“What Lucca says is true.” Quinn snarled also, violent as his aura seethed with shadows and fire. “Ariana is better off with us, rather than tortured and put to a brutal death in the King’s cells.”
“Yes, Princelings.” Junius sneered at Quinn now, before looking at Lucca. “The both of you areso very appropriateto raise a Dark Fae and make sure her magic develops well. One who has withdrawn so far from love that he doesn’t even know what it is anymore. And the other who burns with such hatred for the man who whelped him that nothing else consumes his thoughts day and night.”
“Shut your face!” Lucca spoke coldly as he stared the man down with hatred bristling from his entire body.
“Lie to yourself if you like, just as he does.” The Shadow Fae leader nodded to Quinn as he stared Lucca down. “But both of you know you are not fit to try raising a Dark Fae so she does not go insane. But it is not my task to help you both finally decide to acknowledge your truths. It is my task only to collect the Dark Fae. We will take the girl. Now.”
“Never.” Quinn spoke coldly as both he and Lucca’s power flared. “She stays with us, and only us. Your King can go fuck himself. And my father’s memory along with him.”
As Ariana watched, she suddenly felt Quinn and Lucca’s power twist into each other, hard. As if both had known it would happen and were ready for it, both men’s power surged to unimaginable heights as they stepped close to each other before Ariana. Careening into each other, their auras flared with rainbow-light and blistering darkness until both whirled around Ariana and she could no longer tell which power was which.
It was as if both men drew from each other’s magic now, blazing with a truly massive and incredible dark-light wrath in the night. As Alleno corralled Ariana back, protecting her with the rest of Quinn’s Vampires tightening around them for a fight, Devi moved in close with Curio, wielding terrible black-violet spears. As Ariana’s breath caught, she saw all the Vampires’ powers suddenly flare with a searing dark-light just like Quinn and Lucca’s.
Even as the group opposite raised a horrible torrent of brightness.
Magic blazed in the night as the two sides crashed together. Hauling her back fast, Alleno protected Ariana with his knives, but everyone around her was suddenly fighting; clashing with longswords or knives, with spears that seared violet or red-gold, and wings of dark or bright magic. It was a melee at the edge of the ravine, magic pouring down over the edge and hammering boulders from the side of the gorge as it blasted the forest, enormous tree limbs cracking and trunks exploding. Accomplished fighters, whirling shields of power turned aside weapon blows and magical drives over and over.
As Lucca and Quinn blazed like twin suns going supernova.
Hauling Ariana behind a large boulder, Alleno roared at her to stay put as his green eyes flashed with power; rushing off, he went to protect his liege. As Ariana stared wide-eyed at the battle, feeling her own power whirl inside her, she felt both terror and conflict, wanting to join the fight but not knowing how to do so with her magic.
But Quinn and Lucca fought back-to-back now with their twinned magics, surrounded by Brightwatch as more Fae soldiers battled Alleno and Quinn’s Vamps. Quinn and Lucca were masterful in their fighting duo; Ariana watched with breathless wonder as she saw them turn aside wave after wave of drives from their attackers. The Brightwatch were so fast in battle, Ariana didn’t even see them; they were just suddenly right before Lucca and Quinn, swiping and lancing with their bright spears and incredible power. But the Fae Prince and Master Vampire were faster; though both had taken wounds, the Brightwatch were faring worse as yet another drive was hammered back and knocked unconscious by Quinn and Lucca’s furious might.
As the battle raged, hot and cold waves of power sluiced through Ariana. As she trembled with adrenaline and exhaustion fevers, she felt herself draining energy from the fight; powering up inside now from it. But it was an unstable sensation; thrilled and terrified at the same time as her very blood burned silver-dark to roar and rush into battle. Ariana had trained in weapons, and she felt every muscle and sinew inside her thrill for war now as her power seared out all around her with a caustic moon-bright glow, full of dark rainbows and searing fire.
And that ugly, void-dark emptiness.
Suddenly, she saw Lucca and Quinn get hemmed in by a powerful drive from Commander Alterri and his men. Near the ravine’s edge, they were far from Quinn’s Vampires and Alleno as they were suddenly surrounded. As Brightwatch spears surged up tenfold in their blazing red-gold magic, sigils burning all along their hafts and blades, Ariana saw how that ring of magic restrained Quinn and Lucca’s power – badly.
