A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 19

“I was just beginning to like that nickname,” I snarled, heart thudding in my ears. “Now not so much.”

It wasn’t exactly red I saw, but my vision tinted, hyper focusing on the man before me.

Duncan stepped aside as I strode past him. My legs seemed to move without command, fuelled by the sudden urge to close in on Erix and cause him pain. However, even with the pounding fury that overwhelmed me, I could still recognise a sliver of sadness coiled beneath it; it was nothing more than an ember, fighting to keep warm during a wild storm, never having a chance to catch.

“It is one of the reasons I used it,” Erix replied, lowering his weapon slightly. It sounded nothing like him. “When I call you little bird, your eyes narrow and lines wrinkle beside your nose. Your discomfort made me feel a sense of… excitement.”

His voice had warped, deepening in pitch and catching as if a snake was twisted in his throat. Doran Oakstorm – that was what I heard.

“You should have never come here.”

Erix lifted his arms, raising both swords with them. His posture was that of an offered embrace, all whilst blood dripped from the steel’s points. “I could not leave you.”

“Why don’t we cut the shit and get to the point where you tell me what it is you want?”

There was something forced about his posture, the way his shoulders were pulled back as though held up by a string. It wasn’t the only disturbing feature. Besides the splattering of human blood washing from his face in the rain, it was the faint dark lines surrounding his unblinking eyes that caught my attention. Veins full of ink, spewing and spreading across his once beautiful face.

“Is it not obvious?” Erix cocked his head, silver eyes now a dark storm cloud. “I want you , Robin.”

“Do you want me, or does Doran?”

A sadistic smile spread across Erix’s face, confirming my suspicions.

“Unfortunately,” Duncan interrupted, his narrowed stare not once leaving Erix as though he would pounce at any given moment, “Robin is going nowhere tonight. At least, nowhere with you.”

“You allow this” – Erix spared Duncan a glance, one riddled with disgust – “scum to speak on your behalf? Does it not feel like yesterday that I came in and saved you from a party of Hunters, and here you are putting yourself before one.”

“Look around you, Erix. Look what Doran has made you do.” It was impossible to know if I stood in a puddle of blood or rain. One of the Hunters groaned, skin pale and eyes closed, grasping onto the slippery edge of life and death.

“This is all me.” Erix swept his eyes across the pile of bodies before settling them back on Duncan. “What I am to do with that one… well, that is a command too sweet to refuse.”

I stepped in Duncan’s way, not thinking about the consequences. Magic crackled around my splayed fingers, the wind picking up, casting the rain in directions like a barrage of cold needles. “Leave, Erix. Scurry back to your master, and I’ll let you live.”

“No.” Erix’s sword lifted.

“Growing fond of me, are you?” Duncan whispered from behind me.

I refused to answer, refused to do anything but look at Erix and watch his every move. We’d trained together enough for me to know his movements. In a sense, I was ready. However, I wouldn’t be the first person to attack.

I would finish it though.

Erix snapped his attention to Duncan, spinning the twin blades without much thought. “Little bird, step away from the Hunter so we can go home–”

I snapped, breaking at the use of the nickname. “You don’t get to call me that anymore, Erix.”

My fury was no longer contained, as though the nickname alone encouraged it to claim its freedom. I didn’t flinch as the rain turned to hail. The frozen beads slammed into my head, my shoulders, stinging across my exposed skin, but the pain was hardly an echo in comparison to what stormed within me.

“I know that you are not in control of yourself,” I shouted over the gale, sharpening the rain into arrows of ice with my will. “Doran has you under his control and you are simply following his command. You’re as much a victim as everyone else he has hurt, killed. But I’m not leaving with you. Nor are you going to hurt anyone else.”

Erix sighed, lips tugging down into a frown. “Do you not miss my company?”

“I miss the Erix I knew, but he died alongside my father.”

Duncan stepped close to me. I could sense his presence like a shadow at my side. Erix noticed too, erupting with a guttural growl as though I was a bone, and he was the mutt who claimed it.

“Keep your distance, Hunter. He is not yours.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Erix I wasn’t his either, but Duncan spoke up for me.

“Actually, he is mine. Now, are you going to make your next move, or do you expect me to begin the dance?” I heard the smile in Duncan’s voice, let alone caught it out of the corner of my eye. “I’m more than happy to start if you have performance issues.”

He was enjoying this.

