Emerald Darkness Page 7

  Instead, a sudden fever flushed my skin. My head began to throb. I closed my eyes and pressed my hands against my temples.

  The face of a witch pushed its way into my mind, her voice so loud in my memory, I couldn’t hear the battle raging around me. “You are mine,” she said. “And you will do as I command you.”

  I beat my hands against my head and cried out, but I couldn’t shake the memories. I fell to my knees against the hard surface of the ground, just wanting it to stop.

  I’d rushed out here, blindly following Lea and thinking only of her safety, but now, I realized why I’d refused to participate in the training. Why I’d always insisted on using physical weapons when Lea and I sparred.

  “Your magic belongs to me, demon,” the voice in my head reminded me.

  “No,” I shouted into the night air. “Not anymore. I don’t answer to you anymore.”

  I tried to stand, but my knees were too weak.

  What the hell was wrong with me? I was free. I was no longer bound to any witch in the Order. I didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself.

  I managed to find my footing and draw the strength to stand, but the fear of casting left me trembling. The horror of my reality struck me so hard, I nearly fell again.

  I had lived for so long with no free will, only able to use my magic when the witch I was bound to commanded it or needed my protection, that now, even though I was free, I was too broken to summon my powers without someone here to control me.

  My lips trembled, and I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. I breathed in and out, panic flowing through me like air.

  What had become of me?

  I used to be a warrior. I used to be strong.

  The past few months, I’d told myself I wasn’t casting magic because I wanted to stretch my limbs and feel the cold steel of a sword against my skin or the rough wood of a staff in my grip. But I’d been a fool.

  I hadn’t used magic because I was powerless. Too broken by years of slavery to access my strength without a master’s voice in my head telling me what to do.

  I lifted my eyes to the battle above, knowing there was a time when I could have made a difference. When I could have fought alongside my brother and seen terror in the eyes of my foes as I unleashed my fury upon them.

  Instead, here I stood, paralyzed like that statue I’d been bound to for years while the Order searched for the missing Peachville Prima. Sixteen long years encased in stone, unable to cast or speak or feel anything but the hard, unyielding pressure of the stone against my form.

  A dark shadow raced toward me and my brother materialized, out of breath, his face flush from battle. “Aerden, we need you,” he said. “These hunters are using some type of shield. We need every demon fighting. What are you doing down here?”

  I shook my head slowly, afraid to meet his eyes. I didn’t want him to see what I’d become. I didn’t want him to know how weak I was. Not when I used to be the stronger one. I couldn’t face it.

  Jackson stepped toward me and placed a hand on my arm. I pulled away from him, but he moved with me, gripping my chin with his fingers and forcing my eyes to his.

  He studied me, and for a moment, I felt see-through. My sorrows were laid bare in excruciating detail before him, my soul in agony.

  His features softened and his eyes grew wider.

  “Here,” he said, pulling a dagger from his belt. He released my chin and flipped the dagger over, handing it to me. “You don’t have to cast. Just kill as many of those bastards as you can with this. Think of it as your first shot at payback. One for every year those evil bitches took away from you.”

  Over the past few months, I’d pushed my brother away. I’d blamed him for Lea’s unhappiness, all the while avoiding my own. He’d nagged me to talk about what happened, and how many times had I told him to leave me alone? How many times had I told him I was fine and that he couldn’t possibly understand?

  But there in his eyes, I saw for the first time that he understood a lot more than I gave him credit for.

  I wrapped my hand around the hilt of the dagger, surprised by the confidence that surged through me at the feel of demon steel against my skin.

  I nodded, and then looked up again toward the battlefield surrounding the domed city.

  Maybe I was strong enough, after all.

  The Hunter’s Heart

  My arrows downed more than half of the shades rushing toward me, but there were ten still standing by the time they got too close for my arrows to have any hope of destroying them. Besides, conjuring the piercing arrows was taking more out of me than I anticipated.

  As the first of their group reached my perch on the tree limb, I quickly shifted to smoke, hooking my bow over my shoulder as I moved and launching myself upward. I flew straight over the group and reformed at the edge of the limb, reaching for the two swords at my side.

  My blades struck the shields around the shades and recoiled back toward me.

  If they had been able to react faster, I would have been in some serious trouble, but I had the element of surprise on my side. They hadn’t expected me to reappear behind them, and they’d built up far too much momentum on their flight toward me to turn and face me fast enough.

  I guess their master wasn’t used to managing so many puppets at once.

  With their shields up, though, I wasn’t going to be able to damage them at such a close range. I had two choices. I could either try to get far enough away to conjure more piercing arrows and kill a few more shades, or I could go after the hunter herself.

  I chose the hunter, hoping that if I could bring her down, her remaining shades would disappear.

  I jumped on the far end of the limb, using it as a springboard to send me flying through the air. I somersaulted backward, crossing my blades in front of my chest as I reached the hunter just a few feet behind me.

  She was much faster to react than her minions had been. Even though my swords slashed through the front of her robes and tore away some of her decaying flesh, I hadn’t landed a significant blow.

