Page 26 of Brutal Fae King (Dark Faevea King #1)

The time is coming. Soon, the battle will be here, and either we win right here, right now, or we all die.

Her hand is in mine, and I give it a squeeze. Ebelor looks at me and smiles nervously.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her.

She just takes a deep breath and releases it slowly.

“Just let me know when I need to replenish the electrical wall,” she answers.

I nod, then look over the battlements. Our remaining army looks slim compared to the sprawling mass of soldiers below the castle. They’re waiting for the electrical wall to simmer down—it’s gone from a gigantic, white circle of lightning around the castle, almost too bright to look at, to a dull yellow ribbon, with only errant sparks keeping them away. They’re waiting for it to die down before they come in.

But I can feel the amount of energy it’s taking out of me, generating this teleportation power, chanting the ancient spell in my head.

I have an idea of how we’re going to survive this, but it’s a risk—if I teleport our own army in now, they’ll probably be sitting ducks in front of Dralis’s army. It takes more than a moment for a person unused to teleportation to recover from it. They would likely be flanked and killed at that moment, especially since this army is already just sitting like hungry dogs waiting for rabbits to leave the warren.

What we need is a distraction, and we have the greatest distraction in the world ready and waiting for us. It just leaves us entirely open for a moment. Nothing but stone walls and a wooden door to keep us safe for that moment.

I give Ebelor’s hand another squeeze, then look over to the soldiers:

“Hold steady!” I order. “ Do not move as the magical assault happens! Move on my orders!”

“Yes, Sire!”

I look down at the electrical wall. It’s beginning to break apart. I look to Ebelor.

“You move on my order as well,” I say. “Let me cast my spell first.”

She nods. Her face is white, and her eyes are wide. I put a hand on her face.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “Whatever happens, I will keep you safe. I will.”

She just nods at me. The words I want to say bubble up in my throat—but I pause for a second. She can see on my face that I have something to say, and her entire expression is open—she’s looking at me, fully listening.

“I… I love you,” I say to her.

A little gasp escapes her. A touch of color ekes back into her face, and her eyes sparkle.

“Vicmar!” she gasps. “I-I love you too!”

Warmth bursts inside my chest, behind my armor—followed by the painful squeeze as I realize that… if this goes wrong… I may never say or hear those words again…

No. No, we won’t. We are going to make it through this.

Just as the thought crosses my mind, there’s a break in the constant sizzling around us. I look down, and the electrical wall finally falls. The army outside charges toward the castle, eagerly attacking the castle walls. They’re just hammering the door with their fists and feet for now, but it shan’t be long before they bring a battering ram in.

I blow out a hard exhale, and start chanting under my breath, lifting my hand up, fingers spread.

I can feel the magic coursing through my veins—it’s like I’m so suddenly aware of every droplet of blood coursing around my body, washing in my ears, twinkling in my eyes as it pulses through them. I’m going to collapse if this lasts too much longer.

I turn my gaze up to the castle town, and there are large purple sigils slowly forming in the skies. The army hammering at our doors doesn’t notice them—they’re too busy trying to break into the castle doors.

But that might not be enough…

My head is whirring. My vision is blackening.

I-I… can’t do this. I’m not-

A hand touches my shoulder. Suddenly, my body floods with renewed strength. As the second wave hits me, the sigils grow brighter, almost hard to stare at—and then they come crashing down to the ground. As they hit the ground, they draw back up, leaving an entire army in their wake. But the enemy at our door is making too much noise to even notice.

As expected, the army I summoned spends a second recovering, reorienting, and before long, they turn and start charging toward the others, roaring a battle cry.

The other army begins to turn around, but they’re already flanked. As the chaos rattles out below us, I look over to Ebelor.

“Now, quick! Replen—”

Her hand is on my shoulder, and she looks a little pale. She’s sweating, and as she lets me go, she groans.

“Yes, I’ll do that…”

“What happened?” I figure it out as the question leaves my lips. “Did you use our bond to give me some of your power?!”

“I could see you were struggling!” she snaps back. “Now, quiet! Let me concentrate!”

