She took the old wizard into her arms, cradling his head in her lap. “Gramps! Wake up, Gramps!”
He was unresponsive.
She shook him. “Please,” she sobbed. “Please, Gramps, I need you. The worlds need you.”
Odarth roared, lashing out with her tail. It connected with the side of the Widow’s body, and the giant Arachnid slid to the right, her planted, clawed feet ripping up the stone floor with the movement. The Widow cried out, but it wasn’t in pain; it was the sound of a person hanging on to their last thread of sanity.
It gave Maria goosebumps.
Fire roared from Odarth’s mouth, making the witch’s goosebumps smooth back into regular flesh.
The Widow crossed her legs and deflected the hit.
Maria couldn’t believe her eyes; there was a shield between the Widow and Odarth.
Magic, she realized. Her magic has grown stronger. I can see it in her eyes and in the way she carries herself.
As she watched the two beasts battle, a raspy voice filled her head. She thought it might be Anwyn’s again.
“Maria…the tree…the Blood Tree. Jewel of D-Deception is in thereeee…m-m-my d-dear…”
‘My dear’?
The words registered in her mind, and she looked down. Gramps’s eyes were open—just barely. He tried to smile, but his face was too swollen and bruised for it to look genuine.
She smiled back anyway. “Gramps? Gramps, hang on for me, please. Just hang on.”
“The Jewel, Mariaaa. The Jewel!” His voice took on a force Maria would’ve thought impossible in his current state. He raised his arm, shaking, and pointed to the shadows on her right. She followed his finger with her eyes. There, shrouded in darkness but standing ominous and radiant, was the Blood Tree.
Ice filled Maria’s veins. It looked like it was staring at her.
That’s not possible. Is it?
It was.
“Go, Maria. I’ll be all right. Go!” Already, Maria noticed life coming back into the old wizard. She didn’t want to leave him, but she knew she had no choice.
Pushing herself up and easing Gramps’s head onto the old stone of the dais,
Maria started toward the Blood Tree.
She was almost there when Odarth cried out.
It was a horrible sound of grating pain and dread. Maria stopped to watch their battle, but it was over. The Widow slashed her legs at the dragon, catching her in the mouth. Odarth fell backward, sprawling and unconscious.
Dead?
If she wasn’t dead yet, the Widow was going to make sure she finished the job. Maria had to stop her.
Can I do both? Can I get the Jewel and help my friend?
The Widow’s laughter boomed, shaking webbing and dust from the rafters.
Maria looked back at the Blood Tree. There, in the heart of the trunk, lay the Jewel. She could sense its power, just as she had been able to sense her grandfather’s power from deep inside the lair. The Tree seemed to be looking into her soul, tugging at her mind, telling her to give into the Widow’s will, her rule.
“Never,” she swore.
My sword—Ignatius Mangood’s before me, Anywyn’s before us all. I have to use it.
She brought the blade up and slashed at the trunk. The wood seemed to scream in pain, and it hurt Maria to hear that nearly as bad as it had hurt her to hear Odarth’s screams. A great blackness seeped out from the gash. It was not sap, she knew, but the trapped souls of those the Blood Tree had consumed.
They roamed free, now.
Then, like a beating heart, a red light pulsed inside of the trunk.
Maria slashed again. And again. And again.
Inside was the Jewel of Deception. She reached in with her bare hand, only to catch herself before her flesh came into contact with the ruby. Gramps had told her the stories; she knew what would happen, what she would see.
Baring her teeth at the thought of all that darkness, Maria ripped off a piece of her shirt, which was already tattered and hanging, and grabbed the Jewel with the fabric.
She looked to Gramps. He was gone. Passed out.
“You cannot destroy me,” the Widow boomed as she crawled atop Odarth’s unconscious body. “I am the night. I am blackness. I devour worlds and spit out their bones. I am all. I am eternal.”
The monster queen raised her abdomen. A large stinger protruded from it, easily fifteen feet in length, dripping poison from its tip in large droplets.
Maria knew what to do. It came to her as swiftly as her nightmares.
The darkness. The creeping darkness in the world in between.
It was hungry.
“Leave her alone!” Maria shouted. Fear stole over her. It tried to seize her muscles and freeze her to the spot. She wouldn’t let it.
This was her destiny. This was what she was meant to do.
Everything before this moment—coming into her power, defeating Malakai and the Man in the Mountain and the Dragon Tongue and the Orc, mastering the Rogue Speech, flying atop Odarth the Bright—had led up to here and now.
She opened her bag and pulled the music box free.
The Widow’s stinger retracted, and her black lips hid her bared fangs. “My music box.”
“No,” Maria said.
She slid the wood on the bottom of the box open and put the Jewel inside. The power thrummed through her body without having to call on it. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, and nothing she would ever feel again.
Words came to her lips, ancient and dark words from deep within her mind; incantations she didn’t know, but that her ancestors had known before her. With the spells came a tearing sound, like steel beams through a wood chipper. If Maria had not been possessed by some power greater than her own, she would’ve been forced to plug her ears.
Then the very air parted.
Maria looked into a dark void, yet it moved as if it were gelatinous. Screams of pain and confusion escaped through the hole, only to be drowned out by the rumbling of an oncoming storm.
