Rage boiled in Maddie’s chest. Her body tensed as every piece of furniture in the room rose off the floor and broke into splinters. The shards trembled in the air and Maddie set her mouth in a thin, determined line. She’d experienced so many deaths already. Their cries of pain still echoed in her ears. She could suffer through one more.
“If I am the Foxglove,” she said, “then I am more than enough to rid the world of you.”
Morrow took a step back as the wooden stakes hurtled through the air.
“You forget,” Gwynedd said, reaching into her robes. The missiles halted, inches from their goal. “Your power belongs to me.”
Maddie felt her body go stiff. Gwynedd drew her hand out of her robes, fingers clutched around a leather cord affixed to a heavy glass jar. Thick, red liquid bubbled inside. Maddie felt a pain in her chest as her eyes came to rest on a bloody lump sitting at its base.
She could hardly move her mouth to form the words. “My heart,” she said.
Gwynedd sneered as red light pulsed in the jar. Maddie put out a hand, and the splinters turned themselves on Brynna.
The ambassador flinched and held the chair out as a shield. “Maddie…” she said. “Stop.”
Maddie strained against her muscles, but her body wouldn’t move, and the impressions of the world in her head were gone. The Earth Sight had been pinched off like water in a knotted hose.
She shouted, “I can’t!”
Gwynedd chuckled and tapped her palm against the jar. “It’s no use fighting,” she said. “I’ve had a thousand years to perfect this magic. You may not realize it yet, but your whole life has been building to this moment.”
Brynna took a step forward. “Get away from her.”
Gwynedd shot her a skeptical glance. “Or what?”
“This place is full of—”
“Guards?” Gwynedd asked. “I think you’ll find them occupied. There’s a war on, you know.”
“This was your plan all along,” Maddie said, gritting her teeth. “Ever since I got away from you in the woods.”
“Something like that.”
“Stop,” Moira said. “There’s no point in drawing this out. It’s sick.”
“Reservations, little prince?” Gwynedd asked.
“Just get it over with!”
“Little prince…” Maddie breathed, pulling her gaze around to Moira. “Morrow?”
“I’m sorry, Maddie,” Moira said. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Maddie searched his expression. It was the same one he’d worn the evening they’d met. She’d grown tired of seeing it.
Her face twisted with anger. “There is always a choice.”
“You’ll never make it out of here,” Brynna said.
Gwynedd extended a hand. “Neither will you.” The wooden stakes flashed through the air, shattering the chair, and pierced the ambassador through the heart. She fell to the ground, lifeless. Maddie’s mouth dropped in horror.
“Come along, Foxglove,” Gwynedd said. “It’s time for you to meet your maker.”
Heartbeat
They went out onto the balcony. Morrow ran to the railing and looked down at the city. Soldiers and citizens crammed the market square, surrounded by Aster’s soldiers. The army of Amaranth was broken, the armies of Aster were weakened, and the forces of the Erlkin would soon be closing in. It sickened Morrow to admit that his mistress’s plan had functioned perfectly.
“Stand there, Foxglove,” Gwynedd said, pointing to the center of the floor. “Morrow, take her things.”
Maddie shuffled forward and stood. “Please,” she said. “Don’t do this.”
Morrow did as he was told. Maddie watched him in silence.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She clenched her jaw. “Go to hell.”
“It wasn’t personal. I had to do it.”
Her eyes narrowed as she stared ahead, unable to turn and face him. “How could you do this to me? To everyone!”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Wasn’t your fault?! What a load of bullshit!”
“You have to understand!” Morrow said. “Gwynedd’s blood keeps me alive. I am bound to her. I can’t even think for myself. I didn’t want this, but I needed to—”
She cut him off with a yell. Her eyes were full of rage and hate, and Morrow flinched away.
“Shut up!” Maddie shouted. “You’re a coward and a liar, and it’s pathetic! You think an apology can fix this? Nothing can!”
Morrow’s shoulders drooped. “I didn’t want… this.”
“Then you should have done something. We could have helped you.”
