Page 36 of A Game of Monsters (Realm of Fey #4)

Dark storm clouds rolled over the sky, blanketing it in a heavy, oppressive darkness. My bare skin itched against the charged air, as though I could feel unseen fingers offering me a sense of calm in a moment of complete lack of control.

Magic was everywhere, but it didn’t come from Cassial or his warriors. It came from the distance, like a song caught on the breeze, whose tune promised war and ruin.

The fey were close; my time was running out.

I lifted my hand to shield my eyes, giving myself a better view of the hell before me. Beneath the darkening storm, an army – my army, stood waiting. A shiver ran over my skin as I took in the distant vision of the stain of fey. The sun caught off plates of metal armour which refracted the light back over the league of humans behind me. Banners danced in the winds, showing the humans a united front as the full might of four fey courts stood as one, ready to fight back against them.

Cassial – wearing Duncan’s skin – was at my side, the leash connecting to my iron cuff held firm in his hand. He hadn’t given me the option to put clothes on, instead parading me in nothing but my bare skin and undershorts. His attempts to demoralise me wouldn’t work. I had other focuses now.

Fallen warriors waited behind him, poised and ready. Not to fight, but to stand back and watch as they sent their human shield forwards to face death.

I felt the tension in the air, so palpable that I could taste the sweat and anxiety on my tongue.

“Bring forwards the Defiler ,” Cassial commanded in Duncan’s voice. He didn’t necessarily shout, but his voice carried on the winds, no doubt amplified by Duwar’s power.

I turned back as the rustle of bodies sounded. Even though I knew what I was going to find, it still took the wind from my lungs.

Duncan – cast in the illusion of Cassial’s form – was guided through the crowd. His skin had broken in parts, his left eye swollen shut, lip split and a web of dark bruising mapped out over his naked torso. A gag had been forced into his mouth, muffling the grunts he expelled with every painful movement.

Cassial had done this, to keep Duncan silent. To keep him from spoiling this glamour and telling the world that he was not Cassial, but someone under his guise.

“The fate of his life will be in your hands, Robin,” Cassial warned at my side, speaking with a voice that never belonged to him. He’d stolen it from Duncan. Snatched it from his throat and kept it for himself. It sickened me, but I couldn’t react – I wouldn’t.

Not yet.

“Let me speak to him,” I pleaded, unable to conceal the bite of hate in my voice. “If you want me to do as you will, then I will need to hear him one last time.”

“We both know that wouldn’t be wise.” Cassial leaned into my side, turning his back on the fey army, whilst bringing his mouth down to my ear. “You’ve been given a simple choice. Aid me, and Duncan will live. The Nephilim will find it in their hearts to forgive him for his sins. Work against me, try and dismantle my hard work, and I will personally see that his throat is split from ear to ear.”

“Don’t you get tired of threats?” I asked, body trembling with the need to lash out and cause pain.

“Yes, actually, I do,” Cassial replied, drawing back. “Duncan may not be able to speak, but he can listen. If you have got anything to say to him, this would be your moment.”

There was so much I wanted to say, but a goodbye was the only thing that I could offer. I needed Duncan to know how I felt, and what I required of him moving forwards. I didn’t want our last moments to be cursed.

With a wave of Cassial’s hand, Duncan was brought to kneel before me. As he hit the ground, fingers digging into the dirt, I noticed the flash of an iron cuff bound around his wrist.

I knew exactly how this would look to the fey.

They would see Cassial – broken and bloodied – on the ground. They’d think we’d already won. That was why they glamoured Duncan to look like Cassial. More proof that the real Cassial was always a step ahead – constantly painting pictures to those around him, tricking us with lies. He mentioned a contingency plan if I tried to kill him, and I knew now that this was it.

At least that was what I hoped.

It was the real Cassial’s attempt to disarm us, weaken us, just in time for Duwar to be used against them with little effort.

I took a deep inhalation, sucking in the horrid scent of blood. Slowly, the real Duncan lifted his eyes and locked them onto me. It took great restraint not to crack with a sob. I didn’t dare move a muscle.

There was so much I longed to say. Words that lodged in my throat, promising to choke me. So, holding Duncan’s strange stare, I did the one thing that I could. An action that would show him – not tell him – that I loved him.

I lifted a hand to my eye, lowered it shakingly to rest above my heart and then pointed toward him.

I love you.

I waited, with bated breath, for Duncan to complete our sign. To lift his hand and gesture toward me, proving to me that he had some strength left him in.

But he didn’t.

The only way he reacted was as his lip drew back in a hateful snarl.

Realisation hit in so suddenly, I couldn’t hide it from my face.

