AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How dare you?” My body began to shake, and I fought against the urge to let go. I couldn’t do as Nox asked. I couldn’t release her. Yet how could I kill my mother to defeat her? Why were the spirits asking such a cruel thing of me?
“Mother,” I whispered, so faintly I could barely hear my own words. “Mother, if you’re in there still, please do something. Anything.”
Nox cackled at that, a diabolical sound that sent shivers down my spine. “Gelsyne can’t hear you,” she sneered as more blood dribbled down her neck. “That spineless twat is too busy cowering inside the back of her mind to—”
Nox’s words cut off mid-sentence, and she slid her wide-eyed gaze to the hand holding the knife. Hope surged within me as I saw what she was seeing—her hand was pushing the knife away from her neck, millimeter by millimeter.
The Mother of Shadows was wrong. Gelsyne—Mother—hadn’t given up. She was still fighting. And so would I.
Nox scowled, and her hand trembled as she tried to re-exert her control over the knife. Before she could take control again, I grabbed her wrist and squeezed as hard as I could. Her hand opened reflexively, and as the knife clattered to the ground between us, I opened the floodgates of my magic and poured every ounce of icefire I had left into her.
42
Lady Axlya
Lady Axlya gritted her teeth as she watched the battle play out before her. She’d wanted to use her poison rain to take out the giants, but Lord Oren had already sent his Lightning Riders in to fight them. The giants were immune to lightning strikes, so the riders resorted to trickery, using their superior speed and wind power to trip up and confuse the giants so they could lead them away from the battlefield. Meanwhile, the Shadows had turned the entire earth fae army into shadow creatures, and now the infernal creatures used their teeth and claws to infect their enemies and turn them to their side.
She felt useless, unable to offer her soldiers any aid, any advantage to help them in the battle. The only reason they hadn’t been annihilated was because of Adara’s dragons, who were using a strange blue fire to fight off the shadow-infected earth fae.
To think that the welfare of her people depended on the good graces of dragons! She never thought she would have seen the day.
“Lady Axlya.” Prentis shoved his way through her guards to get to her, then bent over and leaned his hands on his knees, panting. His normally neat hair had come free of its queue, sticking out in all directions, and his face was smudged with dirt and blood. “This can’t go on. You have to do something.”
“What do you suggest I do?” Axlya snapped. It was unusual for her to speak with temper, but Prentis had struck a nerve. “I can’t use the poison rain without hurting our allies, and—”
“Forget the poison rain!” Prentis shouted. His cheeks turned pink with anger as he jabbed a finger behind him to where Adara was facing off against Nox. The Mother of Shadows roped a giant into defending her, and Adara dodged its attempts to crush her, her blue dragon wings flapping furiously behind her. “Adara needs your help! She was right about everything, about Gelsyne’s true nature, about the Shadow’s plan, about the icefire power!”
Even as he spoke, Axlya watched as Adara hit the giant with a blast of icefire. The strange magic purified the creature on the spot, and after a few moments of dazed confusion, it lumbered away. Much as she wanted to, Axlya couldn’t deny the truth before her own eyes. Adara was their only hope—the only one with the power to purify their world of shadow magic. And should she fall…
“Please, Lady Axlya.” Her eyes flickered to Prentis, who was on his knees now. The pleading look in his blue eyes hit her like a blow to the gut—she’d never seen him beg for anything in his life. Not even the throne that had once been his by right. “We’ve turned our backs on Adara for far too long. Help her now, before it’s too late.”
A burst of light ripped Axlya’s attention from Prentis, and she looked up to see a brilliant blue glow illuminate the sky. Adara and Nox were at the center of the pulsing light, the latter’s head thrown back in a scream as the icefire purified her from the inside out.
Everyone else's eyes were glued to the spectacle, so no one noticed the other Shadow had stopped what it was doing. That as the blue glow around Adara and Gelsyne began to fade, the Shadow possessing Lady Mossi was coming in for the kill. And Adara didn’t have the strength to fight her.
43
Adara
Nox threw back her head, an unearthly scream ripping from her throat as the icefire raced through her. I held onto her for dear life as black mist began to evaporate from her body. It wasn’t just shadow magic I was erasing—it was the Shadow itself that had taken root inside my mother, masquerading as an earth fae these past weeks as it drove the kingdom of Ediria headlong into a civil war.
A multitude of voices echoed in my head, some shouting threats and curses, others whispering dark promises and temptations. All begging, pleading, negotiating with me in some way or form to let go, to stop, please, just STOP!
But I held on to the memory of my mother, to her smiles and laughter and tight, warm hugs. And I kept pouring the icefire into her, until the voices were gone, until her body stopped trembling, until there was nothing left but the soft, comforting blue glow around us.
Exhausted, I brought us to the ground, the weight of my wings no longer able to hold us up. Mother's lashes fluttered as I alighted at the top of the hill, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she stared back at me with full awareness. Her emerald eyes were heavy, but they were fully her own, not a trace of Nox’s dark presence lurking with in.
“Adara,” she said, and my heart soared to hear the raspy cadence of her voice. “You did it.”
A fierce and incandescent joy burst to life within me, obliterating all the pain and grief and fear of the past few months. I hugged my mother tight, burying my face in her shoulder. “I’ve missed you so—”
A shadow fell over me, and I looked up just in time to see the Lady Mossi charging toward me. A small army of dire wolves, boars, and fae-stags ran alongside her, all twisted into hideous beasts by shadow magic, all frothing at the mouth and ravenous for my blood. Gorge rose in my throat as I realized I didn’t have the energy left to fight her, that Einar and the other dragons were too far away to intervene.
Shoving my mother behind me, I braced myself for the impact. But at the last second, Lady Axlya jumped in front of me, shielding me from the onslaught. She threw up her hands, and my eyes nearly popped out of my skull as she unleashed a literal tidal wave from her palms, conjured out of thin air.
The massive ocean wave slammed into theShadow, sending it tumbling end over end across the field and scattering the shadow creatures. I knew there was no way that it would stay down for long; it was already struggling to its feet. But instead of rallying herself for another attack, Lady Axlya crouched in front of me, then removed the gemstone torque from her throat.
“Here,” she said quietly as she placed it around my neck. The three large stones, set at intervals along the length of the golden plate, flared with power as the necklace settled against my skin. The moment that happened, Axlya’s face sagged, fine lines and wrinkles appearing along her face, neck, and arms as her skin turned paper-thin. “Take the energy from these primal stones and finish this.”
