Journey into the Realm: The Stolen Child (Journey into the Realm Series) (28 page)

Element fairies seemed to flood the jungle around us, many already conjuring their element as they appeared. With hardly enough time to react before they were on us, I was quickly overwhelmed by their numbers. Like swarming bees, they were everywhere. Dozens of them.

I watched Eder jump into battle immediately, rocks rising up around him as he began his first attack. As an Element fairy himself, it was strange to see him fight his own kind. But I wasn’t worried about him. Remembering the night on the bridge, when he defeated the water fairy and saved my life, I decided he could hold his own. He had devoted his life to protecting and defending me; he wouldn’t fail.

What Eder had said about wyverns proved to be correct as Ziv took on fairy after fairy. Able to sense friend from foe, he attacked with immense speed and skill for one so young. He bit, scratched, and burned with his deadly fire. He moved too fast for any Element fairy to trap him. I watched with a mixture of horror and amazement as he killed one effortlessly with a few swipes of his claws. I couldn’t believe the efficiency of his attacks. His small size made him an unexpected threat.

Having no weapons of her own, Aimee borrowed Tavis’s bow and arrows. Despite the chaos, she was able to situate herself high up in a tree and shoot from above. I only prayed no Element fairies would discover her vantage point. I didn’t see Princess Glissarie anywhere. I feared the worst, but spending time searching for her would only put my life at risk, so I brought my focus back to the battle.

Rafik and I fought side by side. I caught the whiff of burning flesh as he stabbed a water fairy with his iron sword. Determined not to gag, I held my breath and loosed an arrow toward a fire fairy’s chest. The arrow hit its mark, and for a moment I believed we would actually win this fight with no trouble.

Nearby, Nathan conjured spell after spell, incapacitating every fairy he could. Seeing the effectiveness of his attacks, I was about to put my arrows away and use magic as well when a sudden explosion knocked me off balance. Tavis must have used his ability to kill off a few fairies.

I hit the ground and my vision turned dark for a few moments. I wanted to get up to see how many fairies had been affected by the blast, but I couldn’t seem to make any of my limbs work. My head felt disconnected from the rest of my body, like I was floating somewhere far off in the distance. The languid feeling was almost pleasant. I decided that I didn’t want it to end. My eyes began to close….

A shrill scream was enough to put me back together.
Princess Glissarie
. She was alive, but her cry told me she wouldn’t stay that way if I didn’t come to her aid.

I staggered to my feet and leaned against a palm tree until I could reclaim my balance. Looking around, I realized the force of Tavis’s explosion had carried me quite far from the scene of the battle. I could still hear booms and shouts, but they were now muffled and distant. I couldn’t see Princess Glissarie anywhere.

Another scream pointed me in the right direction. Growing stronger with each step, I made my way past exotic blossoming trees and bushy ferns until I reached a group of seven Element fairies surrounding the Princess. Like always, Glissarie held her mother’s ancient spell book tightly to her chest. Wide-eyed and terrified, she seemed at a loss for how to fight back. I knew she was strong and gifted in magic, so why wasn’t she doing something?

I was about to shout her name when I remembered she was still wearing the guise of Elvina. I couldn’t jeopardize her cover. If we made it out of this alive and Queen Ella received word of her alliance with the rebellion, the Princess would be exiled for committing treason.

“Ramsey!” the Princess cried. “I can’t fight them while holding the book!”

Seeing her dilemma, I realized I would have to take care of the Element fairies myself.

Each fairy turned to face me.

I only had one shot. If I tried to attack them individually, I wouldn’t last long enough to avoid a fatal injury. My caliber of spells didn’t include any that killed or gravely wounded seven fairies at once. But if I didn’t think fast, Glissarie and I would die, and the enemy would have the ancient spell book.

I came to the conclusion that my only option was to access my Golden fairy magic again. I remembered Daur’s warning. I knew it was dangerous to lose control. I knew how I would feel afterward, thoughtless and empty.

I also knew it was the only way to win.

I gathered anger from the spell book, the book that had started the war. I thought of the cruelty of King Vortigern and even Queen Ella for making so many elves and Element fairies live a lie in order to feel powerful. I thought of poor Elvina, with her forged past and uncertain future.

And when that wasn’t enough, I thought of my mother, who in my nightmare had killed the elf I loved in order to claim me as her own. Whose sole purpose for bringing me into the world was to follow a destiny I still didn’t fully understand.

I threw out my arms wildly and screamed, “Current!”

I didn’t even know what
current
meant, where the word had come from, or what it would do. But it worked.

