The Resistance.

Layah

I was six years old when the revolution happened. Seven when they came for my family and the magic wielders my parents had been hiding.

There was an ungodly roar in the middle of the night, deep and ear-splitting, something not of this world. It shook the earth beneath our house, rattled the windows, and made the lanterns flicker out. My mother burst into my room, barefoot and breathless, her nightgown clinging to her body. I can still smell the rosemary oil she always wore, still see the way her hands trembled as she grabbed me from my bed. She pulled me toward the floorboards, the ones beneath the rug near my closet. A space only meant for hiding, not surviving. “Quick, Layah,” she whispered urgently, pushing open the hatch and guiding me down into the cramped, dark hollow. “You must stay quiet. No matter what you hear, no matter what you feel. Do you understand? Not a peep.” Tears welled in her eyes as she leaned in to kiss my forehead. “I love you, my sweet little girl. You are magic. You are everything.”

She sealed me in.

I remember the sound of the boards clicking into place. The muffled creak of her footsteps fading. Then silence. But it didn’t last. The front door exploded inward seconds later, followed by snarling, guttural laughter and voices dripping with cruelty. Five of them. I couldn’t see their full bodies through the cracks, but I saw enough. A vampire’s fanged grin. The flicker of a siren’s scales. A wolf’s bloodied claws. The eyes of a hellhound—burning red like hot coals. And a dragon, whose power made the air thick with heat. I watched, frozen, paralyzed, as they slaughtered my family. My mother's scream, cut short. My father's sobbing plea. The way the blood ran through the cracks above me, warm and sticky, soaking my pajamas, matting my hair. I never made a sound. I didn’t breathe. I didn't blink.

Their faces, their laughter, the smell of death and ash are burned into my mind. The way their hearts beat as they stood over my family’s bodies, as if nothing had happened at all. As if we were nothing at all. That night I made a vow, etched into every part of my soul: I would rise. I would grow stronger. I would rebuild what they tried to destroy. And one day, I would kill the council who took everything from me. I would end them all.

Twelve years have passed. Twelve years of ashes and blood. Twelve years of wandering the earth, rebuilding what little remained of the resistance my parents once led. I’ve searched every corner of the magical world, digging into the deepest forests, the coldest caves, the shadowed ruins. I’ve found witches, warlocks, elementals, pixies, and fae. I’ve convinced them, sometimes with words, sometimes with the edge of my blade, to rise, to fight, to remember who we are. But in all this time, I haven’t found another like me. Not one other fairy. We had the highest bounties. The council feared us most, because our power isn’t limited by elements or rituals. It flows freely, endlessly. They hunted us first. They hunted us hardest. And now… I may be the last.

“Slayer, we should rest for the night,” Jordan says beside me as we reach a rocky ledge near the mountain’s summit. “We’re getting too close to their land. If we go any farther, they may smell us.”

Jordan, my oldest friend. My brother in arms. The only other person who survived that night. He was fourteen then. I found him hours after the attack, buried under the charred remains of his family's cabin. The dragons had scorched everything. I dug through the rubble with trembling hands and raw magic. A flicker of levitation was all I had, but it was enough to lift the beam crushing his chest. His face half-melted, unrecognizable, still haunts my dreams. I offered to heal him. He refused. Said the scars were a gift. A reminder. It was just us for a year, just two broken children building a world from ashes. He taught me how to fight. I taught him how to wield magic. We became the start of something unstoppable.

Now we are forty-six strong. Warriors. Survivors. Resistance. “Okay everyone,” I call out to the group. “We’ll camp here tonight. Cloaking spells on the perimeter. Hunters, start preparing the meat. Everyone else, get the tents set up. Six hours’ rest. We move at dawn.”

Jordan and I break off from the others to gather firewood, the sounds of magic murmuring around us as the group gets to work.

“Are you excited, little Slayer?” he asks with a crooked grin, using the nickname he gave me after my first mass kill. The name stuck, passed from lips like a badge of honor.

“I’ll be excited when I’ve gutted one of those council bastards,” I reply, kicking at a stone. “But I’m glad it’s finally your turn. Damicus’s life is rightfully yours to take.”

Jordan drops his pile of wood and brushes his long hair from his face. It’s grown past his shoulders now, a curtain he sometimes uses to hide his scars. But when it matters, when we go to battle, he always asks me to braid it back. He wants his enemies to see what they made him. He is every bit the fae warrior his father once was. If his father could see him now, he would be proud.

A sudden roar shatters the air above us, familiar and primal. I freeze, heart thundering, and glance up. A massive golden dragon slices through the sky, wings cutting across the clouds. It can’t see us. Our cloaking spells are too strong, but still, it circles above, casting a shadow as wide as a fortress. Damicus’s patrol. The bastard knows we’re coming. Back at the camp, Mia, one of our fiercest fire elementals, lights the wood with a flick of her wrist. The flames leap to life, casting golden light across our tired faces. Nick and Henry, two of our hunters and warlocks, carry in the day’s kill. Wild boar, mostly. I morph some sticks into a proper spit, and Henry adds his magic to keep the meat slowly turning. Susie, our only water elemental, fills every cup with fresh mountain stream water, balancing it with her delicate control.

I could do most of this myself. But I don’t. We survive together. We fight together. We each carry a piece of the cause. This isn’t just about revenge. It’s about reclaiming who we are and our right to exist, to live, to wield magic without fear. As the group settles around the fire, passing cups and laughter, I look around at the faces illuminated by firelight. Scarred, hardened, tired. But alive. Unbreakable. Tomorrow we strike. First the dragons. Then the rest. One by one, the council will fall.

And I, Layah, the last fairy, the Slayer will lead them into the fire they lit for us and I will make them burn.