Page 37 of Shadows of Ruin (The Broken Prophecy #2)

Chapter 36

Lana

“ N o, Kade!” I shouted, desperate for my cries to reach him.

Unlikely given the battle around us, and whatever shield Andras had in place, but I had to try.

Storm yelled to the others, flinging his body toward Ian, and created a circle of fire around them all as darkness exploded from Kade’s body. The blast tore through the clearing even stronger than it had when we had first crossed into Mysthaven. A deafening roar accompanied the darkness surrounding us, and the barrier cracked.

The darkness dissipated and every single dark one on the opposite side of the shield lay lifeless on the ground. I held my breath, searching for my friends.

Storm’s fire receded, revealing that they’d remained safe.

Kade ran forward toward the shouts, engaging the new wave of dark ones ready to pounce through Andras’s broken shield. He fought with ferocity, a wildness, unlike any other fight we’d previously encountered.

Hale’s grip on my arm loosened, the dagger at my neck wavering momentarily at the blast. I looked toward my friend— the man I thought had been my friend. Hale’s face slackened in disbelief as he met my gaze.

Andras approached my other side, but his expression held no fear. Despite Kade breaking through his defenses, he watched unimpressed. He reached down, yanking my hair back. Hale’s blade nicked the skin of my neck, and I winced.

“Look at them fight,” Andras whispered in my ear. I struggled against him, but the power of his grip along with Hale’s kept my fight in vain. “They come for you so eagerly. Especially him.”

Andras gripped my chin in his fingers, jerking my head slightly to the side to watch. He didn’t need to though. My gaze already rested on Kade, breaking through Fae as though they were nothing. Coming for me.

“I will have Casimir drain them one by one.” His nose brushed against my cheek, and I jerked away from him as best I could. Bile rose in my throat at his unwanted touch. “I will have you watch the life fade from their eyes as each of their magic becomes mine.”

“Get off of me,” I gritted out.

He laughed, continuing. “Kalliah looks as though she is about to collapse.” He turned my head toward her. “Ian will be one of the last. But Kade…” He inhaled, as if greedy for air itself. “Kade will be the grand finale. I won’t drain him completely; he wants him alive. But it will be fun to watch him suffer alongside you.”

“He will slaughter you like the pig you are,” I promised.

Andras clucked his tongue. “Pretty words, Princess. But they’re for nothing. Your friends have come to die because of you. You have never been strong enough to save them, and now you’ll see it firsthand.”

I elbowed Hale in the gut, sending him stumbling back. Andras was only caught off guard for a moment before he waved a hand at me. Searing pain ripped through my body, and a yellow gemstone on Andras’s robe flared as I sank to the ground.

“I cannot kill you yet.” He shook his head. “He has plans for you. But he never said I couldn’t play with you.”

He has plans for me? Who the fuck is “he”?

“Illiana.” Kade’s scream tore through the clearing, and like the coward he was, Andras pulled back.

“Get her,” Andras hissed at Hale.

Hale obeyed immediately, wrapping his arm around my chest, but I saw my opportunity. It was now or never to escape their clutches.

Grabbing Hale’s wrist, I pushed out and up and stomped on his foot, as I ducked beneath his arm, pushing him away from me. I yanked a blade from my boot, grateful to have thought to grab it when Hale had led me away wanting to talk. The white dagger I’d discovered in my parents’ grave rested on my thigh, but I left it alone for now, opting for the dagger I knew so well.

“You were my friend,” I fumed at Hale. “I trusted you. How could you?”

Hale let out a garbled laugh, but it was broken. A drop of blood rolled from his nose as his body jerked.

No . Those jerky movements… I recognized them now. The same way some of the dark ones moved.

Hale whipped his dagger around and bent his knees, readying himself for an attack. “When the darkness…calls…” More blood flowed from his left nostril. “You must answer.” The last of his words escaped from him forced and breathy.

He lunged toward me half-heartedly, and I blocked his attack with my dagger. He grunted as I easily lashed his own out of his hand, the momentum of my swing forcing it from his grasp.

