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Chapter thirty-four

A Court of Chaos

I fought like hell for three days.

Gemini was using my frustration at having been left out of this adventure to convince me to train even harder for the next one. But really, I was only training so hard because it was something to do that kept my mind off of what might or might not be happening in an undisclosed location within the Court of Peace and Pride. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Lark or that I lacked faith in him and the others to free the gorgon and return with him. I had just learned far more about my mother in the last few days than I ever expected to and that knowledge made her presence seem as though it was looming over us always.

I feared her. Truly feared her. So much so that I thought, perhaps, I was feeling fear for the first time. And if I stopped moving for too long, gave myself too much time that wasn’t dedicated to training or eating or sleeping, then I might succumb to that fear. I might let that fear pull me under and I might never emerge again.

So I fought. I fought Gemini, I fought her magic, I fought myself and my own thoughts. I fought whatever barrier seemed to keep my power away from me. I fought every little feeling that flitted through my connection with Lark as much as I craved them. They were few and far between but each one let me know he was alive. And I thought maybe he knew that, that he was sending me those little jolts of emotion to comfort me, to reassure me that everything was alright. But I didn’t know that for certain. All I knew was that he was alive, because I could feel him, because I did not feel the loss of him. But I hadn’t the slightest idea where he was or what state he was in. He could have been bruised and bloodied and locked in a dungeon of the palace of the Russet Throne itself.

I lost focus and Gemini used that moment to strike, lifting her hands and lashing out at me with that smoke. It blew into my face, filling my lungs, freezing them. I gasped and fell to my knees, wheezing.

“Fight it,” she hissed, but I couldn’t.

I just choked, tears streaming down my face, and she removed it a moment later. She let me fall flat on the floor, gulping down air.

“If you’re losing focus, perhaps we should stop for the evening,” she muttered, striding away from me to fetch her cup of tea on the counter.

“Where are they?” I gasped, still fighting to catch my breath.

“Who, dear?” she asked. “And breathe first. I have no interest in speaking with a fish flopping around like that.”

“Them,” I hissed. “Where do you think they are by now?”

“Ah, yes. Who else? Well, by my estimation, they’ve likely crossed the border. I don’t know where your little gorgon friend might be, though, so that presents a number of problems with any further estimation.”

My breathing evened and I stood, bracing myself with a hand against my abdomen, assisting myself with breathing.

Gemini had explained to me how long it might take until they returned once they’d left. Using no magic meant no shadow stepping, not even near the border. So they would have to shadow step miles out and walk in on foot. Then they would have to find Lycurgus, extricate him from whatever situation he was in, and hoof it all the way back here, undetected, with a gorgon in tow. It felt like an impossible feat and yet I knew that if anyone could do it, it was Lark. Nevertheless, that glance that Cass had given me before she’d left had haunted me ever since. It felt like the goodbye of a friend who wasn’t sure she would ever see you again. It gave me goosebumps just to think about it.

I was on edge. I was jumpy. So by the fifth night, when Gemini proposed we take a stroll through town, I jumped at the chance to get out of that apartment, to let my bruises heal a little before she created more of them.

We wore cloaks with hoods that fell over our faces and we walked through the market, not daring to even speak to one another in the more crowded areas where we could be overheard. I didn’t ask her about the group’s progress again. I had found, on the fourth day, that my constant questioning of her knowledge of the Peace Court’s terrain was grating on her already frayed nerves and I didn’t have any desire to turn away the only company I had.

“Did you help put up the Divide?” I asked as we turned a corner where some shops lay out of the way of the larger marketplace. I chose the question partly to make conversation and partly because I was curious if the process of creating the Divide might be helpful to know in the process of destroying it.

“No,” Gemini answered with a shake of her head as we paused outside of a leather shop for her to examine a pair of black gloves. “I was away dealing with the creation of the courts and the political assignments. But Perseus did. And Alban. My brother claimed it nearly killed him to create it but he would have gladly died to do so.”

“The courts were created after the Immortal War?” I asked, curiosity peaked by the mentioned tidbit of history from this strange world.

“We had to find some way to divide the power of our new realm. There had been three leaders before. Though they hadn’t ruled over land, just subjects who chose to follow them. After the war, the Court of Light and Life’s King then kept his northern city, the only place untouched by the horrors of the war. He had claimed it was a necessary refuge for any Fae that did not wish to fight in the conflict and even kept the laws of refuge in place afterwards to back up his claim. But I knew he was just a coward. Remaining neutral when everyone else went off to fight for what was right wasn’t noble. It was weak.”

I nodded, thinking about the time we spent in the Court of Light and Life after having been given refuge status ourselves. I was grateful for it then and I was sure any Fae who did not wish to be a part of the fighting in the Immortal War would have been just as grateful for it as I was. So I couldn’t necessarily say I agreed with Gemini’s assessment of the former King of the Court of Life being a coward. His successor was cunning, though. I knew that already from my limited interaction with her. If she was so important, if her court was so strong, that helped to explain why Lark was so intent on getting on her good side during our visit. Even if thinking about it again, even now, made my jaw clench.

