Luke moves until he’s nose-to-nose with my father. Oliver doesn’t stray from his position in front of me. He appears to be protecting me, but I’m not completely sure. I know he wants me as his, and my father wants me to come with him. Maybe they are doing this to take me. At this point I only can trust Luke and the Azures. The Pine Army moves to stand beside their leader. Reid is swallowed up by them, pushed to the back and out of my sight.
“Enough of the games. Sage, get over here and bring my daughter with you,” my father commands.
Oliver doesn’t move. I look around and everyone appears to be ready to jump into battle. Then a loud roar punctures he sky and everyone, including me, turns toward the sound. Oliver now stands next to me to see where it came from. Tali has her head pointed high and is roaring almost piercingly. Her front legs lift from the ground. She must have sensed the tension in the air.
I look to Oliver, but before I get a word out, I’m jolted back against a hard chest of armor. The metal chills my skin through my shirt. A cold blade bites into the skin of my neck. I freeze on the spot. I can already feel something warm run down my neck, and know if I move further, the wound will be much worse.
Looking around, I see a look of pure shock on Oliver’s face. Elliott has his sword drawn along with everyone else in the Azure Army and the Elite. They must have been watching Tali along with me and my father stepped up behind me. I was vulnerable and he took advantage of it. I glance around wildly trying to locate Luke without moving my head. I don’t see him anywhere. How can he be gone when I need him most?
“Father, don’t do this,” Reid begs. He’s only a couple of feet away now. “You need to stop this. Let her go.” My father is the one who’s trying to harm me? The man who my mother told me to find and that I’d be safe with? He must have been a different man when she knew him. She never would have told me to find someone who would try to hurt me.
“Wouldn’t you love that, my son? You’re always trying to avoid conflict. You spend more time smoothing things over between people in our land than addressing the real problems.”
“To our people, their issues are real. To them they’re not insignificant like you think they are. They need my help and I’m happy to provide it. I don’t want this war. Alison said what she wanted. Let it be.”
“You’re weak. You always have been. Just like your mother. She couldn’t handle battle either and fled when it got bad.”
Reid’s face becomes as hard as the armor he wears. “Did you ever consider it wasn’t the war she was running from? Maybe it was you?”
My father’s grip on me tightens at Reid’s words. “How dare you speak to me that way!” he bellows.
“Let her go.” Oliver demands in a low and deadly voice. His sword is drawn, and he’s pointing it at us, or at my father to be more precise. The sword hovers higher than my shoulder toward my father’s head.
“You too, Sage? I should have known. Ever since you found out I had a daughter, you’ve become obsessed with finding her.”
A loud, deep voice yells, “Free her now or suffer the consequences, Pine!” Luke. He’s somewhere amidst the army, but I can’t find him.
The blade cuts deeper into my skin and I gasp in fear. A tear runs down my cheek. Elliott looks like he’s barely able to hold still, and Oliver flashes between fear and murderous rage.
“Show yourself, Azure. I know you’re out there. One slip of the wrist and she’s dead.”
“You’d kill your own blood?” Elliott asks in astonishment. I thought that was obvious, but maybe Elliott thought it was all a ruse.
“Of course. I don’t want her in the hands of my enemy to be used against me.” I’m nothing to him but a pawn in this messed up game he’s playing. A game of lives.
“You’re sick,” Elliott says.
“King Pine, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Oliver adds. “You can let her go and walk away.”
“Never,” my father hisses.
A whooshing sound reaches my ears seconds before there is a loud thump behind me. My father gasps in my ear, and I hear Luke speak low and cold, “Never try to take from me what’s mine.”
The blade at my neck slides and slices deeper. Elliott rushes forward and grasps my father’s arm to pull him away from me. The coldness at my back is gone. I fall into Elliott’s arms, blood trickling down my neck. I turn around to see Luke standing there with a bloody knife in his hand. My father is lying on his side, on the ground, with a growing pool of crimson beneath him. His chest rises once, twice, he coughs out blood and grows still. No more breaths.
My hand flies to my mouth and I look at Luke. He lowers his head and turns away from me. My father is dead. All of my father’s men reach for Luke at the same time, but the Elite are there by his side in an instant. Blades start clashing all around me. The ting of each hit rings in my ears. The Azure Army is fighting Pine’s.
I start to grow dizzy when strong arms grab me from behind, and I’m lifted in the air. I kick and scream to be let go. I’m unsure who has me and don’t want to be held captive. Luke turns at my cries. In the second he meets my eyes, he’s left himself unguarded. A blade slashes deeply across his chest and blood starts to seep through his white shirt. He pitches forward, his hand on his chest, but he keeps fighting with his other arm. It’s with less force than before.
It’s then I realize his armor is gone. Why isn’t he wearing it? I’m screaming internally and then externally. “No! Luke! No!” Where’s Reid? Why isn’t he putting a stop to this? “Reid! You have to stop the fighting!” My eyes scan the area in front of me, and I see him staring down at our father dead on the ground. Reid is immobile. His face is blank. No sadness, no hurt, nothing.
Next thing I know I’m being dragged backward, but not without a struggle. I want to get to Luke. I want to put pressure on his chest. I need him to be okay.
I ball my hands into fists and start punching the person holding me. Before I know it, I’m being held by two men and placed on a black dragon. We’re in the air in seconds. Each sweep of the wings furthers the distance I am from Luke.
“Let me go!” I yell. I don’t care who has me at this point. All that matters is returning to Luke.
“We will if you stop struggling,” Elliott says from behind me. I turn and give him a death glare. Then I look in front of me and see Oliver. It doesn’t even register to me that men of different sides have me.
“We have to go back!” I scream. “How can you leave him there? He’s hurt.” I turn to look at Elliott again. “He’s your brother and you left him! You left him and he needed you.”
“I know, Princess. Believe me, I know. But this was the plan. If he got hurt he wanted you taken away at all costs, and that’s what we’re doing. We have to ensure your safety, and right now you’re bleeding. You need to see the healer.”
“And what about his safety? Why wasn’t he wearing his armor?”