With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 11
“But you do think it’s there,” Lola confirmed.
“Without a doubt,” he said fiercely. “A barrow is a fairy’s absolute domain. There is nowhere safer, which is why I took the risk. A very expensive risk, it turned out.”
He conjured a white handkerchief to wipe the blood off his temple, but Lola was tapping her fingers on the table.
“Could you try again?”
“Not on your life,” the knight huffed. “Do you not see me bleeding?”
“I didn’t mean right now,” she said quickly. “But getting a fairy’s head means you control that fairy, right? That’s what Victor did to Morgan.”
“It’d be much more than that,” Tristan assured her. “For all his delusions of godhood, Victor’s only human. All he could do with Morgan’s head was lock it in a box. If my queen got her hands on Alberich’s head, she’d eat it in one gulp, take command of the Wild Hunt, and this whole idiocy would be over.”
That was grislier than Lola had imagined, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. All fairies, even Tristan, got their power from eating other fairies. Lola normally found that gross in the extreme, but she would have paid money to watch Morgan eat Alberich right now, and from the gleam in his eyes, so would Tristan.
“Want me to try going in?” she offered. “You’ve seen how good I am at sneaking into barrows. His monsters attacked you because you’re an invader, but I’m one of them. They probably wouldn’t even notice me.”
“Absolutely not,” Tristan said, pointing at his battered armor. “What part of how I look right now makes you think this is something you want to do?”
“Want has nothing to do with it,” Lola said angrily. “You just told me that if we steal Alberich’s head and feed it to Morgan, we could turn this whole thing around. Without the Wild Hunt, Victor’s got nothing to fearmonger against. People will stop listening to him, which means his Hero act will stop working, including the bane. If we move fast enough, we might even be able to stop this before Alberich reaches the DFZ!”
Tristan looked appalled. “Why would you want to do that? Keeping the Wild Hunt from biting our heads off is one thing, but don’t you want Alberich to kill Victor?”
Not if it meant Valente died, too.
“The only thing I want is for all of this to stop,” Lola said, reaching out to grab his hands. “Don’t you see? Alberich’s head is our ticket out of this mess! If you know it’s in his barrow, let’s go get it!”
Her hopes rose like a rocket as she spoke. This was the solution she’d been searching for. If she could get her hands on the king’s head, the Wild Hunt would be over, which meant no one had to die! There’d be no fight for Valente to throw, and while Simon would still be stuck, Lola was sure Victor wouldn’t kill him until he’d completely given up on his apprentice embracing his dark ways, which he never would because Victor’s entire schtick was that he never lost.
That was what made this plan so perfect. She’d already accepted that she couldn’t beat Victor at his own game, but she could remove his chance to play. Heroes were useless if they had no one to fight. It was the same trick she’d pulled when she’d walked Fenrir away, only better, because this time she could actually save people! She was feeling dizzy from all the possibilities when Tristan burst her bubble.
“You can’t sneak to Alberich’s barrow.”
“What?” Lola cried. “Why not?”
“Because you’re made from his gossamer,” the knight explained, giving her a look that said this should be obvious. “He’d freeze you before you even found the door.”
Given how many times Alberich had appeared out of nowhere and done just that, Lola couldn’t say he was wrong, but there was no way she was throwing in the towel yet. “Then I’ll feed you dreams until you’re well enough to go back in,” she said stubbornly. “We can’t give up!”
“That’s not your call to make,” the knight said firmly, extricating his fingers from her grasp. “I serve my queen, and she’s already decreed that we were only trying this once. We always knew it was a long shot, but while I appreciate your willingness to be my battery, I can’t allow myself to get this injured again. Alberich’s Hunt will be arriving any day now. If I’m not in fighting shape when it does, we lose all hope of beating him.”
