Bright Obscurity

by Ruby Brown

  As they were pulled through the building, people walking past them stopped and stared, hissing to each other like snakes and pointing at them. Their eyes were filled with an intense hatred which got worse every time they laid eyes on Mal. She noticed that every single one of them had their hands on their weapons. They looked like wild cats preparing to leap at their prey. They made their distaste of Mal and her friends clear by spitting in their direction and hurling insults like stones. Mal doubted they would have been so brave if they weren’t restrained by their comrades, but then again maybe the presence of their jailers was the only thing keeping them alive right now.

  When they were trying to put her into the cell, Rose managed to break free of their grasp and she spun around, holding her palms out. From the look of concentration on her face, it was obvious she was trying to use her magic. Mal’s heart leapt as she waited for the burning flames to come out, illuminating the dark corners of their prison and re-igniting the hope they had all lost. But nothing happened. Rose looked down at her hands in shock, drowning in terror. What had happened to her magic? Was it her fault? Why couldn’t she protect them? What was wrong with her? How could she be expected to lead if she couldn’t even use basic magic? She was letting them all down.

  “Don’t even try that, girlie. There’s stuff in the walls. This is a strict no-magic zone,” sneered one of their captors.

  “Stuff in the walls? Real descriptive, dipshit,” Rose fumed, but it helped her to breathe again. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her fault. Everything was okay. She could still get them through this.

  Trixie, Thomas, Dallas and Rose were all thrown into one cramped cell together. As soon as she was free, Rose launched herself at herself at them with an ear-splitting yowl. She managed to leave bloody claw marks down the face of one of the women before she was forcefully kicked back into her cell. Dallas reached down to catch her just before she hit the ground. Mal winced as the door was slammed shut and the ring of metal clashing against metal seemed to make the walls shake. She managed to look at her friends one last time, hoping against hope that they could see through the terror in her stare to the sanguine promises she was trying to make, regardless of how empty and unrealistic they were.

  The cell Mal was taken to was a lot bigger than the others she had seen. “What is this, like first class?” she said sarcastically as they shoved her inside. “I can see why,” she continued in a dry tone, taking in the small barred windows and biting chill. They attached heavy manacles to her ankles and wrists so that she was pinned to the floor. The metal burned her skin with an icy fire. Memories of the last cell she had been imprisoned in while her powers were being extracted flashed behind her lids and seared her eyes with their bright colours. She suddenly had an intense urge to bang her head against a wall. “Nice, complementary shackles,” she said in a shaky voice.

  Then they left the cell, and Mal was alone. She pulled on the chains until her muscles ached, screaming in frustration when nothing happened. She closed her eyes and breathed for a moment, trying to block out what she was thinking. She was supposed to be the girl from the prophecy, the only one who could defeat Akraansir and save the world. It was her duty to protect them, and she had failed miserably. Now she was trapped inside a cage where she couldn’t use her magic, their one foolproof weapon against Akraansir. She was emotionally and physically drained, with tears gathering in her eyes and bruises forming on her wrists.

  No. She couldn’t think like that. Akraansir might be coming to see her soon, and she refused to let her see her weak and broken. She threw her head back and shook the hair from her face. She let her mind wander and find patterns in the black mould that climbed the walls like a plague.

  Then she heard footsteps.

  Chapter 35

  The shock and fear whipped through Mal like it was electric. It snaked down her spine and sent tremors through her body. The hair on her arms and back of her neck stood up. Her hands clenched into fists, holding on to the metal chains so tightly that her knuckles looked like they were going to pop out of her skin. All of her emotions flashed across her face like fireworks, until she adopted a mask of furious indifference and prayed that she would be able to keep it intact. Her heart rate sped to record-breaking rates as the footsteps got closer. The fear expanded in her chest and twisted her organs, climbing up her throat until she was choking.

