked with blood, her cat perched on her chest, and that abomination stood over her. The sight of him leaning over her helpless form boiled my blood, it made my ears ring with the sound of my heart, and stoked to life the new power stirring within me.
A growl ripped from my throat as I leapt for him. His eyes went wide as I pinned him to the ground. “Lillith help me,” he whispered. “I swear, Sorin, I did everything in my power to help her. Everything.”
“Then why is she dying?” I said but the words that came from my throat were unintelligible, guttural and garbled.
He winced beneath me, whispering a prayer to Lillith, and I caught sight of the hands pinning him. Not hands at all, but claws. Talons. Each a foot long, curving, piercing through the heir’s clothing. My arms and wrists, replaced with thick trunks of golden scales.
Muscles in my back and shoulders flexed and pulled with a foreign weight as I stared into eyes of my enemy.
“Please, please, Sorin, you must believe me.” As he spoke, the demon beneath me began to quake. His body stiffened, eyes glazed, mouth gaped as a red-tinged shroud of magic descended on him.
“Sorin get off him!” Raksha called from the banks of the bloody pool that was this realm’s hold. “He’s the new Blood King. He’s receiving his powers! While it would make my damn day to watch you tear him apart as a fucking dragon, you need to stand down.”
I looked to the others who nodded in unison, their faces parading terror and astonishment in equal measure. I refocused on the abomination. His eyes rolled and hands gripped at his neck as the magic from the hold, the magic designating him as king, crowning him in blood-red light.
I jumped off and ended up twenty feet away, back talons digging into the ground, wings knocking into cypress trees.
The new king stood, shock still on his face, magic still plowing into his body. He took a gasping breath and shimmered away.
I roared after him, singeing the spot where he stood as fire leapt from my lungs.
“We need to get her out of here!” Emma cried.
Jadzeera nodded. “Summon every healer in every realm.”
Callum picked up Zurie and her cat who refused to leave her chest. “Everyone meet back in Arcana.”
And before I could agree, I was alone.
I couldn’t lose her.
I couldn’t.
Not after we’d won.
Not after she’d won.
I wouldn’t survive that.
My heart slammed into my chest at the thought and I bellowed at the sky. The roar shook the ground and trees, charring the dirt and banks of the hold as fire born of pain and desperation ripped through me.
“Brother, get a hold of your senses and join us in the Arcana Realm.” Raksha’s calm voice rang through the chaos of my thoughts.
“I can’t bear losing her.”
“Then get your dragon ass back here and help her. Fight for her, you big baby.”
The beast within settled. Only by a small degree but enough that I could shift back to my demon form and shimmer out of this awful place.
Zurie lay on her bed, Magda tending the bloodstains and wounds with the spells of her realm. A vice clamped around my heart at the sight of her, broken and unconscious for us.
The other leaders, Emma, and my sister stood around her. “When do the real healers arrive?” I asked.
“Soon,” Jadzeera said as she wiped a tear from her cheek. We shared a glance, words traveling between the sorrow in our gaze.
Soon wasn’t soon enough.
◆◆◆
Leathery wings beat the air, lifting me to the skies above our reborn realm. Weeks of practice made my movements fluid and assured, and had reshaped the wastelands to their former ecosystems but weeks still hadn’t brought Zurie to us. Every healer from every realm, even, at Emma’s behest, doctors from the Earth realm tried to restore her, tried to wake her.
Her injuries had mended but Zurie remained relegated to whatever other-state battling with the former Blood King caused. Doctors said she was in a coma. Healers claimed it was psychic trauma. Everyone had theories but no one had answers or a cure.
No one could reach her. Not even Verrill with his gifts.
“She’s wrapped in a protective cocoon. I cannot read her thoughts or reach her essence.”
I banked hard right, avoiding the highest crest of my mountain home by fewer feet than made me comfortable. Flying was easy. Turning wasn’t.
I aimed my sights for the Arcane Palace, flying over the great expanse between my home and Jadzeera’s. Once, all that lay between our homes was cracked, dead land. Now it sprouted with life. Trees and tall grasses, rolling meadows and wildflowers dotted the vista between not just the Arcane and Shifter realms, but between all the realms.
Zurie had done it. She’d killed the Blood King and his hoard of stolen magic redistributed itself.
I roared at the sky. She should be here to see this, to see what she accomplished, how her sacrifice saved our realm.
We all had our ways of dealing. I cleared my head in the skies; Jadzeera spent hours every day in the practice chamber, sweating away her tension. Verrill tried daily to break through our queen’s mental barrier. Emma took solace in the arms of my sister. And Callum disappeared for long stretches of the day.
I made a wide circle around the roof of the Arcane castle, zeroing in on my landing spot. As difficult as I found turning, landing was far worse. I’d suffered many broken talons and bones in trying to learn how. This time, instead of trying to land, I hovered about ten feet above a flat stretch, shifted to my demon form, and dropped to the ground.
I conjured some clothing and shimmered to Zurie’s bedchamber.
We’d fallen into a rhythm, taking turns staying with her in shifts which naturally found their own pattern. I always relieved Callum.
The Green King sat on the settee, hunched over, shoulders heaving. “Why is it taking so long?” he asked, face buried in his palms. “Why isn’t she awake yet?”
I sat next to him. Callum met my gaze, eyes red and watery. “I don’t know, friend. But I have to believe there’s a reason.”
He shook his head. “The prophecy didn’t say anything about this.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“What if she never wakes?”
I took Callum’s hand in mine. “You mustn’t linger on such thoughts.”
Callum sobbed into my shoulder and while my instinct was to pull away, I didn’t, letting the realm leader cry over our sleeping queen.