The chilling darkness that swelled at the bottom of the valley shook my nerves. I could hear the footsteps, the breathing, the now hushed advance of the Autumn fae as we waded in. It was thick like a fog, crawling over my skin and taking away my senses as we pressed forward cautiously.

Baeleon was the leading point in our little group. Other clusters of Autumn fae could be heard nearby, but whether they were ahead of us or behind us I couldn't tell anymore. Schula's cold touch never strayed too far, and Eberon's fire occasionally flickered to my other side as he used flashes of it to look around. I never could detect Thain's movements. 

"I can't see anything," Schula hissed.

"This is not a natural darkness, is it?" I asked.

"It could be in the Wyldes," Scula answered. "I just hope we haven't woken up anything too terrible here today."

The implications of that brought a frown to my face as we pressed forward and down the hill. Memories of a great and terrible thing lurking under the icy lake of the Sangolin crater in the Winter lands. What other things slept undisturbed in the Wyldes, long forgotten?

As the slope evened out and we had less difficulties pressing forward, a chill crept into the air. Wet and icy, clinging to the warmth of our bodies as though we were the first warm life it had encountered in an age. 

Baeleon before me paused. I only knew it because a mist had wrapped it's way around him, singing dully as though a bit of starlight had crept through the inky blackness around us to show us our king.

He turned, his eyes ablaze with pale golden light. 

"The enemy is before us," he said. "The scouts report them as strange, and not all of them fae creatures. Watch your way, and take none for capture. I want their blood at my feet."

My eyes widened. 

"Yes, my king," Eberon, Thain, and Schula answered in unison.

"Yes, my king," I echoed. 

Baeleon's fangs flashed in the small light he was somehow wrapped in, still barely visible through the thick darkness but enough that I could follow him forward.

The worst part of all this was that I itched to ignight my flames, shine my light through the darkness and see the face of the enemy ahead. But I had watched Eberon try with his own magic every little while, and I knew it would be futile to fight the darkness.

If only I could see what I was doing, I wouldn't be so terrified.

The first real sound of conflict came from a crackling boom. Some kind of lightning danced from one of the fae beings, but it didn't end there. An eruption of chaotic elements began firing off in the belly of the valley.

"It begins," Schula whispered.

Baeleon roared, charging forward and striking his trident at something I coudln't see. In panic, I tried to light my hands and I might as well not have bothered for all they barely lit a hand's length in front of my face.

"Wren!" Schula snapped, yanking my arm and pulling me to the side just as something landed with a wet thud where I had been standing.

"Move!" Schula called, pulling me with her around and to Baeleon's side. 

My heart pounded against my ribs so hard they ached. I called out to the very air around me, pulling in the magic I could from my surroundings as the witches taught me. I lifted my hands before my face, blazing purple witchfire. 

Whatever made up the blackness in the belly of the valley, it wasn't natural at all. But neither was my fire when I used it as the witches did.

Purple lit up the area around me, and I caught the briefest flash of what was around us, and my mouth opened in a frozen cry.

We had already faced this army before. We had already faced these creatures before. Just as Bara Khalja did something to raise the bodies of the fighters at the feet of his horse in our last battle, he raised these. 

Fae, humans, sprites, dryads, they all moved as his puppets. Their every movements were stiff, their glazed eyes looked nowhere but their blades and claws and fangs struck true. None of them used magic, but that would be asking too much of the dead. What Bara Khalja did here was a sickening abomination to the Mother.

Schula shrieked, shoving shards of ice into the face of the nearest dryad. How their body hadn't already returned to the earth and their tree was a mystery only for the warlock of the Great Plains to know. 

"Forward!" Baeleon called, unphased by the horrid enemy we faced. "DuVarick's tricks will not sway our stand! For the Autumn court!"

His people echoed around us. "For the Autumn court!" They cried for their king. 

Eberon and Thain were both fighting with a ferocity and rage that marred the familiarity of their faces into expressions of warring fae that I hadn't seen before. Sword and claw and wind and fire lashed out from them, tearing through anything before them in a unified attack so entwined with each other that they could only be triquetram and nothing less.

Schula grabbed my hand, shocking me into putting out my fire. 

"You're making us a beacon!" She pulled me forward. "We need to stay with Baeleon and watch his back."

"Right," I breathed. "I just wish I could..."

See.

Maybe I couldn't see the way I was used to, but I knew someone who was probably doing better than any other fae here right now.

"Nassir," I said.

Schula paused, a small lull in the fighting as Baeleon and Thain sliced through a body so badly that even Bara Khalja could not make it get back up again.

I closed my eyes, though it made little difference in the dark of the deep valley. The icy mist that crawled on my skin pricked and distracted me from what I was searching for, but after a few calming heartbeats I was able to find that place at the center of my mind and seek out Nassir.

His yellow form blazed, bright and strong and swift. I could tell where he was in relation to my body, the darkness of the valley was no barrier to him. If anything, he was the one in control here. 

