Serpent & Dove

by Shelby Mahurin

  If it made Morgane happy, it couldn’t be good for us.

  Elaina and Elinor soon left me to add their gifts to the pile. I craned my neck to search for anything amiss, anything that might be construed as a signal, but there was nothing.

  Ansel and Coco sidled up beside me, their distress nearly palpable. “We can’t wait much longer,” Ansel breathed. “It’s almost midnight.”

  I nodded, remembering Morgane’s wicked smile. Something was coming. We couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Whether Madame Labelle gave the signal or not, the time had come to act. I looked to Coco. “We need a distraction. Something to draw Morgane’s attention away from Lou.”

  “Something like a blood witch?” she asked, grim.

  Ansel opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “It’ll be dangerous.”

  She slit her wrist with a flick of her thumb. Dark blood welled, and a sharp, bitter stench pierced the cloying air. “Don’t worry about me.” She turned and wove through the mist out of sight.

  I checked the bandolier of knives beneath my coat as inconspicuously as possible. “Ansel . . . before we do this . . . I—I just want to say that I’m”—I broke off, swallowing hard—“I’m sorry. About before. In the Tower. I shouldn’t have touched you.”

  He blinked in surprise. “It’s fine, Reid. You were upset—”

  “It’s not fine.” I coughed awkwardly, unable to meet his eyes. “Er, what weapons do you have?”

  Before he could answer, the music stopped abruptly, and the clearing plunged into silence. Every eye turned to the temple. I watched in horror as Morgane stood, eyes shining with malicious intent.

  This was it. We really were out of time.

  I followed the witches as they moved closer, moths drawn to the flame. Gripping a knife under my coat, I maneuvered to the front of the crowd. Ansel shadowed my movements, and Beau soon joined him.

  Good. They could protect each other. Though if I failed, they were as good as dead anyway.

  Morgane was the target.

  A blade in the chest would distract her just as well as Coco could. If I was lucky, it would kill her. If I wasn’t, it would at least buy enough time to grab Lou and run. I prayed the others would be able to slip away undetected.

  “Many of you have traveled long and far to pay homage on this Modraniht.” Morgane’s voice was soft, but it carried clearly across the silence of the glade. The witches waited with bated breath. “I am honored by your presence. I am humbled by your gifts. Your revelry tonight has restored my spirit.” She searched each face carefully, her eyes seeming to linger on mine before continuing on. I released a slow breath.

  “But you know this night is more than revelry,” she continued, voice softer still. “This is a night to honor our matriarchs. It is a night to worship and pay tribute to the Goddess—she who brings light and darkness, she who breathes life and death. She who is the one true Mother of us all.” Another pause, this one longer and more pronounced. “Our Mother is angry.” The anguish on her face had even me nearly convinced. “Suffering has plagued her children at the hand of man. We have been hunted.” Her voice rose steadily. “We have burned. We have lost sister and mother and daughter to their hatred and fear.”

  The witches stirred restlessly. I gripped my knife tighter.

  “Tonight,” she cried passionately, lifting her arms to the heavens, “the Goddess will answer our prayers!”

  Then she brought them slashing down, and Lou—still floating, still insentient—tipped forward. Her feet dangled uselessly above the temple floor. “With my daughter’s sacrifice, the Goddess shall end our oppression!” Her hands clenched, and Lou’s head snapped upright. Nausea rolled in my gut. “In her death, we shall forge new life!”

  The witches stomped and shouted.

  “But first,” she crooned, barely audible. “A gift for my daughter.”

  And with one last flick of her hand, Lou’s eyes finally opened.

  I hesitated just long enough to see those blue-green eyes—beautiful, alive—widen in shock. Then I lunged forward.

  Ansel grabbed my arms with surprising strength. “Reid.”

  I faltered at his tone. In the next second, I understood: the ebony witch had reappeared, and now she dragged a second woman—limp and immobilized—out of the temple. A woman with strawberry blond hair and piercing blue eyes that searched the crowd desperately.

  I stopped dead, stricken. Unable to move.

  My mother.