Even with the battle raging around us, in this one moment, I saw a broken man, eyes shifting from dark to light. His shoulders sagged, and his arms hung limply by his side as he panted. Straining against an invisible force I could not comprehend.

“Lana.” His voice tried to sound angry, but it fell short. Hale jerked his head to the side, eyes squeezed shut. He wiped the blood flowing freely from his nose with his arm. Streaks of crimson remained on his face. He leaned down, reaching for his weapon, and his arm shook.

An idea struck me. If this didn’t work, I would surely be dead by Hale’s hand. Watching him though, I knew this was not him. No matter how my heart ached at his betrayal, leading me into the hands of Andras—this was not the Hale I knew. Cautiously, I approached him. He turned, staring at me, but as that black darkness seeped into them, I closed the distance fully between us and placed a hand upon his cheek. A warmth filled my insides.

“I know this isn’t you. Come back to me, Hale. Be the man I knew in the gardens. At Millie’s Café,” I begged him, the battle sounding like it crept closer and closer. “You are stronger than the darkness within you.”

His gaze met mine, and he shouted, roaring loudly but not pulling away. I didn’t let go. A moment later, his eyes cleared, the black returning to their normal amber hue.

“Illiana,” he whispered, clutching the hand that held his cheek. “Lana?” he asked.

“I’m here,” I said, watching as his expression transform to a look of horror.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” I answered too quickly, glancing to the side. “But I need you now. Kind of in the middle of a battle.”

His eyes flared.

“You’re all right?” I asked, needing to know if I let go, he wouldn’t go back to that darkness.

“Because of you.” He nodded. “Thank you.”

“Then we need to fight.” With a resurgence of strength, we turned to greet the battle around us .

Casimir stood a few feet away, draining the magic from several dark ones, channeling it into various gems sewn onto Andras’s cloak. A brilliant rainbow of gems glittered in the moonlight as they filled with the magic from any Fae Casimir touched.

The bodies formed a pile next to them as he continued to siphon more and more magic.

At least it was fewer for us to kill, but the amount of magic Andras hoarded scared me. No one should have that amount of power. That kind of magic. He had to be defeated.

"Little Rebel,” Kade yelled across the clearing, like he needed to continue to remind me he was coming, battling his way toward me. Storm shot fireballs across the night sky, making it glow as brightly as if it were daylight.

Hale and I continued our own battle toward our friends. Together, we engaged the dark ones, whose jerky movements made it almost impossible to predict their next move. But we powered on. Using every trick and strategy taught to me from Fae on both sides of the void, I cut my way through any enemies who dared cross my path.

Hale struggled to keep pace, struggled to fight the dark ones. It appeared to take every ounce of effort to fight against the ones he’d stood next to mere moments before. As if the darkness drained him now that it no longer controlled him.

Andras bellowed gleefully over the sounds of battle, and I turned to see what caused such a sound of pleasure.

“Lana,” Hale shrieked. “No!” He threw his body in front of mine.

Stepping back, I fumbled only for a moment as Hale landed on his stomach, not moving.

Rage coursed through my veins, and I instinctively flung my blade, landing straight between of the eyes of a dark one who’d stood immediately in front of Hale as he fell. Dropping to my knee, I rolled Hale onto his back and gasped when I saw the dagger protruding from his chest .

“Oh, Hale,” I whispered, resting my hand on his chest. “You idiot. Why would you do such a thing?” A tear formed in the corner of one of my eyes, waiting to drip down my sweaty face. “I can stop the bleeding and…and…you can heal yourself.”

He brought a hand over mine as his blood seeped onto my skin. The cough forced out of him, accompanied with the sound of gurgling blood in his throat made me want to vomit. “I had to save you,” he declared. “I love you, Illiana. It has always been you.”

The tears flowed freely at his admission. “I am going to take the blade out,” I said, gripping the handle of the dagger. “You’re going to be okay, do you hear me?”

