With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 25
It was a thousand times worse than when she’d cut off her wrecked car to escape the Rider. The little coupe had been only a fraction of her total magic, but Alberich was everything. There was no part of her that was not also part of him, but Lola had never been just a changeling. Even with Alberich digging into her stomach, her sister’s thread was pulling on Lola’s wrist. Her human, mortal sister, who was now falling into a very mortal death.
Lola didn’t know if that would be enough to make the difference, but unlike everything else in her life, her thread had always been her own. It was her constant, the one thing that never changed no matter what shape she took. Not even Victor had been able to break it, so Lola put all her faith in it now as she cut herself free of Alberich’s control and lunged at the king’s throat.
There was barely anything left of her by the time she got there. She was even tinier than the cat she’d left on Victor’s bed. That should have made it easier for Alberich to stop her, but the Nightmare King was hardly at his best, and tiny wisps of gossamer took a lot more control to grab than big ones. He still tried, lashing at her with his bloody hands, but Lola was faster, spinning what was left of herself in a circle to wrap her silver thread around his neck.
The king had a much easier time grabbing that. Just like Victor, he’d always been able to move her thread, but that was back when the other end had been tied to a living person. Now, thanks to the bloody hole he’d put in her sister, Lola’s silver thread had the weight of all mortality pulling on it, giving her the strength she needed to drag the king down with her to the place all humans eventually went.
Down into death.
Chapter 16
“What did you do?”
Alberich ripped himself out of the silver noose Lola had wrapped around his neck, stumbling across the uneven ground as he gaped at the endless darkness that now stretched over their heads. He turned to stare at Fenrir next, his golden-tanned face turning purple as he realized what had happened.
“You dragged us under the Sea of Magic?”
Lola was as surprised as he was. The whole thing had been her idea, but she was still shocked that it had worked. She was back in the darkness of her sister’s death. She was even back to her normal size, wearing the standard t-shirt and leggings combo she always defaulted to when she wasn’t paying attention. That attack couldn’t have gone better if she’d had a month to plan it.
Her only regret was that her sister had had to die to make it happen. But while Lola would have traded every bit of Alberich’s gossamer for even one more of her sister’s breaths, she wasn’t unhappy with this ending. Alberich was the one who’d stolen her sister in the first place. It was only fair that she should be the one who ended him for good.
Lola was still smiling at the fittingness of that when Alberich’s sharp fingers dug into her shoulder.
“Take me out of here,” he ordered, his golden eyes burning like embers. “Now.”
Lola looked down her nose at him as she said the best word in the universe.
“No.”
“Do you not understand what you have done?” he roared. “Your little stunt left my head unguarded in Morgan’s barrow! You’re my gossamer! If she eats me, you’re dead too!”
“I don’t care,” Lola said, shoving him away. “You killed my sister’s body. You helped Victor kill her soul! I wouldn’t normally consider you or Victor worth anyone’s life, but I’ve already lost everything, so I don’t care anymore. I hope Morgan does eat you! At least then something good will have come out of this.”
“You think Morgan is good?” Alberich scoffed. “She married me.”
“At least she was smart enough not to help Victor become a god,” Lola snapped back. “But none of that matters anymore, does it? Even if Morgan decides to mount your head on her wall, you’re never leaving this place. The only way I’ve ever gotten out of here was through my sister, and you killed her.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Alberich said, tapping his curled-toe boot on the ground. “I might not be human, but I understand enough of their magic to know that deaths don’t stick around for long after the body gives up the ghost. Since this place isn’t crumbling beneath our feet, there must still be some life in that corpse yet. Life she’ll quickly lose when Morgan goes digging after my head.”
Lola’s hopes skyrocketed for a moment before she got a hold of herself. “Even more reason to keep you down here,” she said stubbornly. “If my sister did survive your murder attempt, I’d much rather leave her in Morgan’s hands than yours. Unlike you, the queen understands finesse. I bet she could get your head out without hurting my sister at all.”
“To what end?” Alberich snapped, losing his patience again. “We’re still talking about an empty shell. Only an idiot would throw their life away for that.”
“Then I’m an idiot,” Lola said, crossing her arms over her chest. Then she smiled. “Which makes you the fool who got killed by an idiot.”
She expected Alberich to rage at that—it was a big part of why she’d said it—but the king just pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I never figured you for the revenge-over-survival type,” he said, sounding legitimately frustrated. “But before you gloat too much about feeding my head to my oldest enemy, I’d remind you that Morgan will not kill the blood mage. Even after consuming my fantastic power, she’s too much of a coward. She’s not like us.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Lola snarled, but the king just rolled his golden eyes.
“Don’t be stupid. I saw your doppelganger. Now that you’ve made a life, even that silly little one, you know perfectly well that they are us. Just as she came from you, you came from me. You’re my gossamer, my magic. All of your rebelliousness, your tricks and clever plans, they’re all reflections of mine. That must be why Morgan’s taken such a shine to you. You remind her of me.”
