Warrior Everlasting (21 page)

Scout nodded, looking back to Lil Bit. “Okay then. If they don’t bring her back, I’ll go back for her, too.” Again she looked up at Trey, and he read everything in her eyes, as if she’d spoken aloud.
It’s the least I can do after she was nearly torn apart to save me.

“That won’t be necessary, Scout, although I appreciate the gesture.”

Scout tried unsuccessfully to spin on her knees and rise at the same time. She succeeded in falling in a tangled heap on the ground. “Aella! You’re — you’re okay!”

Aella grinned at her. The real Aella, not the soul Trey had only caught a glimpse of.

Scout untangled herself and clambered up from the ground to throw her arms around her dear friend. “I thought we’d left you behind. I’m so sorry — you saved me, and I don’t know how to even — ” She blubbered.

Trey thought the same thing. She’d sacrificed herself to save Scout. If she hadn’t, if he’d lost Scout — there was no way. No way he could keep going without her. How was he supposed to thank Aella for that?

Aella pulled back enough that she could see Scout’s face. “You brought us peace, Scout. You freed me from my prison. For that alone I would throw myself in front of a thousand demons. I had to leave your sister because Iros needed me. But I watched over her from where I stood.”

Scout nodded, still crying. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you enough.”

“How did you get away from the demons? Scout said she watched them attack…” Trey asked, belatedly realizing that probably wasn’t the most polite of questions. He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Ariston saved me.”

Somehow, even when Trey and Tate and Liam all gasped in shock, Scout did not seem surprised. “When I saw him — saw him throwing his black flames, he wasn’t throwing them at me, was he? He was throwing them at his own Taraxippus.”

Aella nodded.

Scout glanced at Trey, with something akin to guilt written across her face before she firmly changed the subject. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Aella. Was Iros overjoyed to see you?”

As one who had almost lost the girl he loved several times in a few weeks, Trey could only imagine the happiness the sight of Aella must have brought Iros.

Aella smiled gently. “He did not see me. Iros was saving you. He was a bit distracted.”

Trey’s eyebrows shot up. “He doesn’t know you’re alive?”

“No. Not yet. But the Eske say he is returning soon.” Her face positively shone with excitement. The love of her life, the one she hadn’t given up on in six hundred years would finally be within arms’ reach.

Scout turned, watching the skies anxiously for the eight thousandth time that day, and Trey turned with her. The unicorns were coming home. Iros and Havik were coming home. And hopefully, they were bringing his parents with them.

Trey felt Kylin’s glare piercing his back without even turning around. Yeah, he’d gently untangled himself from her arms, told her that telling someone to go die wasn’t something a relationship could recover from, and ran after Scout. Did that really mean she had to try to murder him with the force of her stare? All he could do was ignore her and hope he didn’t burst into flames.

So he pulled Scout close, needing the feel of her against his chest, needing to touch her. To make sure she was still there. He’d watched her throw herself on a soul stealer and then tumble through the sky. The whole thing had only taken a minute, a minute and a half, tops, but it would haunt him every second for the rest of his life. She was lucky she was so cute, or he’d be close to strangling her right now. Instead he held her tight while she watched the sky.

Lil Bit stood as close as she could without the force of the soul-body interaction pushing her away. She obviously needed Scout’s physical comfort right then too. She’d been so strong. Waiting for Scout, sending her strength and hope. Now she was just a scared little girl who wanted her mama, and her mama wasn’t there.

Trey wanted to kill something.

But he couldn’t. Not now. So all he could do was stand silently while they watched the skies. They were all so focused on willing the lightning to open the gate that none of them even saw the small herd of Irwarros until they were nearly breathing down Trey’s neck.

“We will escort you and your families back to your town.”

Scout shook her head frantically as Trey said, “We can’t go until our parents get here. I’m not leaving without them.”

He expected an argument. Battle unicorns were not known for their patience. But the one speaking nodded slightly, and they moved away without another word.

Scout returned to watching the sky. Aella sat at Scout’s feet, one hand just above Lil Bit’s tiny foot, maybe sensing that Lil Bit needed something and she was giving what she could.

