Page 32 of Queen of Ever (Curse of Fate and Fae #2)
Chapter 32
Tarian
A nxiety hung heavily over the gathered crowd of lesser fae as they poured into the diamond-coated central chamber of the dugout. More were pouring in every minute, clutching belongings and young, finding space on the already crowded cavern floor. My gaze caught on a mosskin sylph sitting cross-legged on the floor with a child tucked under each arm, the pale green, velvety hair of her face contrasting with her huge, liquid-dark eyes. Those hiding here would be no use in a battle. They were those too young, too gentle or too untrained to do anything other than get in the way. If the fighting reached them here, they’d be sitting ducks. They’d have to take to the tunnels and find an escape or it would be a bloodbath.
‘So you think you can navigate your way out?’ I asked Haddock again. I didn’t like the way he was rubbing the back of his neck, his expression pained. Like he was already apologising for failing in his task, and he seemed less and less sure of himself the more I pressed him.
‘Well, I’m not so sure, your lordship. It’ll be all chaos and fuzz with magic flying about and soldiers everywhere and me trying to rush them all along those winding tunnels. If I may be so bold as to mention it, it might be better to get us all out now, before dust flies and—’
‘We can’t,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘You know that. It’s too late. They’ve committed to staying here. If they ran, they’d be hunted down anyway. So, like it or not, you’re stuck here with them. But if you try to take off early and save your own skin before it’s time, I will be hunting you down, understand? I’m relying on your sight to be able to tell when it’s time for them to run.’
‘Yeah, of course, of course, I’m not gonna leave ‘em all to be buried,’ he said, choking on a hysterical bubble of laughter. I eyed him, unconvinced. If he could predict the moment they would be set upon before they were, he could possibly lead them to the surface, which would perhaps mean they’d at least not be slaughtered like fish in a barrel or buried alive. I didn’t know what fate would befall them if they reached the surface, but they surely stood a better chance than being overrun down here. Maybe in the chaos of a battle, a few might escape.
I halted in pressing him further when a shudder ran through the earth around us, shaking loose a few streams of dirt, ushering a new wave of anxious murmurs from those around me. The mosskin sylph clutched her children closer. Somewhere, a baby began to wail.
Fingers lightly touched my back. ‘That’s them?’ Imogen asked.
‘Probably an earth wielder splitting the rock,’ I replied, keeping my voice low to prevent it carrying. ‘It’s time to go up.’
She took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Alright. It feels wrong to just leave them all here though.’
We waited at the entrance for all those who would be fighting to part from those they were leaving here. The goodbyes were hushed, a collection of sobs muffled against chests, hands clasped, promises to return, to survive, whispered into hair. A male caressed the mosskin sylph’s cheek before turning on his heel and following the others out as she stroked her little girl’s back and her boy sat resolutely watching the retreating crowd, his lip trembling and eyes glistening. I watched him as Imogen pressed her hands to the floor.
‘Don’t push yourself too far,’ I warned.
‘I’ll only seal the entrance,’ she said, closing her eyes. Slowly, the crystal around the mouth of the tunnel grew, reaching outwards with spiny arms, stretching towards opposite twins until they met in the middle. It kept expanding, filling the cracks, until there was a face of rough, cloudy diamond blocking the opening. I touched Imogen’s shoulder as soon as the last gap was sealed, reminding her to stop. She opened her eyes, wrenching her hands back, a brief flash of panic crossing her gaze before she seemed to find her bearings and rise to her feet.
‘Are you sure you’re ready to do this?’ I asked, studying her carefully. The ground trembled slightly, another shudder rocking the underground hideaway as the assault above continued.
‘Yes,’ she said resolutely, tilting up her chin, squaring her shoulders. If I’d been secretly nursing a hope that she’d change her mind at the last minute and agree to get out of here, I knew her better than to rely on it. Even if I promised to stay and fight for her. In the time I’d known her, she’d only ever demonstrated an inclination to run towards danger instead of away from it.
‘Stay close to me,’ I said, taking her hand. ‘Tell me if your magic starts to turn on you and take too much of you. If you feel dizzy or vomit or—’
‘Tarian,’ she cut in, ‘I’m a grown woman. Trust me to take care of myself. I managed it just fine before you rocked up and turned my life upside down.’