A roar overhead caused my attention to wander. Above us was Spaulder's chaotic black light, still somehow visible against the blackness in the valley. Movement around me showed Schula's white essence acting quickly. We were probably under attack, but she would have to handle it. I would have to trust her to handle it. I needed to find something. Something...

I focused forward. Upward. The slope began on the other side of the narrow valley, and I couldn't sense the dead army more than I could see them. It was more like feeling the empty holes in my surroundings to know they were even there.

I reached, up the hill as far as I could, which wasn't far at all. Snapping out of it, I reached for Schula's arm.

"I can't sense Bara Khalja, but he must be here," I said.

"I agree," Schula said. "We have to press forward to try again."

"If we can get to Bara Khalja, will this force of fallen warriors stop?" I asked.

"I hope so," was Schula's only answer as we pressed forward.

Another rumbling roar from overhead. Spaulder was flying low into the valley and his wingbeats shook the trees. His roars sliced through the air, and from the maw of his huge mouth he breathed a terrible fire. 

Hot. Fire like I've never felt before, though fire of more than one kind is a part of me.

Fire that, though he spilled it onto the Winter army from a distance, could be felt from where I stood. I shook, the intensity of it, the incredible power of it, giving me a fright for just a moment, even though it was far away and Spaulder was a piece of my own heart. That he managed to frighten me like that anyway speaks volumes, and I wondered how the other things in the valley must feel right now.

"Hells," Schula breathed.

"Yeah," I agreed, just as softly.

And next to us, cackling and shining in power, Baeleon's mirthful laughter sounded. If my fire was a beacon, the sound of Baeleon's laughter was just as sinister.

"Yes!" He cried, lifting his hands in the air, his trident shining even in the blackness of the valley, surrounded in part by whatever gleam of power he was using to light himself up as well. "Rain down your fire, dragon! Show my enemies what it means to truly burn!"

A burst of energy from Baeleon caused Schula and I to step back. 

"Forward, my Autumn court!" Baeleon called out. "Tear apart the ones before you and climb the summit to our true foes!"

Roars, cries, stomping, drumming beats of agreement called out in response. Baeleon commanded, and his people listened.

Forward he pressed, pushing the forces into more and more of the abominations of the dead army. Schula and I had to fight more than a few just to keep up. I threw my purple flames at them, and they burned with no sound to match the screams on their faces. Schula's ice sliced them to ribbons. All the while I was aware of the tears on my face and the one foe I longed to see again on the battlefield.

Spaulder made another pass, his massive size not allowing him to turn so quickly around that he could continue his assault endlessly. But as he approached, the remaining creatures below him at the top of the valley threw magic and arrows alike at him, all of them bouncing off of his endless black scales. 

I tried to close my eyes as often as the swell and lull of battle would allow me. I did as Nassir had taught, reaching, looking for what I could see without my eyes. The dead soldiers were falling away, our forces chewing through them easily. But I could see what was on the other side of them, and they were getting dangerously close.

My eyes flew open as I screamed out. "The dead are gone, the true Winter army is behind them!"

My screams only just left my lips as the first rings of the new clash sounded. Baeleon wasn't surprised to encounter living, breathing enemies before him now. Hopefully my warning came in time for others as well.

It didn't take long to piece together what they were doing. Our own forces had now expelled a great deal of energy and magic as we faced the fallen horrors, and now their army was fresh to fight us as we began to tire out.

The battle was as fierce as it had ever been before. The new energy on the field changed everything as our fight became much more urgent, more intense. 

"Any luck?" Schula asked, spearing an ice-coated hand through the heart of a sprite before us. 

"No," I panted. "A little further up the hill, I think."

"Then so be it!" Baeleon bellowed, charging forward. "Thainalan, Eberon, to me!"

If he knew what I was doing, he never spoke of it. All he knew was that I desired to go higher, and his thirst for the blood of his enemies spurred him to give me what I wanted, if only as an excuse to the slaughter.

We followed behind him with little other choice but to keep up as he raged. Thain and Eberon were so in synch as they took either side of their king that they may as well have been two parts to the same person.

The icy mist left me as we finally rose above it, my vision beginning to fully return back to normal. Heat beat against my skin as we neared where Spaulder had rained down his fire, the true enemy was close.

Baeleon cried out and launched himself at a giant black tree beast, it's thorn covered hide threatening to pierce the king of Autumn if he wasn't careful.

But it left just the opening I needed, and with Schula's hand in mine, we took it.

With a desperate reach, I climbed higher on the valley slope. And finally, I found him. The one who killed my mother. The one who killed Bryn. The one who will try to destroy my found home.

There he sat, on his bone painted horse with his bone painted skin and his sharp, filed off teeth. The clattering of bone decorations on him could be heard, even over the wind and roaring flames that danced around the warlock without touching him. A thing, possibly no longer human, that allied with the mad king of Winter. His eyes were sharp and bright with the lust of war that sat in the hearts of dark people like him, and he smiled as he met my gaze.

Bara Khalja.