Cinderella Necromancer

by F. M. Boughan

  I thought of all these things, of Curson and Lautrayth, Feremin and Oliroomim, of the dead spirits conjured forth, of their loss and how I had forced them to rise from their graves of peace or tortures in hell, and I thought of myself who would join them this day and be called forth by the next and the next and the next ones to find that cursed, God-forsaken book.

  I thought of freedom for the kingdom and how desperately I wanted my family to live.

  I thought of my stepsisters and how they had threatened to take every measure of that away from me.

  I took what I knew to be my last breath, and with every ounce of strength which I had gained through servitude to their own whims, plunged both hands deep into my stepsisters’ chests, even as their jaws closed around my aching body, and even as the legions of hell descended upon them by my command.

  I found that place deep within, and took hold of their unbeating hearts.

  And I pulled.

  Blood—black and thick, red and hot, sticky and smelling of sweetness and death—oozed down my arms and poured forth from the gaping holes in their chests as I drew out their festering, maggoty hearts.

  And I squeezed.

  The hearts burst in my hands, sending sprays of white maggots over my dress and shoes and arms as globs of red and black blood burst from my palms, baptizing my cheeks with slate and scarlet.

  Closing around my neck and limbs, their jaws grew slack.

  Somewhere distant, a woman roared in fury, and somewhere close, a young man shouted as he awoke from a deep, waking sleep.

  And that, my dear Father, is when you walked in.

  36

  The Return

  My father, William, and the King stare awestruck as I finish my tale. I see the disgust in the King’s eyes, but worse, in William’s. I am an abomination to their kind, of this I am certain. What they are, I don’t know, but it does not matter.

  They are safe, and we are whole.

  But as my father runs forward to embrace his daughter whose arms and hands and self drip with blood both seen and unseen, I remember.

  “Where’s Celia?”

  She is nowhere. Her body is not among the wreckage of my sisters, nor is she held at bay by my army—the legions who remain swirling above us, held back by my will alone. They fill the chapel sanctuary, and I feel their pain as keenly as if it were my own.

  They should not be in such a sacred place. I shouldn’t have called them here.

  “She’s gone,” says Father, weariness in his voice—though I can see that his eyes are clear and whole, unaffected. “I never believed it would come to this. I left, that she might—”

  “Terrorize the kingdom?” William rouses from where he stands, and comes forward. “It was her, wasn’t it? And … those?” He points to the coagulating forms of my stepsisters. They were not sucked back into the Abyss as Curson, and I wonder if they paid a dear price for their human forms.

  “They took Gretel,” is the first thing I think to say to Father, “and the others. After you left.”

  I can barely believe he stands before me. There are so many things he needs to know. So many things I want to say, or scream, or accuse, but more than that, I want to throw my arms around him and hear that everything is going to be all right now. Because he is here and he is alive.

  Father sinks to his knees, rivers of salt on his cheeks to match the eddies of crimson on mine. His forehead touches the ground and he raises one hand—his right hand—toward my knee.

  It is an ancient gesture, one of supplication—a cry for mercy, forgiveness, and protection.

  I cannot bear it. “No, Father, you must stand. I’ve been strong for you long enough. It’s your turn now.”

  But he is still on the other side of the chasm, and his body shakes, lithe form racked with a guilt I understand all too well. “Forgive me, daughter.”

  But I cannot, for there is nothing to forgive. He is not a man who should beg on his knees, not to me, not to anyone. “Rise, Father, before I send these legions to lift you up.”

  And he raises his head to see that I am not angry and that I smile, even though the ache of all that has passed is too much to bear. Would that I were the one on my knees, for I am unsure how much longer I’ll have the strength to stand.

  And as I reach to take my father’s hand across the gap and bid him rise, a shout from behind causes me to spin about.

  The King is rushing toward us, bladed sceptre raised, with a battle cry so glorious that I am tempted to welcome the knife and end it all in this moment.

  But William shouts, “No, Father!”, and raises his right arm, palm open and in it some object I can’t see. The momentum of the sceptre collides with William’s open palm, and the sanctuary erupts with a bright, hot light.

  My demons scream and writhe and whirl with pain beyond anything I have ever felt before, as though every limb is being torn away by wild horses, and I am blind to the world for an eternity until—

  The light is gone, the pain is gone, and so are my demons.

  The Abyss has closed, and the forms of my stepsisters, vanished.

  William stands facing the King. He has defied his Father, somehow—my William, who once told me that he feared an act of defiance would shake the fate of the kingdom.

  “They’ve done nothing wrong,” he says, holding his palm aloft. Between his fingers, a glint of gold. Did he hold his medallion?

  “They’ve conjured evil spirits, son. Everything we stand against, everything we have a duty to banish from this world, they brought forth upon us.” His eyes are wild and frantic, but I see that they are also full of goodness and light. Just like his son.

  “No,” William says, “I know her. She attended the balls, Father, she is a good person. I’m sure this has all been a mistake, she wouldn’t—”

  What is he saying? I am not Lady Aleidis, I am only—

  But I look down at my dress, splattered with gore and entrails, and I see.