Lola wasn’t dignifying that with a response when Alberich’s look turned sly. “I’ve always respected myself,” he said, his eyes gleaming like golden knives as he crept closer. “So how about this? You get me out of here before the corpse upstairs finishes kicking the bucket, I’ll get my head out the slow way that doesn’t involve tissue damage, and then we’ll go kill Victor together. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“It sounds like stupidity,” Lola told him bluntly. “You heard what Morgan said. Even if you put on your head, you can’t beat Victor.”
“You only think that because he’s been brainwashing you to think he’s invincible your entire life,” Alberich argued. “I’m sure all that ‘I never lose’ garbage sounds like truth when you’re stuck in his matrix, but anyone with actual power knows that’s not how it works. Nobody wins forever. Like everything else about him, Victor’s godhood is a scam. He’s playing the whole world for fools, but I can break his ruse. He got his power by slaying me, but if I show up again stronger than ever, everyone will see his hero act for the paper-thin sham it is. That’s the difference between a true king and a false one. My power doesn’t go away when I get beaten. You’re the living proof of that, so why don’t we help each other out?”
“Because I’m not giving Victor another damn thing,” Lola said, planting her feet stubbornly on the scratched-up stone. “Maybe your grand return could knock him off his pedestal, but if you put on your head and lose, Victor gets to add an entire fairy kingdom to his kill sheet. There’s no way I’m handing him a victory like that. Even if your win was guaranteed, though, I still wouldn’t help you.” She bared her teeth. “You’re the monster who stole my sister.”
“Sister, sister, sister!” Alberich cried, throwing up his hands. “You know perfectly well that’s not what she is, so stop acting like a martyr and use your common sense. That thing you call ‘sister’ never even knew you existed. You think her emptiness is a new thing? She’s been that way for decades, and I would know. I’m the one who hollowed her out.”
Lola went stone-still, staring at him as the ringing in her ears got louder and louder.
“You’re lying.”
“I can’t lie,” he reminded her, pointing at his sharp teeth. “Actual fairy, remember?”
“It has to be a lie,” Lola insisted, clenching her fists. “Maybe she’s empty now, but I know what I felt. I know she was there when—”
“You felt what you wanted to feel,” Alberich said dismissively. “The petty imaginings of a lonely, desperate child, but what else did you expect? You’re a changeling. You were made for delusion.”
“She was there,” Lola insisted, throwing up her hand so the king could see the silver thread that still, even now, glowed like moonlight around her wrist. “I’ve felt her my entire life! I took control of Fenrir by entering her nightmare! How was that possible if she was already empty?”
“Because it was never her nightmare,” the king replied with a sly smile. “Would you like to know what you actually felt that night?”
That was a trap if Lola had ever heard one, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering, and from the gleam in his eyes, Alberich knew it.
“I can feel your curiosity,” he taunted in a sing-song voice. “How about we make a bargain? I’ll tell you the truth about your sister, and then we’ll revisit how you feel about helping me kill Victor.”
“It won’t change anything,” Lola warned. “I can’t possibly want to kill Victor more than I do right now, but I’ll never trade my sister for him.”
“We’ll see about that,” Alberich said, taking a seat on the ground and patting the stone beside him. When Lola didn’t move, he shrugged and started talking.
“A little over twenty years ago, I was languishing under my wife’s most unjust imprisonment when a human mage suddenly appeared in my court. I was bored out of my skull, so instead of feeding him to my trolls, I agreed to hear him out. He told me he knew about all the changelings I was making to keep my kingdom fed through the barrier of my wife’s cruelty, and he had a proposition. I would give him a changeling of his own, and in return, he would help me escape.”
“I already know that part,” Lola said impatiently.
“No, you don’t,” Alberich said. “You’ve never met another of your kind, so you assume all changelings are like you, but that’s highly incorrect. Changelings are stupid: lumps of magic given just enough intelligence to imitate a baby. Most never even learn to speak, and why should they? Their only purpose is to distract busy parents from realizing their actual child’s been stolen until it’s too late.”
“But—”
“If they hadn’t been the only spell I could squeeze through Morgan’s barrier, I wouldn’t have bothered,” the king said right over her. “Have you ever tasted a baby’s dream? They’re disgusting. Nothing but base-level instincts. You might as well feed off a dog.”
He stuck out his tongue with a retch and continued.
“Because the sustenance provided by changelings was so meager, I had to send out hundreds to keep my kingdom functional, and I put no more effort into each one than was absolutely necessary. Of course, I wouldn’t have had to make such massive batches if I’d been able to establish a breeding population, but thanks to my darling wife’s betrayal, my barrow had been pushed so far away from the human plane that all the children I did manage to bring back inevitably died within the first few years.”
“Wait,” Lola said, voice shaking. “They all died?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” the king told her with a callous shrug. “Not that I care about human lives, but given how labor intensive it was to sneak them in, I wanted my stock to live as long as possible. Alas, their little souls just couldn’t hold on when taken so far from the Sea of Magic. It wasn’t a huge problem—there are always more humans—but it was just so much work for so little reward.”
