The Heart of the Darkness

by M. J. Padgett

  “Here we are,” Cole said and pushed open a heavy oak door. Inside, Annabell sat over a desk reading a heavy volume. “I have brought you something, my love.”

  Annabell didn’t bother looking up from the book but waved her hand at him. “Fine, leave it on the bed. I am reading the lies in the journal you requested I read while you were—"

  “Annabell,” I whispered, stopping her cold. She whirled around in the chair and stood. Her jaw slack and hand on her chest, she turned her attention to Cole.

  “How dare you!” she hollered. “How dare you bring her here!”

  For a moment, I believed Annabell was angry with me. I thought my presence in what now appeared to be her castle had somehow tipped her across a line toward stark-raving mad, but I soon realized it was fear that caused her sudden sharpness.

  “I will not harm your mother, Elfriede. You love her, and as such, she will always be... Shall we say, off-limits?”

  “They are all off-limits, Cole! We discussed this!” Annabell snatched me away from Cole and tucked me safely behind her. I could hardly breathe, which was unlike me in every way. I chalked it up to seeing Annabell this way—as a grown woman, beautiful and strong, but also so unlike the sweet child I loved. There was a tinge of sadness that I would not see her grow up, that I would never again kiss her cheek and apply a bandage to a scuffed knee, that she would not ask my advice on anything because she... had already lived longer than anyone I knew, and that was saying something.

  “I thought you would be pleased with me. I brought her here for you so that you would feel...” Cole released an exasperated sigh and threw his hands in the air. “I want you to feel at home again, Elfriede. I want you to see how I love you, to feel it, and this is... It was meant to be a gift.”

  “People are not gifts, Cole. She is a breathing, living human who suffers! Can you not see that you have taken her from her husband and her son?”

  “You wish for your father and small brother? What was the name? Dominic?” Cole asked, stepping forward. “I shall bring them to you as well if it is what you wish. We will be a family larger than we had before.”

  I blinked several times, confounded by the very idea that the evilest and darkest entity on the planet was also as dull as a butter knife when it came to understanding women. How could something so powerful also be so... stupid? I did, however, feel the tension between Annabell and Cole fade as she pressed her palm against her forehead and closed her eyes.

  “Cole, please do not bring anyone else here without asking me first. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but it has made quite a mess.”

  Cole narrowed his dark eyes and stared at the floor. “I do not understand. You want your mother to be safe, but you also do not want her here. I wish to please you, yet when I offer you that which you want most, you scold me.”

  Annabell glanced over her shoulder but looked back to Cole before I could decipher what her expression meant. “I am sorry. You are right. I know you were only trying to please me, but I beg that you will not bring anyone else here, not right now.”

  “As you wish,” he said, then turned on his heel.

  “Cole?” Annabell called. “Please go for a hunt. My mother needs to eat.”

  Cole sprang forward and disappeared in a fog that dissipated as swiftly as it had appeared. I marveled at his ability but not long enough to distract me from Annabell’s stare. It was now or never, the moment of truth.

  “Annabell,” I said, almost as a question.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Mama,” she said, then fell into my arms.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Annabell

  Elfriede’s Castle, Das Unbekannte

  FOR A MOMENT, I THOUGHT Hayden would push me away, that she would reject me as a lost daughter who had never truly been her daughter. After all, as I was—a grown woman—she was hardly a few years older than me. It was a bit odd, not to mention the atrocious lies I’d told her from the very beginning.

  “Hush, Annabell. Now is not the time for crying. It’s a time for steeling ourselves and planning. Tell me all that has happened and how we can save those you injured in Goldene Stadt when you left.”

  I pushed away from her and connected with her eyes. She never lied to me. “What? Who was injured when I left?”

  “What do you mean, what? Annabell, Alorna, and several others are under Kai’s freeze to keep them alive until they can be healed. When you left, the explosion injured them.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t supposed to happen. They were all supposed to be fine, just knocked out for a few minutes while I disappeared with Cole. I knew some would try to stop me or follow me, and if they did, Cole might have killed them. Unconscious was safer for them all.

  “I didn’t know. They were only supposed to be asleep. My abilities were... I suppose I was a bit off my mark, but you can help them. Here,” I said and pulled a piece of paper from the desk drawer. It was thin and smelled of smoke, but it was still usable. I wrote out the reversal spell and folded it in a small square, then gave it to Hayden. “It will heal them, then Kai can do whatever he does to unfreeze them.”

  Hayden took the square of paper and tucked it in her pocket, but her eyes never left mine. “You’re beautiful,” she said. “I can still see you as a child in your features... your eyes and the pucker of your lips when you’re angry.” She sighed and swallowed hard, then averted her gaze to the rest of the room. “I’m sorry. It’s difficult to see you this way. I never expected it to be like this.”

  “If it matters, you’re the best mother I could have hoped for, both the first time and this time. It’s why I returned when I did. I wanted—”

  “Annabell... I can’t. I can’t talk about that right now,” she said and swiped a stray tear from her cheek. “It’s so strange to speak to you now as an adult, but I guess you’ve always been much older than me.”

  “I didn’t know he would bring you here,” I admitted, desperate to figure out what she would want to talk to me about if anything.