Tate and Liam both joined them, as well, and their little group waited silently. The entire valley was teeming with souls and black, blue, and green unicorns. He wondered briefly where Lil Bit’s unicorn had gone, the little white one that had come with them from battle.

“She can’t be here. Too many want revenge, not peace. She only comes when you want peace.” Lil Bit answered his unasked question.

He felt his eyebrows shoot up, and Scout smiled.

“She has this gift…”

The sky split open.

The thunder shook the ground, and then the gate opened and thousands of unicorns roared through like a black, very dangerous cloud. Scout sucked in a breath and leaned closer into him. He held her tighter, wondering if his blood would ever not roar in his ears just because her skin brushed his. Even battered, burned, and bloody skin.

Havik led them, with a triumphant Iros raising his scepter. Just a bit of the tension went out of Scout’s shoulders. If Trey was a jealous person, he might be threatened. And then he snorted. Who was he kidding? He was incredibly jealous, but not of Iros. That man was one of the kindest people Trey had ever met. And he had a girl of his own — one he hadn’t seen in six hundred years.

Havik landed, and the ground shook beneath them again. Trey expected Aella to spring to her feet and race across the valley, but instead she slunk back, her hand gripping Scout’s compulsively.

“It’s okay, Aella,” Scout whispered.

Aella spun on Scout, talking fast but keeping her voice low. “What if Ariston is right, Scout? Why did he come for you but left me there for six hundred years? What if he does not love me?” She shoved her long, dark hair back from her face. “What if he has forgotten me?”

“Aella?” Iros sounded strangled beyond belief.

Trey looked up at him, the man he’d seen ride into the face of a thousand soul stealers without flinching, the man who never said an unkind word and never admitted defeat. His face was white, and his entire body trembled.

“Aella?” he asked again.

Slowly, Aella turned toward him. She, too, was trembling. “Iros.”

One word. And Iros crossed the distance between them in two long strides, sweeping her into his arms in a crushing embrace. His hands stroked her hair, and he sobbed. “Aella. They told me you’d… I thought I’d come too late… You’re real. You’re real.” His hands seemed desperate to touch her face, her hands, her lips. Like he was trying to convince himself that she was, in fact, standing in front of him.

“We should leave them alone,” Scout murmured. She took Trey’s hand and motioned toward Lil Bit, wiping tears from her eyes as they went to join the rest of the Irwarros to look for their parents.

There were a thousand more souls being released throughout the valley, and Trey stopped by his brothers, turning in slow circles. “How will we ever find them?” he asked.

“Spread out. Meet back here when the sun is—” Scout started, but the Eske that landed lightly next to her cut her off mid-sentence.

“I will look for them. Little one, join me?” he asked. Lil Bit nodded solemnly and curled into his magic.

Before Scout could object, they were leaping into the sky and out of sight.

All Trey could do was stand with his brothers and pray.

But sometimes, prayers aren’t answered.

Scout left him to wander among the souls, her big green eyes searching desperately, but when the Eske landed in front of them again, the first thing he saw was Lil Bit’s tears.

They weren’t there. His parents, and hers, had been left in Aptavaras.

“We’ll go back. Now. We’ll go back right now and find them,” Scout’s voice was harsh in her determination. “Don’t worry, Lil Bit. We’ll get them back.”

Lil Bit, looking so much older than her eleven years, shook her head. “You won’t go alone, Scout. I’m going with you this time.”

“So will we,” Tate said firmly, glaring at Trey when he opened his mouth to object.

“They’re our parents too, Trey,” Liam added.

“You can’t even drive a car. What makes you think you can fight on a unicorn?”

“Those demons stole our souls, Trey. They locked us in a prison and tormented us until Scout showed up. We want revenge.”

“Trey.” Lil Bit’s icy hand brushed his. “Iros’s army will be made up of children.”

“How do you—” He sighed. He didn’t have to ask how Lil Bit knew it. She just did, and there was no explanation. “Are you seriously going to let her do this?” he asked Scout instead.

Scout nodded, tears still finding their way down her cheeks. “She’s always been the warrior, Trey. Not me. I’m just her big sister.”

