For fucks sake.
"Willa."
"Shut up, Rohana."
"The queen-"
"I know."
"Don't fuck it up-"
"Ro!" The playing cards fall to the ground and she turns to me with her hands outstretched towards my neck.
Tanith lets her own cards drop and starts dancing with Vanya, Inna, and Kathika. I blow Willa a kiss and then join my teammates in our victory dance. Gods I love it when we play Stacking the Odds. Two teams go through a relay obstacle course around and through Hollis Mountain, the last challenge always being something where Willa and Tanith have to use their mind-control powers to win the last point. This time it was stacking a pyramid of playing cards blindfolded, and Willa just couldn't handle my annoying distractions.
"You guys are a bunch of fucking cheaters."
"Aww, don't be such a sore loser, Nilsa," Inna sings, shaking her butt at her.
"Yeah, I mean it's not like you'll have to do something so insane like standing naked under the freezing ice waterfall for five minutes," Vanya says. "Oh wait...you do have to stand naked under the freezing ice waterfall for five minutes. Sorry."
"Whore," Mak spits.
"Loser," Kathika retorts.
"Alright, alright," I say, stepping in between the cool team and the meh team. "All seriousness, this was fun."
"Yeah-"
"Fun watching you lose!"
Nilsa starts chasing me, the others having their own chases around the training hall. "Come here you little shit!"
"Guys-"
"Sore loser? More like a slow loser!" I call over my shoulder.
"Fuck you, Rohana!"
"Guys!"
"What!" I yell, stopping to look at where Tsil and Kat are standing. One second I'm standing and catching my breath, the next Nilsa runs into me and we both hit the ground. "Heathens Nilsa!"
"You're the one who stopped abruptly!" she yells back, both of us rubbing our heads where they hit each other. I glare are her, but I can't help the urge to laugh. Sadly, I don't get to as Kat and Tsil start talking.
"We have an issue," Kathika claims.
"What is it?" Mak helps me up, then pinches me in the arm. "Ow."
"A few of the teenagers spotted a horse outside the border."
"That's a problem?" Tanith questions doubtfully.
"Considering that it's been out there for nearly two days, yes. I'd say it's a problem."
"Why would a horse be sitting outside the border?"
"What kind of horse is it?" Mak asks, her eyes dilating since her power is currently being held at bay by Willa's wards.
"Not sure."
"Wait. Is it black?" Whenever one of us asks a question like that – especially Serephina – I instantly know something's up.
Kathika squints at her accusingly. "Don't know."
"Well, it's not like we were doing anything important anyway," Willa says as she starts walking to the opening of the training hall cave.
"You're just saying that because you don't want to stand under the waterfall," I argue, letting another smile lift my face.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She mists away, and we don't really have a choice of whether to follow or not.
We end up misting to the western side of the mountain, a group of teenagers already gathered. They step aside as we approach and I find a large black mare standing there, and not just any mare, the only black Huisne mare I know to be on this continent. "What in ten hells..."
"That's...that's Darius's mare," Nilsa says. We share a confused look, and that's when I see Serephina biting her lip over Nilsa's shoulder.
I shove my older sister aside to get to the blonde one. "Inna. Did you know about this?"
"No," she answers quickly. "I swear, I didn't. I just saw Darius set her free after his father arrived at the assassin's keep."
"And you said nothing why?"
"What amount of importance is a freed mare to our situation?"
"Apparently a fucking huge one," Vanya seethes, arms flailing in emphasis.
"Alright, that's enough," I sigh. "Mak?" She walks over to the mare, holding out her hand in front of her. The horse doesn't do more than blink and lets Mak pet her. We all wait in silence for a moment.
Mak being a shapeshifter has learned to hone in on her animal kingdom abilities and can understand what they say. Of course, everyone thinks she's some kind of animal whisperer when she tames a hellbent stray dog who bites everyone who comes too close. I've seen her do it once. The stray was growling and snapping, and Mak just casually walked over to it, picked it up, and carried it back here. It was an old dog who died four years ago, but she still mourns after him here and there. Since then she hasn't taken an animal in, but she'll help one if she can.
"She was sent here to find us," Mak says slowly, her irises glowing in her concentrated eyes.
"Why?" You think Dee of all people would know, not be asking for the answers.
"She...she says that Darius is in trouble, and...and when she was younger, a woman with kind eyes and soft hands gave her a gift. The gift to find us when the time came."
"A woman gave her a gift to find us?" Vanya asks.
"Dawn," Willa and I say at the same time.
