Maray’s heart almost stopped as Corey lifted her hand and let a flame sizzle from her palm then bent down to ignite the cloth. Corey waited until the flames had spread around her before she stepped off the fabric. It burnt purple first, then the flames slowly changed color to a pale blue, then a deeper blue, almost like the color of Maray’s eyes. Maray’s, Laura’s, and Rhia’s.
Then, there was waiting. Maray kept anxiously glancing at her mother as she braced herself for the pain. Both Rhia and Laura were clinging on to each other between the bars, reconciled at last, no hatred, no fear, remorse no longer necessary. And then it started—
With a squeal, Rhia pulled back from Laura with the symbol on her forearm lighting up in the same blue as the flames on the cloth. Laura watched her in horror as did the rest of the room. Maray’s heart picked up pace as she anticipated that it wouldn’t be long before her mother would go through the same thing. And less than a second later, Laura, hands now clinging to the bars of the cell, screamed out in pain. Gerwin, in an instant, was as close to her as Corey’s restrictions allowed, hands held out to help and yet unsure of what type of help he could offer.
“Don’t touch them,” Corey warned. “Any interference could affect the ritual.”
Gerwin gave her an anxious look, conflict creasing his forehead. Maray could feel it in her body as the power boiled in the room, a pulse, fast and strong like her own heartbeat, accelerating as the seconds trickled by. She glanced sideways at Corey, praying that Corey knew what she was doing, as both women—the one inside the cell and the one outside—were cringing from a pain that they couldn’t get rid of.
“You can do this, Mom,” Maray called, hoping that she could hear her. Any word of support should be able to carry her mother a bit further to the goal—away from Rhia, unbound.
Laura’s eyes flickered toward her, and her irises were burning in the same blue as the flames and the lit-up symbol on her forearm. Maray couldn’t tell if Laura saw her as she looked at her, but she could tell Laura was in pain, and she was losing her strength. With every second time progressed, Laura became paler, and her grasp on the bars less fierce.
“Is it working?” Gerwin asked nervously, eyes going back and forth between Corey and Laura.
Corey nodded. “The symbols are slowly burning up. It can’t be long now.
“Fight, Mom,” Maray urged. “I don’t want to lose you again. You’re almost there. Fight.”
While Laura was getting weaker, Rhia was now on her knees in the cell, slithering back toward the bars where Laura’s fingers were showing white knuckles from all of the force she was using to hold on. Wave after wave of pain came and went, and as they ebbed away, leaving both of them drained, Rhia reached Laura and wrapped her hands around her daughter’s.
“I am sorry,” Rhia said, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She leaned her head against Laura’s hands, and Laura slid down to the same level. “I am sorry, too, Mother.”
The fire burned for minutes, and then Laura and Rhia went quiet, too long for anyone to bear the tension.
While Gerwin could hardly remain still beside Laura, Maray stood closer to Corey, who seemed confused. “I did everything right,” she muttered. “It should be working. The potion had the right color, the flames changed color, and I used the right spell…” She bent forward to see what was going on. “Can you hear me, Princess—?” Corey asked and stopped dead. She rushed to Laura’s side, and Maray noticed both Rhia and Laura were resting their heads against the bars that were separating them.
“Are they alright?” she asked. “Mom?”
Laura didn’t answer. She didn’t move. Neither did Rhia. They both were white as chalk, their eyes closed, cheeks wet with tears, and their mouths held a smile of forgiveness.
While Corey was already checking the symbols, or whatever faded blue lines were left of them, Gerwin danced around the edge of the burning cloth to join her by Laura’s side. “What happened?”
Corey shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“We need to lay them down so they don’t get hurt if they fall over,” Gerwin suggested for lack of anything else to do.
She gazed into the flames as they were slowly dying. “The ritual is almost over. I can’t do anything until the flames are gone. Any additional magic might make it worse.”
Everyone in the room held their breaths, observing helplessly as the flames faded from the bright fire to a tiny glow, and eventually disappeared into smoke.