“Each of the six lower courts were appointed based on our categorization of gifts and the six generals who led our battalions in the war,” Gemini continued. “Alban and Perseus split their own lands apart to create the six lower courts and their lords, to reward the highly gifted Fae that fought loyally with them and to give Fae who might not identify with the inclinations of the Peace Court or the Bone Court somewhere to go, some freedom to find for themselves. And, of course, my brother got Hellscape. Not that he wanted it. But he accepted the responsibility anyway. Oh, how he must have raged when Casseiopia told him that Taurus had lost the key to a gorgon.”

Gemini sounded exasperated at the idea but I could see her smiling under her hood. I couldn’t help but grin myself. I could imagine how he might have reacted and was only grateful that I hadn’t been there to see it.

“When did the King—” I started to ask but never got the chance.

A loud booming sound erupted from somewhere above us, followed by intermittent screams that grew louder as the crowd surged away from the crowded marketplace and into alleys like the one we occupied. I looked over at Gemini to find her looking over her shoulder at the market behind us from which the chaos had originated.

“Come,” she said simply and strode right through the fleeing Fae, hurtling forward in the opposite direction, toward the mayhem.

I followed, feeling for my magic as I moved, reaching for it, gathering it as best I could. But it flickered and faltered every time someone bumped into me. I nearly lost my footing once as a girl, screaming in terror, ran right into me. Gemini reached out and steadied me without even turning my way and we moved onward into the crowd.

Those who had not run were gathered along the street, staring up in shock and awe as an otherworldly light danced across their faces. I looked up to see what they were all staring at and froze.

At first, I thought we had doubled back too far, crossed too many alleys, and found ourselves in front of that arched, swirling portal to the mortal world that this Court of Wanderers was known for. But then I realized this one was different. It was larger and unframed and it wasn’t an inky mass of black. It was like the one we had seen in Hellscape, like a window. And these Fae, lined up along the street, were staring into it. But this time, the mortals on the other side were staring back.

I gasped when I saw Wyn Kendrick, front and center, pale faced and slack jawed as he stared into this portal to another dimension and saw a horde of ethereal bodies draped in various shades of orange. And the Fae stared back, whispering to one another, amazed.

“You have to close it,” I hissed, turning toward Gemini only to find that she was gone. “No, no, no, no.”

Was it too late? Was the immortal plane exposed? Was two thousand years of separation over in an instant because of my mother, because of what she was doing to the Divide, because of the magic she was playing with?

I felt a fury rise within me then, brighter and hotter than anything I had ever felt before. I felt a whisper from Lark as well, a faint tugging as if telling me to calm down, reminding me to watch my temper, a warning. I ignored it. I poured sixty years of abandonment issues into that rage, stoked it, let it grow bigger and bigger. My mother was trying to bring down the Divide. She was tearing holes in the fabric between the planes. She had controlled my father for years, used him for breeding without his consent, to have me. She had stolen Perseus’ power, turned Lark’s people against him, and let a minotaur loose in the mortal plane.

I pushed through the onlookers until I stood in front of the portal and then I let all of that rage building up within me consume me. I saw Wyn’s eyes widen a fraction in recognition the moment before it happened. I gripped my fists tightly, clenching them so that my nails cut into my palms, leaned forward, and screamed. I felt the magic flow from me, drain through my fury, my fear, my regret, and spill into that rift. I kept screaming because it was working, because it was healing. Slowly but surely, the edges were moving inward, knitting together along the seams. And Wyn and his people were backing away, raising their hands in front of their faces to shield themselves from the blistering wind filtering through to their side.

When it was done, when the rift blinked from existence and the sky was whole again, I fell to my knees, eyes drooping with exhaustion from what I had done. I thought I understood what Perseus had said about creating the Divide now. I could have died from that and I probably would have if necessary. But that was one rift, one small hole. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like to create the whole Divide.

I collapsed.

“Move,” someone was screaming. It took me a moment to recognize Gemini’s voice in the haze of my exhaustion. “Get out of my way.”

People obeyed. She was kneeling in front of me a moment later.

“We need to go,” she hissed into my ear.

“Where were you?” I muttered, unable to rise but allowing her to lift me, hoist me onto my feet.

“I thought she was here. I thought she must be nearby to create such a thing so I went looking. I didn’t know you would, you could—what did you do, Seren?”

“Get me out of here.”

“I will. I am but we can’t go back to the apartment. They’re staring at us, all of them. They’ve never seen that kind of power before, the power of a royal Fae. They’ll want to know who you are. They might follow—”

“Can you shadow step us away?”

“Of course. But where—”

“The Court of Peace and Pride,” I mumbled, already dropping off into a fitful sleep. “It’s time I had that talk with my mother.”