Destined

Chapter 17

The red death moved slowly, so very slowly, its smoky tendrils more like a living thing than a simple gas. It curled around its victims, taking easy prey first — the fae who lay unconscious on the floor.

I have to save them! Desperation banished every rational thought from Laurel’s head and she threw herself toward the fallen bodies only to meet Tamani’s chest as he stepped in her way. “Laurel, you can’t.”

She fought against him, trying to get to the helpless, unconscious fae. Tamani’s arms were tight around her waist and dimly she felt David’s fingers on her face, caressing, trying to calm her.

“Laurel,” David whispered. “Stop.” The gentle word was so quiet it made her freeze as though he had yelled it. “We have to think,” he said, and slowly Laurel forced herself to be still.

Everyone who could stand was up on tables, mostly at the edges of the room, wide-eyed with horror. Fire blocked the obvious exits; poison seeped in everywhere the fire failed to reach… Laurel could almost feel the contempt Klea had put into every detail of this elaborate assault. These people had been her teachers, her friends — her family, really. But it was clear from her actions today that Klea wanted them all to die, and what was more, she wanted them all to die afraid.

Laurel realised she was shaking with anger. Forget the trolls; the biggest monster in Avalon was Klea.

Laurel shoved David’s arms away and strode to a faerie lying unconscious just a few feet from the creeping smoke. Laurel pushed her arms around the young faerie’s chest and began to drag her backward, away from the danger.

Tamani grabbed her hand, but Laurel yanked it away. He reached out to grasp it again and held it tightly this time. “Laurel, what are you doing? Where are you going to take her?”

“I don’t know!” Laurel shouted, angry tears burning her eyes. “Just… away from that!” She went back to her task, pulling another faerie out of immediate reach of the red mist. They would all die anyway, but somehow Laurel couldn’t let them die right now, not when she could at least prolong their lives. She grabbed another faerie’s shoulders and began dragging her back to join the first.

With a nod, Tamani stepped up and did the same thing, lifting another faerie and pulling him away from the smoke that was drawing nearer, inch by slow inch, as it filled the dining hall entrance and crept further into the room. It was pouring from the open skylights in earnest now, and the floor would soon be a deadly crimson swamp.

Chelsea and David pulled another faerie up onto a table and others began joining in, mimicking Laurel’s futile act of service, dragging the wounded and the fallen back until there was a line of bare stone between the smoke and its next victims.

As David started on another faerie, Tamani stopped him with a hand on his chest. “You have to move the sword.” The smoke was only a few inches away from where David had left it, with the blade sunk several inches into the marble tiles. “We cannot lose it.”

David nodded and turned to retrieve it. His eyes widened. “Wait,” he said, reaching out to grab Tamani’s arm. “The sword. Laurel! Where does that wall go?” David yelled pointing to the wall at the back of the dining hall.

“Outside,” Laurel panted, not stopping as she dragged another faerie backward. “Gardens and stuff.”

“Is that it?” he pressed. “No, uh, overhangs or something?”

“The greenhouses are out that way,” offered Caelin, and Laurel was surprised to see he was addressing David directly.

“Perfect,” David murmured, almost to himself. “They’ll hide us from anyone who might be back there.”

“But you can’t get to them from here,” Caelin argued. “There’s no door. They just share a wall.”

“Thanks,” David said, wrapping his fist around Excalibur’s hilt, drawing it from its temporary sheath, “but I make my own doors.”

Laurel watched as he ran to the wall, bowed his head for an instant, as if in prayer, then raised his sword and thrust it into the stone wall. Tears of hope sprang to her eyes as she watched him cut a long, vertical line in the stone. Two more cuts on the side and Laurel could see light bleeding through the wall.

“Help me push!” shouted David, and soon faeries were gathered around him, picking their way carefully over the unconscious fae they’d collected at the edges of the room. They heaved with all their might as David cut at the bottom and, with a loud scraping, the panel gave way and fell to the ground, the light of the setting sun pouring in.

The next fifteen minutes were like a fast-moving nightmare. Laurel’s arms ached as she dragged faerie after faerie through the narrow passage David had opened into one of the greenhouses. Her legs, already weary from a long day fleeing trolls, threatened to collapse. But each faerie they dragged out of the dining hall was one more Mixer who would live.

A moment of chilling fear made all the fae halt in their tracks for a few moments when the red poison began pouring over the edge of the dining hall roof and onto the transparent glass ceiling of the greenhouse. They all seemed to collectively hold their breath as red coated the sloped roof, but the seals held; the faeries were safe.

Sweat poured down the faces of those who worked beside her — almost certainly a new experience for most Autumn fae — but time was running out. In the dining hall the puddling gas had almost completely filled the floor and continued to pour in through the open skylights, no longer in single streams but waves as wide as the skylight itself.

“We have to stop,” Yeardley said at last.

“One more,” Laurel said breathlessly. “I can get one more.”

Yeardley considered for the briefest of instants, then nodded. “Everybody, one more, then we have to find a way to seal this hole or all our work will have been for nothing.”

Laurel ran to the nearest group of fallen fae. She had a good six metres to drag this one. With aching arms, she reached around the chest of the first faerie she came to, hating that there were so many others close enough to touch — so many she couldn’t hope to save.

As she turned, a new line of mist fell from an overhead skylight, cutting off her view of the exit. When it hit the stone floor the ruby poison splashed, tiny wisps swirling so near that Laurel had to throw herself out of the way to avoid getting hit.

Gritting her teeth, Laurel hefted the body higher. She had to get out of here.

She dragged the faerie round the cascade, legs screaming in protest. She looked forwards again and her path was open. Four more metres. Three. She could make it.

Then her legs tangled in something on the floor and she fell, feeling the skin on her elbow split as it hit the stone floor. She looked down at what she had fallen over.

It was Mara.

She’d been working in here before but must have fainted from the heat and smoke before the skylights were opened. Laurel looked back. The creeping gas was inches away from Mara’s feet.

I will not let you die.

With one more glance at the exit, Laurel turned and shoved one arm around Mara — she’d get them both; she had to! Her arms rebelled, shaking with fatigue as she awkwardly dragged them a few metres. A few more. She turned to get a better grip while staggering backwards; other faeries — faeries who hadn’t spent the day hiking and running — slid past her with their burdens. Laurel’s chest and throat ached from the smoke still in the air — she’d been in here too long — and the mist seemed to be following her now, inching forwards as quickly as Laurel could manage to flee.

It’s her or you. The thought came unbidden, and though she suspected it might be true, she shook her head, yanking the two faeries a little further.

I can’t do it. Yes, I can! She glanced back at the exit. It felt so close and yet so very far away. Pulling with all her might, something made her look up just in time to see another cascade of smoke pour down from the skylight, splashing to the floor and sending a wave of poison rippling towards her.