“You won’t have to beat him if we get his head,” Lola argued, clasping her hands together. “Please, Tristan! Just give it one more—”
“No,” he said sharply, his voice harder than Lola had ever heard it. “I know what a coup getting his head would be. That’s why I risked myself in the first place, but it didn’t work. Alberich’s Hunt might be riding through the sky, but his Underground Kingdom is still enormous and filled with monsters, including ones big enough to eat me down until I’m nothing but a head myself. I won’t make that sacrifice. Not when I finally have my queen back, and not for a fear-drunk fool like Alberich.”
Lola dropped her eyes. She couldn’t blame Tristan for not wanting to die over this, but it was just so bitter. She hadn’t even realized Alberich had a head twenty minutes ago, but now she felt like she’d lost everything all over again. She tried telling herself that it was fine, that nothing had really changed, but her mouth still tasted like ash when Tristan finally hauled himself out of his chair.
“I have to go to bed,” he said, yanking his black-tarred sword out of the carpet so he could use it as a crutch. “Please don’t leave the barrow again.”
Lola went still. Tristan had told her once that fairies only slept when they were on death’s door. If he was going to bed, he must be even more injured than he looked.
That wouldn’t do. Tristan was her friend, not to mention his barrow was the only thing keeping the Rider from hauling her back to Victor. Fortunately, this was the one problem Lola did have the power to fix. Her dreams were fairy superfood. That was the whole reason Tristan had come in and discovered her doppelganger in the first place. But when she opened her mouth to make the offer, Tristan was already shaking his head.
“Not to sound ungrateful, but I’m afraid I must decline,” he said, stabbing his sword into the floor again to push himself to his full height. “Even wounded fairies have their standards, and given the way you’re looking, I don’t think you have any dreams I’d enjoy eating at the moment.”
Lola flinched like she’d been burned. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand his logic—one of the reasons she’d always liked Tristan was because he didn’t feed on fear and misery—but the rejection still stung. She knew she wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine at the moment, but Tristan didn’t look like he was in any state to be turning down food.
Maybe that was the reason, though. Tristan had always said her dreams were peaceful, but between losing her chance at Alberich’s head and her worry over Valente, Simon, her sister, and everything else, Lola’s mind was anything but. For all she knew, eating her dreams in this state would make Tristan’s injuries worse, not better. He was just looking out for himself by turning her down, but that didn’t make her feel like any less of a failure as the knight limped out of the room.
“Seems like no one wants my help tonight,” she muttered, turning back to her sister. “But I am going to save you. I don’t care how long it takes. I will figure out how to wake you up, and then we’re going to work together to make this right. We’re going to save everyone, just you wait and see.”
She finished with a smile so forced it was more like a grimace, but her sister remained as still as ever on the mattress, her breaths rising and falling silently below Buster, who was sleeping in a ball on her chest.
Chapter 8
The Black Rider stood in the wreckage of what had been a perfectly nice hotel room in Troy, Michigan, his reflective visor flicking in and out of the light from broken fixture swinging overhead. At his feet was a journalist, one of the thousands who’d flooded the ring of suburbs around the demolished DFZ since Fenrir’s rampage. The difference was that this journalist had had the poor judgment to write a piece critical of the Hero. Now, he was a stain on the hotel carpet, another victim of the Rider’s reign of terror.
Valente turned his helmet away from the sight. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to this particular room or how the man had died. That happened sometimes when he fought his oaths. He could refuse to come along for the ride, but his body always obeyed, leaving him blinking in the aftermath of atrocities he didn’t remember committing.
He wasn’t sure which was worse, knowingly doing Victor’s dirty work or waking up to the evidence, but he hated himself harder each time it happened. He’d killed more people in the past three weeks purging the Hero’s critics than he ever had back when Victor was merely a blood mage.
The Black Rider’s rampage would have been major news even outside the DFZ if the Hero and the Wild Hunt hadn’t been dominating every headline. But just because the talking heads weren’t talking about him didn’t mean people weren’t paying attention. Valente had already noticed that no one whipped out their phones for selfies when he rode by anymore. These days, they mostly just ran, usually screaming for the Hero to save them. The same “Hero” who kept his Rider busy 24-7.
