His current decision was to make this guy get intimately acquainted with his truck.
The knight looked up at the most unfortunate moment as the truck collided headlong into his pliable form. He went flying, crashed to the ice, and rolled in a crumpled heap.
Aliss trembled. “You just… ran over… Atticus Hatfield….” She seemed in a state of disbelief.
“He’s not dead,” Corentin stated like a fact and popped open his door. With a flick of the wrist, his bow was in his hand. He drew back on the bowstring, and a silver arrow pulled from his fingers. Aliss followed, her cleaver in hand.
Atticus—Corentin committed the name to his empty memory—Atticus pulled himself from the ice and growled a long frosty breath. “How. Dare. You.” Atticus heaved with each breath.
“Yoo-hoo.” A young man whispered dreamily as he slipped out of a pink haze to Atticus’s left. Corentin arched a brow at the curious sleek, spiny black-and-gold armor. This new guy held an enormous bladed lance at Atticus’s throat. “I’ll make you famous.”
Atticus flicked his fingers toward Corentin, and the imperceptible twinkle against the night sky was all Corentin needed to know.
Corentin shoved the dragoon aside, saving him from the flying shards of ice. He then rolled into a crouch and called his bow back to his palm.
Atticus ran, trying to gain distance, but Corentin let a volley of arrows fly as he tried to get out of range. Atticus stumbled as one arrow pierced his armor and stabbed into his shoulder.
Corentin offered his hand to the dragoon and pulled him to his feet.
“You’re alive!” the dragoon said in excitement.
Corentin didn’t return the sentiment as he stepped away, then fired another round of arrows. Using the strength of his will to guide the arrows to their mark, Corentin caught the scent of primroses, and his concentration broke. The arrowheads bounced off Atticus’s armor, and he continued to gain distance on them. Corentin growled at his failure. “You’re letting him get away!”
The dragoon’s lip trembled from under his visor. “You don’t remember….”
Corentin arched a brow, noting the near heartbroken tone in the dragoon’s voice. At a loss for what to say, he felt the faint nag of guilt. Should he know him?
“We’ll figure this out later,” Corentin said, frustrated with the matter at hand. “Right now, you need to help me stop that asshole. You got that…?” He raised his brows and waited for the dragoon to get the hint.
“Taylor,” he said and lifted his visor, his pink eyes watering.
His eyes were fucking
pink
?
Taylor took a slow, sleepy breath as Atticus yanked the arrow out of his shoulder, then let it melt away into liquid silver. “And that is my brother. Atticus Hatfield. He’s trying to kill us all.”
“I tried to kill him with my truck,” Corentin said, aiming his bow high. “Let’s try this again.” He let the arrow fly. It whistled through the air, leaving a sparking silver contrail in its wake. It exploded into the ice in front of Atticus, and the force flung him to his back. Corentin gestured for Taylor to follow him. “Coming?”
Taylor kept the pace as they ran together. “What truck?” he asked, curious.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Corentin hooked a thumb toward the red Ford. “I kind of stole it. But I think it likes me.”
Taylor’s eyes widened, seeming to recognize something. “It
likes
you?”
“We can chat later,” Aliss said, bringing up the rear.
“Will you help me?” Taylor asked Corentin as he dropped his visor over his eyes.
“Do what?” Corentin set his heels into the ice and then skidded as he took aim.
Taylor curled his lips into a serene, dreamy smile. “Make magic.”
May 10
Mississippi River, New Orleans
TAYLOR HAD
to fall back into lucid dreaming state, or he had no hope of stopping Atticus. As Corentin ran alongside him, he was impossible to dismiss from his thoughts. But Corentin had long forgotten about him. He was alive, and that was all that mattered. There would be time later to pick up the pieces of what remained between them.
If anything at all.
Maybe Taylor was the one holding on to something now lost.
Taylor breathed in through his mouth and out his nose. He had to calm down, but instead, his anxiety took hold. Zee twisted inside him, her power building painfully, but without his calmness, she was a ticking bomb. She’d come out of him one way or another, either under his total control, or without and destroying all around them.
Atticus spun about and stomped his foot on the frozen river. Shockwaves of ice burst out in all directions. Taylor grabbed Corentin, then used his lance to pole-vault over the wall of jagged ice. Aliss swung her cleaver, shattering the ice against her great blade.
Taylor set Corentin on his feet.
