Freed (A Choice of Light and Dark #4)

Chapter 28

28

R ares was waiting for us in the courtyard of Ryza Citadel, alternating between wringing his gnarled hands and smoothing his gray hair down and away from his face. Around him, people buzzed with an anxiety that scraped against my empath magic, and I gritted my teeth, focusing on creating a barrier around my mind that would block the oncoming feelings assaulting it.

“What is it, Rares?” Ruslan snapped as we approached, and the low hum of conversation slipped away as Fae and Félvér alike stopped to listen to the conversation.

In my arms, Princess Gizela wailed, and my already fraying nerves nearly broke as I had to use more magic to calm the babe. As if Liliana could sense my waning patience, she lifted her from my arms, catching my eye as she walked into the citadel and hopefully toward someone who could give Gizela the care she needed.

Anton, Slavian, and Kriath jogged to catch up with Liliana. Guarding the princess was as important a duty as listening to whatever news Rares would relay to us, and the High Lords knew we’d tell them regardless.

“Desmond appeared to me earlier, looking for you,” he began, his throat bobbing roughly as he swallowed.

“Desmond?” Ruslan growled, his fists balling before he cracked each knuckle slowly, sinisterly, as if he were imagining popping each vertebra in the traitorous Mage’s neck. “What did he want?”

Rares glanced at me, then Drazen and Artur, and finally back to his emperor. Sucking in a sharp breath, he said, “The Crystal Realm has fallen.”

My mouth popped open involuntarily, and the world around me swayed as I leaned into Ruslan.

I knew war was coming, but…

The reality hit me like a tidal wave crashing against the shore, sweeping aside everything I thought I knew about how this war was going to unfold and replacing it with the desires of the oncoming storm.

“And what of King Airre and Queen Immonen?” My voice was thin and strained as I tried to process what the old Mage’s words meant.

He dropped his head, then shook it. Zuriel stiffened perceptibly beside me, and the shock must have shaken him to his core for his body to betray his carefully guarded emotions.

On my other side, my mate’s rising fury was like that of a wildfire, and anything in his path would be consumed without mercy. “How?” was his clipped question, posed to the Mage whose countenance paled beyond its usual pallor.

“When Desmond appeared… he was holding their severed heads as proof.”

Bile rose in my throat, and I gagged on the words.

“Fuck!” Ruslan shouted, grabbing the nearest object and throwing it into the stone side of the citadel, causing the barrel to shatter and wood to splinter and shower down on the bales of hay stacked there.

The males surrounding me swore curses and oaths that were so forceful and creative they raised my brows to my hairline.

Drazen was the first to break away through the mayhem and start planning. “Let’s take this inside. We need to gather the leaders of our forces and decide our next move.”

“Someone needs to return the princess to her parents, too,” Ruslan snarled, wrapping me under his arm and hauling us inside the citadel. “Send whoever you can spare, Rares. And tell them to relay the news of the Crystal Realm in person to Queen Viktoria and King Consort Geza. They’ll need to ready their army as well.”

His grip trembled with rage, but I did not fight him, sensing that he needed some semblance of control at the moment so he didn’t lose his shit in front of the entire Iron Realm. I didn’t think I could have moved my feet if I was propelled by my own will regardless. I still couldn’t process the fact that Kazimir and the Night Fae had marched on Vlisa and killed King Airre and Queen Immonen.

Tears burned my eyes as I remembered the Crystal Realm’s queen – her lithe frame, incredible intuition, talent for prophecy, and wisdom that had helped me during the days I was lost in my choice of light and dark.

The choice I made was the right one.

Certainty settled in my bones, more strong and sure than ever before. My mate’s dark hair was a mess from fighting and flying, so similar to my own emotions in that moment. We understood each other, intuitively giving each other what we needed without having to ask for it.

In their last moments, were the mated monarchs afraid? Or did they know that no matter where they were, in this lifetime or the next, they’d find each other?

Because fear suddenly gripped me in a way I’d never experienced, sinking its claws deep into my belly and digging in. If Kazimir could march so easily into the Crystal Realm as we snuck into his realm, what else was he capable of?

And how the fuck did he get an entire army there so quickly?