‘You weren’t trying to defend a rebellion against two fae legions then,’ I muttered as we walked the sloping path to that central chasm of the den, where Sylara was divvying up her forces into groups, delegating different sections of the tunnels. The reverberations from above were louder here, rattling clumps of rock and earth from the curling walkways rising up the chasm, scattering the ground with debris. The vibrations resonated in my chest like a drumbeat.
‘How are your wards holding up?’ I asked when we reached her.
She shook her head. ‘They’ve already fallen. I don’t think we have much longer before they break through. I want to group the two of you with Cassian to watch the northern tunnels. We suspect that might be where they’re going to break through first.’
‘Good. We set up a lot of defences there yesterday,’ Imogen said.
‘What’s your plan if they overwhelm us?’ I asked, skipping past optimistic assertions that we were going to win. The chances were slim.
‘We’ll fight to the death,’ Sylara said evenly. ‘If we surrender ourselves, it’ll be only for a mass execution. There is no plan if they overwhelm us.’ Her gaze flickered between us, resting on me. ‘I know that won’t be your intention,’ she continued, lowering her voice. ‘I know you’ll want to get Imogen out before it comes to that. I only ask that you take as many of those we’ve locked below as you can. If they wind up in the hands of the High Fae…’ She trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish. I knew what cruelty would await them.
‘Alright,’ I said, thinking of all the children locked in Imogen’s diamond-coated cavern. ‘We’ll take who we can.’
She nodded, something settling in her expression. Resignation, maybe. I had the sense that she was prepared to lose this fight. I drew Imogen away from Sylara before she could get it into her head that she had a way to change that. We followed Cassian and a handful of others that included Ethan up the chasm and then down another tunnel, this one frequently interspersed with the doors of residences, all standing empty now. The air felt unsettlingly still, the only sound that of our footsteps and the distant rumbling from the assault at the surface echoing through the walls.
Cassian turned back to us as we reached a junction, his features grim. ‘The traps we’ve set will buy us some time and might catch them off guard, but they’ll be on us soon after they’ve been sprung. Our best chance is to keep them divided. They can only fight us in small numbers in the tunnels, but if they make it to the central chasm they’ll unite and we’ll be done for. Throw whatever you can at them to make them scatter, just try to stop short of a total collapse.’
Almost punctuating the end of his words, the ground shook with a violent tremor as a deafening crack! split the silence. Streams of dirt poured down from overhead, chunks of rock hitting the floor beside us as I yanked Imogen in close, the two of us ducking low.
‘That’ll be the first barrier,’ Cassian said as the floor steadied again. ‘They’re in.’
‘You should have left us to the defences. If all yours are like that, they won’t need to get past us. The whole cave system will collapse,’ Ethan sniped, shaking his hair free of debris. ‘God, you’re a real—’ Imogen drew near him, briefly touching his arm before he could continue, shaking her head when her friend met her gaze.
‘The friendly fire probably isn’t necessary,’ she said. ‘Save it for the real enemy.’
Then we reached a crossroad between this tunnel and another and I caught the sound of movement, faint but unmistakable—soft footfalls, and the low murmur of voices.
‘Stealth,’ Cassian whispered, pulling back into the mouth of the other tunnel, drawing his blade.
A sudden crash reverberated through the tunnel, followed by a surge of magic that left an acrid smell to the air and a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. Out of the darkness ahead, the first of fighters appeared as dark shapes moving through the shadows. Two of the others with us rushed them with a scream, blades drawn, and immediately a wall of wind tore down the tunnel, howling as it centred on the two lesser fae, pinning them in the eye of a hurricane that knocked them both from their feet, tearing at their clothes. Grit pummelled my cheeks as a High Fae solider—Unseelie, dressed in black leathers and a steel breastplate bearing a crescent moon wrapped in thorny vines—strode forwards, hands still raised he wielded the wind.
‘How sweet,’ he drawled. ‘They think they’re going to fight us.’
He wasn’t even looking at me when I hit him. Was too busy gloating to be on his guard. The wisps of destruction magic leapt from my outstretched hand and hit him between the shoulder blades. He screamed as it ate into his flesh, the wind immediately dying. I didn’t stay to watch him rot. Behind him, the rest of his squad were advancing, some fighting an onslaught of thorny vines ripping out of the ground, grasping at ankles and calves as Imogen turned the floor to a nest of adversaries. Cassian was already among them, blade flying, Ethan close behind him moving with surprising stealth and speed, wielding a weapon like he’d been raised to do it. Which, given his history, he probably had been.
