Two Worlds of Redemption

by Angelina J. Steffort

  “I made up my mind a while ago, Maray. I just didn’t want to burden you with it unless it was absolutely necessary.”

  “And it’s necessary now—in the middle of the ball?” Maray stared, her composure and all protocol forgotten. “Does Dad know?”

  Gerwin joined them, still a bit weak on his feet, and stood beside Maray, his expression hopeful. “If your mother wants a chance of outliving Rhia, we need to try. Otherwise, she will be gone the second Rhia is.”

  Corey explained the details of how the binding worked exactly, and Maray couldn’t keep her jaw from lowering until a dumpling would fit in between her teeth.

  “And if it goes wrong? What if you both die? What if you die and Rhia lives?” Maray pointed out, feeling that she had already lost the argument before it had started. She hadn’t even taken part in it. This had been decided long ago without her consent.

  “Corey has done anything she can to make sure the ritual works smoothly.” Laura showed complete confidence in the warlock girl.

  “What am I supposed to do if you don’t make it?” Maray asked, feeling how she was starting to panic.

  Gerwin laid his arm around her. “Then, you will rule Allinan in your grandmother’s and mother’s place,” he said as if that was the easiest thing to do. “And you will still have your father.”

  Somehow that didn’t console Maray. All she could think of was that, again, she had no choice other than to take what someone else had decided and live with the consequences. And as for Corey—she glanced at the warlock girl who she had considered her friend— “How could you do this?” she asked, unable to keep the heavy accusation from her tone.

  “I can’t defy a direct order from the Crown Princess,” Corey defended herself. But both of them knew she had helped Maray before to sneak away from her parents, had helped her to rescue Jemin. There was something more to it. “Think about it, Maray,” Corey took Maray’s hand and squeezed it. “I would never do anything to hurt you. You know me well enough to know this is true. But if you want your mother to stand a chance, she needs to be separated from Rhia. The spell needs to be broken.”

  Maray let her words sink in, and as little as she liked the idea, Corey was right. They all were. Maray swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and looked at her mother. “When?”

  “Corey has everything ready for the ritual now,” Laura informed Maray, and Maray couldn’t help but notice the thick layer of emotion in Laura’s voice. “All we need is one last ingredient, and we’ll be ready. And that ingredient is down in the dungeons.”

  “Rhia’s blood,” Corey added. “We need a fresh drop of it, of both parties involved in the binding spell, and then we can perform the ritual.” Corey lifted her hand, showing Maray her bag. “Everything else we need is in here, prepared for multiple attempts if needed.”

  “And Rhia knows?” Maray asked, finding it hard to believe that the evil Queen of Allinan would agree to anything that would take away her power.

  Laura and Corey shared a look. “That will be a challenge in itself.”

  They looked at each other for a while, each of them having things they wanted to say, but none of them saying them.

  “I am coming with you,” Maray eventually claimed, knowing that her parents would object. But she wouldn’t leave them alone down there.

  However, no one opposed. Instead, Laura nodded. “If I should die tonight, I want you at my side. You and your father.” She smiled at Gerwin then looked aside to hide the moisture in her eyes.

  Laura gave a short speech in which she explained that the Princess would not be choosing tonight, but she would be pleased to receive the suitors’ individual visits during the next weeks. A murmur rose through the room, speculations about what this could mean, but mostly, people were excited that it wasn’t over, that each of the families still had a chance.

  When Laura excused herself and Maray inclined her head to the suitors, Maray knew by the look on Oliver Gerenhoff’s face that he wouldn’t just let her go.

  “It is not in accordance with protocol to let the suitors wait for an answer, Your Royal Highness,” he pointed out as Laura caught Neelis’ eye to signal him that she needed an escort. He nodded and flashed to their side as fast as would be inconspicuous in a room full of people.

  “It is not in accordance with protocol,” Laura agreed, polite as ever, “And yet, it is necessary.”

  Oliver ground his teeth, and he looked at Leander Unterly for support, but Leander seemed even relieved about the sudden change of plans, while Tadaeus Hartvend and Heck fashioned concerned expressions. Heck’s face suggested that he realized something was terribly wrong.

