Page 49 of A Fate of Blood and Magic (Fated #2)

Chapter

Twenty-One

ELIAS

I left Teddy and the others in our home and let my instincts guide me to bend space to the grounds of our military training school. Or what remained of it. My stomach tightened with bile rising as I thought of the younglings living in the dormitories that burned with the unnatural fire.

Those living here were young, some too young to train for the military.

But, like Brenton, the youngest who attended the school didn’t have families and opted to enlist rather than stay at the orphanage.

The younglings’ shouts rushed me toward their blazing dormitories while I ignored the training gyms that I hoped were empty this late in the evening.

It was the younglings I needed to get to, not the buildings. The rest didn’t matter.

I raced into the closest dormitory without thought. Slipping further into my primal instincts, I followed the nearest cries, where I found a group of little males and females coughing with tears streaming down their young faces. They huddled together in the corner of their smoke-filled room .

“Hold on to me,” I told them, reaching out my hands as the seven littles grasped different parts of my arms.

Within a couple of beats, I bent space so that we were standing in the school’s courtyard, where the black and gray smoke made it difficult to see. I pointed toward a tree far enough away that they’d be safe.

“Stay there until more arrive to help,” I told them, my voice rough from the smoke I’d inhaled.

I didn’t wait for them to reply before I bent space back into the same dormitory.

By the stairwell, I found more younglings.

Only four this time. Their coughs wracked inside my devastated heart, and when one of them stumbled forward, I grabbed her by her shoulders.

Her knees buckled, so I scooped her in my arms, where she lay limply as her eyes rolled back.

“Hold on to me,” I told the rest of the younglings.

Eyes wide, they did as I said, and within a few beats, we were outside in the courtyard.

One male, who couldn’t have been older than twenty, stepped forward. While I scented his fear, he kept his features clear of emotion.

“What can I do to help, Your Majesty?” It wasn’t fear that made his voice crack, but rather his age and the physical changes his body was undergoing.

Although I needed to go back into the dormitory to check for more younglings, I forced myself to stop and face this young male. His wild eyes ran across my face, but his lips thinned in resolution.

“Look after the littles,” I said, hating that we accepted fae as young as thirteen into the military school. “Keep them away from the buildings. If the fire comes this way, move everyone.”

His nod was firm and full of determination. I gripped his shoulder, squeezing once before I bent space again.

Back and forth, I went through the dormitory, taking each youngling I found to the courtyard. The last three groups I’d found had been unconscious, and I could only carry two at a time.

My magic started waning by the time our warriors arrived, with my friends close behind them. By then, two of the dormitories and our training gym had collapsed. But it was the dormitories engulfed in flames that we couldn’t get into that held my attention and made my gut turn and twist in terror.

I tried. Guardians help me, my friends and I tried to find a way in. We each slipped completely into our primal instincts to hunt for a way that didn’t exist.

Teddy rested a hand on my arm. Although the weight of her hand was light, my knees threatened to buckle under the slight pressure. Her lips pressed together in concern as we watched another building raptured by the unforgiving flames.

“Alastor thinks we can help,” she said, her voice soft.

I shook my head, and that tiny movement made the pain in my head worsen. I blinked a few times to rid myself of the dizziness that overtook me. Still, the black spots remained. “How?”

“We’re going to sit over there,” Alastor said, pointing at a group of trees not too far from where the dormitories still burned.

“I don’t know how your people will react to us using our magic, but if you give us a few minutes, we’ll create a path into the buildings so you and your warriors can go in to get the younglings out. ”

“Whatever you need,” I said, rubbing a hand over my neck .

It did nothing to soothe that suffocating feeling engulfing me. Who? Who did this? How had it happened? How many young fae lives had been lost? How many more would die? I shook my head, not wanting to think about it, but those thoughts continued to torment me.

I followed Teddy and Alastor to the trees, careful to keep an eye on the burning buildings. The screams that echoed from the worst building were haunting, only made worse when the wailing stopped. My stomach dropped at the silence that followed.