With a flick of the wrist, Corentin summoned his bow and drew an arrow.
Flecks of light whistled through the air.
“Get down!” Aliss snapped and shoved them both to the river surface. She held her cleaver like a shield over them, and the
tink-tink-tink
of icicles sank into the metal.
Atticus turned, charged for them, and crashed through the icy barrier. Corentin snapped back his bow and let lose an arrow at close range, but Atticus deflected with the broad head of his axe. Atticus took a second swing, but Taylor tackled him at the waist before he could disembowel Aliss. They hit the ice, and Atticus’s axe skidded out of his hand. The weapon dissolved into snowy powder and then melted away.
Corentin and Aliss hurried to Taylor’s side, weapons drawn.
Taylor flung out his hand to halt them. “Get back!” Taylor growled as he kept Atticus pinned to the ice. “It’s going to be okay now.”
Corentin shook his head at Aliss and kept his bow raised.
She eased her shoulders, but kept the grip on her cleaver.
Atticus grunted under Taylor, and summoned ice crystals between his fingers.
Taylor caught the hint as Atticus tried to reform a new axe. “Behave,” Taylor whispered as he slammed his knee into Atticus’s wrist.
Atticus gasped as Taylor ground his knee plate into his hand. His attention shot to Taylor, snapping his teeth as if he could bite his nose off.
Taylor wasn’t having it and summoned his lance. He pressed the shaft across Atticus’s throat. “You need to stop this,” he said softly as he sank into his dream state. Zee quieted and became obedient to her master. “You need to put everything back the way it was.”
“The way it was?” Atticus’s face contorted into a rabid jackal grin. “Before you ruined any chance I ever had of freedom?”
Taylor leaned into his lance, placing more pressure on Atticus’s throat. “You listen to me, you shit,” he whispered. “In no way did I ever ruin your life. That’s so fucking infantile of an excuse that you decided it would be a good idea to destroy a city just to get back at me.”
Atticus hissed for air, his voice raspy as he choked. “You left me, Tay. What was I supposed to do?”
Taylor’s lip quivered and his heart thumped. His concentration wavered. “I didn’t leave you. I never left you,” he said, his voice rising. “Dad made me leave. If you want to be mad at anyone, be pissed at him!” His grip slipped on his lance. “I love you. You’re my brother. You’ve made some mistakes, but you can get better. Let me help you get better.”
With a smirk, Atticus chuckled. “Don’t look up.”
Under the power of suggestion, Taylor did, and an icicle shot directly into his face. The crystal shell of the visor shattered, and Taylor blinked too late as traces of the shards scratched at his eyes. The force shoved him back, and he skidded into Corentin’s grasp. Taylor’s vision hazed with blood and tears. At least the icicle didn’t go into his brain.
“Take him,” Corentin told Aliss.
Taylor blinked against the microscopic shards in his eyes. Everything clouded and ran red.
“Are you okay?” Aliss asked, brushing away the broken crystal from Taylor’s cheeks and hair. “Look at me.”
Taylor pushed Aliss away. His eyes ran in streams of tears and blood. “This is my fight,” he growled over his shoulder. Even with blurred vision, he would end Atticus’s destruction. “I’m good,” he said despite the shattered top half of his helmet. His scraped face reddened against the chill and his hair whipped in the wind.
“Like fuck you are,” Aliss said as she summoned her cleaver from nothing. “The three of us are doing this together. You’re not the only one that lost someone.”
Taylor frowned and focused on Corentin’s blurred outline. She couldn’t be more right. “Then keep up,” he said and dashed away and joined Corentin.
Taylor would always be distracted by Corentin. It was the foundation of their relationship, full of laughter and absurdity. He understood the distraction ran much deeper than that it inhibited his true potential. Not only did Corentin’s curse hold him back, their love for each other held Taylor back. Corentin didn’t know how to tap into the true extent of his magic, and Taylor couldn’t embrace his. But in this moment, they would have to rely on each other.
Just as Corentin let another round of arrows fly, Atticus stomped his foot, sending another row of jagged icicles jutting up from the river. Aliss put herself in front of Taylor and Corentin, then brought her cleaver around in a wide slash. The ice shattered and showered over them in soft puffs of snowflakes.
“Snowflakes?” Aliss shook her hair.
“His concentration’s fading,” Taylor said. “Honeysuckle told me we could harness our full magic as long as we maintained our focus. It breaks if we don’t.”
