Discordia - Short Stories from The Golden Apple of Discord

by Lauren Hodge

elixirs for everyone. Sarah views this as abusing the craft. We should care, but this is an emergency and she’s maintaining our fragile politeness by remaining silent. We go over both my visions, leaving out the forced nature of the second one while Cora fixes the door knob.

  Sarah says, “You say she had a bite mark on her wrist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just one?”

  I nod.

  Cora says, “A warning shot, perhaps? To show her who is boss?”

  Ann fingers the crystal at her neck. “But why would they hurt someone they wanted to help them?”

  Cora drops the screwdriver and gasps.

  “What?” I ask.

  “What if they’re not just threatening her? What if they’re using us? They could be hiding nearby, making us hostages in exchange for the help they need. It’s what I’d do.”

  Ann says, “They knew her name. What else do they know?”

  “I wonder if they know how my visions work. And if so, did they get around them?”

  Sarah asks with a sour voice, “How do you mean, child?”

  I reply, “They might be creatures I can’t see. I saw nothing until they were close to Tara.”

  Cora says, “Explains the delay. You said you’ve never had one so close to the event.”

  Ann says, “If they’re beyond sight, how do we fight them?”

  Every single one of us looks to the pile of immolation elixirs on the table.

  If it ain't broke, don’t fix it, and those seemed to work pretty well last time.

  A vision seizes me of Tara walking in the door. Dawn creeps across the sky. She’s wearing a dirty sweater and jeans but no shoes. Her skin has a grayish tint to it, and her casting crystal is gone. She comes through the front door, breaking the knob Cora just fixed.

  Then the vision cuts off.

  Sarah presses me quickly. “What did you see?”

  “Someone is coming. She looks like Tara, but I don’t think it’s her. She’s wearing clothes I’ve never seen before and doesn’t have a casting crystal.”

  Cora asks, “What kinds of creatures can produce a glamour spell?”

  Ann squeaks, “But she’s alive?”

  Sarah answers, “For now.”

  -X-

  The hours tick by and dawn approaches. The only lead we have to work on is the fake Tara that’s going to come any minute. When we hear the doorknob break, everyone scrambles to their feet with immolation elixirs at the ready.

  True to my vision, the imposter comes around the corner, but freezes and puts up their hands. “Wait, guys, it’s me!”

  Cora telekinetically tosses the imposter into a wall. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to burn, but this fraud is gonna give my sister back.

  -X-

  This takes place between chapters two and seven in The Golden Apple of Discord - Lunet of the Dacian Vampire coven.

  What went wrong? Draco trained us to turn her and keep her under Cothelas’s verbal mind control. She is not only able to use his power; she also cannot be contained by it.

  Taralie.

  Now my Haruni is dead at her hand, and Taralie has Cothelas immobilized, her arm around his throat. Our Dacian king says, “Move to the door. Do not let her leave.”

  Like hearing your own heartbeat, but being unable to alter it, I obey his command.

  Taralie squeezes his throat and looks to my coven mates and me. “Move to the far corner of the room.”

  We can no more resist her than we can resist Cothelas.

  Our feet shuffle, stopping only when they can go no farther. Taralie moves to the door, dragging Cothelas as a barrier between us. He tries to speak, but she tightens her vice grip on his throat. Then the flesh of his neck yields in the crook of her arm.

  His body collapses to the floor, his head still hanging in her hands.

  This scene is unreal. Cothelas, a vampire so mighty even the Noricum's Prince Verus fears him, lies heaped on the floor. He was an ancient one, the most powerful of our kind.

  Taralie flings his head to the floor and flees. Even as the motor boat pulls away, I dare not follow her.

  He is so still, so very, very still.

  Jola kneels by the body of her Socious, weeping like I had been just a few short hours ago. We suffered much for this half-witch. She was supposed to overthrow the Noricum usurpers and place our kings on their rightful thrones. How will we tell Draco of this failure? How can we ever face him? It was not supposed to be like this.

  Over Jola’s cries, Julian says, “Lunet.”

  Jola… What will happen to her now?

  “Lunet!”

  I snap my gaze to Julian by the door. “What!”

  “Is Taralie still within your range?”

  “You mean to go after her?” I hiss. There is no way we can capture her. Cothelas was the only reason we had a chance in the first place.

  “She is less of a threat now that Cothelas is dead. We cannot return to Draco empty-handed.”

