Page 55

CHAPTER 54

Checkmate

ALIA

W e had given it our all…

Rocks danced along the blood-soaked ground as a rhythmic thumping echoed across the battlefield. Unicorns burst from between the trees, their neighs merging with the screams as they rammed their horns into the chests of mages and rogues alike.

I heard another scream behind me and glanced back to see the hydra and sphinx working together to tear open the thorn bush slowly enclosing the team of Reds and werewolves. They emerged mostly unscathed from within, though the hydra and sphinx outside nearly scared the crap out of my Reds.

The dryad held out his hand from near our rear lines. A thin vine trailed through the field and wrapped around the thorny vine binding Ran to the earth. It squeezed and the large vine broke in half. Ran beat her wings, and when she was high enough, did a roll that sent every single rogue falling back to the earth with shrill whimpers.

The dryad’s wife was clinging to his back, sending shields out to block attacks and protect my Reds.

Even little magical creatures darted about, biting and tripping the rogues and mages.

A smile slowly grew on my face.

Ran had called them. I’d been worried that it was too late, that they were too far away. But they’d come back for us. And the Reds fought alongside them without a second glance.

A tear dropped from my eye as I stabbed another rogue.

That was when I saw my grandmother. She had been watching all this unfold with a scowl on her pretty face. Her eyes met mine just as she released a red ball of flame. It crashed against Ran’s chest while she was protecting Jacob from a mage who’d cloaked himself with invisibility.

Ran released a shrill scream as she stood still, taking the full brunt of the fireball to protect Jacob and my family who were behind her. She was thrown backward. Trees snapped like matchsticks against her weight. Her pained shriek sliced my soul.

“Stay away from my dragon!” I roared, running forward to meet my grandmother.

She was no longer my grandmother. I would call her what she was.

The soon to be ex -Kingpin.

Kingpin turned. So much about her had changed, from the wrinkled skin to the faded-with-age eyes. She was a smooth-skinned ice queen, her eyes as hard as twin glaciers. The pursed lips of disappointment were the same, as were the eyes that always found me wanting.

The threat of not measuring up still slipped into place in my soul, despite knowing there was no way for me to meet her expectations.

A rogue bounded past a Red not five feet in front of me. The Red turned, doing a backflip. I hissed. Only one person would use such idiotic moves on a battlefield. Brandt. He was fighting against a mage who sent rock shards flying against his hood.

I ducked the rogue’s claws and sliced at her chest. It didn’t phase her. She tried to take my head off while her chest was bleeding.

I angled my blade up and through her chin. Her need to be set free of this form drove my hand through the soft point of her jaw and angled it up to nick her brain. She fell as I pulled the blade, her need fading with a rush of something I could only call gratitude.

That was when I saw him. Dressed in that Red hood. Standing between me and my prey. My once-friend who betrayed us all and now fought for her.

“Graham,” I said, my voice a low threat. “Don’t you see what has happened? What’s been done?”

Graham drew his favorite tiny blades. As kids, we’d complemented each other. I’d had my blow dart for range, Brandt had been stout enough for a broadsword. Graham was a sneaky bastard who would kill from behind. It was something we had practiced—my darts and Brandt’s baiting—until whatever creature we were hunting didn’t even know it was dead until Graham pulled out his stiletto.

Graham smiled. Those eyes of his were dark, nearly molten gray. “I serve my matriarch, Alia. She promised to save you. You don’t see it now, but you aren’t the Alia I grew up with. And it’s all because of them, ” he said, pointing to the creatures all around us. “You’ll be free of them soon. I promise.”

I shook my head, my heart aching in my chest. “Graham, people change. I just saw them for what they are: people, just like us. Creatures of Source who deserve our protection, not to be killed because of what they are. I serve the true Book of Codes, the one we should all follow. Don’t you know me well enough by now?”

His stilettos dropped a hair. “What Book of Codes?”

A rogue tried to sneak up behind me. I ducked its claws, sliced its neck, and heard it gurgle. I watched the rogue fall, clutching its neck.

Could it be so simple? Did he not know about the book? But how ? Then it hit me. I hadn’t seen him after Grandmother had called him in for his testimony. We’d stuck him right in the dungeon right after. “Did you truly believe I wouldn’t change everything without good reason? That the Reds would fight for me without a cause?”

