Of Thorns and Hexes
Page 11
Temples throbbing, pulse-quickening, I lose myself in the horror show that is the den of serpents feasting on my competitors. So many lives lost, all for the Flower Trials, all for a seat at the Elites table. I thought I wanted to win, to become a version of myself that is superior to the woman everyone says I am. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this.
“Come on, Elyse.” Percy rubs his cold nose against my ear.
“R-Right.” I scope the battlefield, searching for an effective way to decrown a serpent that will not cost me an arm, a leg, or my life.
Markus wades in the water, cradling the serpent food of human remains in one hand. A serpent swivels its head down, teeth bared in a snarl. Nostrils flaring, the serpent flicks its tongue at Markus like a hungry puppy awaiting a treat. The wizard tosses the food high above the serpent’s head. The creature looks skyward as Markus dives into the water and a few moments later resurfaces on the thing’s back, scales up its body like a professional climber.
If I had the remains of our competitors at my disposal, I’d have just as much a good chance as the brute of a Wizard does. Shuddering from the thought of severed body parts, I rack my brain for a solution to this serpent problem. The battlefield is growing bloodier. The blacked waters now stained red with blood.
The cat-man wags his paw at an aloft Justine, soaring through the air with the aid of an anemone. A wind flower. That witch has the right idea. Who says copying someone’s work isn’t the easy way out? Well, if it can save my life and score me a lotus flower, then I’m all in.
Shifting through my sack, I pick out a papery-white flower and squeeze it in my hands. Summoning the magic within, a whirlwind of sand and rock swirl at my ankles. I focus on the feeling of weightlessness, like a bird drifting in the sky. I keep my intent maintained on flying high, and I try my best not to look down as I gain altitude.
A serpent’s slit eyes snap to me. The overgrown snake lunges for me, hissing like an angry cat. Dodging to my left, I barely avoid becoming snake food and let loose a shaky breath. Percy digs his claws into me, holding on to me as I swing around the snake’s head where the Egyptian bean sits slanted on the creature’s head.
The anemone slowly crumbles to dust in my hand, and my body jerks upward, then downward with the loss of my magical flower’s wind power. If I don’t hurry, I’ll be eaten or drown in the abysmally black waters.
Percy, sensing my fear, leaps from my shoulder and onto the serpent’s head. “Here!” he swats the lotus with such force, the thing spins like a top in midair.
Catching it in my hand, I wave for Percy to come back. “The flower is almost out of juice,” I say, flailing my feet to keep aloft.
Percy reels back, dashes on the serpent’s triangular head, and leaps for me, claws extended for purchase. The magic gives right as the cat reaches a paw for me; I hurtle down toward the water like an anvil. Everything is a blur for a heartbeat before I smack, back first, into the water that feels like concrete against my entire backside. I’m momentarily stunned—my view of the world blacks out only for a moment. Slowly sinking, I blink up at the falling cat and at the serpent who yawns its mouth open and rips the cat-man from the air, swallows him whole.
“Per—” my voice become garbled, lungs filling with the salty water. If I don’t get out of this hellish water, I’ll be a goner.
Kicking and clawing to the surface, I inhale a staggering, gurgling breath and swim the best I can. I’m not a trained swimmer in no sense of the word. I kick my legs haphazardly, thrashing my arms wildly like I’ve gone mad. But I don’t dare stop. I keep up my swim-thrashing, fighting through the pain that wants to lure me to the comforting blackness of death. I’m not sure how long it takes me to reach the shore, but when I do, I trudge ashore, grab my bag, quickly stuff the Egyptian Bean inside, and half-run, half-limp away from the madness.
Percy. He risked his life for me, and now he’s gone. I refuse to look back, to linger on his death because I feel someone charging behind me like a mad wizard. Markus tackles me to the ground, forces my head in the sand, fingers nails digging into my skull.
“No survivors,” he whispers in my ear and bites my earlobe. His knee digs in my back while his free hand slides under my shirt to grope my breast. I’m trying to fight against the assault, but the wizard is too strong for me. Markus presses his full weight against me, stealing the breath from my body, stealing pieces of my soul as his hand sinks lower and lower.