She walks to the edge and growls from exertion, closing her eyes. Before I can do anything, she begins crackling with lightning. All I can do is back off until she’s freed the power inside her, lest it electrocute me.

After a second, she throws her hands down the battlements.

Lighting smashes down. The noise it makes is ear-shattering. It ricochets through my bones from as far away as I am. I hear the cries of the army below us, and when I look down, the electricity wall has been restored to its former glory, and the enemy army has been devastated. They are sprawling, and those who aren’t are being flanked by our own army. It looks positive.

We could… actually do this!

A gasp rattles out behind me, followed by a light thud . When I turn around, I see Ebelor on her knees.

“Ebelor!”

I dart to her side and put a couple of hands on her shoulders. She gives me a weak smile.

“I’m fine,” she says.

She’s not. She’s white and a few beads of sweat are beading on her brow. When I take her hand, they’re trembling.

Of course. She hasn’t just cast her own spell but helped me with mine…

I grip her arms a little harder and help her up to her feet again.

“Rest now,” I tell her. “You’ve done more than enough.”

She smiles lightly. I look down over the battlements. The fight below is going well—so well that I don’t even think that our archers up here are necessary; if we were to get our archers to fire down, they would be much more likely to hit our own forces than any of the enemy. Our forces are dominating.

“Vicmar!” Ebelor shrieks suddenly.

I spin around. There’s a purple sigil in the battlements in front of her. A teleportation sigil!

I sprint, crossing the distance, drawing my sword. Dralis snaps out from the teleportation sigil, and he’s already reaching for her. I swing my sword, and Dralis’s hand pulls back. As he draws his own sword, I shove Ebelor behind me. There’s a gleam out the corner of my eye.

I just about manage to block the blade before it hits me—but not by much. I can hear Ebelor behind me, gasping.

I am going to keep her safe. I promised.

I lunge forward, ducking down under his guard to thrust my blade up underneath. Dralis snarls and slips the blade. He backs away. He tries to answer my blow with one of his own, but I slam my elbow into his arm and stop his arm.

His eyes widen. He keeps walking backward as I keep up my assault. I don’t want to give him any quarter to get any attacks off.

He will not be getting through me. He will not be getting to her.

I throw a pulse of power across him, and Dralis is flung backward. He starts flying to keep himself from falling. I launch off as well, swinging my sword at his neck. But there’s a clang . My sword is stopped. Then, my blade is wrenched down, my arm strung out so low that a scattering of sharp nerve pain moves up my arm as my elbow is overstretched. Before I can turn, something strikes the side of my jaw. Deep, muscular pain moves up through my jaw—my teeth aching and the taste of blood spreading in my mouth.

I try to pull my sword up, and I see his weapon hurtling toward me. I lean back. My forehead burns. Hot blood pours down my face. My wings beat, and I hurtle backward through the air. His sword is coming straight for my chest. I slam a parry down onto the sword, forcing it away. More hot pain trails down my skin as it catches my torso on the way down. Blood soon follows. Dralis growls and tries to move his sword up, but I put as much strength into keeping it down as I can.

As we struggle, he sneers at me.

“I should have known better than to think stabbing you would kill you, Vicmar, you cockroach!” he snarls. “But perhaps you won’t live without your head!”

He rips his sword out from under mine with a painful screech of metal. I flap backward and put some distance between us as he tries to strike me again.

“I can’t let you do this anymore, Dralis,” I say. “I wanted to try and work this out. I wanted to come to a peaceful resolution.”

He just scoffs at me this time.

“I don’t need to negotiate with you!” he snaps. “We both know you can’t defeat me!” A dark smirk spreads over his face. “Perhaps, at some point, you could have. But you can’t defeat Mischevil working through me!”

I don’t know if he’s wrong… That teleportation spell was almost more than I could handle.

He comes toward me again, and I block him. Then, I feel his hand push against my torso.

No!

The magic explodes out, and it’s all I can do to work my own magic to absorb it. It still takes me out of the air—I’m shooting toward the ground like a rock flung by a trebuchet. I’m plummeting too fast to straighten my wings to fly, but something hard hits my lower back. I’ve stopped. I fold over it backward, pain tingling all the way up my spine.

