The Other Side of Magic

by Ester Manzini

  “Who did this?” Gaiane whispered. The soil under her boots was soft, right where Leo had buried one of the charges.

  She was so ready to give the signal.

  “Does it matter? Leave this place and we’ll be merciful. Alcmena lives, and your little friends, those you say were so helpful, will be ignored.” Cibele took another step toward her.

  “Or else?”

  “Don’t challenge me, girl. Don’t underestimate the length I’m willing to go to bring my daughter back!” Cibele's features hardened, and she pointed her finger at Gaiane. “Move. Now!”

  “I won’t!”

  “Why do you make me do this? Diocle, proceed.”

  The man picked Alcmena up like the bundle of rags she was. A knife flashed in his hand.

  Gaiane grabbed her hair and doubled over.

  “No no no! Don’t do it! Don’t!” she pleaded.

  “You know the price,” Cibele insisted. Her eyes were so cold, so big and determined…

  Gaiane watched the blade linger on Alcmena’s throat and sobbed. Her whole body tensed in the movement she was ready to make, to close the gap between her and that wretched family of hers.

  “Don’t kill her, I beg you!”

  “Come, then. I will keep my word.” Her mother’s words, honey and threat, almost broke her. Gaiane stumbled forward. It was only a matter of seconds, and she would have granted Alcmena’s safety.

  I promise.

  It was her mother. Mothers don’t lie, do they? And Cibele only wanted the best for her beloved child, her only heir.

  Tears streamed down her face and nose, and she moved. Slowly.

  Alcmena looked at the sky with those void, dark eyes. Beyond salvation--broken by more than mere pain.

  Magic.

  “Here, my little dove. You’re good, we’re going to be good, you’ll see. Just another step.” Cibele approached very slowly with her hands upturned.

  Gaiane tripped in her skirt. She staggered and snatched the trail, and in doing so she caught a glimpse of the ruins behind her.

  Ligeia was there. A queen in her own right, without a throne and without the man she’d loved. And Evandro, uptight and rude as he was. On his path to redemption. Ampelio, too.

  And Leo.

  They would all die if she gave in.

  A long, hard sob clenched her ribcage, and she covered her face with her hands.

  “I… I said no,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “No!”

  A scream, full and loud and ringing in her bones. She planted her feet on the ground and stood still.

  “Your choice, princess,” Diocle said, unconcerned.

  Alcmena stopped laughing when the blade slashed across her throat. She slumped forward without a sound, the blood pooling around her, seeping into the ground.

  Gaiane couldn’t move.

  Red. So red, so much, too much. She knew Alcmena was dead before the blood had stopped squirting from her severed throat, and she stared at her through her fingers.

  On her. Another death on her.

  Horror froze her body into place. She looked at Alcmena’s lifeless shape and it hurt, but it kept her still. Staring at her mother? Hatred boiled under her skin.

  Tears ran dry, and anger blinded her again. The wail that came from her mouth roughened into a snarl.

  “You’re a monster.”

  “I’m your mother. Now enough with this madness.”

  Cibele approached some more, and Gaiane let power blaze trough her nerves. The blue lines painting the world flashed in her eyes, and she recalled their force in her fists. The static surrounding her made her hair dance wildly in a halo around her head, and Cibele hesitated.

  “You want me?” she hissed. “Come get me, then!”

  “Get her,” Diocle snapped, and the horsemen charged on.

  Just as expected.

  Gaiane watched her mother as several beasts galloped across the field. The moment she unleashed her power, not into an explosion of lightning, but into a barrier surrounding her like a cocoon, the queen understood.

  It was a second, something less. The queen was maybe six feet from Gaiane, and their eyes met. The same eyes, bluebells in a freckled face.

  Forgive me, Gaiane thought. Her power bloomed around her like a cocoon.

  Then the ground burst into chaos, and the wild explosion of dirt and metal and flesh erased the whole world.

  A boom.

  Night came, and Gaiane closed her eyes.