There’s a pause, then a guttural wail as Markus’ extra weight vanishes like a ghost from my back. Coughing up sand, I stagger to my feet and whirl around. Markus is sprawled along the beach, head leaking blood like a faucet. My savior, who holds a rock as big as her head in her perfectly manicured hands, Justine.
Tossing the mini-boulder aside, Justine wipes her hands on her ghastly stained dress. Her boyfriends stand with their heads high, and arms folded as they stand by her side. “Ashley. Dana,” she says to her boyfriends, “let’s make our way to the Mountain of Frost.” The witch brushes by me like saving my life was just another thing on the list.
“T-Thank you,” I say softly as she passes me by.
Justine seizes walking and turns to me. “He’ll be up soon. You shouldn’t just stand there.”
“W-What?” My gaze falls from her to Markus’s twitching body. “You didn’t kill him?”
“I wish I could.” Justine heaves a breath, disappointment etched in her eyes. “I’m not built for murder, despite what you might thing about me. And, besides, The Elites trained Markus, meaning he has a trick or two up his sleeves. So, I’m almost certain he’d rise from the dead somehow. Now, you can either stand there or get moving.”
“So... y-you’re not going to kill me?” Clenching my jaw, I stare at her boyfriends.
“Why would I do that?” she asks, tone sassy and mortified. “I should be asking you the same question. Why are we not engaged in a heated witch-on-witch battle?”
“I just want to get out of here—out of all of this. Out of Parnissi,” I admit. I have no fight in me, though I should, just in case the beautiful witch decides to strike. I’ll be outnumbered and defeated in a matter of seconds. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to go... home.” But where is home? Home is not with Vahilda, that’s for sure.
“What happened to that winner’s spirit you so possessed?” Justine tilts her head to the side, assessing me. “I thought you wanted to be the first witch to win? The first to become an Elite? What’s all this talk about leaving Parnissi?”
“For one, I’m Vahilda’s niece—”
Justine’s nostrils flare like a bull; her boyfriend’s glower at me. “I knew there was something odd about you. You just appeared out of nowhere, like magic. And now you tell me you’re the descendant of the Marguerites? Wait...” the witch’s eyes go wide in realization. “Are you... you’re Edwin’s daughter?”
I bob my head. “I only found out two weeks ago when Vahilda came to Yardenfeld. It’s a long story.”
Justine twirls about to walk forward. “Let’s walk and talk, Elyse. We have about a five-hour walk ahead of us until we reach the Mountain of Frost.”
“I’m guessing the Holy water is on the mountain?”
“Well, aren’t you smart,” Justine says. “I see you haven’t studied much about anything concerning the Flower Trials.”
“I only had two weeks of training and studying.”
“Really?” Justine casts me a look that I can’t tell if it is pity or jealousy. “Being that you are a descendant of the Marguerites, I’d say you are a natural.”
A smile lifts my lips to my ears. “Thank you.”
Justine sighs. “We got off on the wrong foot when we first met.”
“Wrong foot” isn’t what I’d call our first encounter, but I don’t tell the witch that. “Uh, yeah.” I shrug.
“I couldn’t have another witch as my competition,” the witch says through pursed lips. I guess she did not want to admit that truth to me. “After w
itnessing the true nature of the Flower Trials, all I want to do is claim my seat and put an end to these horrific games. So many lives have been lost, and for what?”
“I agree.” I shiver, trying to shake my head of the flashes of blood and gore, drenching my mind like a rainstorm. “I’ll gladly help you to victory—”
“Help me?” Her brows raise, offended. “I don’t need or want your help. I only helped you because I’d never forgive myself if I allowed Markus to take advantage of you. So many wizards get away with that, and nothing is done. I need this win to put an end to wizards who just don’t understand the word ‘no!’”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” I frown and kick up sand as I trudge along the beach. “What I meant was: I don’t need this win. What I need is to defeat Vahilda to free myself of my blood oath.”
