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Vitae
My Mercedes came to a stop in the Sugarloaf Mills parking lot, a caravan of SUVs following me toward the Medieval Times side of the mall where Scurith reported the incursion was located.
I peered through squinting eyes at a seemingly-empty parking lot. Rolling down the window admitted taint to swirl through the car. The strength of the aroma left me choking and confirmed I was in the right place.
Enforcers poured out of the SUVs. I didn’t have any of the winged fighters yet. From the big, beefy finger pointing toward an open loading dock door, they wouldn’t have been much use anyway.
I rolled the window back up and left my Mercedes parked where it was—far away from mortals’ cars that might scratch it. I affixed my fighting canes to one another, extruded crescent blades to complete the lajatang and led the others toward the yawning doors.
If the numbers Scurith relayed from the oracle were correct, I was about to deliver a decisive blow that in the end would teach Vusolaryn and Mariena not to trifle with me.
The loading bay gaped empty.
Horses stomped and blew out protests at the scent of both my enforcers and the Sidhe fighting in the mortal place of play war. Gestures hammered into my trollmen’s decayed brains sent enforcers left and right to check for flankers.
My path followed taint to the entrance of a great arena. I stepped onto the sand only to have spotlights blind me.
Scurith’s voice rang through the speakers around the arena. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Shieldheart Vitae, so-called overlord of Atlanta.”
Applause broke out as the house lights came up, revealing two Sidhe armies. Immediately to my right, Knight Gherrian raised his head, curtaining hair falling aside as his tongue caressed his lip. He froze for three blinks then tightened up on his golden blade. His head rose. On the opposite benches in the red section, Knight Dolumii marched down the stairs toward me. He hesitated on the last step before wrapping his other hand around the growing Champion blade’s hilt.
I spat the name. “Scurith, you traitor.”
Scurith’s voice filled with mock distress. “But, Mistress, isn’t this what you wanted?”
“You’ll find out once I finish with these insignificant worms.”
Goblins, gnolls, and troglodyte lizard men swarmed down narrow aisles, shoving one another for a chance to die at my talons. Elves, orcs, and ogres raced across the sand from the far side of the arena, several, including one half-ogre, mounted on slavering beasts. Hergies, sprites and pixies swarmed out of the arena’s rafters. My enforcers reached me before the Sidhe tide crashed against us, leaving the sauntering Champions—Gherrian and Dolumii—to face my virtually-immortal bodyguard.
“It will be my pleasure to reclaim my trophies from you, elves.”
“The only way you’re getting this sword back is in the back,” Dolumii snarled and slashed.
“You cannot defeat my guard,” I said.
“Perhaps that was true before,” Gherrian hamstrung one of my enforcers. He reached into his vestment and shattered a glass vial on the fallen trollman. “Unfortunately for you, Vitae, Scurith has given us the knowledge necessary to defeat you.”
I pushed through a sudden gap in my guard, trodding on lifeless enforcers somehow slain in a way that prevented their regeneration. I pressed my attack, whirling the lajatang back, forth and around.
Dolumii’s blade met my own at every spin. His jaw set in a grim line and knuckles wrapped white beneath the tormented faces in his sword’s guard.
Gherrian bounded over a melting trollman, lunging for my own hamstrings.
I leapt his attack, thrust the crescent blade at Dolumii before jerking it hard backward at Gherrian.
Dolumii lunged.
Gherrian sliced.
I flipped over Dolumii’s blade, bringing my boot across his face. The impact delivered all of my momentum, forcing me to roll under the slice. Gherrian turned his slice downward, cutting into my side—though not as much as he’d intended. A glow enveloped his blade, making my rapidly-disappearing blood shimmer along the metal.
I swept his feet with the staff and then my own boot. He leapt the first only to be brought down by the second. I reversed the spin and swept Dolumii’s feet out from under him before he could recover. I made my feet, chopping down at Dolumii.
Dolumii rolled to one side and thrust. The tip of his blade bit skin, sucking the warmth from my flesh.
Gherrian met my retreat with a hilt to the back of the head.
The world rang like the inside of Notre Dame.