  “Your Princess will let you know in time, and you will wait until that time has come,” Gerwin stepped in between Oliver and Laura and Maray.

  Heck gave Maray a look that seemed to ask if she wanted him to join them and cut Gerenhoff’s tongue out. Maray shook her head infinitesimally and faced Oliver Gerenhoff instead. She leaned around her father’s shoulder, closer to the suitor, and whispered. “If it helps you to know sooner… it will never be you.”

  Then, she stepped around the whole party with a bow to the room and all of the faces full of excitement. All, except for Oliver’s who was fuming, and Heck’s, which was displaying various shades of concern. He caught up with them at the door.

  “You can’t come with us, Brendal,” Laura let him know as they crossed the threshold. The nobles need to see you are still at the ball so no one suspects that things are already decided.”

  “They are?” Heck asked instead of objecting that he wanted to come.

  Laura gave Maray a look that made clear that that was what she wanted. But Maray didn’t need her mother to know that it was the right thing to do.

  “They are,” she confirmed and was surprised to see Heck smile as he fell back and let them go.

  The suitors and Oliver Gerenhoff’s obnoxious behavior looked like an afternoon in a spa compared to what lay ahead—and what Maray’s life seemed to have become in general. Every step forward was one step closer to hell.

  On their way down to the dungeons this time, they didn’t sneak, nor did they bring an army of guards, just Scott and Neelis, and those of the shifters who were already down there on duty, guarding the cell. They all knew that Rhia couldn’t be held in that cell by force or that killing her if she tried to escape would kill Laura. So, all they could do was hope for Gerwin’s diplomatic talent to negotiate their way through, in hopes of getting Rhia to give her blood willingly, and Corey’s skills as a warlock to perform the ritual and keep both Rhia and Laura alive.

  The torchlight along the staircase that led into the dungeons seemed unnaturally bright to Maray. Everything was brighter, louder, smelled stronger as adrenaline circulated in her veins. No one spoke. Laura and Gerwin were holding hands. Maray and Corey followed closely, their steps echoing off the stone walls and stirring the humid air. Maray didn’t care that her ball gown was going to be ruined once it was dragged through the layers of grime and dirt they’d wade through before they made it to Rhia’s cell. All she cared about was that she made it down there. Everything else could wait.

  At the corner to where the corridor opened into the room in front of Rhia’s, guards saluted, faces Maray had never seen before. Laura stopped and asked for Neelis, who the guards explained had already joined Commander Scott at Rhia’s cell.

  They opened the door for the doomed party and revealed a view on Rhia, who was sitting on the floor in the center of her cell, legs crossed as if she was meditating. Neelis and Scott were whispering right at the entrance and stopped when Laura and Gerwin entered the room. Maray and Corey followed silently, both of them shaking for different reasons. While Corey was probably nervous about whether she could do it, Maray was anxious to see a miracle that would solve everything, and she was freezing, her back bare down to the waist.

  “Ahh, the ball for the suitors…” Rhia commented, eyes on Maray who was standing beside her m
other, shoulder turned toward the cell. “This brings up old memories of your father, Laura.”

  Maray didn’t even want to know how she could know even though they were still wearing the ball attire.

  “Word spreads fast in the palace,” she explained. “Even down here.” Her eyes wandered on to regard Corey. “You brought the devil-child.” Rhia rose to her feet, her hair spilling in grey waves down her back, her plain dress dusty. “Gan Krai won’t be pleased to see that you’re using one of his own to undo his magic.”

  Laura stepped to the cell to face Rhia. “How do you know, Mother?”

  “Know what? That you are planning to separate the two of us?” She shrugged. “Call it motherly intuition. Or the bees told me.”

  “It’s winter, mother. There are no bees.”

  Rhia smiled, her face old and lined, yet not decaying right now. Whether it was a powerful illusion or the real Rhia, Maray couldn’t tell.

  “A friend dropped by,” Rhia whispered as if it was a secret.

  Scott and Neelis were beside Laura in a fraction of a second—Neelis a bit faster even.

  “What friend?” Laura demanded and got a laugh from Rhia.