  My demons have made me glorious, one last time. I am the radiant princess who calls forth the dead.

  I am Ellison, girl of ash and cinder and spirits. Necromancer.

  “It’s no mistake,” I say.

  William turns, though he keeps the King in his sight. “That other woman, it must be her doing.”

  “She’s evil, certainly,” I say with a sigh, for every moment I waste in convincing William and the King that they should not kill my father and me on the spot is another moment Celia remains free—and Edward’s fate uncertain. “And I am sure that it was she and her spawn who roamed the kingdom as terrors. But all I have done, I have done for my family alone.”

  I hesitate in the whole truth, but what have I to lose? “And for you.”

  “Me?” His confusion is immediate, and I wonder if I should have waited.

  “Yes, you.”

  He shakes his head and lowers his hand. “I don’t understand. How could you call anything forth? And why for me? We didn’t part on the most amicable terms.”

  “But I know more of your heart than you think.”

  He gapes like a fish, and I long to engage him with teases and hints and guesses, but there will be time for that later. Now, there is more at stake than a young woman’s whims.

  Wordless, I draw forth William’s ring from inside my dress and hold it in my palm that he might understand.

  His eyes grow wide as he takes in the ring, my face, my gown, and my father still quivering at my feet.

  “You … you’re … Ella? Ella!”

  I wait for him to see, and he does. The realization drains his face of color as he struggles with the duality of the women he thought he knew.

  He shakes his head. “But I thought—”

  “That I was something other? I may be a noble merchant’s daughter, but I am neither servant nor princess.”

  He steps forward, brows knit. “I don’t understand. If you’re Lady Aleidis, then she isn’t … but you are … �
� He pauses, frustration mounting. “Why not just come as yourself? I wanted you to be there. I looked for you. Asked you to come.”

  “Yes, but I wondered why a prince who so obviously didn’t want to take a wife became so interested in one particular girl.”

  With a laugh and a shake of his head, William plucks the ring from my hand. I am in awe of his bright spirit even in the darkest of moments. “You knew, the whole time. From that first meeting.”

  “I did.” I shrug. “Your coat fell under my stepsisters—over there, see it? I think it may have need of a wash.”

  He slides the ring on his finger and looks at me—truly looks at me—and sees me as the girl who sat in the graveyard in the early morning hours, alone in her nightdress. Not as some foreign beauty or an illusion of who or what I am.

  We are the only ones in the room as he reaches out to touch my cheek.

  “My father the King, he meant to trap the conjurer of terrors at the festival. It was my test to seek out the one doing evil, under guise of finding a wife. The fate of the kingdom rested on that, not on removing myself from bachelorhood.”

  “That’s a terrible plan,” I say.

  He laughs again, a true laugh, despite all things. “It is, isn’t it? We thought with everyone in one place, the demon caller might—”

  “Call down more terrors?” I roll my eyes heavenward, relieved to see a clear and ornately painted ceiling instead of a rolling mass of hellbound creatures swarming the air above. I am reminded of the night of the final ball, and how I had done just what they’d feared. “In that, at least, you were correct.”

  He looks back at his father the King, whose gaze has softened upon his son. I look back at mine, who is rising to his feet with a determination that warms my soul and heightens hope.

  “We are … protectors, my family.” William pulls his medallion chain back over his head. “My heritage, my task, is to defend the kingdom from evil. We bring light where there is only dark, and are sworn to serve the Almighty in the destruction of evil.”

  I nod. “And your medallion?”

  “Saint Michael.”

  Chief Prince of heaven? Of course. I should have guessed.

  “What of your father’s sceptre?”

  “We all have our own strengths. The King’s sceptre serves to channel heaven’s favor.”

  I begin to understand what he’s trying to explain. So many things become clear now—why he roamed the streets at night, how he knew of the terrors, and his appearances in our yard. He sought to find and destroy a necromancer—and he’d suspected my father.

  “Then by all rights, you should strike me down where I stand.”

  “Yes,” he says, slowly. “I should.”

  He looks to the empty floor, to the ceiling, and to the place where the pit had opened and spit up heat and flame and spirits.

  “But you don’t seem evil. You’re not what I imagined a necromancer would look like.” He points to the place where Victoria and Charlotte had lain, now only a smear of rot and blood. And his coat. “That sort of thing … that was more like it.”

  “I think,” I say, “that it is not so simple as our elders would have us believe.”

  “I think,” he says, holding his hand out for mine, “that you are rather perceptive. And also correct.”

  I eye his hand with an intentional scepticism. “What will your bride think?”

  He kicks at his coat, and a remnant pocket of maggots sprays across his boot and the floor. Sick laughter at the senselessness of it all bubbles up from some place deep inside my chest.

  “I imagine she won’t say much.” He also begins to laugh, but stops as our eyes meet. “What is it?”

  How do I explain? How can I begin to tell him? “It’s sad,” I try, “No one deserves death, not really.”