  A white-hot pain sliced across my right arm as I descended, and I cried out. The surprise of the attack unbalanced me, but I managed to shift before the hunter was able to cut straight through my arm.

  I flew higher into the trees, reforming on a thin limb toward the very top. I backed against the trunk and sheathed my two swords. I ripped a long strip of fabric from the bottom of my shirt and, using my teeth to help pull it taut, fashioned a tourniquet on my upper arm to stop the rush of blood from my wound.

  I reached for my bow and tried to nock an arrow, thinking I could at least bring down a few more shades at this distance before they realized where I’d gone, but my arm protested, refusing to pull back on the string. The silver blade of the hunter’s dagger had sliced clean through my muscle. My bow would be no use to me right now.

  I clenched my teeth against the pain and rage and stared down at the rotting hunter. She was going to pay for that.

  With my uninjured left arm, I unsheathed one of my swords and jumped down toward her. She screeched and lifted her arms as I attacked, but instead of slicing her to shreds like it should have done, my blade collided with an invisible shield around the hunter’s body. The shades who had remained nearby all turned to dust, tiny fragments shimmering as their magic dissipated, the power returned to the hunter herself.

  She must have anticipated my attack and recalled her power, shifting the magic she’d been using to shield her minions to protect herself. She smiled with what was left of her lips and pushed me backward with a bony hand. I stumbled and fell from the tree, my body nearly hitting the ground before I was able to shift to smoke and fly back up toward her.

  I reformed on a sturdier limb and quickly placed my blade back in its sheath at my hip.

  How the hell was I going to hurt her if she had a shield around her? Now that I knew what to look for, I could see the slight shimmer of it wavering around her. I had a feeling it was a more powerful form
of magical protection than any I’d encountered on a hunter in the past.

  Someone had planned this attack with precision. Someone who knew how powerful we were when tested.

  Between my injured dominant arm and the uselessness of my blade, I knew there was nothing I could do to defeat her out here by myself.

  Shit. I hated to walk away from a fight, but I wasn’t an idiot. Unless I could figure out a way to destroy that shield, there was no hope of killing her.

  She lurched toward me, but I shifted and flew back toward the dome, the hunter close at my heels.

  I reformed among a group of soldiers fighting on the surface of what remained of the dome. Their magic and weapons had done little to challenge the minions they were fighting.

  “These hunters aren’t real,” I shouted over the sound of explosions and the clash of steel. “They’re conjured by the larger hunters hovering above. Concentrate all your attacks on them. Spread the word.”

  “How do we get through their shields?” the soldier closest to me shouted. A wound across his forehead poured blood into his eyes, but I respected the fact that he merely swiped at it and kept fighting.

  “They seem to be powerful, but I doubt the shields are permanent,” I said. I searched the skies above the dome for the hunter who had attacked me, but there was no sign of her. Something twisted in my gut.

  I doubt she had given up, and now that I’d lost sight of her, she could be anywhere.

  “They’ve nearly broken through the dome,” another soldier shouted from a few feet away. “Only the primary barrier remains.”

  Panic flashed across the faces of all around me. It was everyone’s worst nightmare, and I knew that if we didn’t get these hunters down fast, the entire city would fall.

  “Get everyone who’s out here to concentrate all their forces on those larger hunters,” I shouted. “Bring their shields down and these shades should fall.”

  I rushed along the surface of the dome, directing soldiers to focus their attacks on the hunters floating above when something in the trees to my left caught my eye. Movement, and the shimmer of something as it caught the light of a passing bolt of lightning.

  I paused and searched the treeline, excitement pumping through my veins.

  Then I saw her.

  Another hunter, hiding among the shadows just inside the thick forest. Her glowing red eyes were locked on the dome’s surface, her hands moving in circles as she maintained some type of powerful spell.

  I glanced back at the others, wondering if I should grab a few of them to help. I scanned the field of battle, searching for any sign of my demon friends.

  But I was running out of time. The dome would collapse before we had a chance to save it if I didn’t act now.

  The city’s guards were making progress with the hunters above the battlefield, and several of their shields had gone down, but if my suspicions were correct, that solo hunter in the shadows was the one attacking the dome.

  If I could bring her down or break her concentration, Harper and the others inside the dome might have a chance.

  I shifted and flew around the other side of the trees, sneaking up behind the hunter, praying I still had the element of surprise on my side.

  When I took my solid form on a sturdy limb about twenty feet behind her, I waited, barely breathing. When I was sure she hadn’t noticed me, I slowly reached for my bow. As quietly as I could, I conjured a set of three piercing arrows and took a deep breath.

  This was going to hurt like a bitch.

  Pain shot through my arm like fire, and I had to slowly release my pull. I bit down on my lip, fighting against the pain. With this damned wound, there was no way I would be able to pull the arrows back enough to hit my target accurately.

  But then, I caught a brief glimpse of Aerden down below on the battleground of the dome. He sliced through the hunters’ shades with ease, not even using his magic to bring them down. I smiled at the thought of how often he’d insisted I train with my non-dominant arm. I’d been annoyed at the time, but now, I realized he might have just saved us all.