“Lil Bit is the reason so many souls survived, Trey. She didn’t let us lose hope,” Liam said. His hand found Lil Bit’s and clutched it tightly.

Lil Bit looked up at them both, her eyes so big, her face so fragile, and shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t you?” Tate asked. “Of course it was you. Every time we wanted to give up, you said Scout was coming. Scout wouldn’t leave us there. You made us believe.”

“I made you believe in Scout, because I didn’t doubt her.”

Sometimes, Lil Bit was far too wise for her own good.

“I knew she would come because Scout is the warrior. It was Scout that kept us alive all that time, not me. I just told you the truth.”

Scout sobbed, her fist against her mouth, fighting for control. She swallowed several times before she lowered her hand, giving Lil Bit a watery smile. “So what you’re saying then,” she said, “is that I shouldn’t let you fight after all?”

Lil Bit’s mouth opened and closed, and Trey couldn’t fight his smile.

She put her hands on her hips, and suddenly she was a little girl again, the ageless wisdom gone. “That is not what I said at all.”

Trey heaved a sigh, admitting defeat. “Fine. First, we get you back to your bodies. Then we go back to Aptavaras.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

There were so many unicorns coming and going, taking souls to their bodies, bringing people back — real people, with bodies — who wanted to fight with them. The sky was a constant electrical storm.

Scout sat on a unicorn she didn’t know while another waited patiently with Lil Bit tight against her chest. Trey was just riding up on one who was not Torz, and it looked so wrong Scout wanted to object. But Torz had earned a rest. They wouldn’t need the bond to retrieve Lil Bit’s body, and his brothers’. And their parents’ bodies, even though they didn’t have souls to go with them.

Yet.

They were taking a whole herd of unicorns with them to bring her parents and Trey’s back here where they’d be safe.

“What happens to the souls when they’re put back in their bodies? Do they remember all this?” Scout asked. There were gonna be a lot of unicorn believers if that was the case.

“Some will. They’ll return to fight. Others will only see it as a nightmare because they are not strong enough to handle the truth. They will not see us after they are reunited with themselves,”
her unicorn said.

She nodded grimly. That made sense. If she hadn’t been desperate to believe, would she have seen them? Would she have been strong enough?

“Yes, Princess. You would have. Don’t get attached to that creature. You’re my rider, don’t forget.”

Scout smiled as they leaped into the air, the sky splitting above them.
“Don’t worry, Horse. I’m just hitching a ride home. There will be no fighting without you.”

“Good. Now leave me alone. I’m trying to sleep.”

The gate opened above their hometown. Columbia Falls was still — there were no cars, no dogs barking. No people roaming the streets. The dried leaves blowing across dead grass was the only movement Scout could see.

“The hospital, over there. That’s where we’ll find them.”

She pointed, stupidly remembering too late that there was no way the unicorn could
see
her pointing. Luckily, the hospital was easy to find, and the entire herd swept toward it. When they landed, it cracked the asphalt, big, hoof-shaped imprints that were going to be very hard to explain to those who forgot. Scout slid from the unicorn, whose name she really should have asked, and turned to Lil Bit’s unicorn, watching as her sister uncurled herself and stretched, free from the magic.

“Hello, Scout. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Scout whirled, already knowing who awaited her. “Ariston.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trey freeze, blocking his brothers from view.

Ariston was as beautiful as ever, despite the dead eyes watching her with such an infinite sadness that part of her heart broke. His injuries had all healed, which meant more souls had died for his cause. He was surrounded by soul stealers, at least ten of them — all with red, glowing eyes.

She shook her head. “Ariston, please. Don’t do this.”

“Lil Bit, go. Run. Find your body and get on the unicorn and get out of here.”
She couldn’t turn to look at her sister, but she felt her presence leave and knew Lil Bit had heard.

Ariston swept closer, so close she could feel the cold seeping from him. “I’ll make you a deal, Scout.” His voice was low, intimate, sliding over her like silk. She closed her eyes, fighting the voice, the familiarity.

“What is your deal?” she asked, but she knew already.