Sharp pain drove into my shoulder. With gritted teeth, I ripped the arrow out of my flesh from where it had lodged in a flash of white-hot pain, before turning on the male with the bow. I ducked his next shot, struck the one after with magic as he and two other archers tried to scramble down the opposing tunnel. It happened in an instant; he was running, then all at once they were falling as the ground vanished beneath a misplaced foot, triggering a magic-disguised trap set over a pit of spines. The screaming shredded my ears as I approached the edge of the pit, looking down to see where they’d fallen. One groaned as he tried to sit up around a spine that had pierced his leg, another twitched around the merciless thorn sticking through her stomach. A third had somehow avoided impalement, and recognition flashed across his face as he looking up at me.
‘ You ,’ he spat, red-tinged spittle flying. ‘Turning on your own. You traitor.’
I knelt to the rim of the pit. Said nothing as I summoned magic to my hands. Put them out of their misery. Seemed more charitable than leaving them impaled. When it was done I was on my feet, running back towards the junction in the tunnels. There were bodies on the ground, some lesser fae, some unseelie. Ethan and Cassian stood fighting back-to-back now, barely holding off the wave of soldiers that kept breaking against their blades. I couldn’t see Imogen. Panic snapped through me. I plunged back into the melee, ducking an ice-tipped spear as it whizzed past me, ice spreading where it embedded in the wall. Too many soldiers ahead, pushing past us, forcing Ethan and Cassian back. Magic churned in my hands as I fixed on a broad, helm-clad soldier bearing down on me, arms raised in a scream. I swerved, slammed a hand into his chest, the pulse of destruction immediately devouring his breastplate, eating into his flesh as I spun on the next one, shooting a pulse of destructive energy out at another. It went wide, hit the wall. Cracks appeared, spreading up the wall like spidery fingers, webbing out over the floor until the floor was eroding, becoming a hole that would swallow us. But Imogen was suddenly beside me, planting her hands on the floor, creating anew what I had destroyed, fortifying the floor and the wall.
‘Come on!’ I had a hand on her arm, pulling her to her feet as Ethan and Cassian broke formation, running back down the passage. There were too many of them. We couldn’t hold them off. Imogen stumbled after me, blade drawn now, and I drew mine as we fell back. I wasn’t a damn swordsman. But the more magic I used, the worse my control. Exhaustion would weaken my aim. Already, my head was beginning to throb, and there was a slight tremor to my hands. I’d bring the tunnel down if I kept trying to fire from a distance.
A beam of blinding white cut through the rebels from the adjoining tunnel, hitting one of our allies. She shrieked, falling to her knees, burned from the inside out. Imogen jolted towards her, grabbing her arm, tugging her out of the beam. But she was already dead, slumping to the floor as flames licked around a charred hole in her stomach.
‘That’s a Seelie trick,’ I yelled, standing over her as those before us held the line. ‘They must have breached another entrance.’
‘We’re not going to hold them.’ Imogen’s eyes were wide, terrified. Shouts of relief joined the clashing of steel, and Marietta was surging past us, hair flying, plunging into the conflict with a flurry of swordplay I would never have suspected she could brandish. She moved as quick as lightning. And she’d brought reinforcements, more rebel warriors handling spears and blades. In another flash, light seared a path through the fighters, eliciting a new wave of screams, charring flesh.
‘Move further back.’ I pulled Imogen to her feet, ducking as a volley of arrows soared overhead, finding targets behind us. ‘I need to get the light wielder.’
‘I’m not just going to hang back and let others die!’
‘No, you’re going to reinforce the walls.’
In a moment, she seemed to understand. ‘Okay,’ she agreed, already scanning the space behind us. Before she could go, I pulled her in. Kissed her hard.
‘Be careful.’ I released her, already turning. Picking out a way around those already engaged, heart hammering. Light burst before my eyes, bright as lighting, blinding me and everyone else, before the whole cavern was plunged into a mirage of shifting mists. The walls became mirrored, reflecting back a warped reality as formless bursts of light darted around the dizzied fighters, disorienting them. A strategy that could backfire, since it was just as confusing for their own fighters as it was for ours. A Seelie soldier clad in silver chainmail caught the advantage, ramming his sword into the rebel he fought all the way to the hilt, the point sticking out of his back as he slumped to the floor. I reached them as he perched a boot against the rebel’s chest, yanking the blade back out. I caught him on the shoulder. His flesh shrivelled away from my touch as he yanked away from me, trying to lift his sword to retaliate even as his arm disintegrated in a mess of rotting flesh. A shudder ran through me, my detachment suddenly shattering for a moment at the horror of the sight. I had done that. And I was about to do worse.
