Chapter 638: Working With The Enemy
We reached the border in moments, once Aoilainn ordered her people to stand aside. She looked so tired and worn I wondered if she put the last of her energy into moving us as quickly as possible. It seemed the air shimmered from a blank horizon to suddenly flaring with green flame and a gathered army of fading Unseelie.
I approached the doorway to the other side with Ameline next to me, gesturing for Odhran and Niamh to join us at the barrier. They came, looking as beaten down as Aoilainn, their people as weary. At least the giants sat up now, large eyes blinking slowly, sleepily, no longer prone and helpless. I looked up, saw the patch I'd installed still held, but with gaps around the edges.
We didn't have much time.
Odhran bowed his head to me before letting his gaze fall on Ameline. She didn't say anything to him, but he grimaced before taking his queen's hand.
"I had not thought to see you come to my border again," he said to the small girl body Ameline wore. "I believe I told you once if I found you here I would kill you."
Her smile was positively sweet. "And here we are," she said in her rich, deep voice, so creepy from the petite girl's mouth. "A pity you need me, isn't it?"
He met my eyes, shaking his head. "This is the only way?"
Sigh. I wished people would stop asking me that. Like I hadn't tried every other possible avenue first.
I almost missed the tension passing between the two sides of the Sidhe race, finally catching on when Charlotte chuffed at my side, head whipping back and forth. I turned from Odhran to see Aoilainn's people glaring with dark intent at the Unseelie people who glared right back.
"This is your doing." Leave it to Aoilainn to start pointing fingers. She did so, straight up at the gaping darkness on his side, the shining patch weakening by the second. "You have brought this on us."
"I have been fighting it since the moment it began," Odhran roared back, some of his vigor returning while Niamh snarled, her tall, slim body sheathed in black leather flashing with green fire. "It is you who refused to join forces with me, who refused to acknowledge we were losing our power to some outside source."
Aoilainn opened her mouth to argue. I very firmly closed it for her with a jab of magic.
"I don't care who kicked sand in whose face first," I said. "Or who bullied who six million years ago. Don't. Care." I poked my own finger at the swirling darkness, feeling the patch begin to give way, knowing we'd come just in time. "That? That matters."
"Why bother?" Ameline crossed her little arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow in artful disdain. "Perhaps we should let them be destroyed."
I almost agreed with her. Caught myself from doing just that.
"We need to act now." I gestured at the border, knowing as I think I'd known all along their own balance was out of kilter and made them vulnerable. "It's time that came down."
I watched the ruler's faces contort, centuries, millennia of disgust and opposition rising to spit out of them like venom. Even Odhran, who I knew understood just how close they were to destruction.
Only to feel the whole world shake beneath me as the patch above gave way with a vast, thundering boom.
Aoilainn instantly collapsed, sliding sideways from her horse as her Sidhe warriors fell to the ground. The pressure of the sudden exodus of magic drove the Unseelie to their knees, the king gasping as he reached out toward the border. Aoilainn's stubbornness shone in her face, even now.
"Mother," Shaylee spoke through my lips. "Live or die. Our race's fate is in your hands."
Aoilainn's will crumbled as she raised her hand and her power reached for the king.
And the border between the Seelie and Unseelie collapsed in a sigh of dying magic.
Our turn. I reached for Ameline's hand, felt her cold, firm child's fingers grip mine as our power, already bonded, surged between us at our touch.
Balance. Such a simple word to say. But finding it, grasping it, was a far more difficult matter. I was stronger than Ameline, that much was obvious. And she fought my strength even as the edge of the sky crumbled and the Sidhe realm began to fall into the gaping darkness. Back and forth Ameline and I fought while the world died.
Enough! I dropped my last defenses, pulled her to me. Felt her resistance fail and fall away. There, I sent to her, aiming us toward the gaping dark. There is our enemy.
Yes, she sent, coiling around me, feeding from my power as I fed from hers. There.
The core of the black called to me, pulled me forward, pulled us to it, swallowing us as we chased back through the shadowed sky to the source of destruction.
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