  Chapter 22

  The explosion shook the foundations of the city. The blast wave hit Leo before she could catch her breath after igniting the fuse, and she found herself pushed back in Evandro's arms. Ampelio cursed out loud, but his voice disappeared under the thunderous boom, and soon the three of them collapsed in a pile against the battlements.

  Leo couldn’t move. Evandro was splayed on her and on Ampelio, his arms wrapped tightly over their shoulders, keeping their heads tucked under his body. The world buzzed, and her ears throbbed in tandem with her head.

  It had worked. For all the certainty she had needed to show before, she wasn’t entirely sure of her plan. But it had worked.

  “Move!” she grunted. Her voice echoed in her skull, over the humming that vibrated through the field. Nobody heard her. She pushed Evandro's thick frame and wiggled until the knight shifted his weight from her. She slipped from under him, and when she stumbled to her feet the sky tilted and crumbled upon her.

  Ampelio said something she couldn’t hear when she fell on top of him. His words vibrated against her skin, but that ubiquitous noise took their meaning away.

  Leo shoved him off and crawled back, sitting against the battlements. She blinked and coughed, and eventually she managed to see again.

  They were brown, all three of them, covered in a thin layer of dust from the explosion. Evandro's icy eyes looked ghostly in such a dirty face, but he managed to get up first.

  Leo tried to do the same, but it took her several minutes to get a grip on her consciousness. Dizziness ebbed and flowed, Ampelio kept on talking, as per his usual, and after a while his voice started to breach through the murmur filling her ears.

  “... done… dead? Look, the… what…”

  Frowning, with her throbbing hear in her hands, Leo kicked and scrambled to her feet. Her back was still against the stones, and she wasn’t sure she could stand up unsupported.

  The hands that grabbed her were rough enough to make their owner unmistakable.

  “Leo!”

  Evandro was screaming. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his neck, and when he shook Leo, her teeth chattered.

  “Answer me! Leo!”

  “What?” she yelled back. This time, she realized her voice was too loud.

  “Are you alright?”

  She didn’t reply. She turned and looked at the field, where the dust was starting to settle. She couldn’t see anything.

  “I must go.” Evandro couldn’t hear her, because he was still manhandling her. She swatted his hands away and leaned against the walls. The vertigo was fading, but her heart still raced wildly. “Let me go! I need to find her!”

  “Leo, wait! It’s too dangerous, what if not every charge has gone off?” Ampelio's voice cracked and too loud, was not his own.

  “They have,” Leo insisted. They had to be, and she needed to believe it. She slipped from Evandro's grip and swayed down the narrow staircase. She was halfway down it when her legs started to properly cooperate again, supporting her as she jumped two steps at a time.

  The sunlit door welcomed her, but the light went out at once, covered by the mass of dozens of people running to Nikaia’s main gates.

  Leo rubbed her face, lowered her head, and ran through the crowd. Pushing, shoving, stomping on strangers’ feet and sticking her elbows out, she made her way among a loud, angry chattering.

  Everyone stopped just out of the gates. Deprived of the resistance of all those bodies, Leo shot forth and s
taggered, falling on her knees in the dirt.

  She got up and looked behind her. The people of Nikaia were armed, with their old swords and bats and whatever they could grab.

  A gust of wind rose. The smell that invested her almost made her sick--smoke and filth and the sweet, thick metal of blood. Everywhere.

  The breeze cleared the field, and Leo saw them.

  The horses had taken the worst of the blow. They were dead, dozens of them, their massive bodies broken and twisted in heaps of muscles and stumps of white and pink bones. Their knights were everywhere. Body parts were scattered far beyond the perimeter of the charges, and some of them were wailing weakly. The ground itself was a muddy expanse of black grime, up to the bottom of the hill. There, a handful of Asares dignitaries stood paralyzed in horror.

  Leo took a deep breath.

  “Keep away from the field,” she told the people at the gates. “And seize them.”

  To her surprise, the makeshift army obeyed. She waited, watching them circle the area and converge around the few horsemen left. None were armed, and many were old. They didn’t resist, shaking and keeping their hands up.

