The army of the dead instantly moved in on my friends. I heard the clash of swords all around me, but though I was frightened for them, I couldn’t focus on anything more than dodging Gabby’s killing spells. She sent flare after flare at me, and each one exploded on the floor or blew apart the wall as I ducked out of the way.
Battle orbs weren’t going to cut it. I was going to have to do some serious magic to kill this bitch, and if her goddess power made her unable to be killed, then I’d do whatever I could to get the Crystals of Harmony back. I summoned thorns around Gabby, creating a massive briar patch that boxed her in, the thorns growing like black spikes all around the room. The jagged thorns protruded out at her sharply, knives aimed at her heart. They grew from everywhere— the floor, the ceiling. Several thorns erupted out of the floor and pierced the walking dead, spearing them through. My friends used the thorns as a giant shield, ducking behind it like a barricade to protect them from the dead soldiers, poking their weapons out through the gaps to stab any walking dead that came by.
Gabby made a disgusted noise, like my attempt was pitiful. She reached out a hand, and as her fingers hovered over the thorns, they curled inward on themselves and withered. She cleared a path for herself until she was directly facing me with a wicked grin.
Gabby summoned a horde of flying daggers. She sent them spiraling at me like darts, but I changed the daggers into doves in the blink of an eye. The doves flew upward, sending feathers spiraling to the floor. I changed the feathers into throwing stars, which fell from the ceiling. The throwing stars melted into goo as Gabby tossed a hand up, the throwing stars slicking to the floor uselessly around her like black tar.
It was then my enemy gave a wretched scream. As she flung her hands up, her magic ripped off the roof. Bricks and concrete went flying into the air as she exposed the armory to the elements. A terrible storm was waging outside, and lightning crackled against the skies as rain downpoured from above and thunder shook the floor beneath me. The storm didn’t deter the army of the dead, nor my friends, who kept on fighting.
I switched to Unseelie magic. I drew magic from Lucien’s necklace to enter into my shadow form, and spiraled into the air. I spun around the room, aiming to strike through Gabby and hammer her hard with everything I had.
As I got close, I aimed for Gabby’s head, preparing to soar right through it. She threw a hand back like she was smacking me, and a sound like thunder blasted through the room. It felt like a lightning bolt itself had hit me as her goddess energy traveled through my form, hitting me with the full force of a hundred spells.
Her hit was hard enough to knock me out of my shadow form, rolling on the ground with the blowback of Gabby’s power. I groaned and forced myself to get back up, although my head still spun with the aftereffect of the slap.
The amulet resting around my neck grew hot, warning me I was pulling too much Unseelie magic from it at once. I dove my hands into my bag, switching over to using shifter parts. A wolven tooth turned to ash in my hand as I shot off a massive black battle orb, one that was larger than a dragon. Gabby turned the dark mass into nothing but smoke that billowed around her, depicting her as an expert of black magic as she took on its energy and changed it for her own. A dragon scale dissolved to dust once I cast a curse, and an alicorn horn withered away as I used the magic inside it to power a hex. I went through monster teeth and calcified monster eggs, pulling from them to create Unseelie magic until the pockets of my bag were full of ashes.
Nothing worked. Gabby rebutted each of my dark spells with ease as she used Unseelie magic of her own, conjuring dark shields that ate away at my spells and fueled her own power. Her form glowed with a red sheen, one that grew more scarlet with each bit of energy she absorbed.
The Unseelie stone had done a similar thing when I’d fought against it. Thathadto be her goddess power… feeding off dark energy. I realized she wasn’t fighting back at the moment, and she didn’t have to, because I wasn’t doing anything but giving her more juice to work with. Every time I cast an Unseelie spell, she used it to bolster her own magic, and weaken me. I had to cast a spell she couldn’t drain me with.
I only had a little power left in my necklace, and one more shifter item to use— a griffin claw. I had to make this next spell count.
Another last-ditch idea popped into my head. I hated to do this, as I promised Ethan I never would again. But this was war, and I found I didn’t have a choice. I reached out to Edinmyre and called upon my spriggan, the dark Unseelie monster that belonged to me. The griffin claw I’d been holding on to dissolved in my hand as the dark creature appeared.
