by N. M. Howell
When she realized that he wasn’t going to speak, she inhaled a breath and began. “Uncle Aelon, we came to Greystone to revisit my home. I heard even in the human realm about my father, and I knew our world was at war. I came to see it for myself. I ask you honestly, why must you inflict so much destruction on the world now, while you claim the throne?”
Grayson stepped forward, his muscles flexing as he moved to stand between her and Aelon. She placed a soft hand on his arm, pushing him aside. She stepped forward, approaching her uncle despite the silent protests from her guardians. She could tell by the increase in their stressed energy that they didn’t approve her sudden change in direction as she spoke to her uncle.
“You’re sitting on the throne. You killed my father. You believe you have a claim to the crown, yet you are not acting like a king.”
She heard a gasp make its way through her guardians, and she didn’t blame them. She hadn’t intended on calling him out on anything. The words simply came out. The truth had to be spoken because it was eating away at her. Perhaps if she could help her uncle see reason, they could put a stop to the war and lead the world into a time of peace.
She had no intention of sitting on the throne, that much she knew. But she had no idea who would be the right person to sit on the throne and see their world to peace, so all she could do right now was implore her uncle to see reason.
“Uncle,” she began, “you freely admit you tried to summon me here. You’re sitting on my father’s throne, in the place that was once my home. Please, I beg you, tell me why you wanted me to come. What was your intention in bringing me here?”
Aelon’s face grew angrier as he listened to her. He finally pushed himself up from the throne, standing tall and muscular, the deep greens and oranges of his long robes and crown contrasting wildly with his angry red face. He raised his hands up and his ten guards who sprung into action, each casting a spell in unison toward her five guardians.
Ropes appeared out of nowhere and entangled themselves around her five demigods, pulling them away from her and strapping them against a series of pillars that lined the back of the room.
Rhea gasped and turned to them, her mind flaring with rage at his sudden attack. She glared at her uncle, her muscles shaking. “Let them go. We aren’t here to fight your claim. We come in peace.”
Her uncle began to laugh and shook his head, peering down at her with pure hatred. “Oh, stupid girl. Your very existence threatens my claim to the throne.”
Rhea took a step back, her body violently shaking with fear as she struggled to remain standing. She tried to keep her voice steady, but it was difficult through her chattering teeth as fear pulsed through her.
“Uncle, I promise you this. You can use your magic to tell that I’m not lying. I have no intention of sitting on the throne; the life of the gods isn’t for me. I was happy in the human world. Please, let my guardians go.”
The laughter coming from her uncle’s mouth grew angry and loud. It echoed against the stone walls around them, booming over the sound of her struggling guardians behind her. Her heart ached, and her body stung from the increase in magical energy that burned her skin. The magic was coming from her uncle, and the angrier he got, the more powerful the magic in the room became. Finally, he stepped toward her, his eyes dark and his body looming.
“So long as you live, people will want you to take the throne. I cannot risk losing the crown that I fought so tirelessly for. As long as you’re alive, no one will truly accept my reign.”
For every step he took forward, Rhea took two steps back. She could hear her guardians trying to shout out to her through the ropes that bound their mouths. Behind her, their five different familiar energies reached out to her like tendrils coiling around her skin, but they couldn’t speak, the ropes tying their mouth shut and pressing their heads firmly against the pillars.
Rhea stood firm in front of her uncle, squaring her shoulders toward him in a brave stance against his looming presence.
“Don’t hurt them,” she shouted at him as he watched his guards continue their attacks with approval. She was positively seething, rage coursing through her veins in hot waves.
“I will let them go if you bend the knee,” he said, his breath hot against her skin as he walked right up to her and pressed his chest against her own.
She tried to stand her ground and stared up at him with fearless eyes, but his towering height and powerful magic made her recoil back, physically closing in on herself. She could hear her guardians scream their protest, the sounds guttural and pained.
“I cannot do that, Uncle,” she whispered to him, her eyes stinging.
“Bend the knee or your guardians will die.”
Rhea glanced back to them with wide eyes, fear coursing through her body as she looked to each of them in turn.
Arry managed to break free of the ropes that bound his head by biting through the coils, and he shouted at her, “Don’t bend the knee, Rhea.”
Another shot of magic flew toward him, crashing into his head and making him fall unconscious before he could say another word.
“Arry!” she called out to him, then launched herself toward him. But her uncle’s magic wrapped around her, pinning her in place. She was frozen in the thickening air, unable to move, barely able to breathe.
She turned her head back to her uncle, spitting with rage.
“Bend the knee and vow to support my rule, child, and your stupid guardians will go free.”
Rhea shook her head. Tears brimmed her eyes. The sounds of pain coming from her guardians made her heart shatter into pieces and she braced herself against the horrific sounds of them being tortured by magical spells that flew toward them in an endless cascade from the ten guards that now stood around them.
Her uncle laughed at the sounds, his voice filled with so much hatred. It ate away at her insides as she was forced to listen to him enjoy the pain of her friends.