I elbowed Gherrian in the face, splitting my staff into the two fighting canes and reshaping the essence blades into three-quarter axe heads. I brought one down at Gherrian’s head and whipped the other at Dolumii, launching the essence blade into his gut.
Dolumii and Gherrian deflected their respective blows.
An elven arrow sliced through my right lung.
A serrated goblin sword sawed into the back of my knee.
A gnoll’s teeth caught the wrist delivering a death blow to the goblin, fangs piercing my flesh and a jerk of its crushing jaws breaking my wrist.
Eyes wide, I realized my enforcers all slain.
I summoned all my essence and transmogrified, protectively cushioning two small vessels secreted on my person.
Armored and healed by changing into phoenix form, my talons lashed out.
“Now!” Gherrian and Dolumii shouted in unison.
A net of interwoven silver and iron chains hit me from above. Pain seared me in a hundred places. Sidhe hands deftly drew me down by the silver links, beating me with clubs.
I tried to transmogrify to a purely liquid form, but the iron bit harder from every angle in response to my magic.
I shifted back to flesh, protected from the iron by armor and cloth that did little against the downpour of clubs. I curled around my secrets and let them beat me.
Vitae
I awoke in a wide, cobbled hollow under a nighttime sky. Thunderheads shrouded the horizon. Torches burned a circle around the clearing. More lit the space beside two curved tables occupied with various Sidhe. A small table between the feet of the greater one seated the rotund goblin known as Thatch.
Flames illuminated twin knights guarding silk tents beneath tall pines. Knights and tents matched either icy blue and raspberry or daffodil and crimson. A knight on either hand held small, but familiar pixies on their shoulders.
Thatch refused to look at me.
There were no feast tables.
The Sidhe played no games.
Vusolaryn and Mariena entered from their tents dressed in battle attire. Dolumii and Gherrian followed them, restored to the glorious livery they’d worn before I’d...before they’d been slain in the sanctum.
My blood raced through my veins. My hands itched to strike them down, but my hands were bound and my neck collared.
“Shieldheart,” Mariena scowled. “Enslaver of my servants.”
“Our servants,” Vusolaryn corrected.
Mariena inclined her head. “What have you to say for yourself?”
Laughter bubbled out of my throat. It rang through the quiet clearing and the unexpecting crowd.
“This is your answer?” Vusolaryn snarled.
I shook my head, unable to wipe my eyes with my hands still bound. “Apologies, the irony struck me funny.”
Mariena frowned. “I do not see anything humorous.”
“And your laughter will be short lived, I swear it,” Vusolaryn said.
I laughed again. “Is that an oath, faerie? On your life and honor?”
“You’re damned right,” Vusolaryn said.
“Something isn’t right here.” Mariena peered into my face. A hint of fear edged into her eyes. “Laryn...”
“I have two sets of last words,” I interrupted. “First. By the Undying Light, I command you to surrender or face summary judgement.”
“You’re more Sidhe than Light, Vitae,” Vusolaryn said.
“Hmm,” I offered them a thoughtful look, trying not to allow my triumph to reach my face. “You may be right, Sidhe, but I hope to exemplify the best—dare I say perfection—of both.”
“Bow.” Vusolaryn’s voice hit me like a physical blow. I fought the command, but his will proved stronger than my own. I fell to my knees, still holding my expression.
“Laryn, stop. Look into his face,” Mariena said. “Something is horribly out of balance here—a riddle that must be addressed.”
Vusolaryn took Dolumii’s sword, marching my way. “We can solve it once I’ve added this bird to my Champion blade. Maybe you’ll even be reunited with the Aqua that saved your neck.”
Anger backed Mariena’s words. “Blight take it all, Laryn, stop and look at him.”
Vusolaryn raised the blade over my head. “I’ve seen him before.”
“No, really look.”
“Not now, Mariena.”
“Bide your strike but a moment, Great Prince,” I almost kept the sarcasm from the title I used to stroke his ego. “I have yet my last words to utter.”
Vusolaryn hesitated. “Well?”
“Silence him!” Mariena shouted. “Don’t let the Shieldheart speak.”