Cassial noticed, offering me a winning smirk, thinking my pain was a result of Duncan’s refusal of me. But he would never refuse me that answer – not when he was dying, not when he was possessed and not when he survived judgement all to come back to me.

“What will it be, Robin?” Cassial glowered. “You wanted this moment, and yet you waste it with simple gestures. The fey approach like the swift storm of promised death.”

There was no replying to Cassial without giving away the detail I’d just figured out. I looked up, ears ringing, the glass vial tickling over my molars as I positioned it. “I accept your proposal, willingly. I will take the burden you wish to give me and do with it as you desire.”

Cassial’s eyes widened. Did he expect more of a fight? Not wanting to disappoint, I silently told him that the fight would come. “You surprise me.”

“I surprise myself.” My blood ran cold; even with the iron limiting my magic, I felt powerful. Because I knew now what Seraphine meant. Everything she’d done, all her sacrifices and lies, led to this moment. And I wouldn’t waste it.

Because I was in control, whether Cassial figured that out or not.

“I will give you Duwar, and with it, you will draw the source of magic out of every fey before you.” Cassial loosed his hold on my leash. The chain dropped to the ground with a thud, splattering in boot-trodden mud. “Once the fey have been whittled down to husks, you will complete Aldrick’s wishes, and transfer those gifts to the humans behind you. Am I clear?”

“Very.” I clenched my fingers tight, refusing to look at the fake Cassial. Even as the real Cassial lifted him from the ground and held the limp male to his chest with a broad arm hooked around his waist.

“You promised me you wouldn’t hurt him,” I gasped, forcing out the emotion, trying to show some semblance of worry. When in truth, I wanted to laugh. I had no care for the weak, limp person in Cassial’s grasp.

Cassial didn’t reply. He was using the fake Cassial as a way to control me. Even as he gave his Nephilim the order to remove my iron cuff, it was all a test of boundaries and trust. I could’ve unleashed the sudden rush of my magic at him, but that would have ruined everything.

Patience was never a virtue I had. My father once told me it would take a firm hand to teach me the lesson. He was right – almost. It took two hands from two different men to teach me the importance.

Which was exactly the game Erix was playing. I could almost feel his eyes on me, scoring through my skin, telling me it was all going to be okay. If I had it in me, I could’ve searched the surrounding area and found him.

He was waiting for his signal – as I commanded – so I would give it to him.

“Use Duwar to sever the magic in the fey, give it to the humans. Is that all you require of me?” I asked, mouth drawn into a tight line.

“Let us first see if you survive that,” Cassial grinned, lifting a mouth that didn’t belong to him. His foot was tapping, his fingers drumming over the fake Cassial’s body.

He was nervous.

And he should be.

“I’m ready,” I said, chin jutting forwards.

The beat of fey traipsing closer toward the camp had grown louder in the passing moments. I felt the vibration up my feet, followed by the distant screams of Cassial’s human shield, likely scrambling to get out of the soldiers’ path before complete annihilation.

Cassial nodded, tongue lapping his lower lip. There was certainly trepidation in his eyes as he lifted his hand toward me. I thought back to what Erix said he’d seen in Duwar’s realm. How the physical embodiment of Duwar had laid a hand on Duncan’s chest, imbuing him with power.

Power that was not inherently good or bad.

Power, the morality of which was determined by the person who wielded it.

I strode forwards, stopping just shy of Cassial’s fingers. The fake Cassial was between us, snivelling at me, eyes drinking me in. I barely looked at him. Cassial would think it was because it hurt me to see what had been done to the love of my life – the truth couldn’t have been more different.

“Remember,” the real Cassial hissed through clenched teeth. “One wrong move, and he dies.”

“I heard you the first time,” I replied, knowing these would be the last words I could physically speak. Part of me wanted to say something grand – some inspiring speech that told Cassial he had failed just so I could watch the shock morph to horror, and then to defeat.

But my actions would be enough. They had to be enough.

Cassial’s lip curled upwards, his smile one I’d looked into many times before. The expression tugged at the scar down the side of Duncan’s face. I fixed my gaze on it, letting a tear fall down my cheek. It wasn’t sadness born from a place of fear or grief.

But relief – relief that this was all going to be over soon.

Cassial laid a hand over my chest, his touch abnormally warm. I looked down, watching the hand cover the burn scars Althea’s hand had left on me when she saved me from dying the first time.

Funny, how one saved me, and the other would lead to my demise.

I didn’t know what I needed to do. Nor what to expect. I simply allowed myself to be open to the power, accepting it like a gift – the last I’d receive.

Cassial closed his eyes and exhaled. He uttered no words of power or conjuration, he simply let go, and I accepted.

