by AE Watson
“Until one day, a young queen sacrificed everything to find and bargain with the dragons. She promised them their place back amongst our rulers if they gave her the tears and blood of a dragon to save her husband’s line. She traded her freedom and her life for this.”
The picture showed my mother as a young woman with a dragon I knew, one I had seen die when I was a small child.
“But the young queen didn’t know there was another searching for the dragons at the same time. One who would threaten the world and all mankind. An evil witch with dark magic more powerful than any in the known worlds. She hunted the dragon mother, wanting the egg for herself and her child. She attacked with dark magic, killing the dragon mother. But not before—”
“Artan’s mother could give him to me,” I whispered seeing the scene play out as it had when I was a child.
“She hadn’t intended to deliver him to you until you were much older and more prepared.”
“Anamay’s mother?” I asked, certain I knew the answer.
“We believe so.”
“Anamay thinks Artan should be hers? Why?”
“Because she believes she is the rightful heir to the throne of all Enderoth and the Southern Isles,” Mani answered.
“Why would she think that?”
“We don’t know. But we would like you to find out. Claim your magic and kill Anamay. There is a dark force working for her that we cannot see. We hear whispers of it but have no confirmations of who it is.”
“I don’t need magic to kill Anamay,” I said.
“Then why have you come, child?” The leader asked.
“There is something I want to ask you.” I couldn’t look at Mani as I said it so I stared at the leader.
“You deny us the request we have made but wish to ask us for something?” A slip of a grin crossed her lips.
“My brothers were made to counteract the birth of my brother Roland. My mother believed she had no other choice.”
“You wish for us to unmake them?” one of the other witches asked, her voice was gravelly and rough, perhaps from all the chanting.
“In a way. I wish for you to pull the vulkodlak from them. Empty their father’s legacy from them. Make them mortal men so no one could ever force their change again or challenge their bloodline. They were forced to change by magic, surely magic could unchange them.”
“You will owe us a favor, if we do this.” It wasn’t a question.
“I will owe you anything but Artan. Though I suspect when he came here you already robbed him of anything he had to offer.” I glared at Mani.
“We took nothing from him. We blessed your dragon brother and that is all,” the leader explained flatly, but I didn’t trust anything she said about him.
I trusted myself and Grayse with Artan and that was it.
The witches glanced at each other, silently staring and nodding. They were conversing in a way I couldn’t hear.
Finally, Mani spoke, “It is settled. You will claim your magic when we tell you to. You will not fight us on this. And we will heal your brothers and make them mortal men.”
Claiming my magic was a step I wished to avoid. At all costs. Perhaps I could agree now and find a way out of the bargain later. My jaw clenched for a moment before agreeing, “Fine. But we go back to the wedding and heal them tonight. A wedding present.” I contemplated it for a moment. “Make enough for my brother’s bride. I can’t risk any more mixing of vulkodlak blood with royal, not in my family.”
“Done,” the leaders said and stood. “Step outside the circle.”
I walked out of the stones and stood next to the lapping waves as the witches moved closer to the fire and formed their circle again. The flames shot into the sky, changing color and flashing like reverse lightning.
I stepped back more, feeling the heat and the cold as the colors changed.
The ground around the stones scorched and froze and lifted and fell, pulsating with the vibrating women chanting as one.
My necklace buzzed again, as if I were standing in the shockwaves of the magic.
It was terrible and beautiful what they could do.
I wondered why they hid here, out of the world of men, but suspected the answer was something along the lines of how I lived. In the shadows, always persecuted and watched.
It was no life.
The fire burned and changed until it turned white. It was so bright I had to avert my gaze, but I swore I saw the flames reach out like tentacles of a sea monster from a sailor’s story.
Four shadows vanished from the circle.
I blinked, certain I was mistaken.
But the light dimmed and the circle was indeed missing four women.
Mani’s eyes met mine, glossy with tears she did not shed.
The leader, looking quite similar, turned to me, her voice cracking as she spoke, “The price has been paid. Your brothers will be cured. And you will claim your magic in the moment we tell you.”
I nodded, realizing what the cost had been.
I hated magic and hated needing it even more.
Chapter 16
“You’ve come back,” Egar spoke with the relaxed tongue of a drunken mess, but he was sitting at a large table so he appeared fine.
“I need to see my brothers. Have you seen them recently?” I scanned the busy ballroom, filled with dancing and drinking and groups of loud merrymakers laughing as they talked.
A set of eyes met mine, making me wince and wish to run away, but I held Maddox’s gaze and provided no expression. Not even when he glared.
“Michael is there.” Egar pointed into the crowd to where Michael stood near several guards who pretended to be part of the fun as he spoke to the woman from Firth I didn’t trust.
“Great,” I walked forward, glimpsing at Maddox, aware he would be able to hear me even over the noise of the room. “I have a cure for Michael, Ed, and Keanna. To make them regular mortals. It will remove the vulkodlak and magic from them, ensuring no one can control them or force a change. Meet me in Ed’s bedroom with Keanna and Ed, please.”
