His expression is shadowed. “There were too many of them to be the Elven Command.”
I gasp. “My Storm Command. Our friends. They were trying to get the dagger away from me. They must have been trying to stop me from hurting you.”
A shriek rises in my chest, but I push it down. I meet Baelen’s eyes as panic threatens to overtake me. It’s the first true panic I’ve felt in seven years when I thought he’d died. I don’t know what’s really going on around us and not knowing whether my ladies are safe is killing me. “It has to be the Elven Command. They’ve done something to us, to the chairs. And now my Storm Command is hurt…”
Bae doesn’t pause a moment longer. Even in his current gargoyle form, the concern in his eyes shines through. He’s already assessing an exit, a way down the mountain, reaching for my arm.
“We’re in danger. We need to move.” He scoops me upward, but just as he rises to his feet, he roars, his eyes shooting wide.
He pushes me away from him as if he’s trying to protect me. I recognize the way his arms move forward in a quick, desperate motion. It’s the same way I pushed him out of the path of the lightning strike.
I stumble backward, grazing my hands. “Bae!”
He arches back against something I can’t see, something that’s clearly hurting him. With a sickening crack, one of his wings snaps right before my eyes. His line of sight descends to his chest, but I can’t see a wound.
“Baelen!” I snatch up the dagger, ducking to avoid Bae’s wings as he spins. His outstretched fist connects with an invisible object. There’s athud. He hit something—whatever it was that was hurting him.
“I can’t see… I can’t see it!” I wave my weapon around, trying to see where I need to attack, but there’s only silence again.
Baelen drops to his knees. “Marbella, come here. Quickly.”
I run to him, driving the dagger into the ground at the last moment, but within arm’s length so I can reach it if I need it. I try to catch Baelen as he slides to his knees, one of his legs at an awkward angle.
“Bae? Where are you hurt?”
He doesn’t answer. His good wing curls over the top of me and pressure builds across my shoulder blades and lower back as he compels me toward his chest. He gathers all of me up inside his wing, even my feet, fitting the wing snug across my whole body, cocooning me. I have no choice but to turn my head into his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin. He smells like… icy rain and a warm sun shower both at the same time.
I am small. And afraid. “Bae?”
“Stay here, where it’s safe, until the simulation ends. They won’t come for you yet.”
I don’t think I want to hide here. Something has hurt him and I can’t see his wound, but it’s bad. I know it’s bad. Otherwise he would get up and fight. Nothing could stop him. Nothing could keep him down. Pressure builds inside my chest, a world of fear and dread all balled up inside me, and I’m ready to scream.
He sighs. “Marbella Mercy… I love you too.”
My heart stops. Whatever I want to say, whatever I feel, it all chokes inside me. His wing slides away from my back, releasing me enough to allow me to lift my head, using both hands to push away from his chest.
The cliff changes around me then, rearranging itself, rocky outcrops smoothing into sunlit walls. The space around me morphs back into the arena. My vision clears, changing as reality seeps in and the walls, the dais, and the upper levels become crystal clear. The upper levels are empty. The onlookers have gone. The arena is clear and quiet.
There’s a groan to my right. Reisha lies on her stomach, trying to crawl toward me. Blood drips from cuts all over her body as she lifts her head, her outstretched hand dropping to the ground.
She’s breathing hard, gasping out words. “We tried to stop you fighting each other… but you were too strong… too strong…”
All around her, my Storm Command have fallen to the floor. Like dominos, my ladies lie scattered, their armor ripped apart, their bodies bleeding. Some of them are trying to get up, others don’t move. Jordan and Elise lie among them, too far away to see if they’re alive. Baelen’s soldiers are scattered around us too, many groaning, others lying still, all of them shuddering like an electrical force has ripped through them.
My electrical force…
My Storm Command were the gargoyles in the simulation—the gargoyles I blasted from the sky. They were trying to help us and I repelled them. I took out my own protection. And now the simulation has ended, but the Elven Command said it would only end when a gargoyle died.
I can’t breathe. I can’t look down. My heart isn’t beating.
Baelen is still beneath me. He’d told me to stay inside his wings until the simulation ended.
I can’t look down… I can’t…
He morphs before my eyes, his sharp face and dripping teeth disappearing. He transforms back into himself and suddenly, his wounds blossom before my eyes. There are four slashes across his chest like the corners of a square, piercing right through his armor.
Four Elven Commanders stand behind him, each holding a sword that’s bloodied and glows with an unnatural golden light. Among them, Gideon Glory’s face is alight with the blaze of sorcery. His spells shimmer along the blades that he and the others hold. Wisps of sorcery waft around the chairs of truth lying broken on their sides nearby. Even now, golden ropes of sorcery slide across the ground toward me. Pedr Bounty rubs his side and I can only guess that he was the one that Baelen thumped.
The Elven Commanders were the attackers we couldn’t see. They’d stabbed Baelen in the back. They’d orchestrated it from the start. The chairs of truth had immersed us in a simulation—a real one—until Gideon Glory used his sorcery to break the chairs and pull our bodies out of them but kept our minds in a false vision.
They’d tried to trick me into killing Baelen and when I didn’t…
Baelen’s chest is still. His eyes are closed. A drop of blood slips from his mouth. Gravity forces his arms to slide down my sides, slipping away from my back where he’d held me at the last moment and told me that he loved me.
They killed him.
My heart rips apart inside my chest. It’s beating so hard. Lightning and thunder, rain and wind build inside me. I can’t lose him. I won’t lose him.
As Gideon’s sorcery takes hold of my arms and legs, I scream and scream and scream.