  “You of all people should know that there isn’t a soul left that I could call friend.” Rhia spat through the bars of the cell.

  She didn’t sound the same as last time Maray had seen her. There was less pride, more bitterness.

  “If you know all of this, Mother, then do you also know why we had to come down here?”

  Rhia glanced at Corey, for the first time not as well prepared as she’d like to be, and shook her head.

  “There is something I need from you, Mother, that only you can give.”

  Rhia raised an eyebrow instead of asking what it was. “And you have brought the whole family to get it.”

  “I came down here myself because Corey will need the same thing from me,” Laura responded.

  “I came because I will never leave Laura alone in a room with you if I can help it,” Gerwin said, and there were mixed emotions on his face.

  Inspired by her parents, Maray fell in line. “And I came because I will not sit and wait as the fate of Allinan is decided.”

  “Then, you’ll sit and wait down here,” Rhia said with a smile before she turned to Corey and asked what it was that they truly wanted.

  Corey, who had been passive and quiet so far, stepped forward and opened her bag, extracting a syringe. “Just one drop will be enough.” She walked up to Rhia and held up the item as if it were a knife she was itching to sink into the Queen’s flesh.

  “You want my blood?” Rhia asked, not sounding half as outraged as she looked.

  “You guessed right,” Laura confirmed. “We are going to break the binding spell, and you will help us.”

  Rhia laughed again, the sound of it echoing off the walls. Scott and Neelis came to Corey’s side, both ready to act if needed.

  “I don’t want to forcefully take your blood, Mother,” Laura continued and reached through the bars of the cell with her hand, making Maray’s stomach clench. “I know what that feels like.”

  Rhia’s eyes, at first full of surprise at the unexpected reach for a touch by her daughter, filled with something else, the aching look of a mother asking for her child’s forgiveness.

  “All those years,” Gerwin said and stepped closer to the bars, too. “All those years you have already taken from Laura. And if you die—and you will eventually, long before Laura’s natural death—Laura will die with you.” He gave her a significant look. “Your daughter will die, and she will never sit on the Allinan throne, her rightful place.”

  Rhia shied away from his words at first, but Maray could see it in the shadows, clouding Rhia’s eyes, that they resonated.

  “At least, if you let Corey try, there is a good chance both of you will survive and you will step down from the throne and live to see your daughter be crowned Queen of Allinan.”

  Maray could see it before her as her father painted the scenario in front of them.

  “You will help us until your last breath to find a way to stop Gan Krai ever seizing Allinan from Cornay hands—any Cornay. The line will live on. Maray will choose a suitor, and there will be a new Cornay to follow in your daughter’s and her daughter’s footsteps.”

  Rhia was absolutely still, almost like a statue, but it was clear that she was listening intently. She could have run at any point—she still could. And yet, she was here, listening to what her son-in-law and her daughter had to tell her. She didn’t say an immediate no to the idea of giving a drop of her blood, or attack, so no one could harm her. She was there, listening, and eyeing Laura’s hand, which was close enough that if she decided to lift her own fingers, she’d be able to touch her.

  And she decided to reach out. Her wrinkly hand took Laura’s, and Rhia stepped closer to the bars again, a tear running down her cheek. “Even if I ran, where would I go? Gan Krai is biding his time until he can hold me up to my promises or punish me for not keeping them. I have wasted enough years, dreaming of immortal power and both worlds united under my reign. The Shalleyn are still there on the other side of the borders, but if Gan Krai lifts the ban, they will flood Allinan. I won’t be strong enough to stop them—not even with Maray’s blood added to mine. I know that now. Feris told me.”

  Corey looked up at the mention of Feris. “He was here?”

  “He dropped by to say goodbye,” Rhia admitted.

  “How did he get in?”

  “That’s a good question—he’s a powerful warlock. Maybe that was part of it,” Rhia suggested at Corey’s question. “He said he was in the area and wanted to let me know that my time has come and that you would figure out everything you need to do in order to separate the binding spell between Laura and me.”

  Maray wondered then if it had been Feris who had delivered the message to Corey’s doorstep.

