Page 116 of Vale of Dreams

Once, she told me that you beat your opponent by using everything you’ve got. And this is everything she has.

My heart pounds, a war drum in my chest.

Our few remaining soldiers join her, firing at the incoming Fey.

One by one, they fall, their blood mingling with snow. The world grows colder, darker. I can taste the blood in the air. I blink the tears from my eyes and focus once more on the portal.

It flickers and shifts, Brocéliande reappearing in the gap.

Terror sinks its claws into my heart.

The dragon is only fifty feet away from the portal. The monster opens his mouth to unleash a gout of fire.

Talan rides on his back, his dark cloak whipping in the air behind him.

For just a heartbeat, he looks my way, his dark eyes locked on me. I know he can’t see me, but a shiver of fear runs through me. He knows.

Beating its wings, the dragon rises into the air.

I focus on the portal, searching frantically for the weak link. There! I channel all my fear, my desperation, my anguish at that one thin spot, and slam my crimson magic at it. It vibrates with the force and starts to crack.

The dragon runs for the portal, wings spread, flying for the opening. Talan grips it tightly, his mouth open in a war cry.

The dragon roars and belches fire.

My magic spreads, cracking red over the portal like a spiderweb of broken glass. And as the dragon flies for the gap, the cracks widen, shattering. The portal disappears, and the dragon’s roar goes silent.

The Fey feel the portal die, and they stumble, disoriented, the world shifting around them. A few humans are still aiming at them. Bullets fly, hitting the Fey warriors, taking them down, one by one. Swallowing hard, I ready my bow and nock an arrow. My first bolt takes down a Fey archer, and my next kills a charging knight.

They don’t know that we’re outnumbered. They only know they’re stranded in a hostile world, cut off from their forces, and that they’re being shot with iron bullets. Someone shouts an order to retreat, and they turn and run.

With shaking legs, I manage to stand. On the slopes below me, bodies stain the earth with gore. The dead lie among the injured, and moans fill the air. As I catch my breath, I turn to see what’s left of our forces. My throat tightens. Only four men are still standing.

Tears blur my vision, and I stumble over to Viviane, sorrow pulling me apart.

Her body is a mess, cut in countless places. Her pale blue eyes stare vacantly at the sky. Blood streaks her face, and I close her mouth, her eyes.

I choke out a sob.

I hated her when I met her. She hated me.

Then, somehow, she grew to be one of the people I trusted and admired the most.

And now, after giving Camelot everything she had, she’s gone for good.

CHAPTER 44

Istand in a large tent in the main camp of the human allies, looking at a detailed map of the UK. It’s a fresh map, clean, the paper sheet crisp. Little round markers signify the army positions. They seem so innocuous, but every X marks the place where thousands were killed and tens of thousands injured.

You can’t smell the blood on the map. You can’t hear the screams. You don’t see the vacant eyes of the dead staring up at the sky, their jaws hanging open. Nothing on the map shows you the mangled limbs, the broken bones, the empty chair at dinner, the ashes scattered in a garden. There’s no symbol for the man I saw on the way here, weeping by the side of the road, his entire body shaking. No marker for the moms rifling through old photos of the sons and daughters they’ll never see alive again.

Sir Kay clears his throat, and I look up, blinking tears away. Raphael and Nivene stand by my side.

I feel Viviane’s absence like a hole in my chest.

“Thanks to your intervention,” Sir Kay says, “the Fey ambush failed. Without the reinforcements they tried to send, we’ve crippled their army.” He points at a cluster of green pieces representing the Fey.

Even before the invasion of Britain, Sir Kay was growing quite old, but the war has taken its toll. He’s pale and gaunt and walks with a noticeable limp. Before, he always wore his armor, but now he’s dressed in simple clothes. He probably can’t carry the armor’s weight. Dark circles under his eyes make it clear that he’s hardly been sleeping.

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