His eyes widened and for a moment I saw he didn’t like the idea. But he contemplated and then nodded, walking away from me as I moved toward Michael.
When my brother’s eyes caught mine, he scowled. I tilted my head to the right and walked away, certain he would follow.
The halls were overrun with couples seeking a quiet place, including a few people I’d seen with their spouses the last time I was here.
Marriage was such a bizarre notion for me.
When I reached the dark part of the hall, near the servants’ entrance to the private wing, Michael caught up to me.
“Why are you back?” he asked.
“Nice to see you too,” I said, not bothering to turn around.
“Has something happened?”
“Yes,” I said and hurried up the steps to the private residence where guards stood.
Mani was already there, again an old woman.
“This lady says she is your aunt, Your Grace,” one of them barked.
“She is,” Michael waved them off. We entered the room to find Keanna and Ed and Maddox already waiting.
“Max said you have a cure?” Ed asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“What?” Michael asked as the door closed.
Mani waved her hands in the air, making my necklace shudder against my skin. “Let’s be certain we are having a private conversation.”
“Mani has a cure for the vulkodlak magic inside you.” I glanced at her and then Michael. “Your children would be normal. No magic or wolf tendencies.”
“Why?” Keanna asked, her tone a disrespectful one I would tire of quickly.
“Because being controlled by anyone considered an alpha to you is dangerous when you’re given a throne. And cursing your children with this, to have them forced to fight in a ring and kill innocents for the amusement of sick and twisted invaders that come to your shores is a terrible fate.” My tone matched hers, ma
king her eyes lower.
“She’s right,” Maddox muttered. “This throne is in the world of man, not wolf. But a wolf could control it if they were stronger than you.”
Ed nodded. “I know but it has become part of who I am—”
“How did we not know this was possible?” Michael growled the question at our aunt.
Mani flinched.
“She didn’t want to risk it,” I muttered, still devastated the request of my brothers’ freedom had taken four lives. “Magic has a cost.”
Michael’s eyes darted to mine. He saw something in them that made him ache. The look of empathy was all too familiar with us. “How many cures do you have?”
“Four,” Mani said.
“We will all take the cure or leave our thrones and go to the grove and live out our lives there.”
Keanna’s eyes darted to my brother’s. Ed saw something in them and shrugged. “Then I will go back to the grove with Keanna. I don’t want this stupid throne anyway.”
“Four women gave their lives to create these cures! You will take them!” I snapped, stepping into my brother. “Our mother didn’t want to have to do this. But Barrel raped her and impregnated her. She needed an heir and felt this was her only way. You have the chance to undo our mother’s greatest shame and prevent yourself from being controlled.”
Ed flinched but Keanna stepped into him, her hand resting on his arm. “He’s right, Amillia. We hate it here. We long for the grove and to shift freely.”
“Take the cure!” Michael shouted at Ed. “You will not choose this over our family!”
But Ed was resolute in his decision. He linked his hand into Keanna’s and shook his head.
“Force them,” Michael demanded of Maddox.
“No,” he refused.
“Then you will leave here tomorrow and never return, and I never want to see your selfish face again!” Michael turned to Mani, holding out his hand.
My chest was exploding with emotions. “Wait! Ed, please. Don’t do this.”
“You should have asked if I wanted to go back to being normal before you killed more people, Millia.” Ed furrowed his brow and I saw it, his disgust for me. A slow poison that had worked its way into him, killing off whatever we were. Another cost for me. A sacrifice to the gods of all for healing this kingdom.
Ed was no longer mine.
He was married to Keanna.
He was her family.
My gaze darted to Maddox who held his hand out to Mani as well. “I will take it, your cure.”
“No!” Keanna screamed, shoving him away from it.
“Yes.” He didn’t get emotional the way she did. “If you two want to go and hide away in the grove, running around and living a life of freedom and bliss while the world around us burns, that is your choice. This is mine.” His judgement of them made her recoil. “I will have no more blood on my hands.”
Mani placed the small purple flower that had been created from the souls of the witches who sacrificed themselves in the palms of Michael’s and Maddox’s hands.
They held the delicate blossoms and stared.
“You eat it,” Mani muttered.
Keanna wept as Maddox placed it in his mouth. Michael followed, his eyes on mine as if scared.
We waited a whole moment before they simultaneously jerked their heads back and screamed into the ceiling. Dark swirling clouds and mist left their bodies.
I gasped and stepped back.
They turned purple and then pale, dropping to the floor as the last of the dark mist left them.
Michael huffed for his breath but Maddox was frozen where he sat. I couldn’t help myself, I dropped to my knees and held him to me.
He trembled for a moment before he lifted his gaze, wincing.
All the magic was gone from him.
I grabbed Michael too, dragging him into the embrace. “Are you all right?”
“That was—intense,” Michael whispered and paused. “I remember things I didn’t before. Moments I didn’t know I saw.”
“All magic has been pulled from you. The witches’ souls you swallowed, absorbed all magic and carried it away. You are free and clear of any manipulations or charms used on you.”