Something inside Ariana screamed suddenly, knowing those spears could deliver nasty killing-blows with the Faeanic runes written upon them – with meanings liketorture, ruin,anddeath. And as something deep inside her roared at Quinn and Lucca’s danger, she suddenly rushed from her hiding place. No thought was in her except saving them as she whirled low and swept the leg of the nearest Brightwatch soldier – then twisted his red-gold spear fast out of his hands as he fell with an astonished shout.
The spear was in her hands now; making eye contact with Quinn and Lucca, Ariana’s power was already roaring through her in a terrible ecstasy as her entire body surrendered to a moon-ravishing sensation of battle and dark-light. A tremendous blast of magic exploded from her as she made a spontaneous Faeanic sigil forwarin midair with her spearpoint, then clashed with the nearest Brightwatch soldiers.
Ariana’s maelstrom of moves were so fast, even she didn’t see them as the circle of guards hemming Quinn and Lucca in suddenly broke. A scream of rage and exhilaration ripped from her throat as Quinn and Lucca’s powers were freed, roaring in a bright-dark rush and hammering guards down all around. And as Ariana cried out again in triumph and battle-fever, the sound it made was so powerful that it slammed the battle in a massive shockwave just like before upon the palace promenade, furious and wild.
Knocking everyone off their feet all around.
But as Ariana suddenly found herself lightheaded again from expending too much untrained power, the Brightwatch leader wasted no time. Flashing to her, Junius Alterri blasted Ariana with a blow from his spear, then twisted her spear from her hands as he scooped her up. Tossing her over his shoulder, he launched out over the ravine, spreading enormous wings of purple-emerald power to the night as he surged fast into the sky. Crying out, Ariana hammered her hands against him as she kicked, surging with her waning power. As she smacked his back with her palm, she suddenly slammed a blast of power right through him. Junius jerked, and Ariana felt him go limp.
Unconscious – as the last of her power ripped through him.
With a shock, Ariana realized they were falling. She had one last glimpse of Quinn and Lucca surging down into the ravine after her, launched off the edge with their powerful wings like twin darts.
And then she was plunged under ice-cold water – into the black.
CHAPTER 25 – DARK
All breath was hammered from Ariana as she hit the river in the depths of the ravine. The swift current from the roaring rapids had her and she was rolling, under and under. Panic seared through her, her exhausted power jangled now and useless to fight the river’s flow. Swamped with cold and fatigue, her lungs screamed as she tried desperately to hold on to the last of her air. But even as the current rolled her under yet again at the base of a waterfall, two pairs of strong hands thrust down, hauling her up.
Back to the surface.
Ariana gasped as her head broke above water. Gripping her tight in the raging torrent, Quinn and Lucca pointed their feet downriver; the current too fast and strong for even a Royal Fae and Master Vampire to escape. Exhausted from battle, Lucca and Quinn shared just enough power with their strangely entwined magics to keep them all afloat as the current heaved them down another sluiceway and through the deepest chutes of the ravine. It was the most terrifying experience Ariana had ever endured, riding the deadly rapids. But Quinn and Lucca’s dark-bright power kept them from slamming into rocks or getting caught in eddies and plunging under as they shot down and further down. Diamond stars and ice-cold water flooded Ariana’s night, but Lucca and Quinn’s arms were warm as they gripped her.
Wound around her like she was their salvation rather than they hers – as they plunged down yet another hundred-foot drop.
At last the ravine opened up, and they heaved down into a wide, slow-flowing pool. There was nothing but stone all around now, the canyon’s walls rising hundreds of feet up to the stars far above. They had shot past the forest; Ariana saw no greenery overhanging the wide ravine here, only slick mosses and algae with small ferns and luminous white-blue flowers that glowed beneath the rising moon. Tiny red fireflies winked in the night, and with deep, exhausted strokes, Quinn and Lucca swam them to the nearest shore. As they hauled Ariana out of the water and stumbled up the small beach, all three shuddered with a bone-killing chill.
As they plopped to a seat upon the stony scree of the shore.
