Shattered Silence

We find the village where we are supposed to meet Rowena in chaos. Houses are ablaze and terrified Ordinaries run through the streets screaming. There are two fire daemons here, and serpent Shifters. I trade a grim look with Lathan and then move into the fray. I know he's here. I can sense his slithery, cold magic against my skin. Zorak. I follow the trail of his magic and find him cornering a family who was trying to flee behind their house. He's only partially Shifted; a Cobra fan protrudes around his head and when I call his name he turns and hisses with a long forked tongue.

"Stop, Zorak," I say. "This is not what Jeremiah wants."

"I don't answer to that fool," he spits. "He is too weak to do what must be done. We must show these pitiful, fragile creatures who really owns this world."

"You will not hurt these people." I draw my dagger and he laughs, the sound like rattling bones. "Are you going to stop me, little princess?"

I push my hood back and look him in the eye. "Yes."

He moves faster than a blink. He pins me against the wall of the building, his hand wrapped around my throat. "After I devour these rats I will enjoy picking my teeth with your bones, elf."

I bring my dagger up into his side and he jerks away, hissing. His black eyes are hard and glittering with malice as he backhands me across the face. I taste blood in my mouth and spin back around, sinking the blade into his hand as he prepares to strike me again. It pierces all the way through his palm. He howls and pulls away, blood pooling at his feet.

"Want to play, do you?" His body seems to ripple, and then his Shift completes. He truly is at least sixty feet long. His tail whips, and I fly through the wall of the building behind me. I groan and struggle to sit up among the rubble. The Ordinary family tried to run while Zorak and I fought, but he's separated the youngest child from the others. I spring to my feet and fling my dagger. It sinks into his face, below his eye. He writhes and twists, jerking his head back and forth. I take advantage of his distraction to snatch the child into my arms. I shove her at her father. "Run!" I shout. Something heavy slams into me and I'm pinned to the ground.

"I am going to rip your flesh from your body piece by piece!" Zorak's voice thunders in my ears as he wraps me tightly in his coils. I feel my ribs crack and arms break and I scream once before it becomes a struggle to breathe..

"I hope you're ready to die, she-elf." His head darts down towards me, and I'm certain this is the end. Then I feel another magic in the air. Zorak's fang misses my throat, but pierces through my shoulder. Everything grows hazy as black spots dance in front of my eyes. The crushing pressure on my chest eases and I find myself floating weightlessly.

"I suggest you run, Zorak, or I'll be skinning myself a snake and stringing your hide up for all the world to see." Lathan's voice. But it sounds far away, so far away. I hear other voices too, but I'm slipping away into darkness and don't hear what they say.

"Stay with me, Kalix," Lathan whispers. "Stay with me."

I try, but the blackness rushes over me in a wave and then there is nothing.



Silence. It's all I know for a long time. I drift on a tide of dark silence until I forget everything else. There is no pain, there are no memories. There's nothing at all until, suddenly, there is. Something stirs against the edges of my mind, gaining momentum. Then I slam back into myself, and feeling and memory batter against me, and after that a horrible, sick realization. The force pushing me into consciousness is magic. The casting of it and the undoing of it.

The wards around the keep have shattered.



I'm outside the keep when I fully awake. I remember hearing Lathan's voice in my head, and I remember screaming and cold and now I feel sun on my face as my eyes inch open. I'm lying on the ground high on a hill. I struggle to sit up, and my heart stops. Bloody, battered, and bruised, the rebellion has been significantly depleted. They sit together, Thira doing her best to tend to the wounded. Daphne, Rowena, and Geneva assist her and I feel a burst of gratitude that they made it out alive. Ardor and even Jeremiah are being treated for what appear to be severe injuries.

"Kalix!" Tristan is running to me, and heads turn in my direction. Tristan pulls me into his arms and I wince. Elves are much more durable than humans, but the fight with Zorak inflicted a lot of damage.

"Mathias?" I whisper. Pain flashes through Tristan's eyes. "He found us. It happened without warning. He brought all manner of Cuffed Others with him and broke through the wards."

"How many did we lose?" My voice sounds hollow and my throat feels raw.

"Too many." He gestures for me to follow him and we peer over the hill into the valley where the keep was.

"No," I breathe. "No." I jerk away from Tristan and run down the hill. He shouts after me but the soldiers are all gone now. My legs are still wobbly and unsure from all my time asleep, and I fall halfway down the hill and land hard on my side at the bottom. It wasn't enough for Mathias to invade the keep and slaughter us. He had to go a step beyond, by displaying our dead instead of burning them.

Huge wooden stakes were driven into the ground, and the bodies of the murdered Others were flung upon them, their spines bent at hideous angles while their bloodied, dead faces stared at the world upside-down. I tremble as tears steak down my face. I walk through this macabre graveyard, searching the faces. We lost Sanura, and a host of other witches. We lost almost all the humans, though I'm relieved not to see Hayden's face among the fallen. Tuulikki's father is, however. Then I see them. Clustered together with three to a pole. Children. Mathias took some of the children. I scream and fall to my knees, not caring about the blood that soaks into my clothes. Twelve children.

One of them is Hanna, the sweet wolf Shifter who idolized Rune. Her face is frozen in a look of hopelessness and the wooden stake has nearly cut her small body in two. I retch even though there is nothing in my stomach. My shoulders heave and my body is racked with sobs. Finally the shaking subsides, and I stand. My tears feel hot on my face but my heart is cold. I walk out of the Forest of the Dead and find Tristan, Rune, and Lathan waiting for me.

"Why didn't he come for us?" I ask. "He had to know we were up on that hill."

"He thinks he's won. That he's bested us and we'll give up now," Lathan says.

"Then we need to show him he's wrong." I brush past them and march up the hill. "You got my weapons out, I assume?" I ask Tristan when they catch up to me. He nods.

"We can't hide anymore," I burst out. "We need to take this fight to Mathias, end it now. We can't keep living this way."

"Kalix, we're all injured. Even you're not up to your full strength after what happened with Zorak. And we've lost so many-"

"That's why we need to fight back!" Everyone is watching me now. "He's driven us from our homes, killed our families, massacred our children. He thinks we're weakened by this attack. He thinks we'll slink away into dark corners and be forgotten. But he's wrong! This attack should only strengthen our resolve. Everyone down there died because they were here fighting for our future. They were here because they had hope. If we admit defeat then they have died in vain. We have to fight for them. We have to end this reign of terror, for them."

"I'm with you," Rune says, coming to stand beside me. Tristan and Lathan join her and soon everyone who is strong enough to stand is on their feet, grim determination on their faces. Jeremiah looks pale and his wing is bandaged, but I see pride in his eyes as he looks at us.

"We take this fight to Mathias when we've all regained our strength," Lathan declares. "He thinks we're beaten and he won't expect us to rally now."

"This is likely a suicide mission," Hayden points out. "Our numbers are much smaller now."

"Plus Mathias controls high level demons," Ardor says. "If we kill him we'll unleash them."

"We don't need to kill him," I say. "We only need to sever his control over the Soul Eaters They'll destroy him for us. Then we send them back into the Dark Realm. We still have witches who are strong enough to do it."

"And we can find others," Rowena says. "I know of some powerful witches who have remained in hiding, but they'll help us now."

"And I can help." Ashira spreads her wings, silver eyes glowing. "These four will come with me while the rest of you regain your strength."

"Where are we going?" Rune asks.

"There are other creatures as old as daemons," Ash says. "Creatures whose power is almost unrivaled. It's time to find them. We are going, shadow-girl, to wake the dragons."