Witch Queen

by Kim Richardson

  My breath caught as a new kind of terror settled in the pit of my stomach.

  A male witch whose face had been marred with scars that only fire could have generated strolled in behind him. His black robe swished at his heels, and a magecraft ring gleamed on his index finger.

  Leo fell to the ground. He looked thinner, paler, so weak. His eyes were wild as he looked around the room, and then they settled on me.

  “Elena? What’s going on?” His face was encrusted with dirt, and his voice sounded like he hadn’t used it in years.

  “Leo!” I made to dash towards him, but the queen’s hands lashed out and something hit me in the stomach. I sailed backwards across the room and crashed into the wall, right next to the smashed dresser. A familiar vinegar tang welled up around me like a heavy drape. I was pinned against the wall, and I could hardly breathe.

  “So—” I gasped. “Is this how you’re going to kill me?”

  The queen’s swollen lips spread into a smile. “Not yet. Let me show you what real power looks like.”

  The queen’s magecraft flared, and a thread of gold and black magic shot out of her fingers towards Leo.

  “Leo!” I screamed.

  Leo tried to move, but he was too weak and too slow.

  The magic hit him. He rose into the air and began to convulse, flailing his arms and legs like a puppet without strings. He cried out in excruciating pain, and I turned to attack the queen. I growled like an animal, but I had been enchanted. My body wouldn’t move. I watched helplessly.

  And then I heard the loud popping of bones snapping, and Leo’s head snapped around unnaturally and faced towards me. It happened so fast I thought I had imagined it. The light in his eyes left him, and he slumped to the floor. My friend was dead.

  “NO! I’ll kill you! You monster! You bitch!” I wailed.

  “He was my friend,” I cried. “He didn’t deserve to die.”

  Tears and mucus ran down my cheeks, and I tried to break free of the queen’s hold. But her magic was too strong, and it held me like iron shackles against the wall.

  Oh, Leo…I’m so sorry…

  “You dare call me a bitch?” the queen’s hateful smile was still fixed on her red lips. “I am a queen, and you are nothing but a mistake.”

  She gestured with her hands, and I winced as another surge of magic hit me and ripped all my clothes and underclothes from my body and left me completely naked.

  I cried as the queen and her escorts laughed at me. I had been shamed, disgraced, and humiliated. I blinked through my tears at Leo’s lifeless body.

  What would Jon think of me now?

  “There,” said the queen. “An animal doesn’t need clothes.”

  My face burned, but I was still enchanted and couldn’t even move my arms to cover myself.

  The queen snorted and flipped back a strand of her hair that had come lose. She moved closer until I could smell the rose water on her. Her eyes gleamed with madness.

  “Let me be perfectly clear, half-breed. If you don’t lose the trials tomorrow, all your precious little humans will die. If you don’t lose, I swear on my crown, on my throne, and on magic, that I will peel the pretty skin off your bones and bathe in your blood.”

  The witch queen and her entourage disappeared through the door and left me naked and fastened to the wall.

  And then there was a release, and I fell to the cold ground.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE NEXT MORNING, I stood in the center of the arena once again. This time fewer witches had come to see me get my ass kicked again. It seemed that the higher witches had lost interest. Perhaps they figured I should have been dead by now. Perhaps they just didn’t care.

  The ring of trial witches surrounded me, just as they had yesterday. They appeared to be the same witches, too, except for one. A new augur witch stood in the place of the one I’d beaten to a pulp. She had the same shaved head and mystical silver eyes that I couldn’t look at for more than half a second.

  But it didn’t matter how unnerving the eyes of the augur were because only the white-haired male witch from the Shifters clan and the long, blue-haired female from the Dark Witches clan mattered now. They watched me calmly with a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

  I looked up at the queen witch. She was draped in a black silk gown and lounged in her seat laughing at something the king had said to her. Last night she had come to my bedchamber for one reason alone—to break me. And she’d succeeded.