What followed was a rush of pure, blinding light as it filled me. It bloomed in my chest, spreading from beneath Cassial’s palm, filling every vein, sparking my blood into an inferno, melting my bones and reforming them into something stronger – older .

My mind conjured an image of a thread. Something tying me and Cassial together. It unspooled into me, knotting within my gut as I gathered the thread into mental hands. I pulled at it, drinking it in with vigour until it abruptly stopped.

“It is done,” Cassial exhaled, a tinge of sadness in his voice as he had to give up this power. He withdrew, shaking hand falling to his side, fingers flexing. But that thread inside of me pulled taut, as if I was separated, but still bound to Cassial.

Because he hadn’t given it all to me. I couldn’t explain the sensation, except the new power inside of me was drawn – stretched as it searched for the missing part of it. I felt it tug inside of me, like a rope pulled taut, fraying in the centre. Panic rose inside of me – because Cassial revealed his final attempt to trick me. He’d not given me all of Duwar. That was how he kept his glamour up. He’d saved a sliver of power, and now we warred for it. My initial instinct was to grapple with Duwar, forging unseen hands to ice, doing my best to keep hold.

We fought for Duwar like two starved mutts for a bone.

I didn’t speak, but my shock told Cassial that I had worked out his final deception.

Cassial fixed Duncan’s verdant eyes upon me, refusing to look away as his smile darkened. “You know… what needs to be done. Consider my hesitation as insurance if you go against me.”

I would’ve replied, but the vial was forced between my teeth, the glass aching beneath their tension. My silence drew out, and lips curled over my teeth.

Duwar was in part within me, and the remaining part left inside of Cassial. And it was wrong – the separation of a corrupted power.

“Make the right decision, Robin,” Cassial warned, quickly drawing the false Duncan back to his chest, sinking nails into his shoulder like the claws of some great bird of prey. “Do not be blinded by the power. Do as I command, or he will die–”

I leaned in toward them both, gathered the moisture in the air around my hand and conjured a shard of pure ice. Cassial’s eyes widened a second too late, because he couldn’t move. Not that it would matter if he had, because my blade of ice was never meant for him.

I thrust it directly through the fake Cassial’s chest. Piercing through flesh, chipping bone and goring muscle, not stopping until the ice spear came out the other side of him.

Blood spluttered over the gag, choking the fake Cassial on their own gore, their death slow and torturous. The real-Cassial attempted to stagger back, but the end of the spike had caught his side. His gasp roused the Nephilim around us into action, weapons drawn from hilts, the song of metal against leather splitting the air.

“You fool!” Cassial cried, pushing the body away from him, which tore the blade from his side.

I smiled, vial straining between my teeth, as a thought speared through my mind. I hoped, between the odd connection of a separated Duwar, that Cassial heard it.

No, you’re the fool.

It had never been Duncan under that glamour.

Duncan would never have not finished our signal. Even as he was dying, he did it. And this was no different. Except the person Cassial wished for me to believe was Duncan looked at me with the very same hate of the Nephilim around me. It was an expression I had grown used to, so much so that I almost found it comforting.

His inability to gesture at me, finishing the ‘I love you’ had been the first giveaway. Cassial’s nervous energy was the next.

The sky broke with lightning. Everyone who looked skyward would’ve seen the countless outlines of winged figures illuminated against the glare. There were thousands of them, the Faithful hidden within storm clouds, waiting for the right moment to attack.

And that was when I heard it. The beat of wings sounded a moment before the real Duncan Rackley and his army of Nephilim exploded out from dark grey clouds.

I should’ve known that my Duncan was here, from the way charged air rippled over my skin. I didn’t notice it when Cassial first brought me out of the tent, but the more the storm built, the more the undeniable presence of Duncan’s magic called to me. I had put it down to the building of fey magic in the distance but hadn’t clocked onto the fact that it was Duncan calling to me all this time.

Like called to like, after all.

I wanted nothing more than to look up and find him – my Duncan, one final time. But I couldn’t. I had one more thing to do.

For Wychwood.

For Durmain.

For Seraphine and the tomorrow she’d never get to experience.

Cassial jolted toward me, clasping the sides of my arms with firm hands. I let him. I needed him close after all. The second he touched me, the seed of Duwar inside of him began to war with the part which lingered inside of me.

But I wasn’t going to give it up so easily.

The Fallen around us jolted forwards, unknowing that their deaths would follow. I smiled, lips curling over teeth, flashing the glass vial. Cassial noticed, his eyes widening. I forged my ice to his skin, preventing him from pulling away from my touch. He was a fly, willingly entering my web, one he would not break free from. Then I clamped my teeth, shattering glass, releasing the noxious cloud of poison. But instead of spitting it out, I sealed my lips and swallowed it down.