The second the fire was out, Scott rushed to the cell, unlocking it with a touch of his bracelet. He stepped inside, grabbed Rhia around the waist, and pulled her gently away from the bars while Gerwin lifted Laura and laid her down on the dusty dungeon floor, his hand remaining under her neck. “I’ve got you, my love,” he said to her, but Maray wasn’t sure either of the two women heard anything of what was going on around them.
“Mom?” Maray joined them, driven by anxiety, and rested one hand on Laura’s wrist to feel her pulse, to find, with horror, that there was none. “No heartbeat.” She checked and double-checked, but it didn’t change the fact that Laura’s heart had stopped. “Can we try to heal them?” she asked Corey, hopeful that this was something similar to what had happened to Gerwin when the warlock girl had basically brought him back from the dead.
Corey knelt down beside Laura, too, and touched her other wrist. She was still for a while, way too long for normal medicine to predict any chances of living without brain damage if they managed to magically restart her heart. But Corey had done the impossible with Gerwin before. Why shouldn’t she with Laura—
As the clock continued ticking, Maray’s hopes vanished. She eyed her father, who was patiently sitting on the ground, his eyes on Laura’s face and his hand still under her neck, protecting her head from the rough surface underneath.
“Corey?” Maray couldn’t bear the waiting. Or the silence.
Corey didn’t look up at Maray but instead removed her hand and shook her head, stating that what Maray had been dreading was final. Laura was dead. The Crown Princess of Allinan was dead. Her mother was dead.
It couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t. Maray glanced at her father, hoping to find a sign that he wasn’t ready to give up, but what she found were the silent tears of a man who was mourning the love of his life, the mother of his child.
Corey jumped to her feet and sprinted into the cell to check on Rhia, who was lying equally still as Laura, making Neelis and Scott hurry out of her way. Maray heard Corey murmur something beside Rhia, but it wasn’t a spell. It was a curse, muttered under her breath, a curse which damned herself for letting this happen, for having the blood of both the Queen and the Crown Princess on her warlock hands.
The music was ethereal, an almost inaudible layer of harmonic color. Never in her life had Maray heard anything like it.
With a glance at the black-dressed crowd on the platform before her, she was reminded of a French impressionist painting, almost as if delicate pastel brush strokes had come to life. Everything was silk and honey. A hundred or more singers, and the sound, a velvet cloud, a breath of freshness in her guilty heart. And the moment of relief pained her. She wasn’t worthy of standing and grieving. Her actions, her decisions, had led to this, and all of Allinan was watching her as she stepped forward to lay her hand on her mother’s and her grandmother’s coffins for one last time. Her mother, who had never gotten to be the wonderful Queen she should have been for Allinan, and her grandmother, who had been a redeemed woman in her eyes, someone she had grown to respect in her last hours. She had lost both of them, and what was left behind was the power vacuum Rhia had left. A void Laura might have been strong enough and ready to fill, but as for Maray, her mind wasn’t even able to focus long enough to set one steady step forward—how could she ever follow into either of the women’s footsteps?
A week had passed since Corey had broken the binding spell, and a week of tears it had been. Maray had had to announce to the council the death of the Que
en and the Crown Princess of Allinan after days of pretending they had fallen ill. Some of the council members guessed that there was more to it, but no one asked. Not yet. They would bide their time until the funeral was over, and then the fight for the throne would begin. Maray needed Heck now more than ever—his friendship and his family’s protection. Now that she needed to make that difficult last walk up to her mother’s casket and Rhia’s, the public already knew about him being the chosen suitor, and he was there with her, offering a supportive arm.
Maray’s hands were shaky even with Heck holding one of them to keep her steady on her path forward, her heart hammering mercilessly under the stares of those who were now her people. The eyes, benevolent and compassionate, watching her approach the two iron caskets, should despise her. What she had done was worse than what Rhia had done in some way. She hadn’t killed anyone, but she had let her mother and Rhia sacrifice themselves. And even though some would argue that Rhia deserved it, Maray could no longer think that way. No one deserved to die like that. Not even someone who had betrayed their loved ones countless times, ready to trade anyone’s lives for power. Not even if they had been seeking power for the greater good of Allinan.