A deep scarlet crept into Erix’s handsome but tormented face. His eyes widened, the deep, dark veins beneath them more prominent than they’d been before. He looked back to me, spitting his next words as anger took over. For a brief moment, I thought he was struggling against something we couldn’t see, fighting as he twitched and jerked his limbs. “You truly are the vision of your mother, Robin. And just like her, you will die for being an Icethorn.”

Those where not Erix’s words, but Doran’s, spoken as though the man before me was a puppet. There wasn’t a chance to react before Erix jolted forward, swords raised. Duncan followed, putting his body before mine. Metal clashed with metal as Duncan intercepted the attack. I felt the vibration, the swords’ edges painfully close to my face. I would’ve thrown myself back, but the idea of dying was not as frightening as it had been before. Instead, I reached out for Erix, wishing to touch him; to let my magic turn his skin to glass just to watch him shatter.

Except I couldn’t. Because I knew that this wasn’t Erix, not really. My hesitation allowed Erix to move out of my way.

“Get behind me, Robin!” Duncan shouted, pushing me with such force it threw me off balance. I splashed in puddles of rain and gore, soaking my dirtied clothes with the stench of copper. Power poured from my hands, turning the ground where I lay to ice.

Duncan and Erix were locked in battle, grunts breaking past snarled teeth as they clashed sword into sword. Erix had met his match, at least for now.

I got the impression that he toyed with Duncan, leading him into a state of false confidence. But it was clear that Erix underestimated Duncan’s skill. As had I. They moved with precision, jabbing and moving as though it was rehearsed. Where Erix swung his arms in circular, slicing motions, Duncan seemed to hack back at him, both hands wrapped tightly around his broad sword.

Two deadly soldiers, each cut from different cloth.

Kings would pay good coin to watch them duel. Shame my pockets were as empty as my patience.

Duncan was tiring quickly, his movements growing sluggish. If Erix wasn’t controlled by a mad king’s will, then perhaps he would’ve been tired as well. But in his state, there was nothing that could stop him.

I withdrew my power, worried the frozen mist and rain would blind Duncan. That worry didn’t matter in the end. I saw Duncan’s mistake a moment before Erix caught eye of it, a slip of a footing as he glided into bloodied mud.

My instincts took over. I threw out my hands, focusing on the moisture that wet Erix’s boots and the ground beneath them. One simple thought and it hardened to ice as a gust of frozen wind washed over it. Erix’s foot froze to the ground, giving Duncan the time he needed to regain his composure and arc his sword upwards – straight towards Erix’s torso. The blade sliced through his clothing, cutting deep into skin. Erix threw back his head with a roar so mighty I was almost certain Gyah had returned to feast on the bones of the dead Hunters around us.

“Give up,” I shouted to Erix, hoping the slither of old him would hear the desperation in my voice. “Walk away. This doesn’t need to end in death.”

I kept him immobile, encouraging the ice to spread to his other boot before he was able to take a step forward. Even with the scarlet gore dripping down his chest and the cry of pain, Erix didn’t let up, swinging his arms with such vigorous power he hammered his blades down upon Duncan one by one.

“Finish this,” Duncan called, straining through gritted teeth. It was close to impossible to hear him over Erix’s angered shouts and the clang of swords as Duncan held his sword steady. Even in the dark I could see Duncan’s hands shake, his gloved hands sliding over the wet edge of his blade.

All it took was a thought, a single command to urge the ice to creep up from Erix’s boots across his legs. He hardly noticed, too enraged as he swung his swords. Sparks flew as the blades clashed. Even with my power keeping Erix in place, his strength only intensified as the fury took over.

This was the Berserker he warned me about. This was the monster he wanted to hide from me.

Duncan was forced to his knee, arms shaking with the broadsword held above his head. “I can’t – hold him – forever.”

My ice feasted upon Erix’s body. Even with the hardening ice spreading across his chest, down his arms until his swords slowed their attack, Erix did everything in his power to fight against me. Until I stole his control completely – encasing it in a prison of winter.

Duncan dropped to his arse, sword clattering to the ground. His chest heaved with each breath as though he could not quite hold onto one. Sweat joined the droplets of rain running down his chiselled face.

“How long… how long will he hold?” Duncan asked above the screams and cries of Erix’s anguish. I had retreated my magic before it spread above his neck; it was the only body part still able to thrash back and forth.

I reached for the bloodied blade of a murdered Hunter. My fingers were numb as I gripped its hilt and raised it before me. “As long as I allow.”