Most would shudder at the sight of the spriggan’s fanged mouth. Its eyeless soul would strike terror into the hearts of most fae, but I didn’t even flinch. I wrinkled my nose as I pointed at Gabby.
My spriggan instantly went for her, but she was hardly afraid. In the blink of an eye, she summoned her own spriggan, and the two monsters tangled together in a snarling, torturous mess. Black blood and bits of rotting flesh mingled on the floor, until Gabby’s spriggan had thrust its hand through my spriggan’s heart. It happened just before my spriggan ripped off the enemy’s head. Both dark spirits dissolved with shrieking wails, and I felt a hole in my spirit form as the spriggans succumbed to death, to a formless life where neither of them existed… not here, in Edinmyre, or anywhere else.
Holy hell, I didn’t even know that spriggans could be killed, or could kill each other. My hands shook as I forced them into fists, and Gabby looked upon me with a hideous sneer.
“You can’t beat me at Unseelie magic,” Gabby snarled. “You need items to perform it, and you’re running out of power in that little necklace of yours— I can feel it. I’m a goddess. I can harness it instantly from the Underworld. You won’t defeat me that way.”
I felt the energy in the room shift as Gabby went back to Seelie magic, already back on the offensive. At an instant, hundreds of Gabby’s duplicates filled the room, materializing out of thin air. They all turned in unison with the same grotesque smile, eyes deranged and looking to cause suffering. Each of them summoned a battle orb and sent it spiraling at me, hundreds of glowing lights filling the space.
I put up a shield to defend myself with one hand, and Gabby’s battle orbs exploded against it. Cracks began showing in the transparent illusion, and I knew if I didn’t match Gabby’s power, this was the end for me.
Casting duplicates was the most advanced Seelie magic you could perform, but I found myself drawing directly upon my connection to Edinmyre for my strength. I used my bond as the Worldweaver to our ancestral home to access magic that was indescribable as I created duplicate after duplicate. My clones popped up everywhere, until eventually, their numbers rivaled Gabby’s.
Her eyes took on a slight note of shock as she watched all my duplicates appear. My clones began attacking the duplicates Gabby had made, and soon, red and blue battle orbs were flying all over the place. There were high-pitched screams as both duplicates turned each other to shreds, either stabbing them through with swords or disemboweling them with battle orbs. Gabby and I locked eyes and never let go, chests heaving as our clones waged war.
Eventually, there were no clones left standing. All of our duplicates had killed each other, leaving none alive.
“This is child’s play,” Gabby spat. “I need to show you what I can really do with the power of these Crystals.”
Gabby raised her hands, and I watched as the Crystals began to glow. The colors in the room reverted to black and white, and the armory changed, becoming a black throne room that was lined with banners in Gabby’s sigil. The very skies changed, the thunderstorm vanishing to be replaced with the nearby sight of planets orbiting at the speed of light. Gabby was using the Crystals to create another reality, bending the world to her will.
But as she used their power to change Earth as it was, I watched as corpse after corpse began dropping. The walking dead fell to the ground and lied still. Helena and Nicoli’s souls vanished, along with other ghostly specters. It gave my friends time to recover some strength behind the thorn barricade.
Gabby saw all her soldiers dropping, and her eyes widened. She realized she was taking too much power from the Crystals, and their magic was failing to sustain her dead army and change reality at the same time. She was forced to end her spell, and channel the power of the stones elsewhere.
The armory returned to the room it once was. The corpses began rising off the ground again, picking up weapons to fight, although the ghosts did not reappear. There were shouts and screams from my friends as the walking dead began attacking again.
I instinctively reached out through my bond to Ethan, but met nothing. I couldn’t even tell if he was okay, and through the brambles of the thorn barricade I’d created, I didn’t know if he was all right. I could hear him screaming orders at the others to keep fighting, but nothing else.
Gabby was trembling. She turned her wrist as she observed the wolven stone, unsure of what had happened.
“You can’t use the Crystals to fight me.” I let out a harsh laugh. “You need all their power to sustain your dead army. That’s why you haven’t used them until now. Even their magic has limits, and pulling souls from the Underworld to fight for you is pushing the boundaries of what they can do.”
