The Empress frowns in annoyance and swings her great sword through our shaft of magic. If she was hoping to slice through it, to disintegrate it completely, she’s disappointed. Our magic flickers for a moment and I’m aware of the presence of something dark in the air, and then our magic continues to battle its way through her armor, edging ever closer to her heart.
She doesn’t seem quite so confident now, or so calm. Her feathers have been ruffled.
She tosses her head in annoyance, raises her free hand, and blasts at the five of us. That doesn’t work either. Our magic is too strong, a shield of light and shadow protecting us – not only from her onslaught, but from the shadow magic being tossed our way by her soldiers who have climbed back to their feet.
We’ve won. There is nothing she can do. We are too strong for her.
“Surrender!” I shout at her.
As much as I hate this woman, as dangerous as she is, there’s been enough blood spilled already today. I’d rather have no more. I’d rather end it all now.
She doesn’t answer me, peering down at the magic still melting and eating away at her protective armor instead. She stares down into its depths, into its swirling mixture of light andshadows, into the dancing particles of magic; vivid and violent and strong.
Then her eyes follow that band of magic back to where it meets and splits away into five strands, and to us – the five fated mates.
“You can’t defeat us,” I say. “We’re too strong. And we know what you did. We know what you’ve been doing. We’re not traitors. You are. You’ve betrayed this realm and its people again and again and again. You’ve allowed the demons to attack us when you could have destroyed them. You’ve allowed your people to live in poverty and squalor when you could have raised them up. And for what? For nothing. For power and greed and your own selfishness.”
I spit the words, angry, so angry. Everything I’ve suffered. Everybody I’ve lost. Every moment of pain bubbles to the surface and strengthens my magic as it soars with the others toward her.
“So young,” she finally says. “So stupid.”
And then, gripping the hilt with both her hands, she drives her sword into our magic.
For a moment, the blade disappears from view, lost in the shadow and the light. And then I feel something: her magic – dark and sinister – searing down the length of ours. I don’t understand until it’s too late, until that magic is flying along each strand of ours, racing into our hands and forcing us to our knees.
“No!” Beaufort cries.
And I want to cry out too, but the pain crashing through my body is too vast and too intense.
“Foolish, you see,” the Empress says, with none of the mockery of the Madame. Just a simple observation, as if we are nothing but a mere nuisance. “Foolish to believe you could ever defeat us.”
She twists the blade in our magic. The pain spirals even greater. I think I scream. I think I bite my teeth into my lips. I think I taste blood.
“Enough of this nonsense,” she says. “You are traitors, and we hereby condemn you to death.”
Her magic sparks, and I’m on the ground, writhing and moaning in agony. It’s like that time in the maze with the Madame, except worse, so much worse. My own magic seems to stutter in my fingertips, seems to fizzle away, and I can think of nothing but the pain and the need to make it stop.
I don’t know if the others are hurting as much as I am. I’m too lost in my own body to hear their pain too – their cries, their begs for mercy.
I try to fight it. I try to find something inside me. A molecule of hope. A drop of resistance. An ounce of … love.
I find it wrapped around my heart. I always thought that my mates had placed a piece of their magic inside my chest. Now I realize it’s their love. Glimmering there in this sea of pain and despair.
I screw up my eyes and I reach for it. I reach for that love – a love that has made me stronger, happier, safer – a love I never thought I would find again after I lost my sister. A love I will protect.
I screw my eyes up tight. I grit my teeth and I fight against the dark magic, choking my lungs, smothering my mind, hurting every part of me.
“I … love … you!” I cry out to the others, and it’s as if they feel it too, the love that binds us, the thread that makes us stronger. They fight back too, pushing and struggling and fighting against the dark magic that’s infected ours, driving it inch by inch away from us, sending it back towards the Empress.
I open my eyes and with defiance climb up onto one knee first, then the other and then slowly to my feet as my magic roars in my veins, battling this dark evil away.
Next to me Thorne rises to his feet, and below me Fox does too, and we have her now. Not even her dark magic is enough to overcome us. We will win.
The Empress howls with outrage, spearing her sword ever deeper into our cord of light and shadow, straining as our magic slides her back along the ground, her face ugly with rage and anger.
She stares at our magic, at her sword and then she raises her stony-cold gaze to meet mine once more. I wait for the realization to dawn across her face, for her to admit defeat. Instead, a smile pulls across her lips.
“You may be powerful, but your power comes when you’re combined. And that’s your weakness too.”
