I pause as three claws cut through Merrick’s chest, and his eyes widen, blood spraying everywhere. He gasps as the claws are pulled out, and he turns with a painful roar, cutting the monster in half with one last swing of his sword. Posy meets my eyes over Merrick as he falls, and she is injured, holding what looks like a broken arm. “MERRICK!”
Running, I catch Merrick as he falls back, and I hold him to my side. I cover his wounds with my hands, like I can stop him from bleeding out on me. I never thought about him. Not once… and I should have done. He just… goddess, he is going to die. “What did you do that for? How did you know where to find us?”
“I s-saw a light, and it led me to you. It was like a s-s-tar,” he gasps out, his face scrunched in pain. The goddess. “You’re my fiancé. I couldn’t let you die.”
I shake my head, looking at Posy. “Can you make a portal yet?”
Her silence is answer enough, but she climbs to her feet. “We can carry him.”
“Don’t,” he croaks out. “You need to take my sword and fight. Don’t waste time defending the already dead.”
Posy looks at me. “He has a point.”
I grit my teeth. “No.” I put my arm under his shoulders, and he’s heavy, but Posy helps with a cry of pain from her arm and shoulder that is bleeding. Between us, we manage to slowly start moving down the alleyway, and I pray that Merrick can hold on and that we don’t bump into anything else. We pass enough dead bodies on the way that it makes me think the main lot of monsters and Rift warriors have already gone through this place. My body aches, but more strength than I’ve had in a long time somehow keeps me going.
“I was drinking my sorrows away in the city right before the attack. I was in the f-forest—” He grunts. “When I felt this need to come here, and the light appeared to guide me.” He looks at me and I glance at the blood on his chest. There’s so much.
Posy stops, wheezing. “We need a healer.”
I agree with her, but I can barely say the words out loud, because Merrick doesn’t need to hear us give up hope. Merrick was still a bastard to me in court, but I can’t hate him now… not when he just saved my life. Not when he is likely going to die for saving me. We hobble through the city that is too silent here. When we get around a corner, to a clearing that used to be a park, we stop and know why it is quiet. The streets are filled with hundreds of monsters and Rift warriors waiting for us in an enormous group.
There are so many of them, probably more than a hundred warriors alone, without counting the hundreds of monsters behind them, and they all turn our way. Merrick tries to push us off him. “Go, fucking run, and leave me!”
I can’t move. I can’t just leave him to die, but we will lose against them all. Posy looks at me. “If you’re staying, so am I.”
My hands shake as I lower Merrick to the ground and take a step in front of him. Emerson, forgive me. We need to get further away for Posy to make a portal, but I can’t make her run.
The first Rift warrior just steps towards us as I lift Merrick’s sword, but a portal appears right in front of me. Emerson steps out, night lacing the ground at his feet and darkness spreading into the air until he looks like a god of darkness come to destroy us all. It doesn’t touch us as the portal disappears, but it builds like a mist into the air. His eyes are bleeding from dark amethysts to white stars as he turns his head back. “We are going to talk later about how you’re mine and you don’t fucking fight on your own.”
He turns back to the monsters and warriors as his darkness takes out every light. Even the sun seems to stop for him. There is only darkness for a minute, and when I can see, shadows of pitch-black night wash over the monsters and warriors like a wave of the sea. His magic destroys them within seconds until all that is left is black glittering dust falling on the ground. The light comes back, and everything is silent apart from Merrick’s labored breaths. Emerson’s shoulders are tense, but that’s the only sign that using his incredible power to slaughter hundreds strained him in any way.
“C-calli,” Merrick’s voice rattles. I fall to his side, feeling Emerson watching me. “Hold my hand before I meet the g-goddess. I have things to say to you.”
I take his hand, tears falling from my eyes. I don’t love him, but he was my friend. I don’t want him to die. “You shouldn’t have come for me. You knew who it was the light was taking you to, didn’t you?”
He lifts his hand and brushes a strand of my hair off my cheek. Emerson growls low and Merrick looks up at him. “I love her too, but she always chose you. She made the right decision, and I should have sided with you, Emerson. You are the king we need. Protect her in this life and don’t let her die like she did before. Calli—”
He coughs out pure blood, and I wipe his lips of it with my hand. “My obsession with you kept me from seeing who you should be. You are his and you are a queen. I was smothering you, when I should have been protecting you.”
“Merrick—”
He squeezes my hand before lifting it to his lips. He kisses my knuckles and breathes in once, only to cough out his words, but I hear them. I know these will be some of the last words he will ever say, and I wish I could save him. I’m not sure even the goddess can. “No, listen. I did the right thing, saving your life, and yes, I knew who I was being led to. The only right thing I’ve ever done when it comes to you was saving your life this day.”
Before I can say goodbye, the light fades from his eyes and his hand drops from mine to the ground. A sob escapes my throat as Emerson picks me up, tucking me into his side.
“Touching, really, but unless you want to lose another friend, I’d suggest you come with me.”
I lift my head to see Louie standing on the other side of the clearing, a knife to Nerelyth’s throat.
ChapterFourteen
CALLIOPHE SPRITE
The world seems like it stops, the world pausing as I look at the male who I see as a brother. Louie holds Nerelyth against him, her head forced back to lean on his chest as he grips her arm tightly, his sharp silver blade pushing on the pale skin of her neck. His crown glistens like a diamond in the sunlight. It shines through the thick smoke, right down on him like he is sent to this world to help us, not destroy us all. I feel drawn to the crown, and now I know it’s the same as the sword. I wonder about its power.
The light doesn’t hide the evil that warps nearly every inch of his soul now. Thick clouds of smoke cover up most of the sky, casting a red glow everywhere, and it’s all I can smell as my blood runs cold. Louie watches me like he does in our dreams, a mixture of familiarity and hate, but I think his attention is on Emerson, too. Aware of the danger at my side. I’m not alone here, not like in my dreams, and I tell myself that over and over for some strength.
I gently lay Merrick’s body on the ground and look at my old friend once more. I can’t die now, not after Merrick just died for me. I refuse to cry over him when our enemy is here, and I have to save my best friend. Emerson is tense as I move to his side. Posy moves to stand on my other side as we all watch the true enemy. Goddess, Louie is my enemy. The thought tears at my heart, but the sight of him, like this, rips it to shreds.