Chapter 24: The Ivory Scion
To Linna, my charge
Silverthorn is mine by right
Bloodleaf yours
The moon brightens the darkest night
Yet the loss endures
— Afina, Thorn of the Hallow
Shadow's Fall
Micah
I watched in horror as the shadow engulfed Nyx. One second she was there. The next second only darkness stood where she had. I felt drawn to the familiarity of its force, Devouring hunger and desperate consumption. It might have felt like home if it didn't feel like fear.How does one fight a shadow?
Very little time was afforded me to process the thought as a sudden and sharp feeling told me to move as quickly as possible. Just as my chest was out of the way, an obsidian dagger flew past me. It looked just like the ones Dee always carried. When I traced it back to its source, Jasmin's face was a terrifying wolfish grin, and another dagger was ready in her hand.
Closing the distance put me at the disadvantage, I knew, but it was just as deadly if she knew how to use those daggers at range. Before I could make my first step the next one was on its way. Dodging again would set me off guard, but I couldn't risk deflecting it with Love's Paradox and hitting Jasmin or Nyx. So I stepped to the right, letting my cold-flame carry me just barely beyond the weapon's path.
Jasmin had somehow known that was my only choice, and she was moving to close the gap herself. In desperation, I pushed the cold-flame in a new direction and pushed myself up over Jasmin toward the queen. When my steps landed, I was already sprinting, microbursts of cold-flame propelling me forward. I moved to swing my weapon, but a sudden wall of darkness slid between us, grabbing my warhammer and tossing me back.
"Do not bother her, beastling," Jasmin's voice was a creeping parallel of the queen's. My chest tightened to hear her rage. "You are fighting me."
"I am not," I said, pleading. "Please. You don't under—"
Jasmin's fist met my stomach, knocking the air from me. She was fast like her mother. Like Deona. Who knew pride could feel like heartbreak.
Her next attack was already working its way toward me as I was processing the situation, so I had to move. I knew cold-flame could push, that's what I'd been studying in the Aerie. How to use that push in any situation. But could it pull as well?
My body moved for me, slipping past Jasmin's assault and doing all I could to avoid another hit. I'd have at most one chance to try my plan, so I had to make it count. Look for the opening and —
"Why will you not fight me, cur?" She had paused a moment, frustrated.
"Because, Jasmin," I cried, "I love you!"
Another dagger was in her hand, moving to throw. That was my chance. I pushed out a cold-flame and yanked her hand to the ground. It worked. She worked to lift the hand, but the force of the cold-flame held tight. Once it was set, I turned back to the queen.
"I'm here for you, not her," I growled at the wicked monster who'd stolen my daughter. "Fight me."
The queen's laugh pierced me, but I had to keep moving. I covered the space between us in five steps, warhammer at the ready, only to have that shadow between us. I knew it. Even in this form, protecting, it was the same wicked hunger.
I faltered, and it gripped my whole body, tossing me toward the now closed door Nyx and I had entered through. My cold-flames stopped me just in time to avoid colliding with the door, and I noticed it. The darkness hadn't come from nowhere. It was retreating to the Fiend where it held Nyx.
"Daughter," the queen's honeyed voice tore me to pieces, but somehow I still stood. "This guest is in apparent need of reminder to their station. They are, after all, intruding on my throne room."
Jasmin had already recovered from the attempt to pin her, and she smiled broadly in the manner of the queen. "Yes, mother," she said, "I quite agree."
She closed the space almost faster than I could react, but the movement was automatic. A feint to the left, and another cold-flame to pull her hands behind her back. Stronger this time. She couldn't be allowed to escape.
Crossing the throne room again would take too long if I just ran, so I had to put everything into my cold-flame and —
I felt the Fiend behind me and in front of me at once. It was going for Jasmin. The thing didn't engulf her like it did Nyx. Instead, it went for her hands, and in a second she was charging at me, hands free of my cold-flame. Was nothing enough?
A warhammer, no matter how small and sleek, was no match for a dagger when the gap closed between the fighters. But a dagger had to close the space somehow. Either thrown or carried, it had to break the defence of the warhammer to be effective. And it could be both, I quickly learned.