She and the Widow were equally stunned.
They were looking into the world in between, into a chasm in the fabric of reality that had settled between them.
The Widow scrabbled over Odarth’s body and came straight for Maria. Her green eyes burned brighter than before.
“Hey!” Maria shouted toward the world in between. “I have what you want. Hey!”
Nothing came.
The Widow laughed as she came up the stone steps, to the dais where Maria stood.
“Nice try, witch,” the Widow spat. “But my power knows no bounds. Once I devour you, making sure you’re digested alive, and suffocating slowly inside of me, I shall be reunited with my king.”
No. It can’t end like this. It’s not my destiny.
Still the Widow came.
Maria held her sword in her right hand, and the music box in her left, and braced herself. If she was going to die, she would take the Widow down with her.
As the Widow thundered up the last two steps of the dais, wisps of black smoke stretched forth from the opening. The screaming grew louder, more pained. The fingers turned into arms, the arms into a torso and body that rivaled the Widow in size.
Now, Maria heard in her mind. Now!
The voice could’ve been her own; it could’ve been Gramps, or even Anwyn, as he had spoken to her in Ashbourne. But it was a reminder of what Maria had intended to do when the black mist came from the world in between.
Now or never, that voice came again. Now or die. She realized it was a combination of all the voices that had guided her: Gramps, Agnes, Salem, her mother, Sherlock, Anwyn—all of them, every one.
Maria slammed her sword down into the stone, hard enough to bury the blade nearly half a foot into the platform. The sword merged with Maria’s magic and formed a shimmering bubble of protection.
The mist lunged forward from the world in between, and grabbed the Widow as if she were what it wanted all along.
The queen let o
ut a strangled cry, and the fire in her eyes was replaced with something else.
Fear.
With a clashing cacophony of thunder and screams, the Widow disappeared, along with the black mist.
It was satisfied.
For now.
Maria fell to her knees. The fear had almost been too much. She would’ve knelt there for as long as it took for her to regain her composure, but she knew she couldn’t. The world in between was there, right before her eyes. This was her chance to get those from the village out—she couldn’t let it pass her by.
Releasing the sword and leaving the bubble of protection, Maria walked over to the gash in reality. She closed her eyes and reached out to those who needed saving. Being from Dominion, she shared a connection with them, one that grew stronger the closer she got and the more she let her magic reach out for her.
But magic wasn’t enough.
Gritting her teeth, she put her hand through the portal. The gelatinous texture of the world in between was cold and shocking, but most prominently, wrong.
For a long moment, she felt nothing—which was both a disappointment and a relief. She feared the darkness would return, still hungry, floating like heavy fog through a graveyard, ready to take her into purgatory.
A hand took hers. She pushed down her fear and pulled with all her might.
Out came an older man, with a beard cut close to his skin, as gray as his hair. He was dressed in the attire of Dominion that she had seen in Duke’s vision. The man took a deep breath. “Maria, you’ve grown,” he said. Then he looked back at the world in between. “There are four more.”
“Five? That’s all?” Maria asked, surprised.
The man nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so, but they’re close. We knew you were coming. Oh, it’s so sweet to breathe Oriceran air once more.”
Maria shook her head. Five in total. They’re all that was left to save.
She went back to the rift. Another hand filled hers. She pulled a woman free; holding this woman’s other hand was a second woman, younger than the first.
“Hi, nice to meet you. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up soon,” Maria said.
She noticed the opening to the world in between was growing smaller.
She plunged in again, and out came another woman, her hair long and blonde, like silk honey. “Save Parmella! You have to,” the newcomer urged.
“Working on it,” Maria grunted. Her magic was wearing off, causing her head to spin.
Last one, Maria. Come on. You can do it.
In her hand went, but the opening shrank before her eyes. She shoved her other hand in, trying to stop it, but knew she couldn’t. Soon the portal would close, and it wouldn’t care if Maria’s arms were in or out.
She wouldn’t give up, though. It was not in her DNA.
Something brushed her fingers. Maria stretched farther, straining with the movement. A hand seized her own, and once more Maria yanked.
It wasn’t going to be enough.
On Oriceran, however, the Dominoners wrapped around Maria’s torso and pulled. The last woman came out with a scream, falling forward as the portal snapped shut and the magic wore off.
Maria was nearly crushed by the force at which the woman came out.
Maria was coughing, trying to catch her breath. “You must be Parmella. Nice to meet you.” She stuck her hand out for a proper handshake.
The lady looked at Maria’s hand, her bushy black hair plastered to her forehead with what looked like sweat and gel. She let out a sob and wrapped her arms around the young witch. “Thank you. Thank you so much!” Parmella cried.
Maria, barely able to breathe because the woman was squeezing her so hard, hugged her back. “Don’t mention it,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
Once the newcomers were all settled, Maria took the Jewel of Deception out of the music box. Frank, the gray haired man, and the four women—Michein, Parmella, Kira, and Sage—helped carry Gramps out into the Dark Forest.
Maria stayed behind.
Odarth was still breathing, but she wasn’t conscious. Long rakes from the Widow’s claws marred Odarth’s scales.