When Teddy peered back at me, pity and sadness evident in her eyes, my heart shredded until it was nothing more than a bloody mess in my chest. “They could still be alive in there.” But even I didn’t believe my words.

Niev wasn’t a small kingdom. But even with a sprawling population of over one hundred thousand, we had only one military school.

The barracks housed the entire student body, totaling less than three hundred students.

And the majority of those younglings were trapped, scared, and hurting. Or already dead.

We couldn’t lose any more children. We couldn’t.

My chest burned with rage and grief, but with no one to direct it to, all I could do was close my eyes and pray to the gods I didn’t know by name.

“Make sure your people stay back,” Alastor said, his voice cool but edged.

His gaze flickered toward the gathered fae, catching the way many eyed him with open suspicion. One female in particular sneered, malice written across her face.

Alastor smiled, slow, calculated, and unblinking. “Stare harder, and I’ll assume you wish to be ash. ”

Teddy tugged his hand, drawing his attention from the female, who flinched at his threat.

“Once you’re in, we can’t be interrupted,” Alastor continued, “or you’ll be trapped. At least, until we clear a path through the buildings.”

I gave him a jerky nod.

I wasn’t sure how he and Teddy could possibly clear a path when the entire building burned with a fire that wouldn’t die. It was as if the fire itself had a spirit forged from the flames that ravished without end.

“Can we put a protective barrier around us?” Teddy asked, casting a worried look around.

More civilians stopped to watch them. An unease built inside me, but it wasn’t the fae who’d attacked today. It was the humans I’d permitted into our home and the people they’d hidden within our borders.

“A protective barrier would keep our magic contained,” Alastor explained.

Teddy sighed. “Okay.”

From his inner pocket of magic, Alastor pulled out a small white porcelain bowl, and when he pricked Teddy’s finger, she held it over the bowl.

Once Alastor drew his own blood, they each let three drops of their blood spill into the bowl.

Slowly, Alastor began speaking a language I didn’t understand while Teddy repeated those words back to him with slow precision.

A small funnel of smoke whipped around them. The smoke snapped across Teddy’s cheek, carving a small cut over her skin.

Alastor’s eyes opened. Depthless and cold. He didn’t stop chanting. Didn’t blink as he stared past me.

“Pull your magic back,” he said, his voice distorted and layered with something that felt old. It echoed inside me .

Wind erupted, pushing me back and hurling the female fae off her feet. She hit the ground hard but still, she sent her smoke magic at them. I rushed to the female.

My magic sputtered before I was able to wrap the threads of my magic around the female’s throat. She clawed at the threads, unable to grip it while Everly knelt with a blade at her side.

The air thinned as the temperature plunged, the cold biting sharper than the wind. Alastor’s shadows slid across the snow. Slow, deliberate, it curled toward the female with predatory patience.

Without glancing at her, his voice cut through the silence. “Strike a mage mid-spell,” he said, each word edged in lethal promise, “and the magic will remember you.”

The shadows paused at her feet, coiling tighter, waiting for his command. I kept my grip on the magic threads cinched around her throat, feeling her pulse stutter against them. Her breath hitched, too shallow, too fast.

Only then did Alastor’s shadows inch back. She croaked and clawed at the magic still binding her. I didn’t loosen it. Everly leaned in close, the steel of her blade sliding beneath the female’s chin, steady as a heart beat.

“You’re siding with mages when your people are dying.” Her voice rasped and she turned her face toward the burning dormitories. “My daughter lives in those dormitories.”

I leaned close, my voice like fire and ice. “Speak again,” I said tightening the threads around her neck until her eyes bulged, “and your daughter will not have a mother to go home to.”

I snarled at the spite that crossed her features.

Teddy’s and Alastor’s joined magic grew stronger, their voices echoing louder when a flash of their threaded magic broke across the grounds to the buildings we couldn’t enter.

Within a few beats, some of the fire eased, and through the haze of gray smoke, I saw the entrances clear.

“Don’t let anyone near Teddy or Alastor,” I told Everly, giving the other female a warning glare before I withdrew my magic.