He sighed dramatically. “I thought I’d be stuck on the changeling treadmill forever, but the blood mage offered a unique solution. He would take one of my tragic charges back to the living world with him and use his unique control over human souls to merge its dying life with the changeling that had replaced it. That way, I’d still have access to all its life-sustaining dreams while Victor got a gossamer slave to use as he saw fit. It was the perfect answer to both our problems, and do you know who that little hybrid was?”
Lola clenched her jaw.
“You!” he cried, throwing his hands over his head as if she’d just won a game show. “No longer did I have to choke down toddler nightmares about potty training. I had my very own blood-magic enhanced super changeling who grew and cried and feared just like a real human. Better than human! Your gossamer-tinted dreams were stronger than anything actual mortals could produce, and you were so afraid. Your intense terror of Victor kept my court fed for years. You’re the one who gave me the strength to create the Fenrir nightmare and broadcast it out to millions of people. Truly, none of this would have been possible without your help. That’s why it hurts so much to see you turn against me. I’m the closest thing to a father you’ve got.”
Alberich gave her a mournful look, but Lola just squeezed her fists tighter. “What about the girl?”
“What girl?”
“My sister!” she yelled. “The girl you hollowed out! I remember being in the hospital before Victor found me. You said real changelings were brainless, but my thread was my treasure even back then. I know my sister was on the other end! What did you do to her?”
“You are her, stupid,” Alberich said, rolling his eyes. “What part of ‘merge’ did you not understand? We took the oldest child I’d stolen that was still viable, scooped out her soul, wrapped it in blood magic, and then Victor carried it back to the real world, where he mashed it into your gossamer. The only reason you think you have a sister is because Victor made her up. We needed to give you something to believe in so you’d reinforce the bond back to your human body, which was still locked up in my barrow. I also needed a way to access your dreams.”
Lola looked at her gleaming thread in horror. “This sent you my dreams?”
“Like sipping cider through a straw,” Alberich assured her with a lick of his lips. “You wouldn’t believe how much magic I pulled through that silver wire, though I did also have to suffer your trite emotional babble.” His face shifted into a mockery of her own. “Oh, sister, I promise I’ll save us! Everything’s going to be okay!”
He was crying huge fake tears when Lola snapped. “If she was never real, why did my thread move when I talked to her? Why did her hand close around mine?”
“Because you wanted it to,” Alberich said as his face morphed back to its usual boyish smirk. “There was never any sympathizing soul on the other end. That was your body reacting to your stress. Anything more was pure fantasy on your part, but that’s a good thing! Now that you know you are your own sister, you have no reason not to help me.”
Lola gaped at him. “What part of that story was supposed to change my mind? If what you’re saying is true, then that’s my body you were sticking your hands into! If I wasn’t okay with you kidnapping my sister and feasting on her fear, what makes you think I’d be fine with you doing it to me?”
“Because it gets you what you want,” the king replied, hopping nimbly back to his feet. “All this time, you’ve been a brave knight fighting for your innocent, fairy-stolen sister, but that delusion’s over. Now that you know your life is the only one at stake, you’re free to choose how you want to spend it, and with everyone you love already dead, you’ve got no reason not to help me destroy the man responsible.”
That was horrible logic, but Lola couldn’t look away. “Could you…” She stopped to swallow against the tightness in her throat. “Could you really kill him?”
The fairy king’s lips peeled back to show his dagger-sharp teeth, which Lola realized for the first time were just like her creature’s. “Give me my head, and I will rip him to pieces.”
Lola took a deep breath. She’d never wanted anything like she wanted Victor to suffer for what he’d done, but this was asking a lot. She wouldn’t have even considered it back when she’d thought her sister was depending on her, but now…
She glanced over her shoulder at the tangle of silver thread that was lying on the ground exactly as it had been when she’d come here with the DFZ. She followed the gleaming trail with her eyes, tracing it back to the small shape she could just make out lying motionless in the dark. Back to herself, Lola realized with a jolt. That was her human side lying collapsed on the stone. Her soul waiting inside her death, just like Simon’s had been.
That thought reminded Lola of the argument they’d had when she’d tried to convince Simon to leave with her. She’d been so mad at him for telling her no, but now Lola understood. Simon hadn’t turned her down because he was bent on revenge. He’d done it because what she’d offered wasn’t rescue. She’d been running away.
Shame began to burn on Lola’s cheeks. All this time, she’d told herself she was being brave and selfless, ignoring her hatred of Victor to focus on saving the people she loved, but that wasn’t how this worked. She’d said it herself to Morgan just a few minutes ago: Victor was never going to quit. It didn’t matter how far they ran or how well they hid. If Victor wasn’t stopped, nothing would change. He’d proven that when he’d tried to shove the pill into Lola’s mouth back in his death. So long as he was alive, none of them would ever be free. He would just keep stomping on them—stomping on everyone—forever.
Alberich was no better. Even if he did beat Victor, he’d just go right back to terrorizing the planet. Any way she looked at it, they were screwed, but for the first time in her life, Lola had something she could do about that.
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all, “but the answer is still no.”
Alberich looked at her like she was insane. “You can’t be serious. Were you even listening to me just now?”