Golden light shot from my fingertips, traveling in waves toward the Element fairies. Glissarie flew out of the way just as the magic collided with the fae. The force of the blow sent each fairy flying backward. The sound of bodies hitting trees made me cringe. As the Element fae dropped to the ground, I realized the glow radiating from them matched the luminescence of my skin. The magic that strengthened me was poison to them. I was poison.

I collapsed as my emotions left me. But the emptiness didn’t last long this time.

Unexpected images of fire, pain, and death invaded my mind. I couldn’t see past my suffering, as though I were truly living it. The years I was bullied in the Human Realm. Eder’s goodbye. The night on the bridge. The wounds I received after I used the Mood Diamond to connect with Zora. The fight in the barn. Finn burning me alive. Finn torturing Zora. Finn attacking Brielle. Daran and Janie’s burned bodies by the willow trees. Ellie as a fire fairy. Ellie hurting Mac. Ellie killing Stellan. Stellan’s ashes. Me killing Finn. Finn dying. Ellie leaving. Stellan’s funeral. The assassin in my bedroom. Losing air as Terra’s rock constricted me. Tavis’s blood darkening the flowers. Nathan with a spear through his abdomen. Eder’s green wings. Seeing Ellie’s wings behind a tree, Finn’s cruel gaze on the face of a rock, Stellan’s ashes in the dirt.

My mother’s hands, wet with Nathan’s blood.

I had been consumed by memories and nightmares.

This must have been what Daur had meant about the consequences of losing control.

Instead of feeling nothing…

…I was feeling everything horrible that had ever happened to me.

Eventually, I couldn’t withstand the torture. I just let go. I had to let go.

***

The first sound I heard upon waking was the kind of guttural yelling I expected from a bull or an angry boar. But when I opened my eyes, there was a huge, stinky beard in my face.

Yes, a beard.

My first reaction was to push the thing off me, and since I wasn’t very strong, I used a spell. “Move!” I cried. It wasn’t just a request.

The bearded thing, whatever it was, flew backward and hit the ground with a
thud
. Satisfied, I rubbed my eyes free of sleep and got up shakily. I was obviously in recovery mode after accessing my Golden fairy magic. Flashes of the painful memories I had experienced nearly made me lose my footing.

“What in the Realm is going on here?” I demanded to know.

There was chatter behind me. I turned around to face a crowd of nearly a dozen stocky, bearded men.

Dwarves
, I realized.
The fairytales have not lied about their appearance.

“What the…?” I trailed off, taking in the sights around me.

Each dwarf had a long beard, a floppy hat, metal armor, and pickaxes in their hands. And they all looked pretty angry. I had probably contributed to that anger by attacking one of their friends.

I scanned the area until I found the screaming dwarf. He was currently picking himself up off the jungle floor, and he looked even more upset than the others. Brushing the stray grass off his armor, he looked up at me with his chubby, hair-covered face and grimaced.

“Oh, boy,” I muttered.

“Ramsey!”

I whirled around to see Nathan, Rafik, Aimee, Tavis, and Ziv approaching. Seven more dwarves had pickaxes pressed against my friends’ throats. Princess Glissarie and Eder were mysteriously absent. I hoped they were all right.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“They showed up after Tavis’s explosion and defeated the Element fairies,” Rafik explained.

“And when we tried to thank them, they threatened us with weapons!” Tavis grumbled.

“They asked for you and Eder, but we had no idea what had happened to either of you,” Aimee said, concern showing on her face.

“So the dwarves canvassed the area until they found you,” Nathan said. “You wouldn’t wake up, hence all the screaming. Are you okay?”

I thought about his question for a moment before replying with, “I’m not exactly sure, but I’ll save that story for later. Right now, I need to know where Glissarie is. I have to make sure she survived the attack.”

“We haven’t seen her either,” Rafik said.

Frustrated and confused, I looked at the dwarf I had attacked with my spell. “What do you want with Eder and me?”

Screamer Guy walked up to me, and, with the butt of his pickaxe, hit me in the knee.

“Ouch! What’s your problem?” I cried.

“What’s
yer
problem, missy?” he yelled in response, his voice throaty and deep. “How dare ya use yer fairy magic on me!”

“I’m sorry, but you were screaming in my face! What else was I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Ask nicely for me to stop, perhaps?” he suggested, wiping the sweat off his brow and tugging on his hat.

“Look, I’m sorry that I used ‘fairy magic’ on you. Now can you tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re here to speak with ya, as friends,” Screamer Guy explained.

“If you are here as friends, why are you holding
my
friends prisoner with pickaxes?” I wondered.