  I had Leo’s blood on my hands, and now the lives of the rest of the rebels depended upon my actions. My body had healed, but my spirit was broken.

  My hopes of saving Jon had disappeared like a puff of smoke. I knew that a love that strong, that unconditional, would not come my way again. I knew that I could never love another as I had loved him. It was love that was worth dying for.

  I wondered what he would have done in my place.

  Would he sacrifice the lives of a few men to save hundreds of thousands?

  I knew what his answer would be, I just didn’t know if I could do it.

  I was spiraling down into my own darkness, and no magic could heal me from that.

  Unlike the queen, I had a heart. I felt for the pain of others, especially for those who’d grown up in the same dilapidated slum as I had. Leo’s screams kept sounding in my head. The images of his death kept flashing in my mind’s eye. Leo…

  It was Celeste who had found me hours later, naked on the floor, and holding on to Leo’s arm. What a sight I must have been. I was a naked, beaten down skinny female. I knew my ribs and my hipbones were showing. They could see everything. I had sobbed openly at my humiliation. I was mortified. In an attempt to hide some of my exposed skin, I had pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my free arm around them.

  “Oh, Elena,” Celeste had said. Moving fast, she had draped me with a blanket from the bed. “I’m so sorry.”

  And I’d held on to Leo, like my life depended on it, as though if I’d let go it would have made his death real. It wasn’t until Celeste finally pried my fingers apart and promised that she and the other servants would take care of his body that I truly let him go. But his death would always be with me.

  The two older female witch maids and the older male witch who had seen me sprawled naked had kept their heads down. Their features had been softened in sorrow, but in their eyes I saw a spark of resentment and anger directed at the witch queen, and it had given me hope.

  Although I had come to understand that Witchdom was an angry world, there was also kindness in the lesser witches. Even though I wasn’t a real witch by the standards of Witchdom, they didn’t judge me. They helped me.

  I couldn’t eat. I just drank some water as they wrapped Leo in my bedding and took him away. Celeste promised that his body would be burned, and he would have a proper Anglian burial. I didn’t ask where they could burn a body inside the fortress.

  So it was with a heavy heart that I stood in the arena and waited for another round of witch trials to begin. I searched the crowd for a glimpse of Fawkes, but he was nowhere to be found.

  A tight lump had formed in my throat, my eyes burned, and I strained to keep them dry. I would not cry. Not today. I had already cried enough.

  The witch king rose from his seat and surveyed the arena. His dark eyes finally settled on me. His gaze intensified, and he looked strangely satisfied and wary at the same time. I looked at Price Aurion. His silver eyes locked on mine with the same unwavering amusement that I had seen before.

  Was he satisfied about what had transpired between me and the queen the night before?

  Of course he knew, just as she had known about my helping the men in the oubliette.

  “Welcome to the second day of the witch trials, my fellow witches.” The king’s voice boomed. Everyone in the audience leaned forward.

  “I know why you all have come.” He paused to smile.

  “You want to uncover the truth of the outrageous claim made by this female.”<
br />
  A round of low applause echoed in the arena.

  “I won’t delay it any longer,” he continued. “Let us see how she fares against the last two clans. Only a true steel maiden will be able to defeat them.”

  The king clapped once. “Begin!”

  I braced myself for my next magical fight. I assumed a fighting stance and waited.

  The white-haired male, the shifter witch, moved first. His grin was evil, and I tried to steady my nerves as the magecraft on his chest pulsed with yellow energy. There was no kindness in his harsh, yellow eyes.

  “Today is the day you die, half-breed,” said the shifter witch. “I’m going to feast on the blood under that pretty skin of yours. You’re going to regret the day you left your human world and set foot in ours.”

  Part of my mind, the logical part, screamed at me to save the men, to give up and let the witches win these goddamn trials. But something else possessed me and commanded me to stay and fight. I wouldn’t give up. A hot rage cut through me, and I let it feed me with a new wave of adrenaline.