He shook his head. “The darkness drained most of my abilities. They aren’t strong enough yet.”

“They will be,” I said, refusing to let doubt clog my voice. “They will be. I’ll leave pressure here as soon as it is out while you heal.”

He gave me a sad smile and nodded. I pulled the blade quickly, pressing my hands hard over his chest as blood spurted out. “Now, Hale,” I commanded. “Right now, start healing.”

He closed his eyes and tightened his grip on my hands.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he whispered, breathing heavily. “When you were missing, taken by Kade and Storm, I tried to find you, but nobody knew where you were. I thought if I gave in to the power they offered, I would be strong enough to fight it. That I could defeat Andras from the inside to protect you. To protect all of you. I only ever wanted to protect you. If I could never have you to love, the least I could do was keep you safe.”

“Hale.” I barely choked out his name.

Blood leaked from his mouth, and his breathing became labored. “Lana, listen to me. The marked dark ones accepted the darkness willingly. They are stronger than the others who fight it. Do not underestimate them.”

“Hale, hold on. I can save you.”

“Did you hear me?” he asked, the words choppy and fading.

I nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, I heard you. The marked ones are more dangerous.”

He sighed, his chest caving into his now fragile-looking body.

I shouted, looking up to the sky, praying to the Fates they would give me the opportunity to save the man who’d saved me. We needed a healer. I hated being on my knees again beside someone dying for me, with nothing I could do.

“I love you, Lana,” Hale said, barely a whisper. “I have loved you for longer than you know, but more importantly…” Hale breathed in, a rattling, shaking sound, and while I kept one hand with pressure on his chest, I brushed the other against his face as he spoke. “I believe in you.”

Squeezing my hand one last time, his head rolled to the side, and his arm fell to the ground, revealing an inky black circular dark-one mark on his forearm.

Dead.

I stared at the mark. The sign that Hale had tried to take on a force none of us understood, all to save me. I wasn’t worthy of that kind of sacrifice. He had taken on evil for me. And died because of it.

A heart-wrenching scream left my lips, echoing throughout the meadow. “Come back,” I begged.

I brought my head to his unmoving chest as I closed my eyes. My bloodied hands trembled against his body. I could not keep doing this. I could not watch those I cared about falling, slaughtered, over and over. I stood, anger coursing through me.

A shout called my attention to a dark one running toward me. Good. I would kill them all. Realizing my weapon remained lodged in the head of a dark one several feet away, I reached for the white dagger at my thigh.

I screamed right back at the man, diving over Hale’s body, and thrust my blade deep into the gut of the attacker. Reckless and with abandon.

A sooty black mist erupted from his body with a loud crackle, as he crumpled to the ground instantly. The dark one's expression, once wild and crazed, now appeared relieved.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Eyes wide, I stared in disbelief, not understanding.

What in the actual fuck?

It was as if the darkness left his body.

An eerie silence fell as my immediate surroundings quieted.

Gripping the blade tighter, I pivoted toward Andras, who stared at me with unmasked rage. Piles of bodies lay littered beside him, and his cloak glowed from the gems powered by the magic of the lifeless dead surrounding him.

“You are next, Andras Braumlyn,” I swore at him. A surprised, pained sneer deformed his lip as he stared at the man kneeling in front of me in complete disbelief.

“Casimir!” Andras shouted. The worm had not ventured far from Andras. With his eyes on the dead man beside me, he pointed and whispered something to Casimir.

I bolted into action, running toward the pair of them. They would die. Now . A dark puff of smoke appeared, and in a feat of magic I had never seen before, they were gone.

Vanished into thin air—and they weren’t the only ones gone. The previously overwhelming number of dark ones we thought we were battling disappeared too.

His army had been almost completely an illusion.

“No!” I screamed, reaching the spot where they just stood. “Come back and fight me, you cowards!”

A pair of strong hands grabbed me around my waist, lifting me into the air. I didn’t need to look to know it was Kade, the whispers of his shadows caressing my skin.