“You have caused destruction to the world everywhere you’ve gone, Uncle,” she cried. “If you want to rule this world, you must stop what you’re doing. Restore peace to our realm. Only then will I support your claim.”
Aelon rolled his eyes and raised his hands. His magic intensified. Her body lifted two feet above the ground, hovering in space. Her skin burned as the waves of his magic felt like they were peeling layers of skin from her body. She wanted to scream; the pain was too much for her to bear. She willed herself to fall into unconsciousness.
“Pathetic child,” he sneered at her, now walking circles around her, looking her up and down. “You always were a pathetic little brat. Go scurry off to your human world where you belong. When I kill your guardians, I will strip you of your magic and send you back to be the street rat that you were born to be.”
Rhea struggled to breathe, and tried to focus her mind on her guardians who were still bound by the ten guards.
She wanted to help, to do anything she could to save them, but she was stuck, too. She tried to follow her uncle’s gaze as he circled her menacingly like a vulture around its prey.
“Bend the knee.”
“I will never support your claim,” she shouted at him. “You’re just as bad as my father.”
Aelon rolled his eyes and stopped before her, looking her straight in the eye as she struggled to break free of his magic. He grabbed her face with a firm hand, pinching her cheeks between his fingers. She fought to pull away from him, but couldn’t. Her body was stuck in his magical spell, unable to move, unable to even flinch. She could feel his magic pressing on her, the pressure increasing with every passing second.
“Your father had nothing on me,” he spat at her. “And the best part here is that you’re not nearly as powerful as he was, so you should be easy to take out.”
Rhea thought back to her father, the man she’d hated beyond anything. But just then, she thought maybe, just maybe, she hated her uncle a little bit more. She shut her eyes, thinking back to her father. He had been evil and awful,
but he had been strong. His power was second to none.
And she had inherited something from him that flowed through her veins—apart from just his blood. She felt her magic flare within her. The same magic she had fought against her entire life.
She hated herself for even summoning it. The feeling was so strange to her, she wanted nothing more than to shut it away and never experience it again. But when she heard Grayson scream behind her—a sound so full of pain and frustration it sent shivers up her spine—she knew she had no choice but to tap her own magic if they had any hope at all of survival.
“Grayson,” she called out to him.
She heard a loud cry and a wave of cold gray energy pulse into her back.
“Rhea, whatever he does, do not support his claim,” he shouted at her, his voice strained. Another cloud and boom of magic and she heard him being restrained once more, his voice struggling through the bindings.
Her eyes stung and tears streamed down her cheeks as she fought against her uncle’s energy. She hated her father, she hated her uncle. She also hated herself for who she was, but in that exact moment, she would allow herself just for the briefest second to tap into her own evil magic if it meant being able to save her guardians.
“I have to admit, young niece,” her uncle spat at her, “it brings me great joy to see you squirm.”
Rhea squeezed her eyes shut and reached into the magic she’d locked away so deeply. She allowed it to come to the surface, filling her entire body with the fuel of terrible magical heat that pressed against her skin, threatening to burst out from her. She allowed it to intertwine with her uncle’s magic that pushed against her from the outside, absorbing the strange and unfamiliar buzz of electricity as her magic melded with his own, sucking up the strength from his spell and pulling it into herself.
Her body was trembling, the magic too strong for her to contain. Her guardians shouted behind her in pain, the guards torturing them beyond imagination. She could feel their pain within her, allowing their own magic to absorb into her skin as well, but she only allowed herself to pull a small amount from each of them so that they could at least maintain most of their magic as they fought their own battles.
Her uncle began laughing loudly as it became apparent to him that he was winning. She let him think that, shrinking down into herself into a small ball as she hung suspended in the air. She counted down from ten, allowing herself to be filled with his magic, her uncle unaware of what she was doing.
Her father had kept her magic secret, and she had done the same when she ran away to escape to the human world. But now she was going to allow herself to be who she truly was. Aeris’ daughter, the heir to the Otherworld throne and a mighty god in her own right. And at that exact moment, she allowed herself to out-evil even her uncle.
Ten, nine, eight…
She counted down, allowing the magic to build inside of her, threatening to burst like a bomb through her skin.
Seven, six…
The pain was unbearable, her skin threatening to tear open and the tortured screams of her guardians filling her with so much agony she wanted to cry.
Five, four…
She was sweating, the energy pressing both in on her and out from within, wanting to tear her into pieces. Her uncle’s magic filled her with such hatred and pain, she couldn’t bear it any longer.
She struggled against it, trying with every ounce of her strength to contain it until the exact right moment.
Her uncle stepped closer toward her, his body pressed right up against her as he laughed at her, sneering. “That’s right, you pathetic little shit. Say goodbye to your guardians now.”
Her guardians. They screamed even louder now, unable to protect themselves from the flurry of attacks that the ten guards were continuing to send in their direction. She wished she could help them, save them. What would they tell her to do right now? She promised she would listen to them, to obey their commands. But they were too consumed with their own pain to tell her what to do. She needed help, something. Anything. What would Grayson tell her to do at that exact moment?
