Page 23 of Blaze

I clutch Herrick’s neck for dear life, using his shirt to hide my tears. I don’t want Malvolo to feel any more guilt than necessary. He did what he had to. What we agreed upon.

The last thing I see before I’m whisked into the healer’s tent by an impatient Herrick is Malvolo’s head tipping backward, gouting flame to the sky, dissolving Hassan’s lamp into shining motes and ash.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TINKER

Peter lets out a cock’s crow of excitement as he zips past, corkscrewing in midair to avoid falling debris.

A section of stone—the size of a palace bathtub—came loose from the arched ceiling, plummeting to the striated marble floor and splitting in half with an ear-shattering crash. Smaller chunks of stone splinter off the mass, spinning in every direction, hitting enemy and ally alike. One of Maura’s dark fae loyalists buckles when a stone the size of a fist hits him in the back of the knee, painfully popping the joint out of place. The fae (which looks like an absurd cross between a dung beetle and a grown human male), lets out a ringing screech before it collapses to the floor, raising its pincers high to deflect the sword of a Gryphus huntsman aiming for its vulnerable underbelly.

Another winged faerie is hot on Peter’s heels, batlike wings a blur as it streaks toward one of my lovers. Its mandibles are simply huge, able to cleanly cleave someone my size in two. Peter has a foot and over a hundred pounds on me, but even so, I fear what might happen if that monstrosity gets its claws or clicking mandible on him.

“Careful, Peter!” I caution, dodging my own rain of debris. I’ve had to learn to compensate for my missing wing. I’m slower than I used to be and use faerie dust to buoy me during the most crucial battles. I’m usually flat-footed these days, cutting a swath through enemies on the ground while Peter and Quinn handle the barrage from the air. Not today, though, Not with Septimus this close. I don’t have the luxury of remaining on the ground while my uncle is nearby, rending the once great palace of the Seelie into ruin all around us.

Somehow it seems fitting that it should end where it all began, in these hallowed halls where my family used to hold court. Now it’s just an empty tomb, marble monuments on their sides line the walls of the great hall, death masks on display. Several have already been smashed, but none spill bones onto the floor. Faerie bodies don’t rot like human bodies do. Our bodies simply sink into the earth, creating places of great beauty or horrendous nightmares, depending on what court we hail from.

Peter flashes me an impish smile from his position across the hall, and it’s so infectious, I have to hide a ghostly grin of my own. That’s my Peter, content and even joyful in the midst of chaos. It takes more than a troupe of homicidal dark fae and bat men to dampen his good humor.

“You wound me, Tink! Since when am I anything less than careful?”

I do smile at that. Peter wouldn’t know caution if it walloped him upside the head with an oak tree. I’m half-convinced he sought out trouble the moment he was old enough to toddle. Perhaps even before then, acting as the tiny terror of caregivers everywhere. It brings me comfort in the chaos to think that he was once so innocent. That maybe our children will have a chance at living in a world free of Uncle Septimus’ tyranny.

Peter’s smile slips as he summons his will, aiming a burst of hellfire at the mandible-wielding dark faerie. It can’t bank away in time, and a portion of the fire spills over it, igniting the fine, bristles on its back. They catch like fresh tinder and a moment later, it’s nothing but an incandescent glow falling to earth, thrashing in agony, leaving an afterimage behind my eyes when I blink. It’s almost distracting enough to let me miss a Gryphus coming up on my left.

I swoop low, avoiding the pike a half-shifted huntsman hurls in my direction by a fraction of an inch. It makes a sharp sound as it blows past, making my ears ring. Quinn fights on the ground below, using my father’s tomb as a defensive position as he looses ranged attack after ranged attack. Arrows find their mark with uncanny speed and accuracy, sped by a trickle of faerie dust provided by yours truly. They find exposed throats, eyes, and weak points in plate armor more often than not.

I sense Septimus before I see him. His aura is foul, like a corpse ripening in the midday sun. His energy reminds me of squirming maggots and the hiss of beetles, of all things fetid and rotten. We aren’t like humans, who can leave violence with their aura only mildly tainted. We are magic, the essence of nature at its peak of perfection and at its most predatory. Everything we do with that magic leaves its mark for good or ill. I once feared I’d never scrub the stain of Aunt Saxe’s death from my soul, but her forgiveness from beyond the grave has cleansed me, leaving me only with Morningstar’s taint on my power. Maura’s dark fae aren’t nearly so objectionable, which is just more evidence of how far the venal king has fallen. He wears the stink of mass murder on his skin like malodorous perfume.

Rage boils just under my skin, as scalding as the backwash of Peter’s flames. The haughty planes of Septimus’ face are a beautiful mask that disguises his corruption. The arrogant twist of his mouth is taunting, a half-smile as he surveys the monuments of my countrymen and the wreckage his soldiers have inflicted on my birthright. The Seelie palace was meant to be mine when I came of age, centuries from now. Instead, Saxe was forced to flee with me under her arm to save my life, stashing me on cursed Marwolaeth Island in the back end of Neverland to keep me safe. It’s Septimus’ fault that the isolation almost drove me mad. If not for Zegar, I wouldn’t have possessed a mind when my Lost Boys discovered me. It’s his fault that I’m the last of my kind. His fault that I was maimed. His fault that I’m tainted by blood magic.