"She would be the only one capable of doing such a thing, and with the knowledge that Darius would be given the other pendant, his grandmother must've brought the mare to Dawn, and she spelled the mare to come to us when-"
"When things went to shit," I finish. "We need to get to Fernweh. Now."
"First thing's first-" We all change our pants and tunics out for our fighting leathers before Willa can finish. "Alright then. See you on the other side."
We mist onto a roof outside of the castle walls, and the first thing I see is the smoke and flames coming from the northern wall.
"Holy. Fucking. Gods."
"Great," Tsil sighs. "Our new king is fucking psychotic."
I ignore her and look to Tanith whose eyes are already silver shot. "There are two groups. One in the fire, and one in the throne room."
"Amazing," I mutter flatly and turn to start giving orders. "Same teams as Stacking the Odds. Willa's team takes the throne room, and my team takes the fire-"
"No."
"Tanith-"
"Willa needs to get Darius. You take the throne room."
"Tanith-"
"I wouldn't suggest it unless it was crucial."
Dammit. I stare at her, knowing that time is running out quickly and she's the only one who can see what's happening without risking someone sensing us before we can cloak and get in there. She hides in the loudest thoughts of those she seeks, and loud thoughts make it very easy for someone quiet to get beneath Xaxias's defenses.
I don't have the time to debate it.
"Fine. We'll take the throne room. Willa takes the fire." I turn back toward the castle and try not to think about the hell that just started. We promised Dawn that we wouldn't come until her youngest child's eighteenth birthday. Sure, it was her daughter's birthday, but she wasn't born until ten bells at night, hence why we were playing Stacking the Odds instead of already misting into the castle.
Of course, I'd say that this outranks promises.
"What of the Queen and healer?" Kathika asks.
"I can't find the Queen and the healer's in the throne room, fogged," Tanith answers.
"If we find the Queen then we get her out," Willa states.
"If you get the Queen then send the signal and we'll get the healer," I tell her. "Otherwise, the healer stays and we regroup. Darius and the others are our priority right now. Better to have one elemental than neither. It's a hard call, but I'm making it."
Willa comes up beside me and I can feel just how much she's ready to put up a fight if it's called for. "Fight true."
"Fight strong," I continue.
"Until world's end," we all finish together, sealing the promise of the Ginerva.
Willa and her team mist out first. I wait a few seconds to give her time to make herself known and then mist into the throne room.
"Looks like we walked into the party mid-swing," I whisper.
We're behind the pillars on the first floor of the throne room, keeping to the shadows and pushing down our powers as we watch men in red fight men in black. I would've called it a civil war had the inner fabric jade coloring of one's black cloak not caught my eye.
"There's nine of them," Vanya counts the red.
"You four get two each," I order. "Leave the bitch and Principe to me, and I'll get the healer should someone find the Queen. Tanith, get all bridges open. Call out who you got and spread out into positions that you can get to them the fastest. We move on me." They nod, and then all mist away while I walk closer to the dais.
Bridges open means that Tanith connects all ten of our minds so we can openly communicate with each other without having to say anything. No one else can hear our silent thoughts but us and I only use the order when absolutely necessary. It takes a small toll on Tanith, but she'll want a small nap after this to recharge.
Ready? I ask in my head.
Just waiting on you, Vanya answers.
Taking a deep breath to calm my eager body, I take a step forward and start to pull my power back up when the fighting suddenly stops. The reds surround the blacks on the dance floor, and the woman on the dais walks down the steps.
"Not bad for a few palace guards," she says. "Too bad that your skills will have gone to waste. I did enjoy the slaughtering, however."
New plan. Vanya, there are twenty-five left. You mind?
There's no response, but I wait, and then soon enough twenty-five identical copies of Vanya mist up behind the twenty-five demons in red, and slit their throats in unison. Twenty-four Vanyas disappear before their bodies hit the floor, leaving the real her to stand opposite the dais behind Dawn's son and the two other men. They all have loosened jaws, but the bitch looks on with rage that I can taste on my tongue.
"All these fucking witches," the dirty blonde one says. He adjusts his stance, able to see both Vanya and the other one at the same time.
Time to say hello, I say over the bridges.
I straighten my back and slide my blades back into their sheaths before stepping around the pillar I had kept behind. "Oh, come now, Visha. We just handed you a feast. The least you could do is thank us."
"Visha?" Arthur turns to look at the demon woman. Clearly, he really believed that this thing was his sister. He should know better than to fall into one of her pathetic jokes.