Erix spat with each snarl, snapping teeth as though he was more beast than fey. Veins exposed themselves across his neck and forehead, deep and red, as though they promised to break at any moment.

“Are you watching, Doran?” I asked, stepping closer to Erix without flinching as he flashed teeth at me. “Is that how your connection with him works?”

I was inches before him, my closeness seeming to calm Erix down. It felt wrong, looking upon someone I’d believed I knew, only to find a stranger staring back at me. A face covered with fury, instead of my hands, my lips.

Erix was lost to me now.

“You are wasting time, Robin,” Duncan bellowed, breathless from the excursion of his strength. “Kill the bastard, or I will.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, raising a cautious hand towards Erix’s cheek. He snarled, teeth snapping at my hand, but I didn’t stop reaching. Not until my cold, wet fingers brushed the stubble that I’d grown all too familiar with. “I don’t want to hurt you, Erix. Even after what you have done. I know that it was out of your hands. Just like this is not you now.”

Duncan groaned as he stood, picking his sword up with him. “You are wasting your time.”

“His life is not yours to take,” I warned as a freezing cold gale of wind begun to rip at the ground around me. “It is for me to decide what his fate is.”

“Then make the decision before I help it along.”

I pushed Duncan’s threat to the bottom of my mind and faced Erix once again. With my hand pressed to his cheek, Erix seemed to calm. His curled lip softened, the darks of his eyes calming to the silver I had grown to love. “Give me a sign you are in there. Please, I’m not ready to give up on you yet.”

It could have been mindless and easy to let my ice devour him only to shatter his body apart. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, not even now. Instead, I’d encased his limbs, keeping him safe from himself and me.

“Robin.” A firm hand fell upon my shoulder. “If you can’t do it, allow me. His death will not haunt my conscience as it would yours.”

The sudden touch shocked me. Erix’s moment of calm broke like glass to stone. He reacted to Duncan’s hand like a feral creature, hissing and growling as though words weren’t possible within his animalistic state.

I pulled my hand away from Erix’s face, letting it drop back to my side as the other gripped tighter to the hilt of the stolen sword. “Do not underestimate me. Doing so has not ended well for others, the same will go for you.”

My head was pounding as viciously as my heart. Deciding who lived and died was not an easy decision to make. Especially when it related to someone I thought I could love – someone I did love.

Duncan’s breath tickled my neck as he whispered into my ear. “Then do it. Prove to yourself that this is what you’ve wanted. It begins with him and ends with Doran.”

I couldn’t raise the sword, not as I looked at the shell of the man before me. There were many possibilities of how this would end, but they were all just out of reach.

The hilt slipped from my hand, sword splashing into the muddied ground. “I won’t do it.”

“Won’t or can’t?” Duncan asked, voice as harsh as the blistering winds that danced around us.

“Both,” I admitted. “If there’s a chance Erix could be freed from this… this curse when Doran is dead, then I must hold out hope. He’d do it for me, I must do it for him.”

Duncan squeezed my shoulder, rain falling upon us with vigour, then let go of me. “He killed your father; Duwar knows if I had the chance to face my parents’ killers then I’d sell my soul just for a chance to show them my lack of mercy.”

I looked back to Erix, a stabbing pain gripping at my gut. “To you, he is one more fey to kill in the name of that god you preach of. Just as I would not stand in the way of your revenge, you are not permitted to stand in mine.”

I turned my back on Erix as he struggled in my conjured prison. “So, we walk away? Just like that? He will follow you to the ends of the earth, that much is clear.”

“Yes, let’s go.”

Duncan didn’t move. He stared at Erix, then to the bodies scattered on the floor around him. “Unfortunately, this fey has killed my soldiers. Men and women who have given their lives for a greater cause than your chase for closure. In their memory alone I cannot leave this fey alive.”

I spun around, already reading what was to follow.

Duncan drew up his broadsword, ready to carve it down through Erix’s neck. Time seemed to slow as the blade closed in towards the helpless and trapped Berserker. Even Erix stopped fighting, closing his darkened eyes, a soft look of peace smoothing his face.

There was no time to shout my refusal, only a brief second to act.

Nothing could stop the blast of uncontrolled, raw power as it ripped across the bloodied ground towards Duncan and Erix. It was my own inner Berserker, released into the wild without much of a thought, a beast of wind and ice. Ready to hunt its target, devour and destroy .