The Faerie Curses

Chapter Forty-Four: Iron, Blood, and Moonlight

But the sprites just kept coming.

"Cut down their cords and grappling hooks!" I ordered, my voice booming across the dining hall.

In the distance, Diandre nodded in understanding. He flipped gracefully over a towering sprite and sliced his battle axe straight out the window, severing the ropes that dangled down the palace walls. I sprinted towards a window closer to my position. Leaning out of the palace, I could see hundreds of other sprites scaling up the ropes, coming after us. With a grunt of effort, I cut the cords cleanly with my sword. A sick part of me laughed in dark satisfaction as the climbing sprites plummeted through the air, tumbling stories down until their bodies smacked into the ground. Even from high above, I could hear the sound of their bones cracking at the impact.

Inside the dining hall, my allies had heard my command. I heard the snap of the ropes one by one. But even that small victory didn't make up for the fact that my people were dying. Faeries sobbed helplessly as the sprites singed their faces into pulps of flesh. The wooden bodies of the nymphs were torn apart into strips of bark. The small bones of the dwarves would crack and break in the air that reeked of bile, tears and sweat. I would try and save every victim the moment I could hear their desperate cries, but sometimes I would be too late to help the piling dead.

Blood, iron, and moonlight. It lingered everywhere.

"Marissa!" Diandre called out, jarring me from my stupor. My head whipped towards the sound of his voice. Finally, my gaze locked onto him, and I saw him battling a skeletal sprite in front of the exit doors. In the sprite's other hand was an iron chain that he snapped wickedly in the air surrounding him. The sound was a electric crack among the clashing of weapons, and I gathered my skirts and sprinted to Diandre's aid.

"Damn dress," I swore as the hem dragged through puddles of blood, slowing me down.

Before I could reach him, another faerie beat me to it. Catalina's wings unfurled elegantly as she chanted a spell at the top of her lungs, facing her palms straight at the sprite's face. I recognized the blinding light that suddenly engulfed her; Catalina had learned the art of the advanced morphing spell. Besides my mother's transformation into a leopard and Glen's into a falcon, I had rarely seen the charm used. Now, the duchess' daughter was morphing into a beast.

I watched her golden gown as it curled around her body, blinding my eyes as the battle raged on around me. When the lights faded, Catalina the faerie was no longer standing before me; in her place was a magnificent serpent. The creature was enourmous, with a slender body that weaved massively through the feet of the warriors. Her scales were plates of pure gold, and her forked tongue flickered in and out from her hissing mouth. The only familiar sight about the snake was her kind, brown eyes. They were the same eyes that belonged to her faerie form.

Catalina the serpent darted at the skeletal sprite, opening her jaws to reveal dagger-like fangs. She hissed deeply, her body coiling around the enemy's legs, throwing him off balance. Diandre's attacker lost his footing and fell to the dining hall floor. I could only watch with an equal mix of awe and horror as the snake wrapped herself around his throat, constricting him until he lost consciousness and his struggling hands fell limply to his sides. Then, Catalina's fangs sank into the sprite's neck, silencing his soul forever.

Just like that, the duchess' daughter killed a creature in cold blood.

When the snake unraveled herself from his corpse, my eyes were frozen only on the sprite's blood coating her sharp teeth. My stomach churned with nausea. Diandre stood frozen as well, staring at Catalina the serpent in pure amazement.

"Th-thank you," He stammered, once he had composed himself.

The snake bobbed its head, and in another flash, returned to it's faerie form.