“I free you.”
Vusolaryn scowled. “What?”
A smirk curled my lips. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Magic surged through the clearing.
Two Arches opened, one between the tableau and the Seelie tent, the other opposite it. Twin armies of trollman enforcers poured into the hollow. Dozens of smaller, winged enforcers swooped through above their heads—readied just in time for this assault.
Perhaps I should reward my thrall...later.
I transmogrified my arms and leapt to my feet as the enforcers started killing. I caught Vusolaryn’s downward stroke and drove sharpened wing tips into him like spears.
Sidhe forces fought the superior numbers of enforcers. On their home ground, the Sidhe proved far more powerful. Scurith having warned me of the possibility, I’d stacked the odds ten to one. Mariena shrieked, trying to throw off the trollman covering her mouth and breaking her arms.
I picked up the fallen sword. It writhed in my hand a moment, but I pushed my will into the blade, forcing it to submit.
An anguished voice sobbed my name. <Oh, Vitae.>
The sound of Mare’s voice in my thoughts was like the light of heaven itself, but I had no time to bask in it. I could enjoy her presence once she was free.
I kneeled next to the bleeding and gasping Unseelie prince, holding the sword beneath his gaze. “Release Mare from this blade.”
“Rot in hell,” Vusolaryn snarled.
“Very well, if you will not bring her to us, I shall send you to face her.”
“Shieldheart!” Thatch exclaimed. “No, stop!”
“For Mare.” I slashed a claw across his throat, letting the faerie’s blood spray out for seven heartbeats before I thrust the blade through his heart. I twisted the blade and willed it to drink his soul. Whether or not the Sidhe prince had a soul, the blade consumed him greedily, sucking him into the blade like it was a straw. I rose, pointing the blade at the Seelie royal. “Bring Mariena here.”
“Vitae,” Thatch begged. “You must stop.”
My enforcers frog-marched the struggling princess my way.
My enforcers forced Mariena to her knees before me. “I’m sorry Laryn’s champion slew your shield.”
“Free Mare from this blade.”
“I-I cannot, even were it my blade there is no way to free a consumed soul. They’re gone.”
“She’s not gone,” I snarled, slashing a bloody gash across the Sidhe royal. “I’ve heard her.”
Mariena shook her head, terror sending tears from her cheeks. “Your shield is dead.”
“She’s alive!” Another slash turned the previous wound into a gaping, bloody wedge. “Release her.”
“The sword is just tormenting you, Vitae, driving you mad for its own amusement.”
“If that’s so, I have no further need for you.” I drew back the blade.
“Stop, Shieldheart,” Thatch held up his hands from across the clearing. “If you do this, there will be a reckoning. Slaying them both will bring both queens down on all Creation in a war the likes of which you cannot imagine.”
“Let them come,” I snarled. “None are greater than what I’ve become. When I’ve finished punishing the Sidhe for what they did to Mare, none shall remain to threaten Creation.”
“You sound like Lucifer,” Mariena snarled. “You remember what happened to him.”
I scoffed. “Except I’m on God’s side—perfecting His plan. Once I’ve destroyed the Fallen and all their children, I’ll have proven both my ability and my loyalty.”
“Wearing the visage of our Fallen sister Viviane? I think not.”
I tore out her throat, waited seven heartbeats, and thrust the blade into her. “Tell Mare Vitae sends his regards.”
The Unseelie blade drank the Seelie princess, consuming her from the inside out.
A laugh escaped me. “Perhaps I’ll be elevated beyond a simple Divine One. Is not the left hand of His throne empty?”
“This is madness.” Thatch ran for his tent. “You’ve summoned hell into Creation—literally.”
One of my winged enforcers scooped him off the ground and dropped him at my feet. “No, dear Thatch. You’ve overlooked one thing that prevents what you fear from coming to pass?”
“What is that?”
I thrust the blade into the goblin. “No one is going to survive this to tell the queens.”
Once the blade left nothing of Thatch, I gestured to my enforcers. “Bring Gherrian and Dolumii here. Let’s hope for your sakes, gentlemen, that you can release Mare.”