Chapter 60

Having only heard about the oskurreia through stories from her family and even in texts about the Dark Wars, Dessa froze at the sight of the blackened, skeletal creatures that roamed through every street of Arloerin, carrying their poison covered weapons, sharp teeth and talons glistening with blood. Weapons they used to take down almost every guardsmen that aimed to stop them. Few survived and continued shouting orders to head for the main market square where everyone saw Cleo and Ollyn go down.

Her portal had brought them to a short street that ended at a tavern. Every window was either boarded up or protected with magic or both as they started running in the same direction as everyone else.

Elys had yet to let go of Dessa's hand, for which she was grateful for. Though he'd been the tether that helped her focus, he was now her anchor in every way, holding her steady and calm even as chaos continued around them. His stifling hold on their mating bond disappeared, filling her heart and soul and body with every bit of his love and strength. And somehow, even with everything going on around them, he still managed to meet her gaze, pulling her to a stop as Milena, Eamon, and Archer ran ahead.

With one flicker of magic, Elys had no trouble stopping time around them, making every shout and screech cut off. The only thing heard was their labored breathing and Dessa's heart thundering in her ears.

"You stay by my side," Elys told her, reaching up to take her face in his hands before leaning his forehead against hers.

Dessa nodded, covering his hands and gripping his tightly. "Forever."

"And I will stay by yours."

"You'd better. Don't think you have a choice, Seer."

He closed his eyes, nodding in agreement, fingers trembling as he held her.

With his voice shaking, it didn't take her long to piece everything together from what happened that morning. "Is that what you saw? Because in those flashes of your vision, I heard..."

But Elys cut her off with a kiss, gathering her up in his arms and pulled her close as if they had all the time in the world. In that moment, with everything frozen around them, they could.

Even when they pulled apart, his lips brushed against hers with every word. "When something happens to me, Des," he whispered, mismatched blue eyes blazing into hers. "You can't just stop everything. They're going to need you for this, just like you've always saw in those nightmares you have. And I hate that they've somehow managed to go to you, even though I'm the one whose been seeing it play out over and over again."

The revelation had Dessa pulling back an inch. "What are you...?"

"The nightmare you've had since you were little is one of my visions, one that hadn't changed since this morning...when I can no longer see past it. I see nothing, Des, and I've tried everything I could to change it. I don't know if it's me or if it's that damn dark magic, but it still scares the shit out of me. All I know is I can't see anything past this next hour anymore."

Dessa's heart jumped in her throat as tears burned in her eyes. "You can't mean..."

No. She absolutely refused to believe what he saw was the end of him and his life. It couldn't be.

But she'd seen it, too. That future he showed her, disappearing into nothing.

Elys's hands brushed her hair back where a few strands had fallen across her face. He was really looking at her then, memorizing every feature as if he never had before. "I love you, Dessa Jai Deverell Ayveri. And even though I've told you every chance I could since I first said those words to you last night, I want to tell you again. Just in case."

Dessa stood on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, fingers curling into the short hair at the back of his head. "I love you, too, but that will not be the last time I tell you those words, Seer, and it won't be yours either."

And with one last kiss, time resumed around them and they ran hand-in-hand into the fight that raged on.

While she'd never actually been in a battle before, Dessa had grown up training for one, even though she knew no one in her family ever wanted her to see it. She barely even had to think about any one of her movements, the way the immediately drew her sword, every arch and swing and cut that hit true. There was something else she could feel in the metal, though, now that she had magic of her own. An enchantment, something that had every single dark creature disappearing into ash as soon as she struck them.

It didn't take long for her and Elys to catch up to Milena, Eamon, and Archer. They were cutting through twenty oskurreia with both swords and magic. Milena and Eamon were back to back, moving together just like any mated pair did in a fight. Archer was using his own susurrate magic to coordinator his own movements with theirs and then Dessa's and Elys's as soon as they joined them.