“Not now, Little Rebel.” Kade turned, throwing me over his shoulder, and ran toward the safety of our group. The few dark ones remaining, left out in the cold by their master, looked around and saw him gone. They fled, retreating into the woods.

I fought against his hold. “Let me go. We have to get them.”

Kade didn’t stop until we reached Storm, Raya, Corbin, and a limping Kalliah. Jax lay on the ground, his arm bloody, but not so bad that he didn’t give me a smile.

“Where’s Ian?” I asked in a panic.

Kade set me down and grasped my face in his hands. “Look at me,” he commanded. “Ian's fine. We have to get you to safety.” The heat of his touch sent sizzling waves of energy through me. Energy I was so used to feeling that it had become second nature for the thrum to never stop.

“But look at the destruction he has caused. Look at the death surrounding us.” I pointed to the bodies littered across the battlefield. “We have to stop him. I refuse to let anyone else die in my name. Hale—” I choked. “Hale is dead.”

His eyes softened, but he remained firm in his stance. “This is not the final battle. His time will come, I promise you. But for now, we need to regroup. We need to come up with a plan so we are not caught unsuspecting again.”

“We can’t leave him,” I whispered.

Kade kissed my forehead. “We will bury him before we go.”

Corbin placed a hand on my shoulder as he walked past me. “I’ll take care of it.”

I looked away from him, finally seeing Ian jogging toward me. “Fuck, Lan, you’re all right?”

I buried my face in his neck and cried. I cried for Hale, for the boy who loved me enough to try to take on the darkness alone. And for the long journey we had ahead.

Kade did not shy away from keeping us moving. “Get your weapons and return to camp. We need to gather our things and make our way to The Knotted Willow as quickly as possible.”

Each member of our group acknowledged the command and picked up extra weapons discarded across the ground. As I bent down to pick up a dagger from the hand of a dark one, I noticed a symbol on his arm. A symbol I had seen before on Andras and on Hale.

“What do you know of these marks?” I asked Kade.

He exchanged a glance with Storm before he responded, “We aren’t quite sure. We haven’t figured out exactly what they mean, but we noticed them on the dark ones in Brookmere. We tried interrogating them previously, but they refused to say what it meant.”

“As far as we can tell,” Storm said, “it seems to be on those of the dark ones who are less frenzied. Less crazed.”

“Like a branding?” Ian asked.

“Andras has one,” I told them. “I saw it in the palace during the last trial. Hale had one too. He told me he took on the darkness believing he could help from the inside.” I closed my eyes, thinking of how he had clutched my hand in his final moments. “He said the marks show those who accepted the darkness willingly. Those without the marks are fighting it.”

Storm breathed a heavy sigh. “So, they’re not crazed, they’re battling something inside of them.”

“But from who?” I whispered.

“We will add it to the growing list of things to figure out,” Ian said. “For now, we should go. Kalliah needs to see a healer, or at the very least needs to get off her ankle. Let’s go somewhere safe.”

I moved toward Kalliah, who favored her right leg, her left ankle already swollen, and let her wrap her arm around my shoulder.

Jax slid next to Kalliah’s other side and picked her up in his arms. “I’ve got this.” He winked at me.

“I told you I’m not interested,” Kalliah muttered.

“No, but I’d rather not die tonight, waiting around here for the cackling wannabe king to return and find another way to surprise us.” Jax snorted. “So let’s go.”

I turned to face the battlefield once more, vowing to myself to avenge the death of yet another Fae lost to this monster.

Facing the western sky, the white dagger in my hand heated. I hadn’t set it down, even as I gathered the other weapons. I had no idea what had happened when I used it against the dark one, or what happened to the man after.

I stepped forward, the heat growing, and the dagger glowed in response. “What are you for?” I whispered to it, as though it would provide an answer. I knew this dagger was important. What it meant, I wasn’t sure, but as we trekked north back toward camp, the glow of the dagger dimmed. As did the heat.

The blade called to me, a song begging to be sung. I just had to figure out what it called me toward, and what it meant for us in the war we had been thrust into.