“What will happen to the snow?” Corentin asked as he took aim at Atticus.
“For the city’s sake, pray to Storyteller it doesn’t melt all at once,” Aliss said and raised her cleaver.
Atticus hesitated, seeming unsure of what to do. He clutched at his hair and shook his head.
“Something’s wrong….” Taylor darted across the ice, with Corentin and Aliss close behind.
With his great axe back in hand, Atticus brought it down against the frozen river. The ice buckled under them, blooming into wide cracks and then snapping apart into tiny islands.
Taylor latched on to Corentin’s wrist as he tried to keep them together. But the ice split between them, and Corentin forced himself out of his grip. “Corentin!” Taylor cried out, reaching for him.
Corentin waved him on. “I need the distance. Only you can get in close. Aliss and I will back you up.”
Taylor shifted his weight on his ice patch. He glanced to Aliss as she supported herself with her cleaver.
“Go,” she said. “Go!”
Taylor took it as a blessing. He braced himself, then sprung forward onto one ice patch, then another. He hopscotched his way toward Atticus. He summoned his lance into his grasp as Atticus smiled up at him.
Atticus swung his axe over his head in a wide arc. Patches of ice came together, reforming into a larger segment. A ring for Taylor and him to settle their differences and declare who was truly the hero of the story.
Taylor understood that Atticus would always be the hero of every fairy tale. Snow White, the Fairest of Them All, brought the witches to their knees. No one protested his rotten, withered soul.
While Taylor’s first choice was anger, his second choice was peace.
His boot heels clicked on the ice, and Atticus wasted no time striking. Taylor raised his lance in defense, and Atticus ground his axe blade into the shaft.
“We’re not doing this, At-At,” Taylor scolded him with a terrible calmness.
Atticus refused to listen. He ducked in low, going for a punch in the gut.
Taylor skipped back and batted the back of Atticus’s fist with the butt of his lance. He wouldn’t use the blades. Enough blood had been spilled, and Taylor didn’t have the right to serve as executioner. He wouldn’t let himself embrace the urge that said he should.
Atticus stumbled one step from the strike, but countered as he swept out Taylor’s feet from under him.
Taylor crashed onto his back and the ice jostled under him. Atticus didn’t spare him a second. There he was, in midswing with his axe. Instinct took hold and Taylor rolled at the last moment. The axe smashed against the ice and shattered into delicate snowflakes. Taylor arched a brow when Atticus seemed confused. His magic was fading.
“Atticus,” Taylor called, his tone gentle. “At-At, you need to stop.”
Atticus’s momentary confusion served to Taylor’s advantage, and he slipped to his feet. He raised his hands toward Atticus and focused on his blurry outline. “You need to stop. You’ve won, okay?” Taylor said it as if he were talking about a game of cards. “I’ve lost something very precious to me, and now I can’t lose you. You need to come back to me.”
Atticus snarled as his clarity returned. “Shut up. That’s you. Always treating me like a child.” He dashed forward, and Taylor slid aside.
Atticus skidded to the very edge of the ice patch. He flung his arms about, propelling him into a turn. Icicles flew from his fingers, and Taylor slipped back left, then right, but got impaled in the arm.
Taylor screamed from the frostbite sinking into his arm. He shivered as he yanked it out from his hardened flesh.
Corentin’s arrows sailed overhead, stabbed into the ice patch between Atticus and Taylor, and then erupted into a brilliant flash.
Atticus screamed at the heat and fell back.
Taylor turned away and shielded his ruined eyes. He returned to his feet, squinting toward Atticus’s silver outline. At least they were now on an even playing field. Summoning his lance, Taylor nudged Atticus to his back.
But Atticus wasn’t as crippled as he let on; he snapped Taylor’s lance out of his grip and sent Taylor toppling over with the momentum.
Atticus was on his feet, and Taylor struggled to stand.
“Stay down!” Atticus snapped and landed a kick square into Taylor’s ribs.
Taylor’s armor took the brunt of the damage, but the impact knocked the wind out of his lungs.
Atticus refused to stop there. He kicked Taylor to his back, then stomped on his chest, pinning Taylor under his boot. Taylor wheezed from the impact, but Atticus refused to relent and jerked Taylor upright by a fistful of hair. He made Taylor meet his gaze. His lilac eyes had turned deranged, and not a shred of empathy showed.