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They were alive.
With trembling hands, she covered her mouth.This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
Oh, it’s real all right, a god answered though Ace couldn’t tell which it was.
“Surrender now and we might let you live,” King Osiris taunted, shouting over the courtyard.
“Aylee?” Idalia called, ignoring him. Ace shook her head, looking down into her palms. “Look at what I’ve done for our family. Please join us so that we can be complete once more and forget about whatever alliance you’ve made with the Fae. We will forgive you.”
Don’t, the gods said in unison.
Even Shelby shook his head.
“But I can’t forgive you.” Ace called back. She gave only the slightest nod as a signal to the king and arrows arched into the sky aimed over the fencing to the men who’d gathered between carriages.
Farah lifted her staff. The arrows hit an invisible dome with small sparks of white before bouncing off, useless to the queen’s magic.
“That was not very nice, little sister,” Farah shouted, her voice drowned out by the shouts of men as they charged.
Shining silver armor appeared at all sides emerging from behind the castle. The battle roar of Fae meeting men shook the ear. More arrows flew, some toward the queens’ men and some toward the Fae. Metal clashed against metal and screams of death permeated the air.
The horse under Ace stayed calm, only flicking its tail as if all this noise was nothing of concern. The animal carried her to the gates where they pushed at the barrier Farah had created between them. Farah held her staff and glared, not even wavering as fist, sword, and other assortments of blades tried to get through it.
“We aren’t going to be able to get—”
At their right Fae flew backward, their bodies twisting into odd angles as they crashed down into the troops waiting behind them. Ambrose lifted her staff again and another hundred or so soldiers were tossed aside like ragdolls.
The perfect streets of Marlux were running red with blood and Ace shivered as the horror set in. Humans plunged forward with their weapons, seeping into the holes Ambrose had made for them, smooth as liquid finding its way through cracks.
Ace could feel acid burning up her throat. She slipped off her horse, tossing the reins aside, and sprinted to the gate. Her fists beat the dome that she could not see until her hands collided with it and tiny white sparks rained down. She hit it again and again, her frustration growing with every movement she made.
Her sisters still stood there waiting, watching as they sent their humans out to die. Ace grabbed onto her tether of holy fire, her sword stretching up into one fiery blaze from her palm. Her parents staggered down the steps of the castle.
Idalia shouted something at them that Ace couldn’t make out, but she didn’t care what she said anyway. Ace plunged her sword into the barrier. The blade went through. Farrah’s body tensed. Her sister let out a wicked cry that was able to reach Ace’s ears as she tried to carve into the shield.
Rehan’s blades were in his hand as well but he hadn’t moved to try to get through whatever magic Farah was using. He sliced through men as if they were butter and he was the hot knife. Ambrose and Idalia both waved their staff this time. More men flew. More people died. Ace could hear their wails and the screams as life was sucked from them. The prayers of dying men became a wicked chant that replayed over and over and over inside of her.
All the while, she slashed and slashed and slashed with her sword. Farah was trembling but their shield didn’t blink for even a second. Shelby inhaled deeply before placing his palms against it. Orange and pink rippled as he spoke quietly and Ace saw his spell in her mind. She could imagine the barrier gone. Not that his magic worked.
“Shelby!” Rehan yelled. “At your back!”
Fae troops were marching over their fallen comrades but as soon as they made it forward, they would be tossed aside by the queens’ magic. King Osiris was somewhere amongst them, sword in hand moving expertly against any human that tried to come for him.
Still, humans outnumbered them.
Ace didn’t know how it was possible. Shelby turned in time to yank the sword that had been given to him from his belt and drag the blade across the throat of a man who charged. Ace gave up trying to beat the barrier and instead pressed her back into it, grunting and throwing her sword up to catch the guardsman that waited for her. His eyes went wide with panic as her sword bit through his own steel and sunk into his flesh. Fear gave way to death. As he fell he was replaced with another.
And Ace was moving. She felt clumsy compared to Rehan, but she let her instinct take control cutting through metal and armor and bone. Hot blood splattered across her face and soaked her hair. The tang of iron, copper, and the bittersweet scent of magic was ripe in the air.
Time did not exist on the battlefield. There was only Ace, her sword, and death. She would not allow herself to think of the lives that she was ending or to mourn the people who likely had families. She stepped over them and was onto the next. She retreated into herself to the place where she became numb. She watched for Shelby and Rehan and moved faster every time she heard the sound and crunch of hundreds of soldiers broken by the power given because she’d been killed.
“We are losing!” King Osiris shouted.
“How?” Ace didn’t know if it was blood dripping down her face or tears.
“Fucking magic!” He sent a spinning dagger into the eye socket of the guard behind Ace.
She turned, violently aware that nowhere was safe. Would they die out here today? Is this how it all ended? It couldn’t be. This was gods ordained, but what were they compared to the magic given by the gods.