  “Behold this woman!” Morgane shouted over the sudden din of voices. “Behold the treacherous Helene!” She grabbed Madame Labelle by the hair and threw her down the temple steps. “This woman—once our sister, once my heart—conspires with the human king. She birthed his bastard child.” Shrieks of outrage rent the air. “Tonight, she was found attempting to force entry on the Chateau. She plots to steal our Mother’s precious gift by taking my daughter’s life herself. She would have us all burn under the tyrant king!”

  The cries reached a deafening pitch, and Morgane’s eyes shone with triumph as she descended the steps. As she drew a wickedly sharp dagger from her belt. “Louise le Blanc, daughter and heir to La Dame des Sorcières, I shall honor you with her death.”

  “No!” Lou’s body spasmed as she fought to move with her entire being. Tears poured down Madame Labelle’s cheeks.

  I tore viciously from Ansel’s grasp and lunged forward, diving for the temple steps—desperate to reach them, desperate to save the two women I needed most—just as Morgane plunged the dagger into my mother’s chest.

  The Pattern

  Reid

  “NO!” I fell to my knees before her body, jerking the dagger from her chest, fingers moving to stanch the bleeding. But I already knew it was too late. I was too late. There was too much blood for this wound to be anything but fatal. I stopped my frenzied ministrations and clutched her hands instead. Her eyes never left my face. We each stared at the other hungrily—as if in that brief moment, a thousand other moments might’ve happened.

  Her holding a chubby finger. Her tending a scraped knee. Her laughing when I first kissed Célie, telling me I hadn’t done it right.

  Then the moment ended. The cold tingle of her magic left my face. Her breath faltered, and her eyes closed.

  A blade touched my throat.

  “Rise,” Morgane commanded.

  I exploded upward, catching her wrist and shattering it with ease—with savage pleasure. She screeched, dropping the dagger, but I didn’t stop. I bore down on her. My free hand wrapped around her throat—squeezing until I could feel her windpipe give, kicking the dagger down the steps toward Ansel—

  Her other hand blasted into my stomach—stunning me—and invisible bonds cinched around my body, pinned my arms to my sides. My legs went rigid. She struck me again, and I toppled over, thrashing against the bonds. The harder I struggled, the tighter they became. They bit into my skin, drawing blood—

  “Mother, stop!” Lou spasmed again, shuddering with the effort to reach me, but her body remained suspended. “Don’t hurt him!”

  Morgane didn’t listen. She appeared to be feeling for something in empty air. Her eyes darted outward as she tracked whatever it was into the crowd. With a vicious tug, two familiar people staggered forward. My heart dropped. Morgane pulled harder, and Ansel and Beau fell at the temple steps, struggling against invisible bonds of their own. Their faces had returned to normal.

  “Her coconspirators!” A mad gleam entered Morgane’s eyes, and the witches went wild with bloodlust—stamping their feet and screaming—as they struggled to converge on the temple. Magic shot past my face. Ansel cried out as a spell slashed his cheek. “The king’s sons and huntsmen! They shall bear witness to our triumph! They shall watch as we rid this world of the House of Lyon!”

  She jerked her uninjured hand, and Lou slammed onto the altar. The witches screamed their approval. I threw myself forward. Rolled and clawed and twisted toward Lou with every ounce of the strength I had left
. The bonds around me strained.

  “Nature demands balance!” Morgane swooped to retrieve the dagger from the steps. When she spoke again, her voice had deepened to an unearthly timbre, multiplied as if thousands of witches were speaking through her. “Louise le Blanc, thy blood is the price.” Enchantment washed over the temple, burning my nose and clouding my mind. I gritted my teeth. Forced myself to see through it—to see through her.

  Beau immediately slackened. His eyes glazed as Morgane’s skin began to glow. Ansel alone struggled on, but his resolve quickly faltered.

  “Let it fill the cup of Lyon, for whosoever drinketh of it shalt surely die.” Morgane walked to Lou slowly, her hair billowing around her in a nonexistent wind. “And so the prophecy foretold: the lamb shalt devour the lion.”

  She forced Lou to her stomach. Ripped her braid back to extend her throat over the altar basin. Lou’s eyes sought mine. “I love you,” she whispered. No tears marred her beautiful face. “I will remember you.”

  “Lou—” It was a desperate, strangled sound. A plea and a prayer. I tore violently at my bonds. Sharp pain lanced through my body as one arm snapped free. I flung it outward, mere inches from the altar, but it wasn’t enough. I watched—as if in slow motion—as Morgane raised the dagger high. It still gleamed with my mother’s blood.

