And I slam right into the fae king.
The force of my hit makes both of us fly off the raised platform. We crash onto the ground below, sinking into the snow.
The difference between the two of us is immediately apparent. He has a crown and pointed ears and immense magic, but he’s not a soldier. He’s not used to taking a hit. It’s obvious, because when we land, he’s stunned for too many seconds. Seconds I’m able to take advantage of.
He has his power, but I have my fucking fists.
I start pummeling him. I pin him down, my punches landing again and again, everywhere I can hit. My knuckles crack, fingers shooting with pain because of how rigid his skin is, but I ignore it, not even letting a second pass before I’m hitting him again.
My fury is my fodder. It feeds me with gluttonous force, while I take out all my anger on him for what he’s done to Orea. To our people. ToJudd.
My vision has gone red, stained darker with the blood I make burst from his skin. I don’t know how many hits I manage to land, all I’m aware of is each brutal contact my fist makes with his body before I’m ripped away.
I’m tossed in the snow by another fae, but I’m pumping with adrenaline and rage and battle lust, so I roll and leap right back up to my feet. The soldier who tore me away from his kingyanks out his sword threateningly…but then he’s mowed down by a line of stone statues.
He just saved the king from a beating, and in thanks, he gets trampled.
I look to my left, seeing the furious king stepping up out of the snow, his hateful eyes staring right at me. The stone statues span out and I turn, trying to keep them all in my sights.
But they circle around me.Surroundme.
My breathing is hard and fast, and I can’t get past them. Their chiseled forms close in, layers of rock sculpted into bodies that bear down on me with faceless glares.
They don’t even raise their weapons. They just march. Closer and closer with threat.
I’m penned in and I realize the fae king is going to make them crush me to death between their solid mass. I turn around, panic building as I desperately look for a spot to dart out, but there is none.
I’m trapped.
Claustrophobic.
My eyes swing around wildly. I grit my teeth, my pulse hammering, but reality settles in. I’m going to be crushed to death right here.
I watch as their rigid, unrelenting forms close in.
And in.
And in.
I have one more second. One moment, before I’ll be pulverized. I can’t even turn anymore. I feel them press in on all sides, about to immobilize me.
In a final, desperate bid to live, my knees bend, legs poised, muscles tensed, and then I launch myself as high as I possibly can.
I get three feet up in the air and then kick out, bracing my boots against the statues, using their bodies to climb out from their pressing tomb.
Without minds of their own, they’re beholden to their puppet master, so they can’t react quickly enough. I scale them, hands grappling, digging in to every foothold, and then some-fucking-how, I make it onto their shoulders and fling myself out of their claustrophobic circle.
I land hard on the balls of my feet, pain shooting through both ankles, but my head whips up to face the Stone King, and our eyes meet.
His gaze widens as I lift my blade—metal. Not an inch of stone on me that he can control. And with my momentum fueled purely by near-death panic and unadulterated rage, I swing my sword.
Right through his neck.
Metal slices through him, and the moment his head hits the snow, so does every single statue. All at once.
Lifeless. Unmoving.
Useless rock.