Justine holds a hand, urging us all to take a breather as we come to a sudden stop. “Defeat Vahilda? Blood oath?” she blinks at me. “That’s how you slipped through the cracks. Vahilda allowed you to piggyback off her connection to Parnissi to bring you here. But there is a slight issue with your plan. You cannot defeat Vahilda. No offense.”
“None taken.” Hanging my head shamefully, I ask, “Is there another way to free myself?”
“No. I’m sorry.” Justine taps her foot in the sand and taps a finger on her cheekbone. “I’ll think of something. Might there be a reason why you are ever-so adamant about breaking your bond? I mean, the great Vahilda did train you—”
“She killed my father.”
Justine’s jaw drops, her face strewn with a puzzled look. “Have you reported this to the Elite?”
“No. I only found out yesterday,” I huff.
The witch clenches her hands into fists. “Goddess, I’d hate to say this,” she says as she extends limp-wristed hands to her boyfriends. Ashley and Dana each take Justine’s hands as the witch bites her bottom lip. “Elyse.” My name like fire in her mouth. “We’ll help you win the Flower Trials.”
“W-why? I don’t want to win. I just want to confront Vahilda.”
“You will in front of an audience of thousands,” Justine smirks at me and nods her head in promise.
Chapter 15
FOR A WITCH WHO RUBBED me the wrong way when we first met, Justine is a decent witch. In her own special, haughty way, of course. She listened to my entire life story from start to finish. She consoled me when I talked about my horrid childhood, my mother, and Igbob. She even gave my hand a squeeze when I confessed to killing Igbob. She asked the right questions that even I didn’t know the answers to. For one, she asked about my father and if I knew how famous he was. I told her I would suspect he’d be of some notoriety as a winner of the Flower Trials. The witch then followed up by telling me about Vahilda and why the wicked witch meant so much to her in her youth.
Justine admired Vahilda’s determination to become an Elite, even wanted to emulate the father-killing witch since she was young. It wasn’t until Justine begged Vahilda to train her for the Flower Trials about five years ago that she lost respect for the witch.
“She claimed I wasn’t suitable to be an Elite.” Justine sits cross-legged as she warms her hands over a fire made with a sunflower’s fire magic. “Vahilda had the audacity to tell me that. Can you believe her?” Her boyfriends scoff in unison as they stuff their faces with crispy tilapia.
“I’m sorry you went through that.” I wipe my lips clean of roasted fish and lie on my side. The warmth of the fire stirs up memories of Percy—the cat-man. He helped me secure the Egyptian bean, saved my life when I almost drowned. He held my hand—a sensation that’ll be forever impressed on my heart.
Blinking away tears, I roll away from the watchful eyes of Justine. I know the witch doesn’t trust me as far as she can throw me. I don’t trust her either, but if we’re going to lure Vahilda into our trap, we’ve got to work together.
During the Flower Trial coronation, the Astral Veil is opened, allowing for the wizard stepping down from his chair to depart into the next realm. With the veil lifted, Justine has told me to contact my father to bring him forth to expose Vahilda as the witchy killer she is. But to do so, I need an item of his to summon him from the grave. I wonder what Vahilda used to call upon his spirit that night in the mausoleum?
Justine says we’ll work out the kinks, yet I’m not too sure how we’ll accomplish much if I fail to locate one of my father’s belongings. If I do too much digging, Vahilda will become suspicious. Once I win the trials, I’ll have to pretend as if nothing is out of the ordinary when I return to Vahilda’s home.
A thought then occurs to me, a terrifying thought that restricts blood flow to my heart. “What if I make a trade with Vahilda?” I say over the din of Justine, and her boyfriends’ yammering about Goddess knows what. Rolling to face the flames and the witch, I continue, “When I first agreed to take part in the trials, I told Vahilda I’d allow her to claim the chair. But what if I ask her to free me from my contract in exchange—”
Justine pinches the bridge of her nose. “Elyse. You’re bound in a blood oath. The only way out is if you spill Vahilda’s blood. So far, she’ll definitely be executed when you summon your father, but you have to be the one to drop the guillotine on her neck.”