If only they knew, Valente thought bitterly, stepping away from the red wetness that was rapidly spreading through the carpet. No one would follow Victor if they could see what he really was. But while the evidence was certainly there, the voices willing to call it out were growing fewer and fewer thanks to Jamie’s PR push and Victor’s media allies.
That pressure was enough to kill most stories, and for those reporters who still managed to slip a scoop through the cracks, there was the Black Rider. He paid a visit to anyone who dared speak the truth, keeping the Hero’s image bright and shiny in the public’s eyes. Their glorious savior, just as Victor liked it.
Shaking his helmet in disgust, the Rider went into the tiny bathroom for a towel to scrub the blood off his clothes. He always cleaned up before leaving a job, but his old habit was just that these days—a habit—because no matter how hard he scrubbed, the blood no longer came off.
That was only natural. His leather riding suit wasn’t actually clothing unless he was wearing his head. Without it, his body was just a shadow. All shadows were cast by something, though, and Valente knew from the dark blotches he could see even against the black leather of his gloves that he was stained beyond redemption.
His only comforts were that it’d be over soon, and that Lola wasn’t around to see him like this. Valente could scarcely stand to look at himself, turning away from the bathroom mirror as he removed his empty helmet to clean the blood that had dripped into the visor. He was vowing to stay in his head and make it less messy next time when the summons roared into his mind.
Come!
The command landed so hard he stumbled. He caught himself on the bathroom counter and pulled out his phone, which was buzzing wildly as a stream of text messages came in.
Get back here now.
My office, front receiving room.
Don’t be seen.
Valente put his helmet back on with a silent sigh. This was the third emergency summons he’d gotten this week. For an all-powerful Hero, this Victor sure seemed to need the Rider’s services a lot more than the old one. He was pushier, too, yanking the oaths in Valente’s mind to send his Black Rider scrambling out of the hotel room and into the hallway full of terrified people peeking through the cracks in their doors to see what the screaming had been about.
Their stares dug into Valente’s corrupted gossamer, but everyone believed in the Black Rider these days, so he barely felt it. He was just grateful no one tried to stop him as he ran down the fire escape and hopped onto the silent motorcycle he’d summoned by the exit, tearing off through the rows of emergency shelters Homeland Security had set up in the hotel parking lot.
Like everywhere that touched the DFZ’s border, Troy, Michigan, was crammed with refugees who’d lost their homes to Fenrir. Even with his magical bike, the streets were barely passable, forcing Valente to ride on sidewalks and over parked cars. The moment he crossed the city limit, though, a ramp rose out of nowhere to meet him.
Valente took it with a heavy heart. He still didn’t understand how things had ended up this way, but the Living City absolutely belonged to Victor now. Even with fallen highways still lying on top of her neighborhoods and only a quarter of her population back in their homes, she always found time to make straight roads for the Hero’s servants. The shortcuts were the only reason Valente had been able to keep up with Victor’s increasingly insane demands, but he still felt bad every time he took one. It just didn’t seem right that a spirit as free as the Detroit Free Zone should be bent to Victor’s will.
She’d even built him a skyscraper. None of the other reconstruction had made it past the old Skyways yet, but the Hero’s Tower shot out of the ruined city like a gleaming, golden sword. It was as tall as the Dragon Consulate used to be, but much more heavily fortified. The walls were made from solid granite covered in gold-painted steel plates, and every window opened so that the mages inside could attack the Wild Hunt in the sky if needed. There was even a giant square out front specifically designed so the Hero could battle the city’s enemies without causing further damage, though it was mostly used for Victor’s press conferences and greeting his adoring public.
