His voice broke, and for a moment, I felt a stab of grief for what I’d said. No matter what the Mist King had done centuries ago, Toryn did not deserve to die like this. He was only following the orders of his king, and I’d seen the goodness in him.
“He’ll be okay,” I said, although I scarcely believed it. “We’ll catch up to them.”
“I can smell the lies on your breath.”
My lips slammed together, and I turned back to face the mists. He was angry and scared and in no mood to talk. It was hard for me to blame him. For this, at least. I knew what it was like to be scared for a loved one’s life. I’d suffered that fear far too many times, and I knew the twisted, biting pain when that fear became realized.
“I’ll do anything to keep you safe, my love. I’ll even take on a fae king.” Father ruffled my hair.
I squeezed my eyes tight as a tear slipped down my cheek.
Up ahead, a form solidified in the mists. A broken body, abandoned on the ground. A gasp ripped from my throat as a familiar pair of vacant green eyes stared unseeing at the sky. His fighting leathers had been torn open, exposing his mangled chest. The wounds sizzled. Smoke curled off his body and drifted up to join the mists. These storm fae had hit him with powerful magic.
Nausea bubbled up in my throat as the Mist King roared. He launched from the moving horse and raced toward Toryn, sand storming up in his wake.
“Oh my moon,” Niamh cried out, slowing her horse a few feet away from Toryn. A sob shook her body.
“Stay back!” the Mist King shouted as he stared ahead at the army of storm fae inching out of the darkness. A heavy gust of wind blasted into our faces, bringing with it the scent of thunder and steel. “Stay behind me!”
“The fucking bastards,” Alastair growled, thumping his chest as he screwed up his face in anger. “I will fucking kill them all.”
Mist swirled around the king’s powerful form, his arms outstretched on either side of him. The storm fae rushed forward, oblivious to the threat. The two in front blasted more wind and rain in our direction, but the Mist King batted it away as if it were nothing.
“Kal, stop,” Niamh called out, her voice shaking. “They’re trying to goad you into fighting them, and there’s too many for you to take at once. I know you’re angry, but—”
“I said stay back,” he thundered, his voice raw and full of an otherworldly power that skittered across my skin. “Get Tessa away from me.”
“What?” I whispered. “Why?”
Alastair grabbed the reins of my horse and pulled me away from the Mist King and the approaching storm fae. Niamh followed, her eyes cast to the ground until we were so far away that all I could see were vague shapes in the mists. Alastair dropped the reins and folded his arms, while Niamh paced back and forth with her hands rubbing against her thighs.
“What’s going on?” I hissed at them. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s going to kill them,” Niamh said bitterly, her eyes haunted. “And I’m not going to try to stop him this time.”
Fear throbbed through my veins as I turned back to the Mist King and his growing whirlwind of mist. The enemy fae were blasting all kinds of elements at him now. Rain and snow. Icy pellets. It all slammed into some kind of invisible shield around the king and Toryn’s body, and then shattered into mist.
He lifted his eyes from the ground and stared them down. Hands clenched, he threw his arms at the storm fae. A sudden thump of power radiated toward me, wave upon wave of pure, unyielding darkness. I braced myself against the force of it. And then it crackled and exploded outward, straight at the gathered storm fae.
Invisible and silent, his power sucked everything inside of it, even the mist. For a moment, starlight danced in the inky sky, and then his awesome power hit them hard.
The entire army collapsed, dead within seconds.
My jaw dropped, and for a moment, I could do nothing but stare at the fallen bodies. So many, and all it had taken was one burst of power from the Mist King. I slid my eyes his way. He’d fallen to his knees beside Toryn’s body, his fists pounding the sand. Boudica flew in from the shadowy sky and settled on the Mist King’s knee, curving toward him.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, little dove,” Alastair said as he shoved his sword back into its sheath. “But you don’t need to be scared. He would never use that power against you.”
It took me a moment to get my jaw working again. I dropped my voice into a whisper. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Why didn’t he...?”
“Use it against the pookas? Or back in the village when the storm fae first came at us?”
I nodded.
“Kal’s power is dangerous. He hasn’t used the full strength of it like that in over three hundred years. The last time he did, well. You know what happened.”
“The Great Rift,” I murmured, understanding at once. His power was beyond anything I could have dreamed. Enough to crush entire armies.
“It’s difficult for him to control, and the mists have gotten worse since that day he fought Oberon. He’s worried something like the Great Rift will happen again. Or worse,” Alastair continued. “Even when he holds back, he won’t let us be anywhere near it.” His lips flattened. “Normally, that is.”