“Lies,” he hissed, hands clenching around his blade handles. His voice was uncertain, though.

“I’m not the liar here, and you know it?—“

He pounced. I blocked the first blade, ducked the second, and ran my face right into his upturned knee with the help of his hand on the back of my head. I grabbed his knee and threw him to the ground as I blinked away stars from my eyes. My nose and forehead ached.

I swept his legs out from under him just as he gained his feet. But he jumped, dodging my leg. When he landed, his eyes widened at something behind me. I knew better than to fall for that.

He dropped the stilettos and ran at me. I tried to stab him, but he merely ducked beneath my blade and spun until he was staring at me with those blue eyes and a tight smile, his hands on my waist as if we were dancing. His body jerked as something rammed into him.

Those blue eyes hazed with fear and pain, his ever-messy blonde hair now streaked with red. His hands squeezed my waist as something sad and knowing overcame the both of us.

“I always loved you, you know,” he said. Then he gave me a dopey smile. “Anyone ever told you how mighty slow you move, Miss Matriarch?"

His need struck me as if I were the one who was stabbed in the back. That was when I realized he’d taken a hit for me. A stone from the mage Brandt fought stuck from Graham’s chest like an icy hand of death. It was coated in blood so dark it was nearly black.

Time froze as he grinned at me and I stood, not able to comprehend.

Graham crumbled in on himself when his legs gave out. I screamed, catching him with one arm. I blew on my blow dart with the other and sent the mage behind him spiraling into sleepy land. At the same time, Brandt dodged a flying rock and drove his blade through the mage’s heart.

I cradled Graham in my arms even though he was one heck of a heavy son of a blade and had once betrayed me.

“Hey, stay with me,” I begged, regretting having let Shen use the mage stone.

“It was… an honor…” He coughed and blood dribbled from his mouth.

Brandt came to a sliding halt beside us. Memories raced through my mind. It was us three against the world for years—studying together, killing together, laughing together. Brandt stared down at Graham with something in his eyes I’d never seen before. His smile was gone, almost as if it had never been. I turned back to Graham, whose chest was heaving with pants, his lungs unable to get enough air.

“You are a warrior, through and through. It was an honor fighting beside you,” I said, pushing blonde hair back from his sweaty forehead.

“I was... wrong, Alia. Forgive me. I was all wrong."

"Shhh, all's forgiven, Graham, ok? It’s old news."

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Don’t… let the… matriarchy get to your head,” he teased as a unicorn rammed into a rogue coming for us.

“I’ll have you here to keep me from getting a big head,” I said, a trembling smile parting my lips.

He smiled, his eyes lighting with sadness tinged with knowing; we both knew he wouldn’t make it off this field of death.

“Keep her… humble,” Graham said, looking over at Brandt. “Brother.”

Brandt gave him a grave nod.

Graham’s eyes glossed over as a sigh released from his lips.

Brandt and I sat in the middle of a battlefield in reverent silence.

I felt Shen check on me. His tendril over the bond was soothing, gently tugging, questioning.

I ’ m okay, I answered as if I were speaking with Ran. Somehow, I felt Shen’s eyes on me, even as he fought a shadowshifter, a mage who could melt into shadows and emerge from any pool of shadow.

He turned his mind back to the fight, but I felt him. It was soothing just to know he was there. That he felt it. That he knew and mourned with me.

Brandt carefully removed Graham's Red hood and covered him with it.

I remembered the day he had each received that Hood—the day three eleven-year-old kids would become fast friends and would help each other survive over the coming years.

Now, it would be handed to his sister and mother as a testament to his service. A paltry exchange for a priceless life.

Graham had lost his way, but in the end, he was a man who’d tried to make amends for his mistakes.

“Go, Matriarch. End this. For us all,” Brandt said at last, looking me dead in the eye. His face was devoid of the mischief I had become accustomed to.

I understood why he wore humor as his armor. He was a serious soul who loved deeply but sometimes didn’t know how to show it. And right then, the pain etching each surface of his face was a strike to my gut.

I gave Brandt a salute and then bowed to the body that no longer housed my friend’s soul.

I rose to my feet, slicing a rogue’s throat when it got too close.

I was done.

“Fenbutt!”