‘Fall back!’ I called to Cassian just as another beam of light cut through the mists, missing him by a hair’s breadth. The Unseelie and Seelie forces ahead were cloaked in the mirage, but I could still hear them in the clanging of blades, the screaming voices and the groans of pain. I didn’t know how many of the rebels were among them. I hoped few. ‘Tell your men to get behind me!’
I thought for a moment he’d refuse. But he cut down one last opponent with a slash across the neck then yelled the order, signalling with a wave of his arm. More soldiers emerged through the mists as the rebels retreated, and there were suddenly a handful of Unseelie bearing down on me. Magic burned through my arms, the cold gnaw of it building in my palms, humming along my skin in crackling pulses of energy. I released it just before they reached me. It surged outwards in a torrent, catching the soldiers directly in front of me, bringing them down in a volley of screams. The mirage abruptly broke, mists and mirrors dissolving until it was just a tunnel once more, and a great swathe of bodies were dropping to the floor, writhing as magic ate at their flesh, liquifying them until the ground was soaked with blood and fluids and the stench of rot choked the air. The floor shuddered, walls trembling, but already veins of crystal were crawling over the ceiling, stitching the cracks even as clumps of earth rained down.
The pounding in my head was a persistent pulse as I retreated back to the others, the chills wracking my body weakening my grip as I tried to draw my sword again. I was churning with nausea, partially from the aftereffects of the magic and partially because the stench was vile and there was no air down here to move it. I felt like I was drowning in it, that it was coating my lungs with the reminder of how abhorrent my magic was. I pushed the sense away, tried to rebuild that detachment. There was no time to ruminate on the right or wrong of what I’d done, because even if I’d taken out the closest soldiers, there were more on their way down the tunnel. I could already hear them.
The rebels had drawn further back than I thought, regrouping in the mouth of one of another adjoining tunnel. I found Imogen with Ethan, who was leaning heavily against a wall, hand pressed to his stomach as blood leaked slowly through his fingers. ‘Could have pulled that move a bit sooner,’ he said weakly.
‘We need to get you some help,’ she said, worry cutting deep channels between her brows. But there was no time to think about Ethan, or to remark on the blood smeared across her upper lip. There was a pulse of tearing, burning cold at my back, and I turned to the crackle of flames, the sharp scent of ammonia cutting through the rot. A wall of black flames were burning down the tunnel towards us, licking at walls, shot through with luminescent silver, eroding the ceiling in patches as it dissolved Imogen’s reinforcements. Blackfire.
‘Run!’ I pushed Imogen, slung Ethan’s arm around my shoulders, and we were all running for our lives, trying to outpace the hungry magic chasing us.
Imogen wrenched open one of the doors in the wall. ‘This way!’
Ethan and I stumbled through the door, and he slumped into a sitting position on the floor, his breathing shallow and fast. Imogen slammed the door just as the blackfire ripped past us with a roar of gushing wind. The sounds of yelling and the pound of feet were muffled through the door, and we held frozen as we waited, all three sets of eyes fixed on that flimsy door, waiting for it to reveal the blackfire had caught and begun to burn it away, or for a turn of the handle to expose us.
‘They just keep coming.’ Too many had got past us now. We weren’t holding this tunnel anymore. They had a free path straight into the centre of the lesser court. I thought of all those people locked in the cavern below.
‘So do something!’ Imogen said, turning away from Ethan.
‘If I do anything else, I’ll bring the whole tunnel down.’
She gripped my arm, fingers digging into me, face streaked with soot and blood, eyes wild as she held my gaze. ‘Then bring it down.’
I stared at her for a few costly seconds, unravelling what she meant.
‘I’ll hold the end,’ she continued. ‘You bring down the rest.’
I was already shaking my head. ‘You’ll—’
‘Tarian.’ Her other hand was on my face, like she was holding me captive, forcing me to face her fierce determination. ‘You need to trust me to do this. Bring it down.’
And then she was opening the door and surging back out into the corridor, and I had no choice but to follow her. She wove around those already in the tunnel, shooting a shard of ice into the neck of someone in her way, dropping to her knees to plant her hands at the base of the opposite wall. And I didn’t know if she had the strength to keep everything from collapsing, but she’d asked me to trust her and that’s what I was going to do.