  I was once Draco’s golden apple. Taralie may have been my replacement, but I still have my uses. If Julian fails, he is of no value to our king.

  King… We only have one king left.

  “Draco failed to anticipate her resistance to Cothelas. If he wants to blame anyone for returning empty-handed, he can blame himself.”

  Julian and Begonia both relax their shoulders a bit. Like the rest of us, they know Draco is patient and does not act precipitously. Nor should we.

  In only a few minutes Taralie’s power leaves my range, leaving us with nothing but a dead Dacian.

  Julian says, “We should leave for Brasov. I will deliver this news in person.”

  Jola sniffles. “What about…?”

  Begonia kneels down to the floor with her, sullying her dress with our king’s blood. “What would he want?”

  Jola weeps uncontrollably. We need to get back to Draco, to safety, and the only thing she can do is bawl. Haruni was killed by that witch, and here I stand, fulfilling my duty. Duty first, love second—it is the Milunfran way I was taught as a child.

  Jola cries, “I cannot, I do not know!”

  Begonia looks to her Socius, Julian, asking for answers with her eyes.

  “Jola,” Julian says, “leave this to us.”

  He nods and Begonia pulls Jola to her feet and out of the room. The scrape of the metal door drowns out her sobbing.

  Julian turns toward me. “Burn him,” I say. “Leave no trace of us here. If the witches find this place, they will learn more about us than we want.”

  Julian replies, “You and Draco said Milunfran spells and enchantments are of no use on us.”

  “Draco also said Taralie would be held under mind control until she was conditioned to be our ally. Burn him.”

  I leave him to the task and start thinking about how we will get to land. Taralie took far more than our boat.

  -X-

  The ten-hour flight out of Toronto passes too quickly. The two-hour drive to Brasov moves faster still. When Draco’s power enters my range, it is accompanied by foreboding. He stalked the Severin sisters for years, Taralie in particular. He said her power would be beyond anything we could imagine.

  He was right.

  Begonia opens the throne room door. Daichi is against the wall and looks to us with confusion on his face. Our group looks much different than when we departed Bran Castle.

  Draco sits on his gold throne, his chin resting on his hand. The identical throne beside him will remain empty forever.

  Draco’s mistress Odessa stands to the side of the dais. Petrov, Cyril, Jason, Deke, Anca, and Bao all stand against the walls. Clarissa is missing. It is not like Petrov to leave his Socious, but she has no love of the throne room, and, being only a decade-old vampire, she has little to offer us in the way of experience.

  Julian, Begonia, Jola, and I stop several meters in front of the throne and bow; then Julian steps forward.

  “Sire, you charged Cothelas to turn the halfling
witch, control her, and bring her into your service. Haruni, Socius of the half-witch Lunet, perished during the abduction. I am sorry to report that Cothelas’s power held no sway over Lady Taralie and she killed him moments after her transformation was complete.”

  The room fills with gasps, and my coven mates look to our last king. Draco is still as ever; he didn’t even flinch over my beloved Haruni’s or Cothelas’s murders. I wonder how he regards his precious golden apple now.

  Draco speaks quietly. “Julian, tell me everything.”

  Julian swallows thickly.

  Draco once told me something High King Priam of the Noricum used to say. “Do not fear the raging king. Fear the one who will not be seen.” Draco may yet kill us for our failure.

  “We cornered her in their basement. She had an elixir that she commanded to combust, and Haruni fell quickly. After her abduction, the transformation took hours longer than Lunet’s and only ceased when we removed her casting crystal. Her waking confusion lasted only seconds. She immediately took Cothelas as a hostage and used his voice against us. The king commanded her to release him, but the command held no sway. By the sheer force of her grip around his neck, she decapitated him. I burned the remnants as to leave no trace.”

  Draco nods. “Leave me, all of you.”

  Everyone withdraws from the throne room, eager to avoid any forthcoming wrath. When I enter my quarters, Haruni’s coat over a chair forces the wretched witch’s face to mind. He really is gone. Never again will we love.

  I knew Taralie was dangerous. I never should have let Haruni go without me. Jola’s screams echo across the castle, cursing Taralie. Why do I not feel the hatred toward Taralie I hear in Jola’s voice? Is it because once upon a time I was the halfling earth witch?

  I was raised as a full-blood earth witch, and my blood power in