  Leo’s attention drifted away. Her eyes scanned the carnage, and her chest squeezed in anticipation.

  She walked toward the center of the scene, and a small part of her mind counted the craters--enough. All of the charges were gone. They were safe.

  But she didn’t care much. It only meant she could run, now, and so she did, slipping on bloody puddles and spraying filthy mud on her legs.

  White. She was looking for white, alive and safe.

  “Gaiane?” she called. Her voice still sounded raw, but her hearing was coming back to her properly.

  Nobody answered. She heard the cries of the wounded, the pleas of the dying. A beastly sound, primordial, shapeless.

  Her lips twitched, her eyes widened madly.

  No. No, it can’t be. We had it all planned out, you said you could do it. I trusted you!

  A small whimper escaped her mouth.

  Where are you?

  And then a new sound joined the cacophony of the dead. Different, high pitched.

  A sob.

  Leo lost it all. She stomped on a torn banner and jumped over a dead horse, but all she could see was the bright red figure slowly rising from the ground. Some of the white from her gown still shone among the drenched spots.

  She caught Gaiane in her arms before she could fall, and together they crumbled to the ground.

  “You’re alive. Spirits, you’re alive. You… you reckless, brave, whiny, perfect princess you’re alive,” she whispered in frenzy, touching Gaiane’s face, searching for her eyes.

  She was. The princess was alive and unharmed, and the blood covering her was from the body at her feet.

  “Don’t let me go! Please, Leo, don’t… leave me, it’s too much, I can’t… I can’t…”

  “Hush, I’m here, you hear me? You’re safe. You’re with me,” and she wrapped her arms tight around her thin frame, letting her sob on her chest and crying in return.

  She didn’t want to let her go, not ever. But it was Gaiane who pulled back, still clutching the front of Leo’s tunic.

  “They’re dead. All of them?”

  “I don’t know. Many of them. They’re not fighting back.” She really didn’t care. Gaiane was in her arms again and Nikaia was safe for now, what else might she want?

  “My father. I saw him. Gone.”

  Leo couldn’t speak. She just brushed Gaiane’s hair again and again, smearing dirt and blood everywhere. Yes, he was dead, probably, but she had no words to comfort her. Not now.

  Gaiane closed her eyes, shimmering but tearless.

  “I saw him. I know he’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry, I think. He…”

  A bubbling sound came from near them, right where Gaiane had been laying just minutes ago. Leo peeked behind Gaiane’s shoulder and gasped.

  The queen. Cibele Asares, who had the same hair, the same eyes as her daughter, but a faded circle on her brow. And a gruesome wound tearing her stomach and torso open.

  Deadly, and yet she still lived.

  The woman grinned, her teeth pink, her lips crimson.

  Gaiane shook Leo, forcing her to look back at her face.

  “My mother still lives. I beg you, let me… let me take her back! I can’t leave her here like this, it’s not fair! Please!”

  “I…”

  “It’s my fault, I tried to envelope her in my barrier but… it was too sudden, and…”

  The queen was dying. The sneer on her pale face twisted and morphed, and in Leo’s mind the picture of her own mother flashed again. The surprise, the shock as she saw the horses rolling down the path, the shape of her mouth when she warned Leo to run. The red rags covering her body after the stampede.

  Not fair, Gaiane had said.

  Vengeance tempted her briefly, but the princess’ voice wove through her mind.

  She roused and looked Gaiane in the eye.

  “Yes. They’ll bring her in, let’s go ask Mirone. Can you stand? Walk?”

  Gaiane nodded, and turned to her mother.

  “We must hurry, she…”

  Leo waved her arm, and called two men from the rearguards.

  “Wounded here! Take her to Mirone, now!”

  They limped away from the field, and Gaiane’s fingers crushed her hand. When they reached the shadows of the city, everyone was too busy to mind them.

  Except for Ampelio, who ran to them, jumping through the rubble.

  “Our heroes return! You two, girls, are miracle workers! What a story to tell, what a…”

  Leo wanted to dismiss him with a snarky retort, but she was way too tired for that. And luckily, Ampelio was smarter than it seemed.

