“Mara!” I screamed as Cam tried to drag me away from the scene. The reality that I’d lost Mara was just now hitting me. I elbowed Cam in the ribs, forcing him to let me go, and dropped to the ground over Mara’s corpse. Liam and his father crashed into another wall, busting right through it and into the next room, but it was the red-headed fae who held my attention.
Placing two fingers at her pulse, I screamed in frustration as I felt nothing.
“No!” Sobs wracked my body now that it was real. No pulse meant dead. Mara was dead. It was too much, too much death in too little a time. Was she really dead when I walked in? Should I have tried to save her? But then, Liam’s mom might have died? I pushed light into her body, causing it to shake with the force of it, but nothing happened.
Liam groaned in pain, and a crashing sound rang throughout the house.
“Lily.” Jasper appeared before me. “We need to go. Without Mara, we have no way home. We need to run. I’ve gotten some cars—”
“Mara,” I sobbed, clutching her chest and starting to do CPR, but when I pushed down, it just made more blood pour from her open abdomen. “Jasper, help me save her.” I looked to the warlock. “You must have a spell. You said I could give life, right? I’m the Queen of Spring, I—”
“Lily, it’s not possible… not in the way you want.” He actually looked a bit devastated for me.
“But I could bring her back?” Hope bloomed in my chest as Liam and his father crashed through another wall, trashing Mara’s house. Ice was flying everywhere, but I couldn’t move to help him, not now that I was confronted with Mara’s corpse.
Jasper shook his head. “She’d be an animated ghost with no soul.”
I crumpled over her body, grief opening up inside my chest. I didn’t even say goodbye. I didn’t free her of her chains. I did nothing for this woman, and she did everything for me and my mother, for Faerie.
“We need to go! The king’s army is coming,” Cam ran into the house and shouted.
I was frozen, unable to leave her like this, but we had all the crystals. They were in Liam’s backpack right now, and if we could find a way back to Faerie, we could end this war forever. Restore our motherland.
“Jasper, can you carry her?” I swallowed hard as I stood.
He nodded, yanking a curtain down from the dining room and wrapping her body in it. I would give her a proper Faerie burial.
Reaching out, I ran my fingers down Bashur’s fur, knowing he tried to protect her. “You were a good boy.” I swallowed hard.
Urisk demon or not, he was a loyal friend to her. When I looked up, I noticed that Liam’s father had wrestled his son to the ground and was reaching for something behind his back. The grief and rage merged into one beast as I flew across the room and knocked his father down. Then I reached out with my hand, and light exploded from it. Every single window shattered, furniture cracked, and the whole house shook.
I heard the satisfying shout from his father and then a wail of pain, but I still couldn’t see. It was too bright.
Grabbing Liam, we walked backward, away from the light bomb and his father, who I hoped was freaking dying like the witch. Jasper had moved Mara’s body, but Bashur and the bloodstains were still there, causing guilt to gnaw at my chest. Should I try to bring him too? As if Liam could hear my thoughts, he grabbed my arm and yanked me backward and out of the house. Just as we turned the corner, the light I’d shot at the Winter King died down, and I noticed the collapsed figure on the floor move the tiniest bit.
Dammit.
“Let me finish him!” I tried to yank out of Liam’s grasp, but he held me firmly.
“Elle’s hurt!” Cam’s alarmed voice came from behind me, and that’s all it took for me to walk away from Mara’s house, from Bashur, from the king.
Spinning, I sprinted to a row of cars. Pick-up trucks, a few SUVs, and an Oldsmobile. Not sure where Jasper got all these or how, but I was grateful he did.
There were about twenty of Liam’s men, who must have been hiding in the forest because they were alive, to my relief, and piling in the cars.
I spun behind us to see the king’s army running and flying up the road, carrying guns, bows and arrows, and whatever else they had.
My gaze flicked to Elle being loaded into the back of the pick-up truck, her arm bleeding, gunshot wound from the looks of it.
Make everything slow down…
How had everything gone so wrong… so fast? But there really wasn’t any other way we could have done it. We’d brought in all the big guns and still suffered losses.
“I have the crystals. Let’s get back to Faerie.” Liam dragged me across the road to the back of the pick-up truck, limping as he walked and ducking low to avoid getting hit.
“We need some cover! If they shoot the tires, we are toast.” Trissa leapt into the back of the truck with Elle and Jasper. The backpack of the crystals lay at their feet, thank the gods.
My mind felt pulled in a hundred directions. How many men did we lose? Were the fae I had invited back to Faerie out there in the woods, needing help? Were they going to try to find me? Was Liam’s dad in the house, dying? How was Mara dead? What if—
“Lily!” Jasper shouted, and I ducked just as a bullet snapped past me.
Without a thought, I thrust my hands out, letting