  Lou closed her eyes.

  No.

  A terrible shriek sounded, and Coco leapt for Morgane’s throat.

  Her knife sank deep into the tender flesh between Morgane’s neck and shoulder. Morgane screamed, attempting to pry her away, but Coco held on, pushing the blade deeper. She fought to bring Morgane’s blood to her lips. Morgane’s eyes widened in realization—and panic.

  A full second passed before I realized the bonds holding me had flickered out at Coco’s assault. I bolted to my feet and closed the distance to Lou in a single stride.

  “No!” she cried when I made to pick her up. “Help Coco! Help her!”

  Whatever happens, you get Lou out.

  “Lou—” I said through clenched teeth, but a high-pitched scream silenced my argument. I spun just as Coco collapsed to the floor. She didn’t get back up.

  “Coco!” Lou screamed.

  Chaos erupted. The witches surged forward, but Ansel rose up to meet them—a lone figure against hundreds. To my dismay, Beau followed him—but he didn’t brandish a weapon. Instead, he shucked off his coat and boots, searching the crowd wildly. When his eyes landed on the plump witch from the hall, he pointed and bellowed, “BIG TITTY LIDDY!”

  Her eyes widened as he kicked off his pants and began singing at the top of his lungs, “‘BIG TITTY LIDDY WAS NOT VERY PRETTY, BUT HER BOSOM WAS BIG AS A BARN.’”

  The witches nearest him—Elinor and Elaina among them—stopped dead in their tracks. Bewilderment tempered their rage as Beau slipped his shirt over his head and continued singing, “‘HER CREAMERY KNOCKERS DROVE MEN OFF THEIR ROCKERS, BUT SHE WAS BLIND TO THEIR CHARM.’”

  Morgane bared her teeth and whirled toward him, blood flowing freely down her shoulder. It was all the distraction I needed. Before she could lift her hands, I was upon her. I pressed my knife to her throat.

  “Reid!” It was the voice I least expected, the only voice in the world that could’ve made me hesitate in that moment. But hesitate I did.

  It was the voice of the Archbishop.

  Morgane made to turn, but I dug the blade in deeper. “Move your hands. I dare you.”

  “I should’ve drowned you in the sea,” she snarled, but her hands stilled regardless.

  Slowly, carefully, I turned. The ebony witch had returned, and an incapacitated Archbishop floated before her. His eyes were wild—with panic and something else. Something urgent. “Reid.” His chest heaved. “Don’t listen to them. Whatever happens, whatever they say—”

  The ebony witch snarled, and his words ended in a scream.

  My hand slipped, and Morgane hissed as blood trickled down her throat. The ebony witch stepped closer. “Let her go, or he dies.”

  “Manon,” Lou pleaded. “Don’t do this. Please—”

  “Be quiet, Lou.” Her eyes glowed manic and crazed—beyond reason. The Archbishop continued screaming. The veins beneath his skin blackened, as did his nails and tongue. I stared at him in horror.

  I didn’t see Morgane’s hands move until they grasped my wrists. White-hot heat melted my skin, and my knife clattered to the floor.

  Faster than I could react, she scooped it up and dove toward Lou.

  “NO!” The shout tore from my throat—feral, desperate—but she had already thrust the knife upward and slashed, tearing Lou’s throat open completely.

  I stopped breathing. A horrible roaring filled my ears, and I was falling—a great, yawning chasm opening as Lou gasped and choked, her lifeblood pouring into the basin. She thrashed, finally free of whatever had been holding her—still fighting, even as she struggled to breathe—but her body stilled quickly. Her eyes fluttered once . . . then closed.

  The ground gave way beneath me. Shouts and footsteps thundered in the distance, but I couldn’t truly hear them. Couldn’t even see. There was only darkness—the bitter void in the world where Lou should’ve been and now was not. I stared into it, willing it to consume me.

  It did. I spiraled down, down, down into that darkness with her, and yet—she wasn’t there at all. She was gone. Only a broken shell and sea of blood remained.

  And I . . . I was alone.