Maray kept telling herself that both Laura and Rhia had wanted this. That it had been the only way to make sure her mother had a chance for a long life—a life where she would see another day to make sure Gan Krai would never gain the power he was seeking. She kept telling herself that she couldn’t have prevented it, not even if she had given her own life instead. And did it matter? All of them were guilty. All of those who had been there to witness the ritual, to speak the words that it was over, and who hadn’t stopped Laura from encouraging Corey to figure out the ritual. They would have been happier, all of them, living the lie that Laura would be fine and Rhia would live out the rest of her life down in the dungeons, but that lie wouldn’t have held up for long.
Gerwin had already said his goodbyes to his wife and was now standing beside the casket, as it was Maray’s turn. Behind her, they had all come—Neelis, Scott, Pia, Wil, and even Seri, standing in line behind Maray to pay their respects to the crown and the loss of a Queen and a Crown Princess.
“I am here for you,” Heck whispered, bending over her and wrapping her up in one arm, and carrying part of her weight as she felt the ground fading from under her feet.
The only one missing was Jemin, and even though it would be almost unbearable to have another knife stab her heart, his touch would give her solace.
Maray glanced back over her shoulder where Corey shifted uncomfortably. Corey, who had executed the spell on Laura’s behalf… and Maray hadn’t stood up enough to prevent it. They were both equally guilty. And it was clear in every movement of Corey’s that she was as aware of the truth as Maray was. Both had died, the Queen of Allinan and their Crown Princess, in the process of breaking the binding spell between Rhia and Laura—and it was more than pure collateral. Laura had been innocent. It was a stain on Maray’s soul, and not even her royalty could justify it. Not before her. Not before her people. Luckily, the people of Allinan would never know. To the best of their knowledge, Rhia and Laura had fallen victim to the same illness, and everyone in her circle of trust—everyone who had been there in the dungeons, Pia, and Heck—was going to fight to make that lie a truth.
Waves of chords swept Maray further along the corridor, and no matter how much she wished the iron caskets weren’t coming closer, the details on their sides became clearer with every step, and the scent of white flowers, woven over the foot-end in the shape of the Cornay ‘C’, filled her head.
Eventually, Maray stopped, tears trickling down from her cheeks and onto the engraved iron.
“Goodbye, Mom.”
From the corner of her eye, there behind the singers on the platform, a shadow moved, tall and bright-eyed, and disappeared into niches between the windows where Neelis’ pack-members were standing guard.
Heck led Maray forward to join her father and bent closer once more. “He says that if he had a choice, he would be here with you right now and that he is glad you chose me.”
Maray stifled a sob. She was mourning for all of them. Laura, Rhia, and her life with Jemin, which would never happen because, eventually, she would have to claim her throne. Maray squeezed Heck’s hand, swallowing a tear. “I am glad, too, Heck.”
Heck gave her a smile, his chocolate eyes gentle as he blinked at her with compassion and something beyond.
“Jemin said something else,” Heck whispered. “That it doesn’t matter, and he is ruined anyway.”
Maray gave Heck a questioning look, then turned to find the shadow again, but he was gone.
“Jemin said you would understand.”
Continue with Two Worlds of Dominion.
Coming March 2020.
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Angelina
About the Author
“Chocolate fanatic, milk-foam enthusiast and huge friend of the southern sting-ray. Writing is an unexpected career-path for me.”
Angelina J. Steffort is an Austrian novelist, best known for The Wings Trilogy, a young adult paranormal romance series about the impossible love between a girl and an angel. The bestselling Wings Trilogy has been ranked among calibers such as the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, and Lauren Kate’s Fallen, and has been top listed among angel books for teens by bloggers and readers. Angelina has multiple educational backgrounds including engineering, business, music, and acting. Currently, Angelina lives in Vienna, Austria, with her husband and her son.
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Also by Angelina J. Steffort
Two Worlds Saga
The Wings Trilogy
The Wings Trilogy: Adam
Two Worlds of Redemption Page 25