  “I’m not dying, not today,” I growled, surprised at the fury in my own voice. “I’ll kill you before you try, shifter.”

  And then the witch began to chant in a language I didn’t understand—quietly at first, but then louder until he was practically yelling. His magecraft flared, and he ripped off his clothes until he stood before me completely naked. His bones cracked, and he grew in width and in length as his body began morphing into something else. Fur spread from his back, covering him with a thick white pelt, and black fur grew on his face. When he reared up on his hind legs, he must have been eight feet tall. On all fours now, the creature let out a growl through his menacing fangs and flexed his hideous claws.

  He had become a giant wolf, a creature of nightmare, too big to be natural. I recognized it immediately. It was the same white wolf we’d seen watching over the human slaves in the fields. Wiscar.

  I growled. I was going to kill that bastard.

  The wolf roared and lunged. In two great leaps he was on me, and I barely twisted out of the way in time. A massive taloned paw swept across the space where my midsection had been a moment ago.

  Cheers went up around the arena. I didn’t know whether they were for the wolf having nearly killed me within three seconds, or for the fact that I’d survived the first three seconds.

  The wolf charged again, and I spun and dove to avoid the impact. I needed to keep my head. I rolled back onto my feet, but a taloned paw had connected with my right thigh, and the force of the blow sent me sprawling to the ground.

  Something sharp pierced my back, and I went sailing into the air again.

  I cried out as I hit the ground some twenty feet from where I had been. Tears of pain flooded my eyes, and blood poured from deep gashes in my back. I fought against the agony and nausea. My own healing magic began to course through my veins, and I could feel the itching and tingling of my skin stitching itself back together.

  The ground vibrated under me, and I could smell the musky stink of wet dog. I rolled away just as the giant beast’s paws pounded the earth where I had lain a second before.

  I limped to my feet with my weapons clamped grimly in my hands. The world spun, and I shook my head to try to level the ground as another wave of nausea hit me.

  Something about the trial witches’ magic interfered with my healing powers and kept me from recovering fully. Maybe Fawkes had been wrong about my blood magic. Maybe I had too much human blood to counter their magic. Or maybe the trial witches were just too strong, and I was too weak.

  “Kill the human whore!” some witch shouted.

  “I want to hang her skin in my parlour.”

  “Kill the bitch!”

  The laugher that sounded around the arena made me angry, and a quick glance at the winning smile on the witch queen’s face sent me into an even more primal rage. It was like everything that had happened to me so far hit me at once. I remembered the priests, the Heart of Arcania, Jon, and Leo’s murder. I saw red. Blood red.

  “For the slaves,” I swore.

  I balanced on the tips of my toes and gripped my blades as I prepared to strike. I screamed and jumped onto the beast’s back. Its fur was slick and slippery, but I managed to hang on and plunge my knife between its shoulder blades. The creature roared in surprise and swept its great paws behind its back in an attempt to catch me. It bucked and reared up, but I hung on to the blade between its shoulders and pulled myself up higher on its back.

  In the few moments of clarity I had, I knew what I must do.

  I looked up to the queen witch, and when her eyes had widened with the recognition of what I was about to do, I plunged my dagger into the base of the wolf’s skull. I cut the bone and flesh so violently that the vibration rang up my arm.

  I could feel the life flowing from him. He wavered, and I leapt off the creature and landed on my feet.

  The shifter witch collapsed next to me, dead.

  CHAPTER 28

  I DIDN’T HAVE TIME to admire my handiwork, or to give my best smile to the queen, because just as I stood up, I was hit in the chest by a blow of magic.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  I hit the ground hard and heard my hipbone crack. The pain shot through my abdomen and forced me to double over. When I looked up, the last trial witch was standing over me. Her long blue hair billowed wildly behind her, and the hatred in wet her eyes sent a tremor through me.

  “Wiscar was many things, but he was also my friend. You took him from me,” hissed the witch.

  Her magecraft sparkled with yellow light. “He made the mistake of letting his guard down, and his arrogance cost him his life. But I don’t make mistakes. I end them.”