Milena caught sight of them first before her eyes widened. "Behind you!"

Elys immediately halted, his magic billowing out of him to slow time and every dark creature around them. As he held it, Dessa whirled, seeing the three creatures not a dozen feet behind them. Gripping her sword, she jumped from where she stood to the space behind them, cutting clean through the blackened bodies with one swing.

Chest heaving with every breath, Dessa managed a grin as she looked at her mate. "I do believe I'm going to like having you by my side forever, Seer."

Elys somehow found it in himself to laugh. "Of course, you would, princess, just as much as I'm going to like having you, too."

The next moment, she appeared right in front of him, kissing him lightly as her smile softened. "You're being optimistic...and I definitely like that, too."

With Elys, Dessa felt unstoppable. When they were fighting together and not against one another in training, they'd always been able to best whatever opponent they were up against. But now that they had an even stronger connection through their mating bond, their movements were perfectly sync, their thoughts one with no words needing to be said. Together, they were using both of their magics and blades – Elys in slowing time around the creatures and Dessa jumping through space to appear right behind them, sword cutting into the skeletal creatures as they screeched, then turned into a pile of ash.

They moved closer and closer to the center of Arloerin where the fight raged on. Dessa was hyper focused on what lay ahead, but she caught flashes of the others around them. There were dozens of guardsmen, some of the Elite including Urell, and then the Krahzaran princes Malik and Kav. Cleo's dragon Ollyn was trying to move, the obsidian bolt that had taken him down still lodged in his side. He was roaring in pain and anger, managing to set another hoard of oskurreia that made their way down one street alight with fire.

And then there was Cleo, having dropped to her knees and staring wide-eyed up at another blond female who stood before her, dressed in all white leather. Dessa had heard the whispers and rumors about Laria's most feared and respected assassin, the Lady in White.

Except when she finally got a good look at her face as she too fell to her knees in front of Cleo...she was staring at a face that was identical to her cousin's.

There was only one name that came to mind, one that was only said aloud a few times but one Dessa knew by heart.

Adeena.

As soon as the name went through Dessa's mind, slow clapping sounded from the fountain that stood in the center of the square. Every dark creature froze at the sound.

Cleo and Adeena stood, fingers intertwined, and faced the male together.

Dessa followed their gaze, meeting that of the male who was smiling, watching the fight from where he was perched on the ledge.

This male...this human male...she knew him. Handsome features, bronze skin, tall, lanky build...except his eyes were onyx and not the dark brown she'd come to know. His smile was no longer the easy, carefree one she'd seen before either, one she knew she could trust. This one held nothing but wickedness as he eyed the queen and the assassin who stood before him.

The male who had been her friend for months, who she talked and teased and laughed with...the one who sat in his place was nothing like him.

Confusion and fear had Dessa's jaw hanging open as she finally said his name. "Fin?"

Fin's onyx eyes immediately found her, noting the confusion in her face, the way her sword hung in her hand at her side. Somehow, even with his appearance so sinister, she noted the surprised jolt through him when he saw her.

"Well, Dessa, I didn't expect you here," he told her after he composed himself.

Betrayal clawed at her throat, her eyes burning with tears. "What...what are you doing here? And why do you look like that? Your eyes...how...?"

"Usually, you're so articulate."

"You've lied to me, Fin. You were my friend."

With the way her voice cracked at the word friend, his onyx eyes flashed before that sinister smile was back in place. "I was never your friend, Dessa Jai Deverell Ayveri. I just had to make sure you never came into your magic like Corliss and Meron's girls did."

That statement, the confidence in his voice held when he said it...it made her burst out laughing. "Well, you're wrong about my magic, Fin. You left the day it finally made its first appearance."

Her shadowfire began to dance around her wrist, weaving through her fingers, setting her sword alight the same way it had in those first few moments it appeared. It became brighter as soon as Elys stepped up to her side and took her hand as it curled around him protectively.