He bounded from across the field, his footsteps shaking the earth even though he was but a fifty-pound little goblin.

“ I need you,” I sent out.

The things Kingpin said were running through my mind. She’d mentioned that when I stole Fenbutt’s power, I’d be able to influence needs.

Could I do so with his permission?

Kingpin stared at us from across the bloody battlefield filled with screaming, writhing souls… and she grinned. It was the slow grin of predator to prey. The show of teeth that signaled hierarchy.

She had trained me. She had raised me. She had used me.

It was time to use what I knew against her.

Words resurfaced in my mind, the words the nymph had said so long ago.

When you need it most, what you need will be provided.

But what I never realized was that I had all I needed all along. I was born for this.

Fenbutt nudged my hand at the same time as something nudged the walls around my soul with a feeling of both softness like fur and a hardness which reminded me of Fenbutt’s second form. It didn’t hurt, but I realized Fenbutt could have barreled through my wall with ease, and yet he merely asked for it to drop. It amazed me to realize he was a creature who had a connection to both this realm and the spiritual realm.

In order to allow him to connect with me, I would have to drop my walls entirely instead of merely opening a door to allow a few in. The pounding of needs and daggers of pain trying to pincushion me would penetrate my very being. I would have to allow them to touch my soul, and shred it.

I had to accept what I was and what I was made for.

But I didn’t want to. Allowing Shen and Torem Filius to touch my soul was enough. This would be something else entirely. This would?—

We are with you, Two-Legs, Ran said, roaring behind me with a throaty call that warned of death.

You are not alone, Alia, Shen said, his voice soft.

Your soul is mine, Daughter. The son’s gentle starlight surrounded me, and I felt my soul slowly heal despite the slices and battering it was taking from the unmet needs around us getting through my still upraised wall.

He was with me. And I realized Source and Torem Filius had been preparing me for this moment all along.

For the first time in my entire life, I let my walls fall from around my soul.

The needs drove me to my knees.

There were so many. So, so many.

Daggers, pounding fists, slicing needles, and everything in between. The pain was unbearable. It shook my being until I didn’t even have a voice to scream.

Then Shen and Ran were suddenly there. They surrounded my soul and took some of the pain so I could bear it. And Torem Filius touched us, healing us as soon as the needs came and taking the pain on himself.

That was when I saw it . Beneath the needs. Beneath the very souls around me, there was the burden. Why the needs were there.

Tears pricked my eyes. Their souls were broken. They were meant to hold precious memories filled with love and joy and understanding. But instead, the vessels were shattered with harsh words, punishment, abuse, and lost dreams. And those memories affected the needs bursting from the surrounding souls. How those around them provided those needs left them a spring able to provide for other needs , or they didn’t and were left with large holes where a wellspring should be. They tried to fill those broken chalices with faux love, expectations, addictions, and everything in between—and yet were left so very empty.

Some had been crushed during childhood by imperfect parents who couldn’t fill their chalices and only gave what they had—brokenness. Others had been loved deeply by parents only to be broken later by the betrayal of loved ones who’d used them and spat them out.

But then I saw something beautiful.

Shen’s soul.

It had been shredded in childhood by his mother and later by many betrayals in his life. Although it was scarred, it was healing. He had found himself and accepted himself. His chalice had threads of gold and pieces of starlight holding his glass together where there once were gaping holes.

Not one person on this field was left unscathed by needs that were long since unmet and had broken them. But there were many who—like Shen—were finding healing in their own ways. They were filtering and spreading into those around them, their souls reaching out with a tender touch, a kind word, or even a sacrifice of taking the blade for another on the field of battle. They knew what it was to be broken, and without even realizing it, they tried to spread healing to those around them.

In that moment, I realized the broken one’s needs couldn’t touch what was healed.

And I realized I had it all backwards. For so long, I had tried to protect myself by keeping everyone out. I had thought it was safer. It made me strong, right? But no. It merely hurt the relationships I held.

In healing, you didn’t need walls to keep others out. You needed to heal so that you could handle what the walls kept at bay.

The daggers of pain and needles of discomfort slowly morphed. I saw them differently, saw them as things which could give me insight. I would no longer allow them to hurt me.

And in that moment, I felt them all differently.

Including Kingpin’s.

I glanced at my grandmother, whose smile faltered.