Michael glanced at Mani. “I remember the dungeon after the sack of the city. The night Father died. Anamay was there. She was in Ettelbruck. She is the reason we changed.” He glanced at Ed. “She forced us to change with dark magic. We never should have been wolves.”
Mani knit her brow.
Ed pressed his lips together, defiant in his selfishness.
“You truly will let this girl come between us, your family?” Michael snarled, visibly shaken by what was happening to him.
Ed’s eyes widened and his lips twisted into a nasty scowl.
“Just leave now before we say something that can’t be taken back,” I said, hating the coward he was. “We’ll explain that you have taken private time for your wedding as a couple and someone else will fill your seat. Mani, do you mind?”
Keanna reached for Maddox but he didn’t respond. She started to weep as Mani cut open a doorway and opened it to the dark and quiet of the grove.
Ed turned, dragging Keanna through it.
Mani closed the door and Michael used my hands to grip as he stood on shaky legs. “I can’t believe him. He’s dead to me.” He turned to me, his eyes red and angry looking. “Dead to us.”
I nodded but I didn’t agree. Ed was stupid and foolish and in love he was weakened. But he would always be our brother.
“I want Grayson to go to the grove and command the wolves to stand down, stay in their spaces, either Lupinton or the grove, and to never make their way south again,” Maddox spoke softly but there was a frightening anger in his voice as he too stood and tried to get control over his body. “I want him to command them to never plot against humans again and to forbid breeding amongst the races. This ends now.”
“Okay,” I whispered, turning to Mani. “I’ll fly south with Artan.”
“Of course.” She nodded.
“What will you do about the steward of Firth?” I asked my brother.
“I’ll keep Aunt Mani with me, if it’s all right with you, Aunty, and go between the two places for a bit. Perhaps that is what I should have been doing more anyway.”
“I will stay with you. Katy has a handle on everything else,” Mani agreed with Michael.
“Millia, the moment you are done with Grayson, you should go see Grandmother in Florents. Not only to find a steward, but I swear I remember her in the cells with us in the dungeon. And that memory cannot be. Perhaps, she has some insight into why I believe I saw her where I could not have. Unless Anamay has played with my memories.” Michael seemed troubled. I was grateful our aunt would stay with him. “And you should go to Midland.” He smiled at Maddox. “I am grateful for your sacrifice for Enderoth. I know that can’t have been easy.”
“Easier than you think,” Maddox muttered, his eyes flickering to mine.
“Take these pearls. When you need me to come to you, they will alert me.” Mani handed me a small bag of tiny pale blue pearls. “I can use them to get Grayson to the wolves and then back the isles in one day.”
“Keep me updated on every move,” Michael demanded and left the room, leaving Maddox and me alone as Mani followed him out.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Maddox.
“I’m not.” He smiled faintly. “You cannot know what it is to have feelings and thoughts and emotions pushed on you. I am free for the first time in my life. Free of the burden and duty to care for a group of people who would use me to take land that doesn’t belong to them. The wolves wanted war, and now without me, they will be at the mercy of Grayson.” He smirked. “And everything my mother plotted for has been ruined.”
“I know you are an honor-bound man who would never do something—”
“No, Princess,” Maddox spoke harshly. “You don’t know me. I don’t even know me anymore. I am born again in
this moment. Free and clear to choose for myself.” His eyes danced with delight, and I thought he might kiss me or ravage me but he did the opposite. He laughed and stepped back. “And I am free of the feelings I had for you. Completely. They were born of my mother’s magic, and they have died in those witches’ poor souls.”
His blurted words stabbed into me.
Every part of my heart ached.
A sob slipped from my lips as I staggered back from him.
His glassy eyes narrowed, maybe not in anger but maybe confusion, and his hand lifted to his lips as if he too couldn’t believe what he had said. “Millia—”
I ran from the room before he could say anything else.
Chapter 17
The sun was rising as we flew over the coast of Midland, leaving Enderoth behind and heading for the Southern Isles. In my head I’d imagined a quick flight. They didn’t seem that far off on the maps, but we were hours into it and nowhere near our destination. The island nations weren’t even in view. As far as the eye could see it was water and though warm and comforting, the open ocean scared me. What monsters lurked beneath the dark blue waves? If every legend from my childhood had turned out to be true, what of the ocean creatures said to suck an entire ship into the sea?
I gripped Artan tighter, wishing we were there and regretting not taking Mani up on her offer for a doorway. But I knew having Artan with me would make me more comfortable here, so far from home. And my fleeing of Firth had been rather desperate after the conversation with Maddox. I had anticipated a cruel dialogue, but that was far more than I could bear. I pushed the thoughts away.
Closing my eyes, I blocked out the sea and imagined what the island of Fantol would look like.
But what I thought and what I found when Artan finally started his descent, couldn’t have been more different.
The beaches were reddish brown, a much darker color than those in Enderoth. The water seemed to glow turquoise amongst the whitecap waves. There were trees I didn’t recognize, with wide trunks and fronds for branches, like ferns in the elven woods, that reached up and arched slightly, fluttering in the warm breeze.