I walk until I stand in between the two of them, looking around the room once to find Vanya, Tanith, and Kat finishing the circle around the boys. "Playing tricks again, Visha? You haven't changed one bit."
I can see the slight fear in her eyes, likely trying to find where Willa is. Her smile slowly turns to her normal slanted feline one, and then her body shifts until I'm face to face with her usual ugly appearance. "You've been mute for ten years, Rohana. Two decades later and you finally come to protect your kin."
"You look a little pale, Paulo Catulus. Not scared that we finally showed, are we?" Her jaw clenches at the nickname to my satisfaction, and my claim holds true with the slightest of tics in her finger.
"Your queen's gone, Rohana. You failed."
"Is she alive?"
"She's gone."
"But she has a pulse-"
"A slowing one-"
"So long as her heart beats we have yet to fail, and I assure you, we will not fail, and you and your horny twins won't be able to-"
Ro. The dais, Kathika's voice echoes in my mind.
I look over her shoulder and find Charles laying on the steps of the dais, and Eleanor over her other shoulder, both bloody and on their last strings of life from what I can feel. I turn back to Visha and I can see how hard she's trying not to look at the men over my own shoulder. Even the vein on her forehead is popping out, making me laugh because it's rare to see her so flustered.
"Oh, Visha. Outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a few mere mortals."
Her nails grow in their length, along with the two canines that press against her bottom lip, drawing blood as they elongate. "They'll pay in kind to their acts."
I drop my smile. "No, they won't. You never liked those two. If you did, well then, you'd be using that grand old power you love to brag about so much and use it to keep them alive."
"Xaxias won't be happy," she snaps, not missing a beat.
"He was never happy," I retort.
Ten seconds, Willa says through the bridges.
"Enjoy your meal," I say aloud to Visha, turning my back to her and walking up to Arthur.
The Queen? I ask. There's no answer.
"Don't. You. Dare-"
"Horrible time seeing you again, Visha." I grab Arthur's wrist before he can move out of my reach or argue, my sister's doing the same with the others, and then we're gone.
We mist back into a private tavern room, one run by a known Thralian whose name I can't remember at the moment. We get there a second after Willa and her group, and then all fourteen men are stumbling, crashing into tables, falling over chairs, or gagging and trying to keep their stomachs down. I watch in bored amusement. Misting takes some getting used to, and it doesn't actually shift your organs, but it sure as shit feels like it the first couple of times.
I remember my first time misting. Wish I didn't, as I ended up face down in literal horse shit.
"What the fuck?"
"Oh, I'm going to hurl."
"Why is my spleen in my lung?"
"That's it. If I see one more damn witch-" The dark blonde man stops short as he stands up and finds himself face to face with a dark gazed Nilsa. If I were him, I'd be nervous too. They're about the same height, but she easily belittles him with her stare that has her pupils narrowing into slits.
"Of all things I miss about my homeland, that is not one of them."
"Good to see you too, Gretel," Willa says, embracing the woman tightly.
Gretel! That's her name. I am a horrible person, but I remember faces, not names.
"Darius?" I look over to Arthur, finding him hunched over an unconscious Darius. "Darius!"
"Gods, Willa," Gretel scolds, shuffling towards Darius. "What did you do?"
"Nothing he-"
There's no warning before I'm suddenly hit in the chest with something and thrown back hard into the wall. There's an echo of a crack in my head, and then I hit the ground, my breath stuck somewhere in my throat. I hear people shouting, but no sound of weapons clashing so I let myself take a second to reinflate my lungs. My eyes are watering like crazy, pain lancing over my chest and making me dizzy. I swallow down the pain and pull quick and hard on my power to numb everything so I can get up.
My eyes clear within seconds, and I look around to find my sisters and Willa all laying on the ground and slowly getting up. What in Saint's sake happened?
"It's alright! You're okay, Darius." Arthur and the others are trying to calm him down, which seems to be working. I walk over to Tanith who's struggling to get up and help her.
"What happened?" Darius asks, looking close to passing out again.
"The worst 'thank you for saving us' gift ever," Mak answers, holding her clearly out of its socket arm with a scrunched face. "That's what happened."
I test a few ribs while he scans all of us, his power lacing against mine as he uses that too. "Who are you?"
"Your horse, it seems, fulfilled her quest."
I whirl, arms raised for the oncoming attack that I instantly release my body from. Dear Gods, I didn't even see the witch standing in the corner. She's not making it easy to like her. None of them are. It's making my compliance skitter away. Soon enough I'll be a stubborn asshole who people instantly hate for my attitude if they keep throwing us around the room and questioning our intentions despite what our actions prove.