Before either could reply, I ran into the dormitory where the cries had died off.

Inside, I found younglings between the ages of thirteen to one hundred eighteen.

They lay on the ground, their bodies unmoving and charred.

I ran my dwindling magic through them, trying to find someone, anyone still alive.

I heard a thready heartbeat and followed it to a young male.

He didn’t stir when I picked him up, and I did my best to support his head that lolled back.

I called upon my magic, trying to force it forward so I could bend space and take him directly to Leah.

When nothing happened, I ran out into the courtyard where other fallen fae awaited treatment.

For hours, the fae worked together. Despite Donnie’s anger with me, I wasn’t surprised to find him among the humans helping.

Every fallen child I brought out of one of the buildings was another lash across my heart, and with my magic nothing more than tiny shreds, I couldn’t take them directly to the castle for Leah to tend.

We were losing an entire generation. For what? The children had done nothing to the vengeful humans who only knew of hate.

I only stopped when Teddy came up to me with a jug of water in her hands. I took it from her and drank greedily before I passed it to George. Rather than take it, he turned, angling his head to the side .

“Vith,” he growled, his canines pulling down further while his black eyes flared with rage.

“What is it?” I asked.

He snarled at me and rather than reply, he raced away from the military school. I tensed for a beat, wondering if I should chase whatever threat his seer magic had helped him see.

When Teddy wound her arms around my waist, I pressed my nose to her hair, desperate to take in her scent. Instead, I smelled her blood.

I drew her back and gaped at an open wound that sat across her right brow. While it no longer bled, it looked deep and was almost as bad as the pink beneath her eye, where a bruise was already forming.

“What happened?” I asked.

She took my hand when I went to heal her and held it against her chest.

“Save your magic for them.” She pointed her chin toward the injured fae waiting to be taken to Leah.

“You’re—”

“Fine. I’m fine,” she said.

“Who hurt you?” Brenton asked, his voice like steel.

Hurt her. Someone had hurt my mate and made her bleed.

My arms trembled, my nostrils flared, and I could barely see past the gray haze clouding my vision.

“Elias.” She tilted my head down to face her. “I’m going to Tera Insaldame. The kids are already waiting for me there. Ryenne, Donnie, and Nate are going too.” Her thumb caressed my cheek. “Your people are rightfully angry with us.”

I stumbled back a step. “A fae hurt you?”

But hadn’t that one female hurt her with her smoke magic earlier? How many more had targeted her while I was occupied saving younglings?

“I think the safest place for your mate right now is in my village,” Alastor said.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, each word coming out harsher than the one before.

“It doesn’t matter,” Teddy said, her tone far too gentle as if she wished to wrap her words around me in comfort.

“It matters to me.”

“They have every right to hate us, Elias,” she said.

“And I have every right to?—”

“Nothing,” Teddy said, her voice taking on an unfamiliar stern tone as she took hold of one of my hands. “You will do nothing. You will not hurt anyone on my behalf.”

Another angry shiver racked through my body.

“Go, tend to your people,” she said, inching onto her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “I’m sorry I can’t stay to help you.”

I tugged her to me, only now realizing she’d changed from her wedding dress to jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that she’d rolled up to her elbows. Despite her protests, I healed her wounds. It took longer than usual, but I let her go once it was done. Reluctantly.

“Take care of them,” I told Alastor, hating that I couldn’t go with them to ensure they got to his village safely.

But between Alastor and Donnie, I was certain they’d be okay. They had to be.

I watched them leave for several long beats. When I could barely make them out any longer, I pulled out my sword and roared. Nalari’s echoing roar blared from somewhere above.

Everly and Brenton drew out their swords as they ran beside me. When I reached the first uninjured male, I gripped him by the collar of his shirt. I brought his face inches away from mine.

“Who hurt my mate?” I asked. Spittle flew from my mouth at the ferocity of my words.

Just as he went to answer, another explosion sounded, with smoke and fire blazing from afar. This one was farther from the military school but much closer to the castle.

Vith.