Page 64 of Knight's End
Chapter Sixteen
Iyelled to Quinn in my head.Tell Ryan there's an attack in Kycee’s province. We’ll need gargoyles. I'm not sure what else.
What kind of attack?Quinn asked me.
Magic.
I turned to look at Donaloo and Dini. "Any ideas what it could be?" I asked the pair.
Dini bobbed her flower head. "Water fairies."
I rubbed my brow. "Has every magical creature in the damned universe suddenly decided to fight us?"
Dini responded, "At least now you know where Isla was. She was probably under the river, meeting with them."
Fury surged in me. Gods, I hoped that Dini was right, and Isla was with them. We needed to take her out.
Declan and Ryan must've been nearby, because they landed on their gargoyle just minutes later. Blue and Quinn said they’d meet us in the air.
We took to the sky together, following Michael. I didn’t even take the time to change out of my ruby red dress. I just shoved my skirts aside as I straddled Pony and took to the sky.
Ryan had a group of soldiers fly with us on gargoyles. My knights wanted me to stay behind with Dini and Donaloo, but I refused.
"I can use my peace magic to stun some soldiers into lethargy. And I need to see if Isla is there." I didn't say it aloud, but I wanted to be the one to end her. It was a selfish desire. A foolish one, probably. But the woman had walked into my castle, intending to betray me. She'd turned some of my own nobles against me. And now she’d attacked Connor’s family. She more than deserved death at my hand.
The cold winter air stung our eyes as we flew quickly to the south. There was a river there and an inlet, that Kycee and her husbands used for trading. I assumed that the water fairies had come from the river. Typically, the tiny fairies completely hid themselves from humans. I was surprised that Isla had gotten them to meet with her. But perhaps having a sea-sprite on her side had swayed them.
When we got close to Connor's childhood home, a manor house that was not far from the harbor, I saw exactly what Michael meant.
A rainbow stretched across the sky. But unlike a natural rainbow, this one wasn’t a thin arch. This rainbow was like a blanket that spread across the sky and hung down over the little port town. From above, I watched as patches of the rainbow suddenly dropped out of view. Entire legions of tiny fairies dove to the earth to attack my people.
One would think that tiny fairies could have no effect. One would be wrong. The fairies didn't even have to touch my soldiers. They simply stopped midair in front of my soldier’s faces. The fairies used the bubble of water that surrounded them to encompass my soldiers’ noses and mouths. The wicked creatures drowned my men where they stood. They drowned my men as sunlight glinted off their water bubbles in a beautiful array of colors.
Death had never been more gorgeous and horrific.
How the sarding hell do you kill a water fairy?I asked Quinn.
His answer made my insides as cold as my surroundings.I don’t know. Fire?
Ryan didn't have the same question I did. Or perhaps he and Declan had already talked about the fairies on the flight over.
“Blue and Declan—watch my back,” he yelled.
Then my giant knight flew in front of us, raised his hands, and sent a blast of yellow power through the sky.
I gasped and choked and clutched onto my gargoyle. The sky was suddenly parched. Air wheezed through my lungs. It was so dry that it felt like the sky was scratching my throat. My eyes squinted against the desiccation. But I didn’t blink. I watched as the rainbow below me rippled and faded, and the water fairies shrieked and dropped from the sky like a swarm of dead insects.
Ryan struggled to restore a bit of water to the sky around us as I glanced around.
“It can’t be that easy, can it?” I wheezed; my throat still dry as a bone.
That’s when the first winged bear barreled into us. It smashed into Declan from the side and he was nearly knocked off his gargoyle. I dove on Pony to rescue him and shove him back upright.
“It was a lure,” Declan coughed when I’d righted him on his mount. “Get out of here.”
But it was too late.
Winged bears surrounded our force and clawed at us from every angle. Above, below, behind. My gargoyles were nearly indestructible. But my soldiers were not. And Isla’s warriors knew just how to attack. Their bears swooped and latched onto my soldiers’ backs, lifting them from their mounts and throwing them aside—their screams were horrid, piercing shrieks as they fell to their deaths.