"Melody? Wait, but that means..."
"Yeah," I say, standing up straight and walking towards him. My sisters gather behind me, Willa at my side.
My side hurts too much to breathe too quickly, so I let her talk. She's also a lot more likable and ten times less likely to bite someone's head off at the moment.
She lowers her head, putting two fingers to her brow. The Thralian way of showing respect and loyalty. "It is an honor, Meus Rex, to finally be able to meet you. I am your High Lady of the Court, the Resolute Protector, given the position by birthright and the powers which I possess. This is Rohana Ashina Avyanna Nicoletti. She is Lady One of the Ginerva-" she gestures to me and my likely scowling face before turning to my sisters "-your blood sworn guard and vowed protectors of Thralia."
"Why is it that we're always trying to be replaced?" The broad-shouldered one I know to be named Garrison, whines. He rubs at his face, looking haggard and in desperate need of a cycle's rest. On second thought, they all look like that, and they could use a fucking haircut too.
"Trust me, none of you stand a chance against the Ginerva," Gretel states, pride flickering in her eyes.
"And why not?" The redhead asks.
Gretel looks at me, and I look to Willa who stares right back at me. We look at Darius and his entourage, then make eye contact again.
Think they can handle it? she asks through the mental bridges.
He can, them I'm not so sure of.
They need to trust us, Rohana.
I roll my eyes at her affinity for kindness. Fine – but I'm not doing it with three broken ribs.
Wimp.
With an annoyed sigh, she places her hands on either side of my chest. The tingling feeling appears with the yellow glow of her hands, then the odd warmth fills me and I feel like my ribs slowly move back in place and mend together, Willa keeping the pain from touching me. Not even the cracks of the bones snapping back together phase me. After a few years of being constantly beaten up, the sounds no longer bother you. Once that's done she moves onto Mak behind me and I look forward to where Darius and the others stand shoulder to shoulder. A few cringes when Willa snaps Mak's arm back into its socket.
I smirk. Whimps.
"She's healing you," Darius whispers to himself, watching Willa carefully.
"One out of the six powers she bears," I explain.
"Six?"
I nod, using my fingers to count them all off while Willa lists them. "Force field generation, invisibility, removal of the five senses, healing, immunity to power influence, and I can bear wards for long periods of time." She moves onto Kathika's broken leg, never once lifting her eyes.
"Well, damn, we really didn't stand a chance," the blue-eyed one says. I really should learn their names. I'd ask Tanith to just pin their names in my head, but she's probably not in the mood. She gets cranky after being needlessly thrown around.
"What about you? You have powers too, right?" Arthur asks. His question is phrased one way, but I know that he's asking so that he can beat us up about having all these powers, and yet not being able to find and save his sister.
I meet his stare, not once blinking. "Yes," I answer. One of the boys opens his mouth to ask his question, but I ignore it and instead pull the silver coin out of my pocket and toss it to him. He scrambles to catch it, but then it slows its trajectory until it stops midair. "I control time. I can make it slow down and stop entirely. Or I can speed it up." The coin goes from frozen in the air to traveling lightfast to the boy's chest, then freezing before it hits him.
"Can you go back in time?"
Arthur is in very dangerous territory with me.
I ignore it for now and instead watch as the coin travels back to me, and slides into my pocket. "Before you ask, no. I will not travel back in time to save your sister. I have not nor ever will travel back in time, because going back and changing something means changing the future which is currently our present, and that could mean that if I went back and saved her, then we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be safe."
"Where would we be?" he challenges, still not giving up.
"Likely losing a fight," Nilsa answers sternly, warning in her voice. He doesn't seem to give a shit about the clear line she draws, but Nilsa being Nilsa knows exactly how to win. "My name is Nilsa," she says sweetly, following Willa's movement and setting two fingers to her brow. "I can warp our reality to be the opposite of what it is. In other words, I could make the wooden floor into an ocean if I wanted."
"In other words, don't get on her bad side. You'll either end up massacred or in the middle of the ocean with no one nearby to save you. I'm Makatza. I'm a shapeshifter." She doesn't salute Darius and the scowling Principe, and instead sets her arm on Nilsa's shoulder and grins smugly at the men.
"In other words, don't get on her bad side. She'll just turn into a lion and eat you whole." Mak punches Kathika in the arm for her remark and then walks off to join Willa and Nilsa in taking the drinks Gretel and that witch are bringing in. "I'm Kathika, and this is Tsil. I control light and she controls darkness."