She squeezed her body tight shut, even more, clenching everything in on itself. Grayson would tell her to harness her own power and be true to herself.
So she would.
“Three,” she shouted, voicing the last of her countdown.
Her uncle raised his eyebrows, his eyes flying wide open at her outburst.
“Two,” she shouted again.
Her uncle looked amused, a wild smile spreading across his face. Allowing her eyes to open slightly, she had never seen anything so hideous in her life. She sucked in a quick breath, the energy so intense she couldn’t continue anymore.
She then stretched her arms and legs out wide, allowing the magic to fill her completely and burst from her skin.
“One!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
Flaming white light came from her, bursting in all directions. The powerful magic she had harnessed and compressed from both her uncle and her five guardians all exploding at once. She saw stars around them, blinding their eyes. The ten guards flew backwards, their magic halting in mid strike. Her uncle flew back fifty feet, taking the full brunt of her force, his back slamming hard where the far wall met the ceiling. He slid down to the ground with a thud.
The ropes and spells that had bound her guardians shattered, falling to the ground, releasing them. Her guardians fell to the floor, but immediately pushed themselves up and ran to her, standing protectively around her, shielding her from the guards and her uncle. But no one attacked.
The room sat in an epic stillness, silence filling the air after the massive explosion. She looked down, shocked that her body was still there. She wasn’t in one million pieces like she felt she would’ve been from the sheer expulsion of power and intense magic. Her body shook, and her mind raced, and she glanced around, gathering her bearings.
When she was sure her guardians had survived her attack, she let out the breath she had been holding and swore loudly.
Grayson wrapped his hands around her shoulders, helping her to a standing position, his strong hands cold and steadying against her feverish skin.
Her attention was pulled away when her uncle shouted his aggression from the far side of the room, pushing himself up. He raised his hands up to cast a counterspell, his mutterings unsteady as he stumbled backward and grabbed hold of the wall for support. His ten guards slowly came out of their dazes, standing clumsily to their feet and looking around as if they were trying to make sense of the chaotic mess.
Rhea braced for her uncle’s attack, ready to strike, but she had nothing left in her. She had expelled all her magic, and there was nothing left. She convulsed standing there, unsure of what to do. She only stood there staring at her shaking uncle who worked himself up toward a counter a spell of his own, though Rhea knew he would be weak for some time after she had sucked away all of his magic and used it against him.
She still hated herself for it, but she couldn’t help the small smile that formed on her lips, seeing him disoriented and confused at what she had done. She was powerful, she couldn’t deny that. But she had used everyone up in that one attack, and she stood there useless as a kitten surrounded by her five broken and battered guardians.
The air burned hot as her uncle tried to summon his own magic again, ready to expel a counter attack against them, slowly drawing on his magic as it grew once more within him.
The ropes reappeared as he muttered his spell, coiling around her guardians’ legs from the floor. They fought against it, but it was no use. Her uncle was too powerful.
Aelon screamed, and five nearly invisible glass cases appeared, imprisoning her guardians that stood around her. She tried to pull them out, to free them, but the spell was in place. There was nothing she could do; he had them bound.
All at once, five familiar voices sounded in her ears, giving her the instruction she had promised to obey.
“Run!”
22
Rhea bolted.
Her body shook as she ran, her legs carrying her as fast as they could down the long length of the hall.
Aelon’s ten guards sprang after her, each casting furiously behind her, but she dodged right and left and when she finally neared the end of the room, she harnessed her fae abilities and sprung from the floor, flying high through the air as she jumped through the window and fell the three long stories down to the ground.
She landed with a thud, her knees aching, but fortunately not breaking beneath her. She let out a relieved breath at her landing, as she’d had no idea whether she would survive that or not. She’d taken a risk, and fortunately she had made it.
Rhea heard her uncle scream from behind her, but the encouraging shouts of her five guardians spurred her forward. Her breath caught in her chest as she looked back up toward the window and heard the sounds of battle from behind her.
She could hear all five of them screaming and yelling and casting spells and fighting for their lives as she stood there, on the wrong side of the castle walls. She could also hear her guardians’ voices in her head, their final word echoing loudly within her ears. Run.
She swallowed hard and bolted forward along the far edge of the castle, up the rolling hill and down around the rear, away from where her guardians were captured.
Her throat and chest burned as she sucked in ragged breaths, forcing herself forward. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, sending waves of hot energy through her. Her eyes burned from her tears, but the tears cooled her face as she ran.
Her heart broke with every step she took. She wanted nothing more than to go back to save her guardians, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She had expelled all of her energy, going against everything she’d ever promised herself, harnessing the dark magic she had spent the last six years pretending didn’t exist.
She hated herself, but her magic had allowed her to escape and had given her guardians a moment to collect themselves and defend her against the incoming magic. She was but one small person against her uncle, and he was a powerful god in his own right. So powerful, he’d managed to take out her father.