And it’s time he paid for it.

An enormous fist juts from the marble, pale white stone fingers grasping for Septimus blindly. The veins stand out like ink against the pale surface. If it grasps him and twists, his blood would stand out like a verdant shout against the pallor. Itdoesn’tcrush him, much to my chagrin. It does pluck off one of his wickedly heeled boots, crushing the leather to paste between thumb and index finger. He blinks at it once in surprise before shooting upward, stopping shy of the ceiling. When he turns his face to me there’s an instant of doubt, before his usual self-assured attitude settles back into place.

“You’ve been practicing, niece of mine,” he sneers. “Not so pathetic a foe this time around. Finally embraced Morningstar’s power have you?”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Even if I decide he deserves the truth, he will think I’m lying if I try to be candid. It’s the way of the Unseelie. Deception, manipulation, and cruelty. Even Maura LeChance isn’t immune, though she’s the most moderate I’ve ever seen. She tricked Prince Payne into traveling with Briar Rose, the princess he almost killed. It’s just luck that the underhanded move backfired and that they fell in love.

The truth of the matter is I’mnotrelying on Morningstar’s power. I don’t need to. Peter gives me enough passion, enough bravery, and enough daring to shoot for the impossible. He makes me dream bigger and fight harder. His unwavering, almost childlike faith in me is inspiring and makes me want to rise to be worthy of it. Quinn’s power is sturdy, fortifying my backbone when I falter. He’s a level head during danger, a calming force to temper the fury that boils my blood and makes me want to reach for the darkness inside me. I’ve only done it a handful of times, usually with disastrous consequences. To use it now would make me as bad as Septimus is, taint my magic, and make me unworthy of the throne he stole. I can’t win by becoming him. The power to win is inside me. It has been all along.

I draw on my Lost Boys for strength and control as a thick miasma gathers around Septimus’ hands, dark tendrils circling his body like sleek panthers. It’s mesmerizing to watch in a detached, deadly sort of way. If it weren’t meant to cast me out of the sky, I might think it beautiful. I juke in midair as he unleashes the spell, and it flies wide, striking one of the sparkling crystal panes of the only unbroken window. Bloody twilight filters in through the gap, tinging the interior of the palace red.

Another grasping marble hand rises from the ground, coming at Septimus’ back. He whirls toward it, shearing off the thick stone fingers before it has a chance to seize him by the middle and twist him like a child’s toy. It’s not a large opening, but it’s enough. I duck under the swing of a dark fae’s blade when it sees me making a beeline for Septimus’ back. It manages the briefest of cries before Quinn’s arrow finds its heart, and it plummets to earth, the beetle-like carapace cracking open like a rotted gourd when it hits the floor below.

The warning comes a moment too late to do my uncle any good. He kicks off the stone palm and faces me, letting out a short and surprised exhale when he finds himself nose-to-nose with the weakling of a niece he’s underestimated. I reach up with a wan smile and cup his cheeks. It’s almost ironic, this parody of a loving family playing out above a battlefield. His eyes fly wide when I kiss him gently on both cheeks, imbuing each brush with a little of my magic. That magic sinks into his skin like molten gold, shining power beaming out from his face. Seelie power. Something not meant to live inside his body.

I pictured his death millions of times on the island. In every scenario, it was a grisly death full of blood and viscera. Septimus screamed until he went hoarse and only when my need for vengeance was satisfied would I let him crumple into a heap of bones and flesh. I would burn him to ash before his body could sink into the ground and spawn a place of nightmares. But that isn’t me. That’s not the Seelie way. If I want to be worthy of my title, I have to act like it.

Septimus doesn’t die in agony. He dissolves into a cloud of sparkling motes that float to the palace floor. Anywhere he touches down, a flower or tree sprouts from the earth. Colorful tropical blooms and palms with waxy trunks and leaves almost identical to the ones that populated my lagoon on Marwolaeth Island. Creeping roots lash my enemies to the ground. A few scream when the forest grows over them. The rest are smart enough to fly or flee as the newly created paradise sprawls outward from the point of Septimus’ death.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say it’smydeath in part. It was my magic that invaded him and ultimately destroyed the evil of his aura. I’d overcome him. What was left was all me, a large portion of my life force simply gone in the strike it took to defeat him.

Peter and Quinn come to hover beside me a few moments later, staring wide-eyed at the creation unfolding in front of them. Nature is as beautiful as she is unpredictable. An avalanche is breathtaking in its descent, despite the lives it may take. Our allies escape the worst of it while our enemies retreat now that their leader has been defeated.

Only Septimus’ crown remains, and I pluck it out of the air before it can touch down and become a flowering bush or crystalline lake. The circlet used to belong to my father. It feels too large and too heavy when I place it on my head. Quinn adjusts it with a small smile when it slides to one side.

“What exactly was that, Tink?” Peter asks in a hushed voice. It’s a first. I didn’t think anything could shock Peter after everything he’s seen. “I thought you were going to gut him. He deserved it, after all. What was the light show?”

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