Fin's eyes narrowed as he snarled, scenting the completed mating bond between them. "No."

Dessa grinned as her light and dark magic hummed within her. "Yes."

He shot to his feet, the first bootstep forward sending out a shockwave of dark power. "And now I have another who took that magic from me when it's supposed to be mine. I used Corliss to find it in this world and she took it for herself. Accidentally, of course, but she still took it. She thought she could control it, use it against me and stop me from taking everything from every world I could manage to get to. But I will take everything. Every ounce of life throughout this whole world and all others. Don't think you three and your Seer of Ikreus will be able to touch me. But now that you have your magic, Dessa...and portal magic at that...maybe I could find use for you before I take it as well."

There was an edge to his tone as he spoke about the magic only Dessa, Cleo, and Adeena possessed. A touch of fear that had her thinking it was the very reason he used Corliss to try and find it for him. There could only be two reasons Fin wanted to find it first – it either made him even more powerful than he already was...or it was the one thing that would be able to destroy him.

Fin realized what Dessa heard just as she did.

Cleo appeared on Dessa's other side, her body tensed for a fight. "What happened to not giving everything away, huh?"

Then Adeena was there, weaving her dagger through her fingers with expert skill. "Because we do believe you just made a mistake."

Another step, another rumble of power rattling the city around them, and shadows unlike any of their own appeared around Fin. These shadows, though...well, Dessa and Elys had both seen them through vision and nightmare.

And with one look at each other, they knew what they had to do next.

Hand in hand, their magics combined and billowed out into a ward that both protected everyone else around them. It created not only a protective barrier, but stopped time all together beyond its perimeter. Milena, Eamon, and Archer had started running for them, but were frozen midstride, mouths open as their shouts were cut off. Kav and Malik were the same. Urell and the surviving guardsmen, too. And Ollyn, teeth flashing, the bright embers of fire deep in his throat beginning to glow as he angled toward Fin just as Odanth landed behind him, wings open wide.

The only ones free were Dessa, Elys, Cleo, and Adeena. All four of them standing side by side, facing Fin head on.

Dessa never would have thought she'd see the nightmare she'd been having since she was a child come to life. Even though she was always fearful of it and would wake up screaming at the top of her lungs with no one but Elys able to calm her, she wasn't in that moment. Not when she knew who she had by her side.

She knew what she had to do. What they all had to do.

There was no need to tell Cleo and Adeena either.

Dessa's magic sang inside her, both light and dark, pulling her from between Elys and Cleo and right behind Fin. Shadowfire licked along the blade just before she swung it in a downward arch, aiming to cut clean across his back, but he disappeared within his own shadows before impact could be made.

Fin's shadows stretched out to the walls of the ward. Both Dessa and Elys could feel them trying to find some sort of defection, a crack to make wider, but they were stronger than they ever had been before. Still, they hammered against them, finding no way of escape.

Darkness swept around them, plunging them into an endless night. Dessa blindly stepped backward, reaching out to find any one of them.

"Dessa!" Elys shouted from her left.

"Elys!" she called back, stepping in his direction.

But Fin's deep chuckle resonated around them, making the echoes of her name fall silent.

Dessa's hand locked around someone's arm. Turning, she came face to face with Adeena. Even in that moment, she still couldn't help the shock that went through her, seeing Cleo's face, unmarred by scars. But as soon as she touched her, both of their dark magics seemed to recognize each other.

"My magic," Adeena choked out, gripping Dessa's hand tight. "When he's like this...just shadows...I can't get a hold of his mind. We need him in a physical form and then I can..."

Someone knocked into Adeena's back, making her spin, her hand jutting out to grab onto their throat. As soon as she recognized Cleo, emerald and onyx eyes bright with fear and fury, she dropped it, grabbing onto her hand.

And then Elys was there at Dessa's side, fingers intertwining with hers.

"There's no way of killing him," he told them. "Not yet. We don't have that power yet."