Every last bit.

Be selfish, Robin .

“No,” Cassial gasped, feral eyes wide, as he attempted to skin his hold onto Duwar and wrench it back into himself.

Satisfised the gas had successfully threaded down my throat, infiltrating my lungs, I gathered the shards of glass and spat them directly into Cassial’s face. He pinched his eyes closed a second too late. Beneath the thundering war cry of the Faithful, and the keening screams of Cassial, my mind imagined the sound of his flesh slicing apart against the broken shards.

It was a pleasant thought. One I’d gladly take to my grave.

“It was your mistake not to understand the meaning behind Seraphine’s last command,” I said, blood running down past my sliced lips. Although I felt no pain, only the euphoria of Duwar. “I am selfish. But not in the sense you first thought.”

I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. As the poison spread throughout me, suffocating Duwar and my control over my body, I relished in my one final battle.

Taking as much of the power as I could from Cassial, so it would perish alongside me.

“You’ve doomed the realms,” Cassial spat, dark eyes flaring wide. Between the blood streaking down his face and the few shards of glass embedded in his cheek and nose which glittered every time lightning cut the sky, he looked the part of the monster he truly was.

“I have saved them,” I managed. “From you . But I must first show them the real threat, so they never forget who started this game, and then who ended it.”

There was something delightful about controlling Duwar – even as my mind was failing alongside my body. I didn’t need to gesture with a hand or visualise what I desired. It simply did what I wanted. Using the shard of Duwar I had hold of, I stripped Cassial of his glamour. Before the fey, the humans and every soul who watched – they saw the truth he hid from the world. I showed them the true monster.

I revealed to them exactly who Cassial had become.

“No,” Cassial stammered as his horns grew larger, his skin cracked, the skeletal wings of a monster stretched wide at his back. Cassial tried to withdraw from me, but I refused.

We would both die today, one way or another.

Cassial took a jolting step back before thrusting his clawed hands out for my throat. He could kill me himself, but it would be wasted effort. The poison was already destroying me, taking Duwar’s power to the void. But I didn’t have it, not completely. Duwar stretched between us, pulling between two conflicting consciences. The good and the bad – and yet no one would win.

“I warned you not to go against me,” Cassial shouted as the winds began to roar and a force built up inside of me. It was the chaotic beat of war drums, and yet no instruments were being played. “I will destroy everything you love before letting this go to waste. There will be no peace in the void for you, Robin Icethorn.”

The world was so loud. Between the distant cries of battle and the clashing of magic, I only hoped that the humans had been spared. My eyes closed, growing heavier by the second. “Maybe not. But at least it will be quiet. It is… over , Cassial.”

“You are right, Robin Icethorn,” Cassial snarled, skin falling away like ash, revealing the monster which hid beneath his skin. “It is over, for you.”

The tether binding us together frayed and snapped.

I felt it shatter, like a fragile thing, instead of an ancient power. Perhaps Altar and the Creator’s previous fight had corrupted Duwar to the point of fragility – but I sensed the moment it finally broke.

A force tore me from my feet, casting me backwards through the air. My heavy limbs splayed, tangling in the fabric of a tent as my body broke through it. I’m sure a bone snapped, as did the wooden skeleton of the tent I’d just smashed through.

The world was howling. I managed to lift my neck enough to watch as a dark stain broke out across the view ahead. It crackled and spat, like dried kindling on a newly lit hearth. And yet the sky not only burned but turned into an obsidian storm.

It echoed within me, deep in the pits of my soul, where the shard of Duwar was left to whimper.

I blinked, watching in slow motion, as Cassial parted from the scar of shadows. He reached for me, spitting and snarling as the mass of power built and built into a wall at his back. “Now you will die knowing that final part of Duwar kept from you will ravage the world.”

I had been wrong all along. Cassial wasn’t using the part of Duwar he kept back, but he’d released it. Because he knew he’d lost, and in Cassial’s desperation, he would take the realms with him.

Cassial had released the last part of Duwar I fought for into the world. “Die knowing you have failed. The realms are doomed, Robin. Take that into your quiet peace and hold it close. Because every soul left behind will soon follow you and haunt you for your failure forever.”

I opened my mouth and cried out a single name. “Erix!”

The word was swallowed by the realms screaming in terror. The ground shuddered with the advancing army. The sky sang with Nephilim and gryvern. And all the while, that mass of ruin and chaos gathered into a pillar so great, I couldn’t see anything beyond it.

