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Chapter Seventy

KEIR

W e'd barely managed to get everyone inside and the gate closed before the mist had hit, quickly cutting us off from each other.

As people yelled, it sounded like their voices bounced around in this unnatural fog.

I'd managed to send some magic at Rain, but I had no clue if it had even worked, yet the shadow armor now covering both me and Hawke proved she was still up and clearly being a badass.

"We need weapons," Hawke said, the pair of us moving together as we tried to aim towards Rain.

"Not gonna happen," I said. "Just stick close and - "

A rider charged from the unnatural fog. I barely had time to shove Hawke one way while I jumped back the other.

The rider missed both of us, but turned his horse around, proving we hadn't gone unnoticed.

In the paleness blanketing us, everything felt wrong: the sound, the lack of seeing anything more than fifteen feet away, and even the flashes of magic in the distance could've been coming from anywhere.

I couldn't point to the school or Rain if I tried - and I was trying as hard as possible to find my girlfriend!

"Pull him off the horse!" Hawke said when the rider charged again. "The horses aren't a threat."

"Worth a shot," I agreed, bracing as the hunter came closer.

Waiting until the last second, Hawke and I moved in unison. We split, reaching up, and grabbed the hunter. The horse kept moving. The rider slid, jerked hard when he refused to let go of the reins, and then slammed down on the ground between us.

I quickly punched him in the face, and then kept punching. Pain burst in my knuckles, but now was not the time to worry about that. These things couldn't be killed, but they could be incapacitated for a few seconds, and I had to hit him until anything else would be pulverized!

"Keir!" Hawke hissed, yanking me back. "Time to move, he's out!"

I rocked, fell onto my ass, and then scrambled to follow as Hawke continued to pull. "Where are we going?" I demanded. "They're back there!"

"They're this way," he insisted. "Trust me."

So we ran. Up ahead, I could hear a ruckus of birds cawing and screeching, but one thing came through clearly.

"Court!"

Damn, that was a call to arms if I'd ever heard one, but the flare of colors in this overly-thick fog distorted everything.

Still, Hawke and I ran, pushing with everything we had, but the ground before us felt like it had expanded.

I didn't remember the trees being that far away.

I couldn't tell how much distance we'd already covered.

The shadows of trees loomed in the mists around us. Evergreens shaped like triangles and bare trunks of trees still trying to grow the buds of new leaves all felt like potential monsters out here, obscured just enough that they resembled hunters and horses lurking on the other side of the fog.

Until they moved!

Mists drifted, solidified, and riders began to form right in front of my eyes. I grabbed Hawke, pulling him back and around so he didn't run face first into one, and the pair of us froze. The first snap of a branch made it clear these were real. They also looked lost, or maybe confused?

The rider before us checked her left, then her right.

Wait, her? The band of the Hunt with the Huntsman were typically men!

I checked another rider to find the same thing.

This woman's hair was dark grey, nearly black.

A third had skin that reminded me of what Wilder might look like if he'd lost all color.

He was a guy, but most of the others weren't.

Beside me, Hawke glanced over. I turned, meeting his eyes - and felt my heart slam to a halt.

His pupils had constricted, turning into almost horizontal ovals.

I tensed, but he looked back into the forest before I was sure of what I'd seen - and I couldn’t ask without making the hunters around us aware we were right in the fucking middle of them.

The dark-haired woman began gesturing. The riders moved, following her silent directions, and more poured from the mists. Three, four, five, six more appeared, in addition to whatever number had been here before.

Shit, we were so fucked.

Grabbing Hawke's arm, I waited until he turned to me again and mouthed, "Rain."

He nodded and started moving, trusting I would follow.

Well, if he knew where the fuck we were supposed to be going, then great.

I just had a bad feeling about this. No line of sight, no weapons, and my magic was pretty fucking shitty to begin with.

But hey, at least we both had shadow armor, right?

Then light flared. It was white and shined like the sun had been pulled down into this mess. It didn't last long, but the fading steps of horses stopped, shifted, and then came racing back, heading towards it the same way we were - and putting us right in their path.

"Again," Hawke breathed, crouching down.

I nodded, braced, and listened as the sound of six horses got closer so much faster than I liked.

The animals were the same color as the fog, so the first appeared almost right on top of us.

I roared, pushing up and grabbing at the rider, but something hit me in the back.

Pain flared. My feet tripped. Leaves slammed into my face and I rolled, feeling a fucking hoof rake across my leg in the process.

Then Hawke cried out. I didn't bother thinking. I just thrust, encasing him in a shield even as I hurried to get back up. Five feet away, I saw my friend grappling with the rider we'd evidently managed to pull down, but the rider wasn't stunned. She was fighting back with all she had.

I glanced back and another rider was there, swinging at me from atop her horse.

I yelped, ducked, and kicked the animal in the belly.

Bracken said the horses were just horses.

Immortal ones, but still animals - and would react like such.

When the horse surged forward - away from me - I realized he was right.

The rider simply turned it back and pointed right at me.

"Keir!" Hawke yelled.

"Run!" I told him, knowing I was so fucked.

Without a word, with clouds all around us, the other riders still obeyed the hunter's command.

Between one breath and the next, they charged, and it looked like the fog itself was coming at me.

I shoved a shield at one. The horse crashed into it, stumbled, and fell, rolling over its rider in the process.