  A figure appeared just outside her cell door, clad in robes of inky black and blood red. Her eyes were hollow, bloodshot and empty like an abandoned home, with irises so dark it didn’t look like she had any pupils. The skin that encased her skeletal frame was so thin it looked like rice paper. Purplish-blue veins emerged from the collar of her robes to snake up her neck like they were trying to choke her. Her delicately crackling hands had freakishly long fingers and wickedly sharp fake nails that looked capable of ripping your heart out. When she parted her carmine-coloured lips to grin at Mal, her teeth were devastatingly sharp, like those of a vampire. Her black hair was tinted with a deep blue when it caught the light, and it tumbled down her back in a shimmering waterfall until it brushed the back of her knees. Necklaces and chokers circled her throat, each one bearing some kind of rune that Mal could only assume represented some form of dark magic, and rings with brilliantly blinding gems sparkled on her fingers when she raised her hands to unlock Mal’s cell door. Her whole aura reminded Mal of the atmosphere of an abandoned house that only held the dusty memories of the life and light once contained within its walls.

  Stiletto heels clicked imposingly on chilling stone floors as Akraansir approached Mal. She was tapping her fingernails against her leg, trapped deep in thought. Her eyes shone like crystals, like there was something glowing deep inside, as she scrutinised every inch of the girl in front of her. Mal clenched her teeth and swallowed the lump in her throat before saying, in what she hoped was an uninterested and stern voice, “Hello, mother.”

  “Oh, so they told you?” Akraansir said, sounding genuinely surprised as she ran one finger across one of the windowsills in the cell, inspecting the dust that came off of it. “That’s disappointing. I was hoping to have told you myself, do a kind of ‘Luke, I am your father’ spiel, but that’s taken all the fun out of it.”

  “Sorry for the inconvenience,” Mal spat. Honestly, she had been hoping to catch her off guard by saying that and revealing what she knew. Akraansir’s cool indifference bothered her. She yanked on her chains and angrily said “let me go.”

  “But it would be such a shame to say goodbye now. After all, mother-daughter bonding is very important, especially after your father stole you from me all those years ago.” Akraansir’s hands clenched into fists at her sides.

  “Praethen was right to take me from you,” Mal said determinedly. “You were using me as a weapon. That’s all I am to you, just a way you can secure your positon on the throne.”

  Akraansir’s eyes widened slightly. “Is...is that what you really think?” Her voice changed suddenly to the small, heartbroken voice of a scared child. It was such a sudden and unexpected change that Mal didn’t know what to do. After a few seconds, Akraansir blinked furiously and said in a flat, emotionless voice “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  “If you’re not going to set me free, at least let my friends go.”

  Akraansir laughed a high-pitched bark of mirth that echoed around the cell. “And give Tenebar back some of their most powerful and trusted soldiers? I don’t think so.”

  “Let them go, or I swear I will destroy you,” Mal said quietly, the low pitch of her voice rumbling in her throat like thunder.

  Akraansir’s lip curled, baring her pointed teeth. “Sweetheart, you’re hardly in a position to be bargaining right now.” Mal was painfully reminded of the raw chill of the metal shackles encasing her wrists and ankles. “But I do have an offer for you.”

  “No,” Mal said immediately, before her curiosity could get the best of her.

  “You’re right when you say that you are a weapon,” Akraans
ir continued, as if Mal hadn’t spoken. “I watched you grow up, and your powers are immeasurable. With proper training, not the kind of rubbish they do at Tenebar, you could become the most powerful mage in the world. I am asking you to join forces with me.”

  “And why would I ever do that? I’ll never let you use my magic,” Mal said furiously. The idea that Akraansir thought she would ever consider helping her was deeply insulting to her for some reason.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you don’t have a choice. Either you join me willingly and work by my side as my associate...”

  “You mean your slave,” Mal interrupted.

  “...and you will be worshipped, treated like the true goddess you are. You will have access to anything you could ever want, and together we could cleanse the world and remake it bigger, better and brighter than ever before.”

  “You took my parents,” Mal said shakily. “You imprisoned my friends and ruined their lives. I would rather die than give up my powers to you.”

  “Why are you fighting me?” Akraansir said in a soft and crooning voice. Mal clenched her jaw. “You may as well stay here. There’s nothing for you out there anymore. Your so-called ‘leaders’ betrayed you. I’ll never let your friends go and your parents will never be the same. Their brains have rotted away to nothing, not that they held much intellect in the first place.”