“Will die, Duncan will die, they all will die,” Cassial shouted over the song of destruction he’d unleashed. “And it will all be your doing.”

“No,” I gasped, trying to grasp for the released power. With enough, maybe I could use it to cleanse my body of the poison. Regardless of my hopes and wishes, I was weak, the power ravaging the world was no match for my failing body.

What have I done?

“Erix…” I choked, my throat closing up. “Please.”

“Erix Oakstorm cannot hear you.” Cassial stumbled forwards, looking no better than I felt. Limp skeletal wings dragged through the earth behind him. He had his clawed, twisted hands reaching out for me, so close now I could smell the rot emanating from his broken skin. “As I said, it is over. You are over. Duwar or no, the fey will fall today. Be it by my hand, or yours. The will of the Creator is strong, as am I. Watch now, Robin… witness what your actions have–”

Before Cassial could score his talon through my flesh, a bright bolt of lightning shot between us. I closed my eyes against the glare, smiling as the feeling of magic itched over my skin. Vaguely, I was aware of the scorch of flesh, and the howl as the lightning bolt ate down to the bone on Cassial’s arm. What was left behind was nothing but torn flesh and ichor.

My consciousness gave out for a moment. I fell back onto the bundle of collapsed tent, just as a familiar voice worked through into my subconscious.

“No one dares touch Robin and gets to see another day.” Duncan’s voice filled my world, violent and demanding as the Hunter I’d first met. I couldn’t see him because my eyes would not open. But I heard him – felt his presence close. A simmering mass of light, a guiding force, even when I couldn’t open my eyes to see him, I could follow.

“Duncan… Rackley,” came a broken, weak voice.

“Hello, father . Is it okay that I call you that? As you can imagine, I have wondered all my life about my parentage, and longed for the day to use that title.”

“You are too late!” Cassial bellowed, pain creasing his voice, and yet he crumbled into a fit of laughter. “Duwar is free. My intention woven into the threads of the power. You can kill me, and the outcome does not change, son .”

I wished I had the energy to keep my eyes open, but the darkness was gaining. I fought against it, trying everything to gather the loosed part of Duwar back into myself. But there was a resistance – something keeping me from it.

“Desperation has blinded you,” Duncan called back, lightning cast around his angelic body in a wreath of purple-white flame. He looked the painting of the saviour he had become. “Faith has destroyed you. You know nothing of the Creator, because you know little of love. And it was love that started this war over Duwar, and it will also be love that ends it. Love will see us through to another day, as it always will.”

“I do not need another day, traitor.” Cassial howled like the wounded creature he was. “The end is upon you now. Love will not save you now, just as it didn’t save your filthy mother–”

Another voice rose, a husk of silver steel that I would recognise even in death. “Spit more poison out your serpent mouth, and I will tear the tongue from your skull.”

“Erix Oakstorm, you can gladly take my tongue, but you will not have anything else of merit when this is done.”

“Famous last words, Cassial?” Erix asked as a growl worked out of the depths of him. “Perhaps I will make sure they engrave it on your tombstone. Or maybe I will smear the words with shit instead.”

My head slumped back, my body no longer able to hold itself up. I faced the darkened sky, watching a vicious power thrash against the world and devour it.

“Kill me,” Cassial screamed out, an edge of begging in his tone. “Do it!”

Silence followed, and I couldn’t begin to imagine why.

I had thought the noise of Cassial’s skin ripping against the glass shards was the most beautiful thing in the world. But I had been wrong.

It was the voices of the two men I loved that took that mantle.

“I would normally correct someone on their manners, but I will make an exception this one time.”

“Do the honours, he is your father after all.”

Duncan hefted a great sword above his head and swung down before him with all his might. Steel through the air, Cassial lifted powerless hands up to shield himself. His attempt was wasted.

Duncan’s sword carved clean through Cassial’s neck, severing head from shoulders, taking part of his hands with one strike of the blade.

As if time slowed to an almost stop, the severed head tumbled onto the ground where it bounced over mud and grime, before rolling to a stop.

Once the dead, lifeless eyes of my enemy stared at me, I no longer had the strength to resist the poison. I gasped out the names of Erix and Duncan, aware that they were shouting for me, searching the rubble for where I had fallen.

They were too late. By the time they found my body, leaving Cassial’s corpse framed by the stain that the released portion of Duwar had become, I was fading.

Hands grasped me. Voices shouted demands. But this time, when my eyes closed, I was unable to open them again. My mind latched onto Erix’s and Duncan’s cries, filling my exhausted thoughts, refusing to let go as they called for me. They were the last things I heard, my name painted on their beautiful lips.

All I could think about was how I had failed.

My end came swiftly for me.