  “No,” says another.

  We both start in surprise, for the King has moved toward us, his bladed sceptre sheathed. “They were never alive, miss. At least, not as you knew them.”

  “Lady Aleidis,” William corrects his father.

  “Ellison,” my father corrects William.

  “Ella,” I say. “And I think they all were, once.” I look to the ceiling once more, remembering. “They all were.”

  The chapel descends into silence but for the soft whistle of the evening breeze outside. I plead silently to the Almighty for a sign, something that might tell me if Edward is safe or if he still lives. I cannot feel guilty for what has happened here—I didn’t call the spirits, not on purpose, but still they came.

  How is that fair?

  Ah, but life is not about what is or isn’t fair.

  “She’s still out there,” I whisper, breaking the silence. “It’s not over yet.”

  William looks to his father the King, who bows his head and touches a finger to his forehead in a sign of deference to his son. My breath catches and William nods in acknowledgment. This is William’s task now, and I am relieved.

  “Maybe she died with her daughters?” William rubs the medallion between his fingers. “Or maybe her powers diminished?”

  A roll of thunder, far beyond the chapel, interrupts our thoughts.

  Something within me is sure that it isn’t actually thunder.

  “No,” I say, “she lives. We only have to find her and act.”

  But how? I do not know. I have spent all my efforts on vengeance against my stepsisters and never once thought to bully the source.

  My heart seizes in an instant and I’m gripped by a terror beyond all terrors I have ever or will ever face.

  “Edward,” I breathe, “if she finds Edward … ”

  My father places a hand upon my shoulder.

  “I’ll find him,” he says, a sadness in his voice that tells me he, too, is uncertain of what will come. “You help the King and the Prince root her out. I dare not risk falling under her spell once more.”

  “How did you?” I say, spitting the words. “Shouldn’t you have known?”

  His shoulders slump with a weariness that makes my heart ache. “I did know, my daughter, I did. That is why I married her, at first, that I might keep her close until I could find a way to defeat her. But when I learned the kingdom’s paladins—” and here, he looks to the King, “—searched for the source of the terrors and suspected me, I couldn’t risk imprisonment or death before I had found a way to defeat her for good.”

  “You’d seen her before? And yet she didn’t recognize you?” The pieces do not fit, and yet my thoughts return to the letter, the task therein, and the sacrifice. Were these one and the same?

  Father tugs on his sleeves and taps his forehead. “I have tricks of my own, daughter. Evil takes many forms and has a short memory.”

  “But Mother?” I can’t help but ask.

  He nods. “It was her idea, Ellison. She helped me obtain The Book of Conjuring from the Royal Archives some time ago. She helped hide the path back to me, and she fought the good fight by my side, with her strength.”

  I don’t like what I’m hearing. It cannot be true, but it is. I know it is. I read the letter—I spoke to the source. “But you lost. Mother died for nothing, and Celia still lives, and Edward—”

  He shakes his head and opens his palms toward me. “Not for nothing, daughter. None who give their lives against evil, despite the outcome, do so for nothing. We have each faced it in our own way, and we each pay the cost. Some more than others.” He looks to William and the King. “Some are required to make greater sacrifices so that others don’t have to.”

  William’s face becomes a mask of confusion, and I am relieved, because I too don’t understand why. “Then why use this dark magic to fight her? Why not call on the royal family, or even a priest?”

  My father sighs deeply, and my stomach roils with anticipation. I ache to know the answer, and yet, I am afraid what his answer might mean.

  Afraid of what I will have to do.

  “To fight a cre
ature of such darkness,” he says, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose, “one must be close enough to darkness themselves. Only darkness can open the Abyss and return something that evil back into the fires of hell.”

  He looks at William and the King once again. “Can either of you open the Gates of Hell in the Almighty’s name?”

  “No,” says the King. “Nor would I want to. Purity cannot abide the darkness.”

  I know this in truth, for I saw it when my mother touched me.

  There is silence in the chapel as we all contemplate this meaning.

  “And so the darkness must return it to darkness,” I murmur.

  “Yes,” says my father. “We become the damned in His name, that the earth might live in peace.” He looks at me with a great, consuming sadness. “And that we might, one day, beg His forgiveness.”

  I understand now.

  It is time for me to kill the beast.

  37

  The Church

  We leave the chapel together, though my father, the King, and William head to the royal stables to find horses for the journey ahead. I walk to the grove where my horse, the book, and my father’s satchel are hidden, and we meet again at the gates of the palace grounds.

  I learn that William, with great effort, has sent the King away to tend to the needs of those injured in the chapel—to heal any wounds, and to calm the fears of the people. And for the same purpose, because he can be of no use in the battle ahead, I urge William away as well.

  “You’ve no need to remain,” I insist. “And you may get hurt.”

  “You’re one to talk,” he replies with a frown. “You haven’t a clue how to defeat her.”

  “She’s only one woman,” I say with confidence. “And no longer has the luxury of demanding that others do her bidding. Right, Father?”