  “How dare you,” Mal hissed. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Don’t you dare act like you’re better than me!” Akraansir shrieked, suddenly losing control. “You can’t deny that there is a part of you that calls to me, that wants everything I am offering you. We are the same. We both thirst for power, for a better world created in our image. We want to be feared and respected and treated the way we deserve because we are better than those that walk this despicable planet.”

  Like someone flicking through a photo album, images popped up in Mal’s mind. She saw Thomas and Trixie back to back, protecting each other in the insane mess of the battlefield. She saw Rose stubbornly insisting that she was fine, even as Dallas wrapped bandages around a gash in her arm. She saw Claire waiting for her outside their café, and the smile that never failed to appear when she saw Mal approaching. She saw her parents sitting outside underneath a star-streaked sky, talking and laughing away the stresses of that day. Her heart ached with the courage and the loyalty and the terror of it all. Her veins were burning. Her heart was pounding. Her head was spinning and her hands were clenching into fists to stop Akraansir from seeing the powerful Praethen magic that was morphing her skin. “You’re wrong,” she said, and with a quick twist of her hand and released a powerful bolt of magic straight into Akraansir’s stomach.

  She fell to the floor, heaving and gasping, and Mal wrapped her hands around her chains again and let the light energy melt the iron until she was free. She hit the floor with a thud and started running. Akraansir yelled in anger and tried to use her magic as well. Mal just managed to dodge the attack, but it skimmed her arm and ate away at her flesh like acid. With all the adrenaline coursing in her blood, Mal barely noticed it. She sprinted past the jail cells, ignoring the cries of the prisoners around her. She caught sight of Rose’s red hair, its bright colour shining like a beacon in the midst of the dim prison.

  “Mal?” Trixie said weakly as she skidded to a stop in front of their cell.

  “Stand back,” Mal said frantically, and they scrambled off to the edges of the room. Everyone knew how precious each second was, and they were operating on borrowed time. With one powerful blast of energy, Mal blew apart the bars encasing her friends in their cell. They crumbled and cracked and melted away, leaving a gaping hole for the others to climb through.

  “Good work,” Rose said as she stumbled through, putting her hand on Mal’s shoulder. Thomas looked on with the jealousy and sadness clear on his face.

  The group tore through the building with magic exploding and colliding in the air like fireworks. Every time one of the servants hit the floor, dead or unconscious, their glittering weapons were scooped up and used to help carve their way through the crowd. When they burst into the main hall, everyone turned towards them with identical expressions of shock on their faces. Mal saw the surprise turn to bloodlust in their eyes just as Dallas threw forwards a wall of water, which Rose turned to steam using her fire. The smoke filled the room, hissing like a snake, and it gave the group a momentary shroud they could sneak through.

  Grasping hands and shimmering blades emerged from the mist, and everyone danced backwards to avoid the bite of steel, except for Dallas. Whether it was bravery or stupidity, Mal couldn’t tell, but Dallas launched himself at the attackers and punched the male on the right in the face. His nose ruptured in a gruesome scarlet fountain and Dallas seized his sword as his body fell, using it to force the other two attackers back.

  Mal gripped the dagger she had stolen from one of the jailers. It felt clumsy and awkward in her hand in comparison to her sleek throwing knives, but she hoped it would be enough. Just as she stepped forward to help, Rose grabbed her arm in a death grip and started dragging her away. “What are you doing? We have to help him!” Mal cried, struggling to get away, but Rose was too strong.

  “He knows what he’s doing. He’ll be fine. What matters is we get you out,” Rose said. Mal started to protest again, feeling a pang of guilt tear at her heart, but then she saw the stoniness in Rose’s eyes and the harsh line of her mouth. She realised how much it pained Rose to leave her best friend behind in the middle of the chaos when she couldn’t be by his side, but she respected his choices and admired his bravery. She wanted to show him she could be brave too. Biting the inside of her cheek, Rose pinned down her emotions and kept going. That’s what she had been trained to do.