The first dagger was in flight for my face as she continued rushing me. The second was in her hand and moving to stab in the most obvious direction to dodge. Worse, she was moving to pull a third and hopefully catch the other direction as well.
So I did the most logical thing. I went another direction entirely, letting my body fall to the floor, using the cold-flame to keep me from hitting, and I tossed her over me, making enough space to recover and think.
Jasmin was back between me and the queen.
"You see, phoblands dog," the queen's voice was back to the screech she'd used when we entered the room. "This is loyalty. The loyal heart of a daughter is true armour. Better than anything money can buy."
"That isn't loyalty," I grunted around dodging Jasmin's attacks. "She's my daughter. My child." I was quickly losing ground and had to act, but I couldn't hurt my daughter. "And I'm her Dolly."
Jasmin faltered. It was enough. Her hands froze in mid-air for just long enough that I could grab her whole body with cold-flame and push it to the floor.
"I'm sorry, Jazzy," I said, tears starting to blur my vision. I set Love's Paradox on top of her. Even the Fiend wouldn't be able to move that. "I'll be back to help you soon enough."
Step by slow and angered step, I made my way toward the queen. No one was left to stop me save the creature that held Nyx, but it would be trying to consume her. I was clear to close the gap.
My cold-flame consumed me, a beacon of peace and comfort, not of rage. I could not let the queen take my peace from me if I wanted to win. Anger exists within peace. It is the driving force of preserving that peace, because forgetting anger allows us to lose ourselves.
"You stole my daughter," I said to the queen, moving closer. "You stole my wife. And now you are here, in your throne room, trying to destroy my friend." I felt with each step the floor caving in a small bit from the force of me. "Now either you fight me, or you have that thing fight me. I know which one you'll choose. You never fight your own battles."
I was only a few feet away from the queen, unarmed and unafraid, when the Fiend made its move. But I was protected. It couldn't hurt me. It couldn't even cover me with its darkness. Certainly not while it held onto Nyx, and absolutely not while I held my cold-flame steady.
"You see," I said, baring my teeth, "I know monsters. I've met every monster this land has to offer. From the mountain and desert, to the plain and marsh. I even met the beasts of the forest." I raised my lips into a snarl. "And they all have one thing in common."
"What is that?" Not the queen's voice, but the Fiend's. "What do you think all monsters have in common, false Scion?"
"You are all cowards." Its red eyes met mine. Pain. "And you can only fight one thing at a time."
"I fear nothing," a face began to form in the darkness, but that meant nothing. The Fiend was a liar, and we both knew it.
"You do, or else you would attack me." My bright white cold-flame seemed to shine a bit brighter in the darkness leaking from the Fiend's body. "How does one fight a shadow?" I smirked.
All at once I was surrounded, but I knew it couldn't hurt me. If it came any closer, it would burn itself on me. I simply had to wait. How long, I couldn't say, but I knew it was only a matter of time.
"Now you are both defeated," the queen's voice broke through the shadow. She had closed the gap to gloat. "It is only a matter of time before you are equally as dead as your —"
My hand met her throat exactly where I expected as I reached through the Fiend's body. This wasn't what I was waiting for, but it would serve well enough. The Fiend didn't fight me – couldn't fight me – as I pulled my arm back into the darkness, dragging the queen with it.
Jasmin's pained voice fell on my ear. "Mother, no!" No longer my daughter. It hurt to understand that, but I had to let her go.
"Queen Lavender Liatris II," I said, my gut rumbling with the force, "you have no right to stand in this place beside the Lady of the Aerie or her Scion. You have no right to your throne. And had I the word from her," I growled, drinking in the fear in the queen's eyes, "you would be dead this moment."
I released the queen and walked through the shadow I'd punched through moments before. She was still inside the thing's grasp. It didn't let her go as I had. I knew what was coming for Lavender. I'd felt it myself, and I'd lived because I had someone who actually loved me.
Keeping my eyes away from the Devouring flame, I walked across the throne room and knelt beside Nyx. "Wake up, dummy," I said softly into her ear. "It's your turn."