We had underestimated him, and we were paying the price for it.

Had kidnapping the little princess been a trap for us all along?

My head spun with these questions, and the halls of Ryza flew by, not registered by my anxious mind. It wasn’t until we stood in Ruslan’s office and he plopped me on a plush couch that I realized where I was.

“Bring us food and water immediately,” he snapped to one of the females standing guard outside his office.

She saluted him and rushed off in the direction of the kitchens. Drazen, Artur, and Zuriel had followed us to the wood-paneled study, and only Zuriel had the decency to glance at his dirty, bloody clothes and then around him before finding a seat on the elegant furniture. Even if we wanted to wash, I didn’t think any of us could bear the guilt of doing so knowing that the people of the Crystal Realm likely suffered every moment of the Night Realm’s army occupation.

Drazen immediately went to the shelf where Ruslan kept his drinks, tossing glasses toward each of us and then circling around with a bottle of amber liquor and pouring a measure into each of our glasses.

My hand shook as I lifted it to my lips.

“Drink it all. It will help,” he murmured before moving on.

I wasted no time knocking back the alcohol, relishing the burn as it passed my mouth and entered my throat, finally settling in my belly.

Silence reigned until Rares returned, drawing all our attention simultaneously. Behind him was Liliana, her seafoam green eyes shining with anger.

“Yrene has taken Princess Gizela back to the Day Realm and will return as soon as she is able,” Rares informed us before gesturing to Drazen to pass him the bottle.

I’d never seen the old Mage drink, and my brows shot up my forehead as he pulled straight from the bottle. Clearly, we were all rattled by the news.

Behind them, a few servants appeared, carrying plates of food from the kitchen and placing them on free surfaces around the room before disappearing and closing the office door behind them.

Ruslan returned to the high-backed chair behind his desk from his place at the window. A rough exhale preceded his knuckles tightening over the back of it. “It’s time to use the tunnels beneath the Agrenak Mountains. We can be in the Crystal Realm in two days’ time. We’ll head them off before they can enter the Day Realm.”

“But they got to the Crystal Realm in a week’s time. Who is to say they won’t be in the Day Realm by then? And moreso, how did they manage that? Desmond couldn’t have moved a force like that on his own.” The strength in my voice shocked me as I interjected, and everyone’s attention landed squarely on me.

“She’s right,” Drazen said, tipping the last of his drink into his mouth. “And since Kazimir is a fucking maniac, he probably thinks he can race right into the Day Realm unencumbered since there was no one to protect the Crystal Realm.”

Artur nodded slowly, though Zuriel only reclined backward and crossed one ankle over his knee before reaching for a bunch of grapes and eating them off the vine.

“Something to add, cousin?” I asked him pointedly, since he was the only one of us who had seen war before in his two millennia of life and was somehow acting so cavalier about the conversation.

“Both yours and Drazen’s assessments are correct,” he confirmed. “But Kazimir also answers to a council, and I suspect that they might proceed with more caution, given the… violence of his previous actions.”

Ruslan studied the Angel for a moment, head cocked slightly to the side. “We have enough forces to split between the two realms – hedge our bets. There are two exits not too far from one another that we can use as well, so if the army needs to rejoin quickly, it can.”

Liliana piled two plates with food, bringing one to me and perching on the arm of the couch. Balancing the plate in my lap, I gathered soft bread, meat, and cheese into a neat little pile and popped the whole thing into my mouth, chewing slowly and savoring the smoky flavors.

“What about Kazimir’s binding magic? That still poses a huge risk. We don’t know how much he is capable of at once, or if it will rip the flying Félvér from the skies despite the potion powering us.” The crease in Drazen’s brow told me just how much the prospect of meeting Kazimir in battle with the dark, dangerous magic in play bothered him.

My mate focused on the old Mage who was tasked with finding a solution. “Rares, have you figured out anything to stop us from losing access to our magic should he use it on us?”

He shook his head. “Fates-gifted magic is volatile, unstable, and damn near impossible to recreate. I’m sorry, but I’ve done all I can.”