  They stumbled towards the wards that contained Mal’s parents, but then they caught sight of a group of servants being led by collared Aril. Rose’s grip tightened slightly more on Mal’s arm at the sight of the creatures that killed her parents, and she ducked through the nearest door with the others following her. They found themselves in the library, surrounded by towering shelves of old books. Mal suspected that this room wasn’t used much; a sense of hopelessness and neglect clung to every mould-covered page of the ancient books.

  “We have to split up,” Rose said. Her voice was full of authority, as if challenging someone to disagree with her. Of course, no one did, so she grabbed her brother and together they disappeared amongst the shelves on the left side of the library. Haunted by the terror in Thomas’ eyes when he looked back at them, Mal took Trixie’s hand and dragged her to the right hand side of the room.

  They hurried up a set of stairs, and just as they reached the top step the door to the library flew open with a bang. “Hide!” Mal whispered urgently, grabbing Trixie and hauling her into a gap between the back of the bookshelf and the wall. They sat there, trembling as they heard footsteps pacing slowly around the lower floor of the library. “Do you have something to defend yourself with?” Mal whispered to Trixie.

  Trixie shook her head, and Mal frowned. She fished into her pocket and pulled out the knife she had stolen, pressing it into Trixie’s open palm and curling her ice-cold fingers around the hilt. “Use this,” Mal said quietly, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, pushing down the icy fear that washed over her as she realised that now she didn’t have a weapon. To distract herself, she poked her head out from the bookshelf and looked around, straining to see something in the gothic and dramatic darkness cast by the dimly glowing lamps in the room. Suddenly, she became aware of heavy breathing right next to her. The hot air washed over the curve of her neck and made goose bumps rise on her arms.

  Slowly, Mal looked round and saw Trixie in the dim light of the library. She was holding the knife up to her face, staring at it with wide eyes. Her breathing was loud and ragged, and her grip on the knife was so tight her knuckles were white.

  “Trixie?” Mal whispered uncertainly. “Are you okay?”

  Trixie tore her
gaze from the knife to stare at Mal. All was silent for a few seconds, and then a slow smile spread across her face. Her teeth were bared and her eyes were a kaleidoscope of emotions that betrayed the war going on inside her head. A low chuckle, more like a growl, reverberated inside her chest before it was replaced by a bout of laughter that was so high-pitched and loud it could have shattered glass.

  Mal frantically gestured for Trixie to be quiet, terrified that she would give away their position. Trixie abruptly stopped laughing and fixed her gaze on Mal. Her eyes narrowed, and the next thing she knew Trixie had launched herself at Mal, knife in hand, knocking over the bookshelf with a terrible crash. Caught completely off guard, all Mal could do was throw up a hand to defend herself. Trixie’s knife flew through the air, leaving a deep and bleeding gash on Mal’s arm.

  “What the hell, Trixie?” Mal yelled, kicking Trixie off and stumbling away, clutching her arm. Trixie stood crouched, a wide and insane smile plastered across her face. She launched herself at Mal again, and this time Mal managed to dodge the attack. Trixie sprawled across the floor like a cat, and Mal took the opportunity to bolt down the stairs. Her mind was spinning; she had no idea what to do. She didn’t know who she was more scared of, Trixie or Akraansir’s servants stalking the lower floor of the library. Either way, she was trapped between two terrible dangers.

  Digging deep, Mal tapped into her last reserves of energy and forced herself to speed up, tearing through the library like a tornado. She turned the corner and ran full tilt into a group of servants. Mal didn’t have time to stop; she crashed into them and knocked two of them over with her. When she rolled over, she found herself pinned beneath a girl whose brown curls were tickling Mal’s face and whose heavy breathing collided with her own. It took only one heartbeat for the girl to pull a knife from her boot and hold the razor-sharp edge against Mal’s throat. Then the girl grabbed her shoulder and started to pull her up, her green eyes sparkling like emeralds with the imaginings of what her rewards would be if she was the one to bring her mistress’s greatest enemy to her knees in front of her.