Odarth, wake up, please, Maria urged.
There was no answer.
Closing her eyes, Maria pulled magic from the planet’s core into her own body. She had never healed a dragon before, but how hard could it be?
The magic coursed through her until it tingled in her palms. She put her hands on the slashes and thought of Odarth as she was whole.
Slowly, the slashes disappeared, and Odarth opened her eyes.
Maria—
The young witch passed out before Odarth could finish.
She awoke to great cheers from a crowd among a ruined stretch of forest.
A battlefield.
Maria thought she was dreaming until she noticed Odarth was holding her gently in her great maw.
The dragon set the witch down, and everyone rushed her. They hugged her, congratulated her, told her she did it, that her mother would’ve been so proud, that she was the true heir of Anwyn, and so many other things.
All Maria could do was smile, and try to believe it was all real.
It was very real, but it took days for that to finally sink in.
They were back in the ruined village of Dominion. Gramps was on the mend, though still bruised and unable to walk without a cane or help. But he had never been happier; his friends were back.
The saved five told the story of the world in between. That dark mist had taken most of those who had been saved by Zimmy Ba a long time ago—or so it had seemed. It could’ve been days or centuries, for all they knew. Their sense of time in the world in between didn’t exist.
For a while, Maria had blamed herself for their loss. Gramps assured her that there was nothing more they could have done, and that saving five lives was better than none.
The blame belonged to the Arachnids, a now extinct race…for the most part.
Some had gotten away, and there were some who were not inherently evil and lived elsewhere, but the Widow’s reign of madness was gone.
Just like the music box.
Gelbus had offered to take it to the Gnomes’ vault. He told her that was where such a powerful artifact belonged.
Maria agreed, not reluctantly. It may have been her mother’s, but she didn’t need that piece of her, when she had so much of her mother inside her heart.
When Gelbus had overseen the storing of the music box in the vault, he had been offered his old job back. He had refused it, though and returned to the great hall.
The whole group now stood in the throne room. A long table had been placed in the middle of the aisle, and the throne sat high above it.
“Now what?” Maria asked her grandfather.
He smiled, “We celebrate.”
“And we rebuild,” Frank added. He put his arm around Parmella and kissed her on the cheek. Parmella wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye as she looked around the great hall with nostalgia in her eyes.
“Yes, we rebuild,” Michein agreed. Sage, her daughter, who looked younger than Maria, nodded. “Dominion can rise from the ashes again. We can build a thriving city and offer sanctuary to those who seek shelter.”
Behind Michein and Sage, Kira stepped forward, her red hair like leaves in autumn. “All because of you, Maria.”
Joe had his arm around Maria. He pulled her closer and kissed her on the top of the head. Sherlock was at Maria’s feet, and he made a sound of disgust—but chuckled afterward.
Frieda stood by Gramps, letting him lean on her. Behind them, at the tables, sat Claire, Tabby, the dark witches, and the Light Elves. Odarth sat outside, guarding the palace. The wounds over her body were all but gone.
Do you want to go back to the Cave of Delusion? Maria had asked Odarth.
I will go wherever you need me to go. I owe you my life more than once; I am forever indebted to you, the dragon had replied.
If they are going to rebuild Dominion,
they will need an army. You can be the beginning of that army, Odarth, Maria proposed.
Odarth nodded. Anything, Maria Apple, descendant of Anwyn, the Slayer.
The young witch smiled as another alliance was forged.
Maria realized her only loved ones missing were Salem and Agnes.
As if on cue, the witch and wizard—the latter almost as beat up as Gramps—came through a portal in the middle of the great hall.
Agnes held two buckets with ‘BUCKEYE ICE CREAM’ stenciled on the sides.
“Thought you could have this party without us, did you?” Salem asked.
“Not a chance,” Agnes said.
Maria laughed. We’re all here.
Upbeat music started to play from a radio Claire and Tabby had insisted on bringing, and those who could dance did. As the night went on, the music slowed. Sherlock danced with Claire, and then Tabby, smiling a perfect dog’s smile.
Maria looked on, smiling and shaking her head. He finally got his Dog Prom.
After all the ice cream had been eaten, and conversation turned more serious, Frank stepped forward. “If we are going to rebuild, we will need a new queen,” He was looking at Maria.
The candles dimmed.
Her heart dropped.
“What? Me?” she asked, breathless.
Frank nodded along with the others she had saved from the world in between.
Maria looked to Gramps for an answer. He only shrugged and grinned with the rest of them.
Frank and the others stepped aside, revealing the throne.
“Do it!” Claire hooted.
“Yeah!” Tabby enthused.
Joe whispered, “Whatever you want to do, Maria, I’ll be right there by your side.”
The thought of leaving Akron and Ohio and Earth, the thought of being a queen like her mother, was so weird, yet so exciting.
“I don’t know if I can,” Maria said. “I don’t know if I’m ready—”
“To leave your life behind?” Parmella supplied. The woman’s bushy hair was now full and buoyant. She was radiant in her beauty, as if she were part Light Elf. “You don’t have to, my dear.”
Midwest Magic Chronicles Box Set Page 79