  I staggered to my feet, wincing at the pain in my hip.

  “It was either his life or mine…and I chose mine. And I will every time.”

  “I will kill you, you know,” said the witch calmly. “You might be skilled with a blade, but I’m skilled with dark magic and no blade can withstand that kind of power. Especially not a tainted human pretending to be a steel maiden.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “If you reject your claim now,” she continued, “if you swear an oath to our witch king that you are not a steel maiden, that this was just some ridiculous attempt at gaining attention from our king…I will spare your life.”

  My eyes narrowed. “I doubt the witch king will spare it though.”

  The witch smiled. “Probably not. But his way would be less…painful than mine. I will make sure to spill all of your human blood, every last drop, until your vessel is empty. A blood sacrifice is the most sacred sacrifice that we make to our Goddess. It would be an honorable death. It’s your choice.”

  “Choice?” I raised my brows. “Since when do I have a choice? The witch queen ordered you to do this, didn’t she?” I asked.

  The dark witch didn’t answer, but the slight rise of her eyebrows suggested I was right.

  I stood my ground.

  “I’ve never claimed to be anything other than just me. And if being me also means being a steel maiden, then so be it. I cannot change who or what I am, just as you cannot change who or what you are.”

  Her grin was terrible. In her arrogance she was convinced of her own magnificence and power.

  “You’re a fool. You think this is bravery, coming here and putting on a show? It’s stupidity. Any real witch would have surrendered because they would have known that they could not win against me. It just goes to show that you are not a real witch, but a human beast whose life is about to end.”

  I yanked my witch blade from my waist.

  “Maybe I am a fool, maybe I’m not even a real witch. But I’m definitely not a coward. And I won’t be bullied by a queen bitch.”

  The witch lunged forward in a wave of rage. She summoned her dark magic, and the pendant at her neck flared as it unleashed something dark inside the witch. With a laugh she flicked her hands and a th
read of magic shot at me.

  I swung my sword in a feeble attempt to deflect the magic, but I knew my weapons would be useless. The blunt force of her magic hit me like a boulder on my chest, and I stumbled back. At first I felt nothing, just a tingling. But just when I thought that maybe, just maybe, my blood magic would be strong enough to resist her magic—the pain started.

  I managed to retain my grip on my sword by my natural reflexes, but it hung uselessly in my hand. The threads of her magic pulsed through me until I could only feel the pulsing of my blood. I could barely feel my fingers at all. The magic spread like a firestorm through my veins, burning my insides. My chest ached as it contracted, tightening and tightening, until I felt like I would be crushed from within. I spat up blood in an attempt to breathe, but my lungs were swollen with liquid.

  “Yield!” A voice echoed in my ears, but I suspected it was just my imagination.

  Through my blurred vision, I could barely make out the dark witch. Her clenched fists were blazing with dark magic.

  As my chest caved in, every rib cracked, split, and bent under the invisible force that was crushing me from the inside. I collapsed to the ground, writhing. I opened my mouth, but I was unable even to scream. I could feel my bones snap and crumple into dust. I couldn’t move my fingers. I couldn’t move at all.

  But then, a familiar tingle sparked low in my middle and ignited. My blood magic was countering the dark magic and defending me. I could feel my bones itching and tingling as they healed. I could feel them rebuilding throughout my torso. I could move again, but just barely. My body was soaked in sweat, and my heart pounded as my blood magic fought fiercely to defend me, as though it knew it was now or never. But it was not enough.

  As I tried to stand, the witch hit me from all sides at once, sending blast after blast of deadly dark magic into me again. I could barely hear her laughter as my blood gushed into my ears. I dropped to the ground as another wave of magic lanced into my body.

  I felt the heat of the energy, running up and down my body and setting every nerve on fire again. The image of Jon appeared in my mind’s eye. Then the winning smile on the swollen lips of the queen flashed in my mind, and then I imagined the wild expression on the king’s face.