  Out of the darkness, a single golden cord shimmered into existence. It drifted out of Lou’s chest and toward the Archbishop—pulsed as if in echo of a heart. With each beat, its light grew dimmer. I stared at it for the span of a single second. Knew what it was in the same way I knew the sound of my own voice, my reflection in the mirror. Familiar, yet foreign. Expected, yet startling. Something that had always been part of me, but I had never quite known.

  In that darkness, something awoke inside me.

  I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think. Moving quickly, I swept a second knife from my bandolier and charged past Morgane. She lifted her hands—fire lashing from her fingertips—but I didn’t feel the flames. The gold light wrapped around my skin, protecting me. But my thoughts scattered. Whatever strength my body had claimed, my mind now forfeited. I stumbled, but the gold cord marked my path. I vaulted over the altar after it.

  The Archbishop’s eyes flew open as he realized my intent. A small, pleading noise escaped him, but he could do little else before I fell upon him.

  Before I drove my knife home in his heart.

  A life for a life. A love for a love.

  The Archbishop’s eyes were still wide—confused—as he slumped forward in my arms.

  The gold light dispersed, and the world came rushing back into focus. The shouts grew louder now. I stared down at the Archbishop’s lifeless body, numb, but Morgane’s scream of rage made me turn. Made me hope. Tears of relief welled in my eyes at what I saw.

  Though Lou was still pale, still unmoving, the gash at her throat was closing. Her chest rose and fell.

  She was alive.

  With a brutal cry, Morgane jerked her knife up to reopen the wound, but an arrow sliced through the air and lodged in her chest. She screamed anew, whirling furiously, but I recognized the blue-tipped shaft immediately.

  Chasseurs.

  Led by Jean Luc, scores of them surged into the clearing. The witches shrieked in panic—scattering in every direction—but more of my brethren waited in the trees. They showed no mercy, cutting through woman and child alike without hesitation. Bodies everywhere fell into the mist and disappeared. An unearthly wail rose up from the very ground in response, and soon Chasseurs began disappearing as well.

  Fury contorted Jean Luc’s features as he notched another arrow and raced toward the temple. His eyes were no longer fixed on Morgane, however—they were fixed on me. Too late, I realized my hand still clenched the knife protruding from the Archbishop’s chest. I dropped it hastily—the Archbishop’s b
ody falling with it—but the damage had been done.

  Jean Luc took aim and fired.

  La Forêt des Yeux

  Reid

  I grabbed Lou and ducked behind the altar. Ansel and Beau scrambled after me, holding a barely conscious Coco between them. Arrows rained down on our heads. Morgane blasted most of them into ash with a wave of her hand, but one sank deep into her leg. She screamed in fury.

  “Through there.” Voice faint, Coco pointed into the depths of the temple. “There’s . . . another exit.”

  I hesitated for only a second. Another volley of arrows distracted Morgane—it was now or never.

  “Get them out.” I slid Lou into Beau’s arms. “I’ll catch up.”

  Before he could protest, I dove out from behind the altar toward Madame Labelle’s body. No arrows had yet pierced her, but our luck wouldn’t hold. As the Chasseurs closed in, their range turned deadly. An arrow whizzed by my ear. Grabbing Madame Labelle’s wrist, I hauled her into my arms. Tried to shield as much of her body as possible with my own.

  Fire and arrow pursued me as I sprinted back into the temple. Sharp pain lanced through my shoulder, but I didn’t dare stop.

  The sound of the battle died as I entered the uncanny quiet of the inner temple. Ahead of me, Ansel, Coco, and Beau raced toward the exit. I sprinted after them, trying to ignore the warm, wet substance spreading across my arm. The small moans of pain escaping Madame Labelle’s throat.

  She’s alive. Alive.

  I didn’t look behind to see if Morgane or Jean Luc followed. I focused only on the small rectangle of moonlight at the end of the temple, on Coco’s hair bobbing as she cleared it.

  Coco.

  Coco could heal her.

  I caught up to them as they entered the shadows of the forest. They didn’t slow. Lurching forward, I grabbed Coco’s arm. Her eyes were dim, glazed, as she turned back to me. I extended Madame Labelle’s broken body to her. “Help her. Please.” My voice shook—my eyes burned—but I didn’t care. I pressed my mother into her arms. “Please.”