There were a lot of them. The streets around Hero’s Tower had been turned into a tent city for Victor’s die-hard fans, and not just the ones who thought they owed him their lives. The grateful crowd was still there, but Victor’s constant preaching about no longer bowing to spirits and dragons had won over a new sort of follower. The kind that packed his square with HUMANITY FIRST signs and anti-dragon symbols that hadn’t been seen since Algonquin ruled the city.
Even this early on an icy November morning, the crowd outside Victor’s tower was already two blocks deep. That would have been a problem for the Rider, but as ever, the city put the Hero’s needs first. Valente barely caught a glimpse of the people waving signs before the ramp he’d been following suddenly dipped underground, leading him down an orange-lit tunnel that definitely hadn’t been there yesterday.
The new ramp dropped him straight into the tower’s underground parking deck. He vanished his bike as soon as he arrived, striding up the stairs that connected the parking level to the elegant lobby. This put him shoulder to shoulder with the crowd of red-coated mages that seemed to get thicker every day. But unlike normal DFZ citizens who cowered at the sight of the Black Rider, Victor’s minions didn’t even notice him. Their eyes passed right over, nudged away by the pills that gave them their power. They would have walked right into his chest if Valente hadn’t been so quick on his feet, dancing through the packed lobby to the key-carded, warded elevator that would take him straight to Victor’s office on the top floor.
The command to get to his master’s side was pounding through him like a migraine by the time he finally made it to the penthouse level. He was tempted to charge straight in just to make it stop, but he’d been ordered not to let himself be seen, so he kept to the secret paths, slipping through the hidden door just off the elevator lobby to the secret security room on the other side of the two-way gilt mirror that looked into Victor’s office.
As he stepped up to the glass, Valente saw why his master had yanked his leash so hard. In the palatial room on the other side of the mirror, Victor was sitting at his desk in front of the window that overlooked his fawning masses in the square, and standing before him were two dragons in their human forms and a middle-aged human woman with gray-streaked brown hair.
Like any resident of the DFZ, Valente recognized the shorter dragon immediately. With his bright green eyes and boyish face, it could only be the Peacemaker, the famous Dragon of Detroit. That meant the other green-eyed dragon next to him—the giant one with an equally enormous sword strapped to his back—must be Justin, his fearsome brother-slash-bodyguard.
The Rider took a step back at the sight. Whatever his master might think, Valente was under no illusion that he could take a dragon, much less two. The human he was less sure about. She had to be a mage of some sort given all the spellwork on her clothing, but Valente was too busy staring at the dragons to pay her much attention. He could already feel Victor’s grip on the magic that connected them telling him to get ready, but it wasn’t the dragons who moved first. It was the woman.
“We will not tolerate this,” she said, continuing what was clearly an ongoing complaint. “I don’t know how you tricked the DFZ into taking your side, but you don’t fool us. The Merlin Council doesn’t exist just to protect humanity. We also protect the spirits from tyrants like you! Your proposal to ban all non-blood mages from the city is completely insane. No one will stand for it!”
The cat on her shoulder meowed in agreement, which was a shock since Valente hadn’t realized there was a cat until that moment. He still wasn’t entirely sure, because while the thing with its tail wrapped around the woman’s neck was definitely cat-shaped, its white body was semitransparent, like a ghost’s.
Victor certainly didn’t like it. The moment the cat moved, he’d grabbed Valente’s oaths like an emergency brake. But while his grip was hard enough to choke his knight, Victor’s voice was, as ever, perfectly composed.
“I am not yours to tolerate, Archmage Novali,” he replied dryly. “As for how I ‘tricked’ the DFZ, I assure you I did no such thing. Everyone knows that the soul of a city is her people, and the people’s hearts belong to me.”
He turned in his chair as he spoke, waving at the window overlooking the chanting crowd in the square below. “I’m their Hero,” he said smugly. “The man who saved their city and the entire world, and the only one they trust to do it again. The Wild Hunt is on its way to the DFZ as we speak. So far, I’m the only mage whose magic has proven effective against the Nightmare King’s forces. Do you really need to ask why the Living City chose me over you?”