“I don’t want to kill her. I don’t want to kill anyone. Not again. Not ever.” I jolt to standing and pace around in a circle. “Aren’t there any loopholes? Any other way I can free myself without murder involved?”
Justine’s answer is short, simple, and severe. “No!”
AN UNFORGIVING SNOWSTORM buffets the four of us every step we take up the Mountain of Frost. Ankle-deep snow soon becomes knee-deep, then waist-deep as the storm picks up steam. It’s weird, the snow. For one, the weather was perfectly calm before we crossed over the grassy borderline onto the snowy pathway toward the mountain. Once we stepped over the boundary where the green grass met the white, snow-covered land, a blizzard assaulted us with heavy snowfall.
Ashley and Dana act as our shields. The twins use their massive bodies to defend us from the maelstrom of unforgiving ice crystals. Justine and I trek behind the men, huddled together to share whatever warmth we have left. At the rate we’re moving, plus the hellish weather, we’ll freeze to death out here. There must be a better solution to this. But with our fingers numb to the bone, we can’t summon the will to cast magic.
“There is a hot spring somewhere on this blasted mountain.” Justine’s teeth chatter with each word. “I could so use a deep soak.”
Through the thick sea of snow and frost, I doubt we’ll be able to find our way to a well-needed soak in a hot spring. We can only be so lucky.
Ashley and Dana turn their heads left and right. One twin cups his ear while the other squats to his knees.
“What’s going—”
“Shh!” Ashley and Dana hiss at me.
A chorus of howling and snarling sounds from all around us; fur-laden grey canine bodies encroach predatorily. Through the fog of snowfall, green and silver eyes glare at us, growls of ravenous hunger echo through the tumult of white.
Ashley and Dana motion toward their backside, asking Justine and me to hop on. We do so without question. I straddle Dana like a horse, wrapping my legs and arms around him tight.
“You must keep them off of us,” the twins say, voices nearly drowned out by the harsh wind. “Get ready.” The twins prepare to run, position their bodies in a runner’s stance.
I rummage through my sack tied around my waist with the help of Dana’s leather belt. Blindly reaching for a flower, I pull whatever my hand lands on. Bindweed. The lightning flower.
“Now!”
The twins blast off like shooting stars, barreling through the knee-high snow and the storm as if they’ve done this hundreds of times before. Their size alone tells me the twins have trained their entire lives to mold their bodies like Greek gods. Dashing through the snow, the twins narrowly avoid the snapping jaws, the ferocious claws of the wolves on the hunt.
Dana jerks right, dodging a lunging wolf, nearly stumbling. I clutch to him tight, almost losing my hold on him and the bindweed. This running, the storm, the ravenous wolves, and my freezing body have me regretting all my life choices that lead to this disaster.
Fingers numb from the cold, I focus on a wolf on our heels and summon a bolt of purple-blue lightning. The electricity buzzes above and, like a knight’s sword, slashes down on the encroaching wolf. The world goes white for a blink. All noise fades to nothing. Then, all my senses come rushing back an instant after. The wolf jitters in the snow, body curled in a ball as it lets out its final whimper.
“Found it.” Justine waves a blue lupine flower over her head in celebration.
But the celebration is cut short.
A wolf tackles Ashley, teeth landing purchase on his arm. Justine is tossed off her boyfriend’s back, rolls into the snow, and vanishes beneath the blankets of white. Dana curses the wolves and sprints to help his brother, who pounds the canine’s skull with such force a loud crack knocks the thing lifeless.
“Are you okay, brother?” Dana lifts Ashley to standing.
“I’m fine.” Ashley’s eyes whip around the snowy landscape, searching desperately for Justine. He shouts her name through the buffeting winds that steal our breath away and stab our bodies with billions of ice crystals.
“Look out!” I scream.
Dana turns a moment too late. A wolf is at his neck, teeth digging into his tender flesh. The unexpected attack rips me from Dana’s back and into the sea of white. Everything cartwheels, the blizzard whirls around me like a tornado, stars creep in on the edge of my vision. Tumbling down an incline, I collide with the bark of a tree, my body screaming from the hurt and the cold.