Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

Two hours later, the dragons returned, leaving us only a few hours to get to the Realm before sunrise. The urgency to get moving cut into my joy at seeing Archion again. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that the visitors earlier had been a bad omen. Darius was right—more would come, not to mention we were fighting the clock when it came to those unicorns.

There really are unicorns? Archion thought as we lifted above the trees and headed toward the portal. Emery sat behind me, hands on my shoulders. He was clearly worried about maintaining contact to hold the concealment spell.

Yep. They are a bit bigger than a horse.

What is a horse?

Oh yeah. He was quite sheltered when it came to the Brink.

You’ll see. Roger the shifter might have one.

I tensed as we neared the portal, reaching back to touch Emery’s knee for no reason. Penny and Darius fell in behind us on Saphira, and I assumed Cahal was taking up the rear on Coppelia. He didn’t have a mage friend to cloak him with an invisibility spell, but thanks to his shadow magic, he didn’t need it.

The elves’ fliers are no match for a dragon, Emery assured me as the portal clawed at me, checking my magic and sucking my energy. The orange world of the Realm waited just beyond. Fairies and phoenixes and lamassu—none of them can compete with a dragon. They won’t even try, especially if Lucifer’s heir is riding on the back. They’ll know you can slap up solid air and cut them down, no problem. Save your anxiety for when we need to cut through the elves’ forces to get through the portal near the shifters.

Wise words from a guy who would know.

I nodded, though he probably didn’t see, and thought to Archion to pull back a bit and wait for Darius to take the lead. He knew the way.

You look majestic on the back of that dragon, Darius thought as they flew by. I don’t think I ever mentioned it.

He had, a few times over, often when naked and kissing up or down my body. I tried for a grin, which probably looked more like a grimace, and then we were falling in behind him.

Have you decided what you’ll do about the elves? Emery thought as we made our way, the orange filaments in the sky flying past us. Trees and flowers dotted the way below until we cut across a stretch of flat land with very little landscaping. Clearly people didn’t often walk this way, and if flying creatures did, the elves didn’t care about them. Good news.

I debated giving a half-truth, or making light of it like I usually did. It was a trauma that was in my past—I didn’t want to worry the people I cared about by bringing it out in the open. Other people, the ones who hadn’t been there and weren’t traumatized by it too, didn’t seem to get that trauma didn’t just evaporate at the light of day; it had a habit of lingering. But if anyone could understand what I was going through, it was probably Emery. The elves had mentally tortured him for years, keeping him on the run, not letting him sleep or rest, helping the shitty mages who used to control the guild by keeping him moving.

I heaved a sigh.

“I want vengeance so badly I can barely think,” I said, turning my head so he would hear. “I still wake up in that dungeon, hearing screams that I know are mine. Fighting hopelessness. Waiting for death. After they were done with each session, I looked up at the dank ceiling and begged for Darius to come. I cried because I didn’t feel our bond. Because I was utterly and totally alone. And then, for the next session, I had to pull it all back within myself, stuff it down, and pretend like I didn’t care. I broke a little, I think. Or maybe I just need more time to get over it.” I let the wind dry my glassy eyes. “Or maybe what I need is vengeance.”

Emery was quiet for a long time. The land passed far below us in a blur. I had an insane urge to rip the sky away and kill all their stupid illusions.

Penny sides with Roger about what to do with the elves, and I get it, he thought. I know the Realm needs a ruling force, and someone from the Realm needs to be that ruling force. Why elves, though? Why not the Arcana? Why not Charity? The fae aren’t amazing in some respects, but they aren’t so corrupt it has diseased the whole of their ruling party and most of their people.

He had a point.

Someone needed to head up the Mages’ Guild after we tore it down, he went on, but we didn’t worry about that when we were doing the tearing. We fought our enemies and dealt with the fallout in the aftermath. So why are we doing this any differently?