Tsillah starts to raise her hand but I stop her. Don't. He doesn't like it when we salute. She easily sidesteps it, taking her hand to the loose strand that came out of her braid and tucking it behind her ear, nodding instead. I haven't missed how Darius bit on his tongue when Willa and Nisla saluted. It seems he'd rather not have people show their loyalties. Or this is all just too overwhelming and a whole other set of guards that have magical powers is too much to wrap his brain around at the moment
"And before you go jumping into either of their beds," Inna says, pushing them aside. "Just know that it's the same bed and that they will murder you if you try."
"You have one of those too?" Darius asks, glancing to two of his guards who stand closer together than any of the others do with one another. Ethan and Gabe. The only reason I know their names is from the excessive amount of times the others have screamed them out, mostly in annoyance than anything.
Inna purses her lips. "Sadly. Anyways, I can absorb any power around me. If I wanted, I could blackout this whole town or take your power to control the elements – not that I would do that."
"Nice save, Inna." She glares at me, but she goes to sit with the others nonetheless, her introduction completed.
"Down the hall to the left, two alleyways down, and...dear Gods, good luck with that," Dee foretells, pointing to the blonde, redhead, and then the dark blonde one with green eyes who nearly got killed by Nilsa a moment ago. She walks past me, a hand over her mouth to attempt to muffle her laughter. She's failing horribly, but I watch her go with a bemused smile.
"That was Dearbháil. She's a seer and clairsentience, which means she can see an object's past simply by touching it. She's...a headache," I warn them gently.
They start looking around the room as if searching for something, and that's when I know that Tanith is talking to them through their minds, though she leaves the rest of us out of it. They look at her all at once like crazed dolls, and then her irises return to normal and she walks off.
Nope, not in the mood.
"She's also a headache, just...more so literally," Vanya says. "My name's Vanya, and I have the power to make several copies of myself. It's known as duplication."
"That's how you killed those twenty-five men all at once, right?" Arthur asks.
"Yep, and it's more fun than it sounds."
"And more annoying. You never know if you're talking to Vanya or Vanya's duplicate," I tell them.
She shrugs. "I'm another headache."
"Hey, losers!" Mak calls from the table. "Are you guys going to tell us your names, or are we supposed to keep calling you 'blonde number one' and 'brunette number two?'"
Dear Gods, Mak, we're trying to get them to trust us.
Hey, it's not my fault if they can't handle my bullshit.
I give Darius an apologetic look and I'm surprised when he returns it. He stands up, which instantly makes all ten of us sit up straighter and instinctively check the halls and surrounding buildings for any threats. Some things I just really miss about guarding the elemental's life.
He turns to his friends and points to them as he reads off their names. I memorize them instantly, matching their names to not just their faces, but their tells and hints of personality types.
"Now that we're acquainted," Arthur interrupts before we can ask questions about them. "Do you mind telling me why you haven't shown up before and why my sister isn't here with us?"
Darius draws up at that, a surge in his power drawing my attention. He looks around the room, then his eyes go distant in a way that tells me he's using the air element to try and find her. It seems he's been too distracted to really notice – which is entirely odd – and makes it harder for me not to strangle my blood sworn Prince. There were plenty of other gentle ways to break the news to him - and that's coming from me.
"We'll explain everything," I promise Darius, and then turn back to Arthur. "Right after you stop playing bullshit and take off your useless mask. We knew your mother Lance Arthur Veyron Rheasydia, your sister is our Queen, and you are our Prince. We know more about you than you think. Don't believe me, just ask Tanith."
Who, by the way, found his real name when she was displaying her power to him and fed it to me just now. She closes the door to our minds and then sips from her drink as if she's done nothing.
He pulls down his hood and balaclava, revealing a face that is literally the mix of Dawn and Kerrigan. I have to dig my nails into my palm to keep tears from falling. My sisters are all silent. It's almost like a dagger to the heart to see him so up close. We've kept a great distance between us and them when they traveled, and most of the time his mask was up. Before that, we stuck to our vows and never sought out Dawn's children. What they looked like ran off of rumors the rest of the world hears, but even knowing their parentage, nothing could've prepared us for the truth.
We watched Dawn be born, watched her grow up, and marry the man she loved and who completed her in every way. They were bonded to us more than we cared to admit, and they're gone and yet both looking at me through their child. It's unearthly.
"Great," I state blandly, not letting a single ounce of what struck me show. "Now, I believe we got off on the wrong foot."