I crack open my eyes and wheel around. I’ve hit the wall on the edge of the battlements—one breadth from falling off it. I try to get off the wall, and I see Dralis swooping down, sword bared. I throw myself to my left, rolling away. There’s a clang of metal on stone behind me, and I turn, already holding my sword up as a defense. Just in time—Dralis has swung his sword toward my neck. I feel sparks catch on my skin as the blades grind against each other.

Dralis pushes his sword down harder, and his strength just seems to be increasing more and more. Just as I feel like he can’t possibly get any stronger, he does. In fact, he takes a hand off his sword, and his strength doesn’t deplete at all.

No…

He grins at me.

“Are you understanding now?” he asks. “As long as I’m the conduit for Mischevil, you can’t defeat— AH! ”

Dralis’s sword eases up on mine. He looks over his shoulder—and I see Ebelor stick a small knife in his hip.

“Ow! You quim!” he snarls at her. “As soon as I’m done with him, you’ll pay for that!”

Ebelor looks at me, and a few sparks escape her.

“Vicmar, move!”

I push off, keeping my sword between my body and his blade, but put some distance between him and myself. As soon as there’s some space between us, Ebelor cries out.

There’s a bang , and I see Dralis hurtling backward. I sprint over to Ebelor as she doubles over.

“Was that your lightning?” I ask.

“Yes.” She grins weakly at me. “Directly into his body! If that doesn’t give us a few moments, then nothing will.” Her expression becomes more serious. “Don’t we have something to help capture him?!”

“Yes!” I answer back, then offer my hand to her. “Can you help me with that?”

Ebelor’s eyes sparkle determinedly.

“Of course!”

She clasps my hand, and we both run over to Dralis. He’s slowly starting to get to his hands and knees. As we get close, I hold my hand out toward him, spreading my fingers wide. I start chanting the unknown words—just trying to recall the memorized syllables the witch told me. I can feel Ebelor’s power adding to mine, our strength collecting together in my form.

As the spell ends, purple streams of light burst out from the tips of my fingers and soar toward Dralis. He looks dizzy, barely conscious at all—until the ropes of illuminance wind around his body, even around his eyes, blindfolding him. As it attaches to him, it turns into thick black, looking like ink binding him. Dralis cries out and begins writhing in his binds. As his mouth opens, the magic moves in and becomes a gag.

“Don’t bother, Dralis,” I say. “You might work for a god, but you’re still dark fae, and that spell binds dark fae and our powers.”

He continues to wriggle in his binds, but that’s it. That’s all he can do.

I feel odd… he’s always been such a mythical figure since he went rogue. He felt very godlike in his own way.

But he’s just a dark fae—just like he always was…

A weight falls on my shoulders, and I look over to see Ebelor. She looks exhausted, almost sick, as she leans on me. I wind an arm around her waist, sheltering her with my wing as well.

“Is it… is it over?” she asks quietly.

I look toward Dralis. He’s as thoroughly captured as he was before, still trying to escape, but his powers are as bound as his body is. It’s specially designed. It was made for this purpose, but a part of me still worries.

Then, a cheering starts ringing out from below us.

“What’s that?” she asks.

I walk over to the battlements, taking her with me. When we lean over, I feel cool, sweet relief wash over me.

“It’s our victory,” I whisper.

Our army is cheering. The battlefield looks as bloody and horrendous as any other, bodies littering the ground like autumn leaves, but the enemy army—what remains of them—is fleeing through the castle town. Only our army stands, and they’re cheering, watching the army retreat.

As they celebrate, some of them look up and notice us at the top of the battlements. They notice one by one, and once they’re all staring at us, I release Ebelor and then walk toward Dralis. I grab Dralis’s binds and drag him to his feet. I half-carry him over to the battlements so the army can see him. When they do, they break out into even louder triumphant screaming than they did before.

I look around and find Ebelor. I take her hand with my spare one and raise them into the air. The cheering is even more frantic, and it’s just myself and my wife, bathing in the sound of our triumph.