"So, we get him out of here," Dessa nodded. "Out of Laria and certainly not to our world."

Cleo locked eyes with her. "Your portal magic..."

She nodded again. "Try and get a lock on him and I'll do my best to send him somewhere he can't hurt anyone, where we can keep him until we..."

A deep, dark chuckle echoed around them before Fin's voice sounded in Dessa's ear, so close she felt his warm breath brushing along her skin. "You think you can get rid of me that easily. We'll see."

Dessa's shadowfire shot out of her, catching Fin by surprise even as his own shadows tried to keep him hidden. He appeared just as she turned, trying her best to keep him there.

One thought and he was able to smother them.

"I know that dark magic within you far more intimately than you think I do, Dessa," Fin smiled.

That wasn't going to keep her from trying again.

Dessa launched everything she could at him, just as Elys, Cleo, and Adeena did the same.

Elys tried to slow time around him to hold him in place.

Cleo and her shadows trying to lock around him, too, though unsuccessfully.

And Adeena, her emerald eyes narrowed as she attempted to reach into his mind and torture him.

But time and time again, Fin was able to stop them without even lifting a finger.

Until Elys, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed in fury and determination, ran straight at him, tackling him to the ground.

"Elys, don't!" Dessa screamed, running toward where they landed.

He aimed a punch right to Fin's jaw, the cracking of bone echoing around them. Punch after punch, Elys tried to take him down with just strength instead of magic, but all it did was bloody his knuckles.

Then Fin's laugh as his shadows gathered behind Elys, stretching and thinning into what looked like a dark obsidian blade right behind him as he sat up, chest heaving as he reared his arm back once more. But while Elys was finally able to freeze time around Fin, his shadows were still moving.

Dessa instantly knew exactly what was going to happen without having Elys's visions to tell her.

"Elys!"

He heard the panic in her tone, the force of her yanking on their mating bond to try and physically move him. She even used her magic to try, but she still wasn't quick enough. Before he could turn or even move out of the way, the shadow blade plunged through his back and pierced his chest on its way out, going straight through him.

The shadow blade held as he froze, then slowly looked down at it...before it disappeared, leaving a gaping hole in its absence.

Dessa screamed again as she ran as fast as she could to close the short distance between them, feeling his shock and then radiating pain down their mating bond as it shuddered, pulling taunt. With Elys's focus now on the gaping hole in his chest, his hold on his magic completely fell. The ward around them began to crack and even Dessa couldn't manage to keep it up, not when she was still screaming.

Fin disappeared from under him, a sinister smile on his lips as he fell back into the inky blackness of his shadows.

She all but skidded on her knees to where Elys still knelt, his hand lifting to gently touching where his blood poured out from the wound, down the leather of his jacket. With no healing magic of his own, he sat back on his heels, only looking up as Dessa's tearstained face appeared in front of him.

"Oh, gods. Oh, gods!" she cried out, hands covering and trying to put pressure on it. Nothing helped, not when it went straight through him. Eyes wild, Dessa looked at everyone now that the ward was gone, unfrozen. Confusion immediately appeared on their faces with Fin's shadows still encompassing the square.

Until Eamon took one look at Elys, saw Dessa trying her best to do what she could, and started running toward them. "Fucking hell!"

Dessa spun in his direction. "Help him!" she screamed. "You've got to do something! I...I can't! You have to...oh, gods, please!"

Eamon dropped in front of them, one of his hands curling around the back of Elys's neck, holding him steady as the other covered the hole in his chest. As soon as he touched it, his hands began to glow with healing magic, though not as strong as Dessa's mother's or grandfather's.

Elys slumped forward against his best friend since childhood, forehead leaning against his shoulder. "It's not going to work," he mumbled against Eamon's jacket. "So...stop."

"I'm not stopping, asshole," he growled back at him. "Just let me..."

But then Elys covered his hand with his own, managing to pull it away. "Eamon, stop."