  He had the decency to be quiet and just pat them on the shoulders, jerking his head and pointing behind him.

  “There’s silence downstairs. Wind down a little, and then know that lots of people will want to talk to you.”

  “Thank you,” Leo said. Gaiane’s face was that of pure shock, her eyes wide and her mouth pale.

  It was going to get better, and the cool shadows under the trapdoor welcomed them in the safety of the undercity.

  It was empty. Those who had stayed to guard the old capital were outside, taking prisoners and checking on the dead. All the others, Rea and Althea above all, had gone further down the tunnels, to hidden and secret places.

  Leo kicked the first door she found open and took Gaiane with her. It was someone’s place, but all that was left of the previous owner were some pressed straw on the floor, a frayed rag and a bucket.

  She sat Gaiane down and kissed her cheek.

  “Wait here. It’ll only be a moment, alright?”

  No reaction. Gaiane stared into nothing. Leo took her hands and crouched at her feet.

  “Gaiane, I’m going to get water. You can drink some, or wash your face if you prefer. I’ll come back in no time, but I need you to give me a sign. If you don’t, I’ll stay here until you’re ready.”

  Nothing, at first. Then Gaiane’s lashes quivered, and she closed her eyes once. A nod, and she returned Leo’s squeeze.

  “Great. Stay here, please.”

  She didn’t want to leave her, but a wave of restless energy was taking the place of all the terror and nervousness she’d been feeling just an hour before. Leo grabbed the bucket and shot through the door and to the well. It wasn’t far, and she herself drank some cold water before bringing the rest back to the room.

  Gaiane hadn’t moved. Leo sat by her side and dipped the rag into the bucket, gently wiping the princess’ face. Then her arms, her hands, her neck, until only a faint halo remained where the gross bloody stains were.

  She proceeded to damped her hair, and pink droplets trickled down Gaiane’s shoulders.

  “It’s not very accurate, and we’ll have to find you another dress. This one is beyond salvation, I fear. Hell of a nightmare to take blood of
f fabric. Da says you needed cold water and salt, lots of salt. He is good at this, you know, dyeing fabric and stuff, and…”

  “I can’t cry for him,” Gaiane said in a flat voice. “For the man who was my father.”

  Leo stopped, then dipped the rag again.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “He made me. He was never a father, and he killed Alcmena. She… she was…”

  Her voice cracked and she closed her eyes. Leo dropped the rag and hugged her again, and this time Gaiane cried. In silence, shaking all over and drenching her shirt.

  “It’s alright, I saw it. I’m so sorry you had to go through all this, I swear, I wish… well, you deserved better.” She brushed the hair from Gaiane’s forehead. The black ring was as marked as ever. “Alcmena, too. She was a friend of yours, wasn’t she?”

  “My tutor.”

  “Do you want to tell me more about her? You’re making her sound special…”

  “She was,” Gaiane said, rubbing her nose on her fist. “She was meant to teach me all the things a princess was supposed to know, but she went further than that. She sneaked picture books in my room when I was a child, sang lullabies where only hymns were envisaged in my mother’s program.” She laughed and shook her head. “Mother never knew. Of course, there was no way to hide the birds Alcmena brought to my room when I said I felt lonely, and I was allowed to keep them because they were harmless. Poor things.”

  “A fun teacher. It’s not something you come across every day.”

  “Alcmena was, though. Fun and kind and smart. Sometimes she even came to tuck me in at night, when lightning storms scared me. I wish you had a tutor, too.”

  “I never had one. Some teachers, though, even though I was the worst pupil ever. Always running around, skipping classes, building stuff. I didn’t like to study, couldn’t sit still, sucked at reading, but you…”

  Gaiane shivered and peeked up at her, her eyes red and puffy. A very tiny smile trembled on her lips.

  “You sound like Ampelio. Too many words, too fast.”

  Leo cocked an eyebrow.

  “You take that back.” Her voice trembled a little.

  “Why are you doing this?”