  Corey didn’t let any of her emotions take over. Her hand was steady as she lowered the needle of the syringe while Laura led Rhia’s hand through the bars.

  “Take it,” Rhia gave her consent. “And make sure that if only one of us can survive, you make it my daughter.” Then, she turned away from Corey and gazed at Laura instead, remorse making her features look even older than she was.

  Corey pinned the needle into Rhia’s vein, not even hesitating a second, and pulled enough blood to fill one of the little vials she was carrying in her bag. Rhia didn’t flinch. She watched as Corey withdrew the needle and held it up while she asked Neelis to open the front compartment of her bag and pull out Feris’ book. In the meantime, Corey extracted a cloth and handed it to Maray.

  “Lay that out for me,” she instructed.

  Maray took the fabric and unfolded it then put it down in front of her on the floor. It was full of symbols and lines that didn’t mean anything to Maray, yet reminded her of the ones she had seen in the unofficial version of ‘Laws and Rituals’.

  “Your turn, Princess Laura.” Corey had laid down the syringe from her hand into a small metal bowl, not wasting a second before she pulled a second syringe from her bag.

  Laura, still holding her mother’s hand, nodded, and Corey let the needle slide under Laura’s skin like a trained nurse this time, careful not to hurt her. The second she had enough blood, she laid her hand on Laura’s arm and closed her eyes for a fraction of a second to reveal unscathed skin where it had been broken by the needle before.

  “Feris was right,” Rhia noted. “You are gifted beyond what any warlock should be able to do.”

  “Thank God, it isn’t up to Feris what I am capable of.” Corey’s statement wasn’t harsh or offensive, just a reminder of what she had lived through.

  “If anyone can do this without killing both of us, it’s Corey,” said Laura, voice full of trust in Corey’s skills. “She has healing powers. She can do anything.”

  Maray was hopeful, too. Corey had brought her father back to life when doctors from the other world would have long
declared him dead. She could do this. She could break the spell and make sure at least Laura survived.

  “It is time.” Gerwin nodded at the two syringes, which were sitting in two bowls next to each other, and Corey added a flask of potion between them and was searching her bag for something.

  “Will it hurt?” Laura asked.

  Corey shook her head. “I don’t know. I have never done this before. According to Feris, there is a good chance it will be painful.”

  Scott and Neelis stood back, giving Corey space, while Gerwin stepped closer to Laura.

  “You’ll need to get out of the way, too,” Corey informed him, and he nodded, face unreadable. But before he joined Scott and Neelis, he kissed Laura gently. One tender kiss and a look that had eons of meaning.

  “Thank you, Rhia.” He turned to the Queen who wasn’t sure what to make of his words. “You gave me the most precious thing in my life. Years of happiness with the woman I love. If it wasn’t for you, I never would have met Laura.”

  Something in Rhia changed, as if a shell of stone was crumbling, and she smiled—truly smiled. “Keep her safe if I die. Keep her safe. Do what I couldn’t. Not even from myself.”

  Gerwin inclined his head and stepped back, making space for an impatient Corey who was going back and forth over lines in the book she had opened on the decorated cloth and kept checking for Rhia and Laura as if she was hoping they’d disappear, releasing her from her duty.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Maray asked, hardly getting a word off her tongue.

  Corey shook her head. She picked up the flask and uncorked it, then lifted one syringe and inserted a drop of blood, mumbling words that didn’t even sound like a language but more like emotions. She repeated the same thing with a drop of blood from the second syringe. Then she waited, staring at the potion. All of them did. The light, bright enough to see details like the swirling bits of herbs in the bottled liquid, made everything look paler than it actually was. Everything, except the radiating blue the potion turned under Corey’s intense stare. Her face relaxed as she noticed the change. She picked a brush from the open bag then jumped to her feet, flask in hand, and dipped the tip of the brush into the potion and reached through the bars to paint a symbol onto the closed part of Rhia’s skin, which happened to be her forearm, before she grabbed Laura’s hand and repeated the procedure. Then, she went back to stand on the cloth and started mumbling again as she poured the remaining potion onto the fabric. Her words were almost like a song—vowels and emotions.