  I switched my bow to my right hand and nocked the three arrows, pulling the string back with my stronger, uninjured left hand. I should have practiced more, but I prayed it would be enough. Just this once.

  I inhaled, and then with a slow and steady exhale, I released the arrows, aiming straight for the hunter’s heart.

  I Knew Her

  The battlefield above the dome was pure chaos. Aerden was having more luck breaking through the shields that protected the hunters than anyone. He powered through the shields, bringing them down and slicing through the hunters. But there were too many of them.

  Essex and I battled our way through the masses of attackers, searching for any true signs of the real source of their power.

  There was no way these simple fireballs and poison bolts were breaking down the barrier this quickly. It would take a force ten times this to take down a single piece of the dome’s outer shield, much less break through to the last remaining barrier in half an hour. What were we missing?

  Were these hunters just a diversion?

  I pushed through to a clear spot on the edge of the throng and shifted, flying higher to get a better view of the entire area. There was a definite hierarchy at play here. The hunters near the dome were concentrated in groups of six, clustered together and each of them casting the exact same spell over and over. Above the large group, about ten taller hunters seemed to be casting spells of their own, but I couldn’t see what magic they were using.

  They weren’t directly attacking the dome, so what were they doing?

  My eye caught a group of guards soaring up toward one of these larger hunters, concentrating all their attacks on her, instead. I narrowed my eyes, studying the battlefield as guards on the surface rushed from group to group. Whatever message they were spreading, someone had obviously told them to focus on the larger hunters.

  In seconds, I understood why. As a group on the far side of the dome broke through a protective shield around the large hunter, the smaller ones below her froze and then turned to dust that shimmered slightly as it fell across the invisible shield.

  Holy crap. Those had not been real hunters at all. They were conjured minions. It all made sense now how they had managed to create such incredible numbers in such a short period of time. They weren’t real.

  If we could break through and bring down the remaining nine hunters, we could save the city after all.

  But if those hunters had been concentrating on directing the attacks of their conjured armies, what magic was bringing down the shields?

  I searched again, frantic to figure this out before it was too late.

  Harper was right. The last time hunters had successfully brought down the city’s dome, they had used a corrosive liquid that ate through the defenses. This time, I couldn’t see anyone using liquid or a spell that would have been strong enough to bring down those shields.

  That’s when a dark braid caught my eye.

  Lea.

  She had noticed something in the treeline and shifted, disappearing into the forest surrounding the city.

  I flew down toward the young guard Harper had sent out with us. “Marcus, I need you to go back inside the city and tell Harper that the dozens of hunters attacking the shield aren’t real. They’re shades, conjured by the real hunters floating above them,” I said. “Tell her to send anyone out here who has magic that can penetrate personal shields. They need to go after those nine or ten hovering above the rest.”

  The guard nodded and shifted to white smoke—the color of those demons native to the Southern Kingdom.

  I looked toward the area where I had last seen Lea and shifted to black shadow—the color of my own people from the north.

  I flew up toward her, careful to stay among the shadows in case a more dangerous army lay in wait here in the trees. Now that I was high above the battlefield, the shouts and explosions were farther away. I listened, my
eyes scanning the trees for any sign of her.

  At first, I couldn’t make out anything unusual. I had the unique ability to see in the dark, so it should have been easy for me to make out any kind of secret army or group of witches hiding out back here, away from view.

  I doubled back toward the battlefield and came through the forest from another angle, hoping to find where Lea had gone.

  It took mere seconds to locate her, about fifty yards away, tucked close to a tree, her feet planted firmly on a thick limb about midway up a large tree. She raised her bow and winced as she attempted to pull it back for an attack.

  That’s when I noticed the makeshift tourniquet on her right arm. Blood soaked her sleeve. Her bow arm seemed badly injured. My first instinct was to go to her. I wasn’t a great healer, but I did have some ability to cure wounds.

  But I hesitated, my eyes following her own gaze toward something hovering in the trees between us.

  A hunter. And one I recognized.

  Mayor Chen, the former mayor of Peachville. She had secretly been one of Priestess Winter’s own daughters from a previous generation. A second, sent in with a disguise to gain trust and keep an eye on the coven. I knew she’d survived the battle against Priestess Winter, but she disappeared soon after.

  Someone had done this to her, draining her life and turning her into this rotting thing.

  Half of the mayor’s face was missing completely, the bones showing through what was left of her shredded and decayed skin. But I knew her.

  It hit me hard, seeing what had become of her. She’d fought on the wrong side of our war, so why had she been punished like this? Was it because she’d failed to protect her priestess?

  Was she the one orchestrating all of this? Who had sent her?

  Lea switched to her off-hand and winced as she pulled back on the string of her bow, three conjured arrows set to fly. She let them go, and I watched as they flew through the air, their silvery tips shining through the darkness toward their mark.

  At that exact moment, an explosion rocked the battlefield. Shouts rang out, and a bright light flashed. The hunter moved, Lea’s arrows missing her by a fraction of an inch. Her eyes were on the battlefield, a gruesome smile stretching her lips across teeth and bone.