Morrow came around in front of her. “There is no cure for me,” he said. “Resisting would have meant my death.”
Her black gaze bored into him. “Then you should have died.”
Her eyes drove him back to the railing as he staggered away. She was right, and worse, he didn’t even feel for his country or his mistress. Not any longer. He did it for nothing. He did it because he was afraid.
Gwynedd took out her knife. The stone blade caught the dim glow of the room, a shadow of orange and black. She took up a tall jar of black potion and undid the stopper. Morrow’s stomach lurched as the sour, rotten smell filled the room. His mistress consumed every last drop. She cut her palms, and her hands dripped down the blade. It burst into shadowy flame.
Morrow heard shouts in the corridor and glanced at the door. Someone was coming. “Quickly,” he said to Gwynedd.
She shut her eyes and answered, “Patience.”
Morrow drew his sword and ran to the door, bracing himself against it as the light on the balcony dimmed, fading away until the moon and the stars disappeared and the only point of light was the burning glow of his mistress’s stone knife.
Maddie squirmed in place, whimpering. “Gwynedd… please.”
Morrow tried to look away but found that he could not. This was his fault. The least he could do was watch.
Gwynedd opened her robes, baring her breast as she knelt down in front of Maddie and turned the blade on herself.
“What are you doing?” Morrow gasped.
She rested the point against her chest and took a breath. “Seizing my destiny.”
She stabbed herself and cut down, wincing as her skin opened. Black blood flowed out, saturating her robes as she pulled the knife down to a point below her ribs and dropped it. There was a burst of green smoke as she pressed her palm deep into the bleeding gap. Vile plumes of magic spewed out from the wound, and his mistress yanked hard, her face twisting as she wrenched out her own heart.
Black magic coated the gnarled flesh like crude oil. When the smoke cleared, the wound in her chest was gone. Maddie stared at her in slack-jawed horror. Gwynedd put her knife away in her belt, and took up the jar containing Maddie’s heart.
“No going back now,” she said.
She opened the jar and brought out the stolen heart. Magic flared from her palms, splitting into a thousand threads of green, red, and black. Blood pooled in the air, released from gravity as Gwynedd brought the two organs together, glistening as they beat on their own.
“Stop!” Maddie screamed. “Gwynedd, please!”
Gwynedd glanced up. “Open your robes.”
Maddie wept as her hands moved and undid her clothes, tears running down her face. Morrow looked on in horror as Gwynedd pressed the hearts together, and they spit like burning wax. The witch hissed through her teeth as her spell fused the two hearts into one. They shattered and broke with a force that shook the whole room.
She held the new heart, reformed into a new, singular, otherworldly whole. Though its shape was ordinary, the feeling of power and dread that emanated from it was alien even in a world of magic.
A crash rattled against the door and Gwynedd’s eyes flicked up. “Hold them!” she shouted.
Morrow was thrown aside as the balcony door shattered off its hinges and fell in pieces to the floor. Rose, Maeve, Finn, and a dozen
soldiers burst into the room.
Gwynedd ducked behind Maddie, the conjoined heart burning in her palm like a muddy sun.
“Stop!” Rose bellowed.
Gwynedd thrust the heart into Maddie’s chest.
Primeval
Maddie’s head was swimming. Clouds of light and color drifted in the air. Green, orange, yellow, and red swirled around the balcony, blossoming like wildflowers in the breeze. Her body felt strange. She knew she was naked, because she could see her hands and legs and arms, but they were like clay, grown over with a patchwork of flesh, wood, and marbled stone. Long hair fell to the floor below her in a waterfall of blended colors. The curls turned in the air and shifted on the floor, and her veins burned brighter than the sun.
She hovered in the middle of the space, her toes just barely brushing the floor, while the others stared bathed in scattered flashes of flickering light.
Gwynedd stood behind her, one hand pressed into her back. Maddie felt her palm gently cupping the heart that now beat within her chest.
“What have you done?” Rose asked, sword in hand.