Pulling at his beard, he looked over at my friends and nodded, like he was approving his buddies’ work. “Just a precaution, missy. Don’t ya worry none,” he said.

“Could you let them go then? I would be happy to talk once they are freed,” I said.

Screamer Guy sighed and nodded his head once. The dwarves guarding my friends backed away and lowered their weapons. Ziv hopped wildly to my side, painfully nuzzling my leg. Nathan was the next to greet me, pulling me into his arms and releasing a long breath. “I was worried about you. When I didn’t see you after the blast, I couldn’t help but think the worst,” he muttered into my ear.

“The blast carried me deeper into the jungle. Then I heard Glissarie scream and found her surrounded by Element fae,” I whispered.

“So what did you do?”

I hugged him tighter. “Later,” I told him.

Nathan nodded and released me. I took his hand and faced the dwarves. “I think it’s time you explained yourselves.”

“We come as messengers and guides,” Screamer Guy said. “My name is Tiergan, and I come with seventeen of my brethren soldiers from the rebellion. Joseph sent us, fearing ya would need the assistance on yer way to Etain. By the looks of things, he had a right to fear.”

“I had no idea dwarves were part of the rebellion,” I admitted.

“Why of course we are, missy! A huge part, mind ya,” Tiergan said.

Eder’s voice appeared out of nowhere. “Why would Joseph send you? I told him I could take care of things.”

I spun around to see Eder and Glissarie step out from a copse of trees. “Where have you two been?”

“After that grand display of yours, you would not wake, so I went off in search of someone to help,” Glissarie explained. “I found Eder impaled in the shoulder by a rock spear and had to heal him.”

“Then she told me what happened to you and led me back here,” Eder finished. He sniffed audibly. “What’s that horrible stench?”

“That would be the iron in our armor. As long as ya don’t touch it, yer gonna be fine, fairy,” Tiergan said, puffing out his burly chest. “Ya all seem mighty disorganized. Glad we were here to help.”

“We didn’t need your help,” Eder replied, holding his nose. Glissarie was doing the same. I was grateful that as part elfen, I was immune to the effects of iron, which was poisonous to fae.

“Actually, we did,” Rafik interjected. “We never would have beaten the Element fairies on our own. These dwarves saved our lives.”

“That’s right! Joseph was smart to send us after ya all,” Tiergan exclaimed poking Eder in the stomach with his axe. “Who are ya, anyway?”

“Eder,” he muttered.

“Ain’t that a kinda tree?”

Perturbed, Eder let out a slow sigh. “That’s
elder
,” he told him.

I stifled a laugh. Easy mistake.

“Oh, right ya are. Sorry about that. Always gettin’ myself confused,” Tiergan apologized. “Now that we got that issue covered, we should get moving. We are burnin’ up daylight by standing around here doin’ nothin’.”

“Wait, where are we going?” Tavis asked.

“To the rebellion, of course!” Tiergan said with a laugh. To one of his buddies, he added, “Bunch of twits, they are. Aren’t they, Jedrek?”

Jedrek nodded and joined him in the laughter.

“If I weren’t so weak and confused, I would take offense to that,” I said, yawning. “But I am, so let’s go.”

The dwarves told us we would reach the outskirts of Etain, the Element fairy capital, before nightfall, where the rest of their company waited at their camp stationed outside the city. From there we would travel to the rebellion. I wondered how many dwarves waited there, and if there was a chance we could be spotted by the Element fairies because of their large numbers.

I put the question on hold when I heard a yelp from one of the dwarves nearby.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, rushing to his aid. That’s when I noticed Ziv sitting on the ground in front of the dwarf’s feet. “Not again….Did he bite you?” I asked.

The dwarf shook his head. “Nope, just scared me a little there. He’s quite a sight.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, he is. But he’s not as scary as he looks. I’m Ramsey,” I said, feeling inclined to make a formal introduction.

“Knew that,” he said, “but thanks for bein’ courteous. I’m Swithin.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Hey, is it safe to travel in such a large group? And what about the camp you guys have near Etain? Sounds risky.”

“Well, the General seems to think we’re safe where we are, and folk like us can’t argue with that ruling,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Cuz’ we ain’t folk like the General is,” he explained.

“Who’s the General?” I asked.

Swithin chuckled, a twinkle in his eye. “I was told not to tell ya that one, Ramsey.”

“By who?” I challenged.

“The General.”

I rolled my eyes as he laughed again, trying to think of who this “General” could be. I didn’t come up with anything viable.

I would just have to wait and see.