I took a breath. Breathed through the pounding, splitting pain in my head. Summoned magic to my hands once more, hands that were still numb with the cold of the destruction I’d already wielded. Took several steps forward, putting some distance between me and Imogen. Raised my hands.
Magic burst out of me in a haphazard arc, chaotic and without direction, completely untethered from any ability I’d had to aim before now. It slammed into the walls of the tunnel, a dark tide of energy seeking out the High Fae ahead, streaming into the cracks in the ceiling. The stone above split, groaned, and the earth itself shuddered. The stone beneath our feet trembled, splintering apart as the raw energy shot through the earth. Cracks snaked up the walls, splitting the tunnel in jagged lines. Chunks of rock and streams of dust rained down as the tunnel groaned like a dying beast.
The soldiers advancing down the tunnel slowed, one of the commanders yelling at the others to fall back as the cracks in the ceiling grew larger, gaping like open wounds in the earth. With a deafening roar, the tunnel’s ceiling gave way.
Massive slabs of rock broke free, crashing down in a chaotic avalanche of stone and debris. The High Fae screamed as they were swallowed by the collapse, their bodies crushed under the weight of the falling rocks. Dust choked the air and the tunnel shook violently as the collapse triggered a chain reaction, more sections of the ceiling caving in, the floor shifting underfoot, the sound of stone crashing against stone reverberating all around me as I became hyper aware of the tonnes and tonnes of earth above my head, waiting to collapse down and bury us. I bolted back to where Imogen still knelt, eyes closed, hands clawed into the wall as blood dripped from her nose down her chin. She groaned when I touched her, and her skin was icy cold from the rush of magic she was channelling to keep the tunnel network around us from collapsing, growing crystal where there had been crumbling earth.
‘Imogen?’ I wiped the blood from her mouth with my sleeve. Was the vertigo in my head, or was the ground really beginning to sway? Her eyes flickered open, her shoulders slumped, hands disengaging from the wall.
‘I think it’ll hold,’ she panted. ‘But I don’t know for how long. At least we’ve stopped them.’
‘For a while,’ I replied. The tunnel here was completely blocked off now, but we’d only bought ourselves a little time.
A few other rebels were moving through the tunnel behind us, helping the wounded up off the ground, checking the dead and dying. Marietta joined us as I helped Imogen to her feet. The Seelie princess was limping, and her hair had come unbound, hanging around her face in wild snarls.
‘We have to get Ethan,’ Imogen said as Marietta examined her with a frown. Her gaze flickered to me.
‘We’re heading for the surface,’ she said. ‘Too many of the tunnels have been destabilised. They’ve struck from all different directions and caused cave ins all over the place.’
‘What about the people sealed in below?’ Would Haddock get them moving in time?
‘Queen Sylara has gone to them to see them all out.’
‘Ethan,’ Imogen repeated. She was leaning against me, her legs unsteady. I did a quick calculation, weighing up risks. Getting her to the surface meant she wouldn’t be at risk of being buried any longer, so that was priority number one. She wouldn’t go without Ethan. But she’d be without my protection if I sent her on ahead without me.
‘Alright,’ I replied. ‘I’ll get him. Help her, Marietta. Get her moving. I’ll be right behind you.’
Marietta nodded, slinging an arm around Imogen’s waist, and it took everything in me to let them head off without me, to turn and head back to the room we’d left Ethan in. I found him slumped against the wall, barely conscious. I muttered a string of curses as I bent to lift him, my head swooping. I tried to steady him on his feet, but his legs just gave out again, so I looped his arm back around my shoulders and began to drag him. He roused as we got through the doorway and began a stumbling gait alongside me, supporting at least some of his weight.
‘You know, this is how you wind up covered in glitter,’ he said, the words slurring together.
‘Yeah, I know. You’re lucky Imogen loves you. Now get yourself together because we need to catch up to her.’ We staggered along, following the last dregs of the rebel forces down a narrower tunnel, this one that sloped in a spiral upwards. But tremors continued to rattle the ground beneath our feet and debris kept shaking loose, falling in clumps around us. ‘Come on, Ethan,’ I urged, and he tried to quicken his pace. But too much damage had been done. The lesser fae court was caving in on itself, I could sense it. The floor seemed to be in a state of slow-motion disintegration, shifting beneath our feet. We weren’t fast enough. It opened up and swallowed us.