Gwynedd smiled. “Only what I promised. The Foxglove has been reborn, and it belongs to me.” She brushed her thumb against the heart. “Let’s have some privacy, Foxglove. Kill the soldiers.”
Maddie shifted as her head turned. In her mind, Maddie recoiled in horror as the necks of the soldiers twisted around. She heard their bones snap and they fell to the floor.
“That’s better,” Gwynedd said.
Finn glanced at Maeve. “What do we do?” he asked.
Gwynedd laughed. “Indeed.”
She snapped her fingers, and Maddie’s head tilted to one side. Finn was thrown against the wall. His head struck the wood with a crack, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
Maddie’s arms rose, and the building began to shake. Cracks formed in the walls as the sound of splintering wood and snapping rope rocked the palace. The structure heaved and the roof tore open, hurled away into the night by a great wind that emerged from nowhere, filling the sky with swirling leaves and broken branches.
The fighting in the city staggered to a halt. Friend and foe alike stared upwards, struggling to grasp the enormity of what they had just witnessed.
Gwynedd pointed at the exhausted, bloodied throng. “Them next,” she said.
Maddie rotated in place. No! she shouted in her head. Stop!
Her lips were still. She strained, but her willpower disbursed into the emptiness of her mind. She had the sensation of being asleep, of fighting or running in that strange world where every step felt heavy and every blow fell weak.
She cried out as the wind intensified. Buildings crumbled and broke as green clouds formed in the sky over their heads, and the city was caught in a hurricane of dust and stone. The people threw themselves to the ground, desperate for shelter, while overhead, the birds of Amaranth and Aster were blown into the abyss, their small forms powerless against the gale.
“That’s enough,” Gwynedd said, nodding with cold satisfaction.
Far below, a dark mass of Erlkin soldiers emerged from the trees and moved in, marching up the steps that circled the trunk.
Rose took a step forward. “Stop!”
“Watch,” Gwynedd said, “as the reign of the faeries comes to an end.”
Rose tightened her grip on her sword, and rushed at Gwynedd. The witch snapped her fingers again, and Maddie’s arms flew up. Rose flung herself across the room as the invisible force that had killed the guards sprang once again into being. It held the queen, arms outstretched, flexing sinew and muscle against unseen chains.
Gwynedd looked at her with disdain. “Did you really think you could kill me that way?” she asked.
Rose looked up at her, hard defiance chiseled across her face. “No.”
The sound of a bowstring snapped in the air. With a booming cry, Earnest and Kidhe came swooping down from the ravaged canopy. The ranger stood high in his saddle, firing again and again. Arrows glinted in the moonlight as they flashed towards Gwynedd. Maddie’s body flew in front of the witch in a ripple of light and motion. She winced instinctively, but her eyes held themselves open as the arrows disintegrated into flecks of sawdust.
Gwynedd threw out a hand and Maddie’s arm lashed out. Above, an invisible fist took hold of Kidhe and Earnest and hurled them down into the city. They struck the ground like a meteorite, lost in a cloud of dust.
Gwynedd took a deep breath and said, “Pitiful.”
Rose stared her down and grinned. “Got you,” she said.
Maddie’s eyes lifted as a tiny shadow descended from the sky. The silhouette of a sparrow came plummeting down, tilted into a harrowing nose dive. Theresa stood in the saddle, crouched like a jockey. In one hand, she held the reins, in the other she gripped a long, polished spear.
Gwynedd flung her arms up in desperation, and Maddie felt her whole body shift and turn. A swirling wind crashed into the air, catching the bird. Theresa leapt from the saddle and dove, continuing her deadly course as she roared with all her might.
The point of the spear missed Maddie’s head by millimeters, aiming for Gwynedd’s face. The weapon pressed forward through the wind, and a thin line of blood slid down Gwynedd’s cheek. Theresa was held in the air, motionless.
She gritted her teeth.
“Finished?” Gwynedd asked.
“Never,” Theresa snarled, wrenching her shoulders forward in a final, desperate effort to drive the spear down.
