Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 28

Konan is the first to spring to action as the Crows descend. Grabbing Aine from her stunned silence, he sprints to the rest of us. Armund follows just as fast.

A whip of shadow and menace shoots out at their retreating backs.

One makes contact, Konan’s grunt of agony the only indication of his pain. His hold on Aine doesn’t waver.

Half the group of Crows pursue the pair, their inhuman speed reaching the rest of us before I can blink.

Deri meets the group in pursuit of his child head on—an unstoppable force of will in a dark alley.

The ground trembles as a wave of stone rushes to meet them, flowing like water over the earth.

Arms of ivy snake out to wrap around throats and whip across faces, barely slowing a descent of shadow and wrath. Dealla leaps over Deri’s wall of stone to better wield them, an extension of her own fear and fury.

I soak in the energy from the ether, begging my mind and body to recall, to center, to be able to wield—to be of use. To be anything but sitting prey.

Konan has gotten his ward to safety and has turned around, shooting vengeance for the strike at his back. Flame bursts past my ear, consuming shadow and choking the air with smoke and power. He leans his whole being into the hit, punching flame down the whole stretch between buildings, teeth gritted. It twists in a dance with the shadows that consume and become consumed by it.

I can feel frost gathering beneath my feet.

Fionn’s wind pulls at shadows from all directions, manipulating flame and feeding it. He’s bleeding from his own cuts and bruises as he passes me, and I worry he is already weakened. He moves to the front regardless.

I step forward, ready to defend. I will not cower in the corner and wait for death.

The Crows keep coming, seemingly unaffected, waving away power with their combined might. Almost dismissive of the display as their shadows choke and blur the whole world.

The shadows—they whisper.

Shivers raise over every morsel of my skin.

They were nothing.

They were the absence of everything.

Sucking in a breath, I almost feel them crawl down my throat.

I raise my hands.

They lick at my face.

I see a group surround Dealla as she twists with hundreds of vines.

Fear rises up, and with it, power.

She gives up on the vines and they fall limply back against their stone home .

She punches spears of earth through their chests.

I can’t see through the shadows behind the group, but I know there will be blood splattered on the stone wall behind them.

I pick my target—the one at the back, the one who spoke. The one who commands.

I reach for him, for the flesh he is made of.

My hand claws as I turn it to ice.

As I picture every drop of blood solidifying in his veins.

The pull on my energy is horrifying; I drop to a knee.

He grasps at his chest. His lips, once a pale shade, turn blue.

I clench my hand to a fist, feeling his heart, sluggishly pumping in his chest. I feel the strands of every muscle and synapse that keep it pumping.

Even these monsters are made of flesh.

And flesh is power. Flesh is energy.

I try not to let the flame still shooting past my face distract me.

I don’t let my eyes wander to Fionn, locked in battle with a group of his own, receding by small steps.

I don’t see anything as the Crow’s eyes snap to me, widening with awe and horror as I pull.

He falls to his knees, and I feel a tiny smile lift the corner of my lips.

I push.

He shatters.

Pieces of him fly to the winds. Wisps of silver—a mist of life—float up from his remnants.

I fall down to all fours with every shred of strength fleeing my bones.

“Mom!” Aine’s scream curdles my blood.

I whip my head back at the purest of us, dreading what I’ll see.

But she’s not fighting a foe. She fights her friend. Konan barely keeps his grip on her.

I had not noticed the flame’s absence. I see the wielder holding Aine back as she thrashes—wildly striking out at him, flinging every limb and fist as she screams.

And screams.

And screams.

“Mom!”

The forest across the creek only holds shadows, and no answers. The tears streaming from my eyes freeze on my little chubby cheeks.

I call again, begging, hiccupping sobs. I sit there and listen for her response, eyes darting, looking for every moving shadow. I wait for her to walk through the branches. Any second.

“Mom!” I sob.

She just went to gather more wood. She said she would be right back. She left me in front of the fire, eating my breakfast, alone. But that was so, so long ago.

The fire went out, and Daddy won’t be back from town until after dark. It’s so cold. So cold and she isn’t here.

I wonder if this is punishment for throwing a fit when she said I couldn’t go play with Mar today. She said the snow was too high to trudge all the way over there on my “little legs.” I cried a lot and called her mean. I’m sorry. She’s not mean, she’s nice most of the time. I’ll tell her. As soon as she comes back.

I stand there and call for her.

My pleas turn to accusation after my voice turns hoarse. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I would tell her that if she would just come back. I fist my hands in my dress, pulling it tight, trying to make it warm again. It’s all hard and cold now.

I sit down, the snow crunching under me as I tuck my knees into my chest and wait. And watch the woods. And wait, until the water stops coming out of my eyes, and I can’t really breathe, just hiccup. My cries are nothing but tiny little croaks. I wait until I can’t feel my face, my hands, or my bare feet in the snow.

The glow of sun behind clouds has faded into darkness and my father races down the path, having heard my cries, now weak and husky.

She left me here.

I still stare into the shadows over his shoulder as he lifts me and carries me inside.

Why did she leave me here?

I watch Aine as she lives my nightmares.

I look back at her mom fight.

But she’s no longer fighting.

She’s kneeling on the ground, a Fomorian’s fist around her throat. She stares up at him in agony, face purple and veined as he just… stares at her.

Deri has lost all sense of tactics. He’s screaming too. Fighting, clawing his way across the ground to his mate. But the Fomorians are on top of him, barely containing him as his power slashes around him, too.

Fionn is similarly beaten back by his foes. Barely holding his ground.

I try to get off the ground, lifting one feeble hand. My weight too much for one arm, I fall to my chest and face. Standing might as well be climbing a mountain.

The ones holding Deri burst into flame, bodies like the driest tinder. Too late .

I see the moment all life fades from Dealla. I hear the moment she dies in Deri’s screams.

She looks like a corpse already weeks gone as she slumps to the ground.

The Fomorian stands back to his full height. He looks like a man who just got a hit of the most potent drug.

Deri chokes and sobs, holding one hand to his chest, dragging himself to her body with his other hand.

He strokes her hair, sobbing endless apologies and pleas. He still grasps at his chest, as though he is hemorrhaging blood.

The Fomorian, still stumbling as if drunk, looks down at him, evil incarnate.

He unsheathes the blade at his waist, its blackened blade glinting as he twirls it once, casually.

Deri’s face does not even waver from soul-crushed despair, despite knowing his death awaits him.

The Fomorian does not even give him the honor of last words before he lops off his head.

It makes such a horrid noise as it rolls across the stone.

Aine’s screams, a constant horrific drone in the background, begin to get farther away.

Konan’s back is a blur as he takes Aine and flees.

Armund follows them.

Fionn falls as I look back to my last ally.

He looks back at me, all-consuming fear in his golden eyes as he sees me, prone. The Fomorian above him raises his shadows, preparing a death blow.

I lift my hand, but not my head. Reaching not for the man that somehow still holds my heart, but his attacker.

I don’t care if I die. I never have. I just wish my life could have been more useful than a shot in the dark.

Pulling from every dreg of strength in my pitiful muscles, my heart, the marrow in my bones, I take aim and channel—flinging the small stone, the size of a berry, straight through the head of the male about to kill Fionn.

It crunches going through his skull.

My vision goes dark as the rest of the remaining Fomorians pick over corpses of friend and foe, making their way towards me. One already replaces the one I killed, incapacitating Fionn with a single blow.