Green flashed at another, igniting her clothing on fire. She veered off, slapping at the flames even as she forgot all about me. That left three more, since Hawke's seemed to be out of commission, and I didn't get the chance to throw any more magic before they hit.

I got a shield around myself, heard as the horse slammed into it, but my eyes had clenched themselves shut on their own. Everything rocked, the impact on my magic jostling me inside of it, but when I opened my eyes, I was still alive.

"Hawke!" I screamed, hoping he was still here.

"You cannot have my friend!" the man bellowed as he charged the hunter who'd hit me. I wrapped another shield around the rider behind her, then pushed it smaller, and smaller and smaller until I crushed everything inside it, but felt my arms trembling in response to the strain I'd just used.

Panting, I turned to check on Hawke to find that rider was down and clearly not moving. Her horse was rushing off into the fog. I dared to smile but Hawke saw me, thrust out an arm, and then pain was all I knew.

I flipped. The greyness of the fog around me spun. I caught a face full of hair, and realized I'd been grabbed. The spinning and movement was the animal I was being carried on.

Fear hit. Panic took over. Fin popped into my mind, and I would not end up like him. I was supposed to be the fucking hero! I was supposed to survive, and to do that I had to fight. I couldn't give up, not now!

So I shoved. I kicked. I reached back to punch at anything I could reach, but there was nothing. Trees began to move faster. The horse was slamming its shoulder into my gut with each stride, and I could not get the hunter's hand off of me!

"Your Queen has no power over me!" I yelled, pushing with all my force to get myself off the horse!

My fingers caught the edge of the saddle. My feet kicked something solid - which felt like the hunter. Knowing this was the moment that would determine my fate, I pulled with everything I had, and then some. The hunter refused to let go, but my already jumbled world tilted just enough.

The ground was hard. The tree I slammed into was harder, but I didn't have time to whine about it.

Forcing myself over, I got to my knees and was clawing my way up when a foot slammed into my gut.

I lashed out with power, not caring how it hit, and the hunter stumbled back.

A shield stopped her from reaching me when she tried again.

So she pulled her blade. "Guilty," she breathed, the sound of her voice like the wind in dried leaves.

"Fuck you!" I screamed, surging to my feet to thrust a punch at her face .

She dodged, already swinging, and I knew this was going to hurt.

I pushed my arms between me and the sword, felt the edge hit, saw chips of blackness fly from my armor and the force lifted my feet from the ground.

Time vanished until I slammed into the ground again and rolled once.

But as I clawed my way back up, something shot over my head and barreled into the hunter.

Wings.

Man.

That was all I had time to register before I was rushing forward to help. I didn't make it, though. My legs gave out. My knee hit the ground and my eyes glazed for a moment, but I saw the pair struggling. Blinking hard, I forced my eyes to focus in time to see Hawke's face.

He was snarling, holding the woman against the ground, and both of his thumbs were burrowing into her belly as darkness reminiscent of Rain's magic flowed into him. I could see it pulsing up his arms, but that didn't shock me as much as what was behind him.

Massive wings. Brown ones, with a pattern in white across them, and spread out just like a hawk protecting its kill.

"You cannot have him!" Hawke growled as he pulled and pulled at the darkness.

The woman's body dried more, the fullness I'd seen before being sucked away, drained out with the Wild magic Hawke was pulling from her, until her skin began to crack.

Dust drifted down, causing a cascade until her entire body simply turned to powder, leaving the shape of her under Hawke's thumbs.

Ones with long, thick nails that looked more like talons than I remembered him having.

"Hawke?" I asked, trying to stagger towards him.

His head snapped up and those predatory eyes of his locked on me. "Keir? Shit, Keir!" And he folded his wings tight.

I just slammed into him, hugging the guy with all I had. "You fucking saved me!"

His breath rushed out with relief. "Are you ok, man?"

"No," I admitted, letting go of him just to land on my knees by the dusty remains of the hunter. "Fuck, you're a jevadu too?"

"You're not supposed to know that," he said. "Keir, I... I'm trying to be normal."

"You're a fucking wildling!" I shot back. "Fuck!" And I turned, looking for any signs of the battle. "That's why you zapped Rain!" And I pulled in a breath, trying my hardest to get control of myself .

Jevadu were monsters. They were creatures who fed on magic and could then use it to seduce more victims. They were things from nightmares - but monster was a slur.

I knew all of those things, but they didn't fit together at all.

Everything I'd been taught about this made no sense, but one single thing made sure it didn't matter.

He was my friend, and he'd just risked everything to save my life.

"Keir," he said, grabbing my arm to steady me. "Please don't be mad."

"Where are we?" I asked instead.

"Halfway to the gate. The court is over there." He pointed into the mist.

"Are you sure?"

He swallowed hard. "I can see Rain's magic. It's ultraviolet to me."

All I could do was laugh. It was just one, and it burst out unexpectedly, but suddenly everything seemed so clear to me. Everything fell into place with his words. Hawke was a jevadu. He was a wildling. Which meant everything I knew had been wrong, and we still had a chance!

"I bet I know how we can get back fast. Just tell me you can carry a little weight with those things?"

He stared at me for a little too long, and then a smile began to grow on his face. "Yeah, I just fed. I can carry you."

"Then let's make sure we don't let our girl down," I told him as I stood up one more time, then turned to offer him my hand. "After all, we're on the same side."