Gwynedd sighed. She flicked her wrist, and Maddie brought up her arm. Theresa yelped as she was whisked into the air. She twisted and turned, struggling to break free.
Rose cried out. “Gwynedd, no!”
Maddie’s arm swept out in a brisk stroke. Theresa hurtled backwards through the air, vanishing into the darkness beyond the tree.
“And as for you…” Gwynedd said, turning on Maeve. “What would be a fitting punishment?”
Maddie’s eyes turned and latched on to her mistress’s apprehensive glance.
Maeve’s body tightened as her arms trembled, and her frame began to shake. “Stop…please…” she whimpered as her hands drifted to the sides of her head and green blood began to pour from her blackened eyes.
Her sobs grew until she fell to her knees, screaming as her fingers pulled at her hair and clawed at the sides of her skull. She collapsed on the ground and lay still, barely breathing. Her eyes were dull and vacant.
Maddie watched it happen, powerless to stop it. Her heart broke as she witnessed the casual brutality, and she pounded against the inside of her mind like a prisoner in a cell.
“That was very satisfying,” Gwynedd said, all but shuddering as she fixed her eyes on Rose. “That only leaves you.”
Maddie’s heart stopped.
“Finish her,” Gwynedd said, pointing.
Maddie’s arms came up.
“No,” said Gwynedd. “Do it slowly.” She came to stand in front of Rose. “I want to savor this.”
The queen glared at her, paralyzed by the magic of the Foglove. Maddie screamed, tugging at her useless limbs in desperation as she floated across the room. She closed her hands around Rose’s neck, and squeezed.
Rose choked and coughed as Gwynedd laughed. Maddie shrieked, hurling herself against the locked door of her mind as Rose met her eyes and forced a weakening smile.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Maddie, it’s okay.”
Maddie wept, madly seeking some dark corner of her thoughts to hide in, but there was nowhere to go. The impassive eyes of the Foxglove stared ahead as the minutes passed, and Rose began to gag.
“It’s not your fault,” she said, chest heaving. Her eyelids fluttered shut. A final breath escaped her lips with a rattle. “Take care of… my son.”
The queen’s body relaxed, twitching until it finally went limp. Maddie shuddered, feeling to urge to vomit as the last threads of life slipped from Rose’s regal form and disappeared.
Maddie stared down at
her hands, quaking as she collapsed into a heap inside her mind, howling dry tears and shrieking silent screams inside a body that reacted like stone.
Courage
Morrow crouched by the railing, staring with transfixed eyes as his mistress slaughtered her enemies one by one. In another hour, Gwynedd would conquer the whole of the Veil, and Morrow knew she wouldn’t stop there, not with the power of all creation at her fingertips.
His eyes strayed to the lifeless body of the queen, and he wondered if there was a point when she realized it was over. Did you hold out hope, he thought, or did you know it was finished the moment the devil walked into the room?
Morrow looked into the burning eyes of the Foxglove and wondered what had become of Maddie. Her face was like a sun-warmed cliff, rippling beneath a waterfall of light and fire.
Can you see what’s happening? Are you fighting?
Morrow didn’t know Maddie well, but he knew enough to be sure that she would never stop trying.
His mistress moved across the broken remnants of the balcony, gliding over the blood-stained floor, eyes fixed on the horizon. In the distance, a bell began to toll. Midnight. The witching hour of the solstice.
Gwynedd pointed to the edge of the sky. “There,” she said. “Open it.”
The Foxglove reached out, dangling in the air like a divine marionette. Gwynedd stood behind her, shoulders back, chin lifted with pride as a shimmering rupture broke open where the forest met the clouds. A swirling gray mist oozed from the gap. The fog flashed with hidden lights, as though concealing distant lightning as it poured into the forest.
Morrow thought about his mother, the ruler of the Erlkin that he once knew, before she succumbed to Gwynedd’s influence. Strong, dignified, cultured, powerful… and gone. She had given up everything so that he could survive. What would she think if she could see him now?
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