Ruslan’s knuckles went white on the back of the chair, and he dipped his head, hiding from the others what I could so clearly feel down our bond – fear. He didn’t want me on that battlefield without a solution to work around the magic that had rendered me powerless and blocked my magic from manipulating Kazimir’s emotions.

But I had gotten so much stronger over the past few months.

The idea came to me out of nowhere, and I sucked in a sharp breath, kicking myself for not realizing it before.

“We won’t have to worry about Kazimir’s binding magic,” I said, setting my plate aside and sitting up straighter, confidence filling me. “I am an empath. If I can keep him calm from a distance, he won’t have access to it. When he was here during Béke, I walked him back from the edge of it several times.”

“Absolutely not,” Ruslan snarled, his head whipping up and smoky eyes boring into mine. The black fire simmering there no longer scared me like it used to, but it heated my low belly all the same.

“I will protect her,” Zuriel swore, his expression hardening with determination. “Leave a small regiment with me just off the main battlefield, and once we get an eye on his position, Izidora can concentrate while we guard her.”

“My range has gotten a lot better,” I assured my mate, who looked not at all convinced of our plan.

“Your range will never be far enough for my comfort,” he spoke mind to mind.

“Give me a choice in all this,” I snapped back.

“I would die without you, Izidora.”

“I know, but you’ve empowered me. I can hold my own thanks to you.”

“No. Your inner fire is the one you should thank. I only showed you the way to release it.”

“Then let me use it. Let me show them just how powerful I am and just how much they underestimated me.”

Ruslan’s hands pinkened as blood returned to them, and he blew out a long, hot breath. The glare he leveled on my cousin promised violence. “We will fight together, me in my Dragon form, and you on the ground. If anything happens to her…”

“You’ll kill me. Slowly. I know,” Zuriel retorted, rolling his eyes.

Liliana snickered from her perch on the rolled arm of the couch, and I winked at her from my position below.

“One last thing, Rares.” Drazen glanced at Artur and Ruslan, then continued. “When we took the potion, it worked a lot faster than expected. We were racing from Este Castle, and our timing was off. Why?”

Rares tapped his chin, then opened his notebook and flipped furiously through the pages, a finger tracing different lines of scrawled text. Without looking up he asked, “You were under duress?”

“We’d just fought off a bunch of armed Night Fae, so yeah,” Drazen deadpanned, reaching for an apple and biting into it with a satisfying crunch.

Rares produced a pen from nowhere, then began writing in the nearest blank space, leaving us all hanging.

Ruslan growled a warning, drawing the Mage’s attention. “I think I just figured out how to make the shifting ability permanent.”

“Really?” The hope in Ruslan’s voice was undeniable.

“Adrenaline. That’s what kickstarted the potion and caused it to work faster. I believe if I give you the potion, then inject an artificial adrenaline substance I created, followed by an incantation, I might be able to give you the ability to go back and forth. I’ll need to try it on a smaller Félvér Shifter first.”

“Drazen, Artur, nominate someone,” Ruslan snapped, yanking open a drawer and pulling out a clean sheet of paper. Artur offered up a name, and Ruslan wrote it down along with a quick note, signing it with a flourish at the bottom. He offered the paper to Rares. “Go. Now. Report back immediately. We don’t have time to waste.”

The old Mage vibrated with excitement as he accepted the paper and disappeared from the room.

“Someone wants to turn into a big, bad Dragon whenever they want, huh?” I teased my mate.

“Now that we’ve gotten all that sorted out, can we please go bathe?” Liliana complained.

I snickered around my mouthful of food until Ruslan leveled his gaze on us. “The two of you may go. We still have much to discuss.”

Swallowing down the last of my food, I grabbed my plate and rose from my position on the couch, heading for the door with my best friend and delicious snacks in hand.

Ruslan’s heated regard swept over me as we left the room.

“To answer your question, yes, I do want to be a Dragon whenever I want. I love when you ride me, mate, and I promise you’ll be screaming to ride me tonight whether I am a Dragon or a God among mortals.”

My thighs dampened as images of me riding him filtered through my mind, my chestnut hair spilling over my breasts and my head thrown back in ecstasy.

“Guess we can’t get married until that happens, then.”

His soft chuckle echoed in my mind as I left him and the other males to plan.