  “He came to Schattenland for one of the Seven and tricked me. He suspected Sutton, but I confirmed it along with Calla’s identity. What was your agreement with him?” Hayden asked. “The one you mentioned before he left.”

  I wrung my hands, sure she would not understand. It wasn’t that I cared less for the Seven and would happily offer them up for sacrifice. Rather, it was a ploy to earn more time to iron out the kinks in my already derailed plan. I said he could have them, but I had no intention of letting him absorb them in the end. They were... bait, so to speak. I, however, did not give my adoptive mother much credit for understanding complicated situations and shamed myself the moment she reminded me of that.

  “His darkness was in me once, Annabell, and because of that, I can often tell when something of his is near. You have some of it in you now, but I do not believe you have somehow changed sides and become our enemy. So, please explain to me what has happened. Tell me the truth.”

  “I made a bargain with him. I said that I would stay if he didn’t harm anyone, but you see, this darkness in him becomes unstable and more difficult to control without absorption of light energy. When I was young, during my first life, I found him in the forest after I had run away from my home. We became friends and helped one another. When he could not manage the darkness alone, I took some of it and neutralized it. We fell in love, and for a long time, my light, magical ability was enough to balance his darkness. He was kind then... mostly.”

  “Mostly?” Hayden asked.

  “Near the end of our life together, his energy grew darker and harder to control. During one of our energy transfers, more of his darkness absorbed into me than was intended, and I...”

  Hayden stepped nearer and took my hands in hers, then nodded.

  “I killed a girl, mother. I didn’t mean to, but you know well how the darkness can blind you to your actions,” I admitted. “After that, I could not live with myself. I couldn’t even look at Cole anymore, knowing what he was and t
he battle he fought daily.”

  “So, he is like Snow and me? He’s trapped by the evil and—”

  “Heavens no, not at all like that.”

  “Then... what is he?” she asked.

  “His family line produced the original shape-shifting wolves of the Black Forest, and as such, they are the primary vessels for the magic that created them.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said and urged me to sit. Her hands shook, so she was either cold or as unnerved as I was.

  “Here, it is better detailed in his journals. I never truly took the time to understand him or his... ability, but I’d say it is more a curse than anything.”

  “What happened to end your relationship with him all those centuries ago?” she asked as she took the book.

  “Let us just say the tales about me are not quite true and that I chose to end what I was before it took me completely. In a moment of clarity, I leaped off the highest cliff in the forest.”

  Hayden gasped at my candor, but it was hardly the time to hold anything back. I urged her to read the passage I was reading when Cole brought her to me, so she lowered her eyes and read. Her lips moved slightly as she did, and as she went down the page, her grip on the journal grew tighter until her head snapped up, her jaw slack.

  “We have no chance of winning this fight,” she whispered and handed me the book.

  “We do, and I will ensure it, but I need you to trust me,” I said.

  “Annabell, my faith in you has never wavered, but this is insanity! It’s a death sentence for the Seven and anyone who tries to help them.”

  “And that is why you won’t help them. Trust that I will make sure they survive, and Cole is ended for all eternity.”

  “How, Annabell? He is literally... The man was born for the sole purpose of containing all of the evil that exists in the Black Forest!”

  “It’s not his fault, but a curse put upon him by his ancestors. If he were to have a child, then his power would be transferred to the child.”

  “Are you defending him?” Hayden asked, her eyes narrowed.

  “No, but... Well, I suppose in some way I am. I...” Now I was the one to swallow my heart down, realizing the task of eliminating Cole was much harder and much larger than I had expected. The problem was, I had not at all anticipated that Cole would find those parts of my heart that would forever be his and that those parts were still alive and longed for the boy he once was but could never be again.

  “You still love him?” Hayden asked, but her tone was not accusatory, only knowing as a mother would. “I was sure you returned from the future to save another man, one you loved enough to attempt the risk of time travel. But I must know, was I wrong that it was someone else? Is it Cole you came to save, to change somehow?”

  I shook my head. “No. Cole cannot be changed, but you are not wrong on either account. I do still love him in some ways, none that will prevent me from carrying out my duties. And I did return to save a man I will love in the future, though that is also something that will never come to pass again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that once I have changed the course of history, it also changes the future. Wil will grow up and—”

  “Little Wil? I was right in my guess,” she said with a small smile.

  “Yes,” I said, unable to control my own smile when I thought of him. “But as I said, the future will change and, well, no one can be sure what will happen. Cole is like a vessel, a humanlike encasement for the darkness to live in, ensuring the forest is safe.”

  “Yet there is still evil in the forest. People still sin and behave improperly,” Hayden said.

  “Yes, and they always have. Cole can only absorb so much, and so he focuses on the most heinous of darkness. That said, he cannot change what he is, not unless he has a child, and he has already proclaimed he will do no such thing.”

  “Huh. That’s... oddly kind of him,” Hayden said.

  I licked my lips and wrung my hands some more. “That’s the thing about Cole. He’s much stronger than his father was, or anyone in his line before him, if I am honest. After so many centuries, he should be akin to the devil and be a puppet for its bidding, but he still has moments, many actually, where he is kind to me and does not wish for these things to happen. I think if there were some other way to stabilize him, he would abandon his mission to absorb the Seven.”

  “Annabell,” Hayden whispered, but it was not chastisement; it was understanding. “Sometimes, we cannot save those we love. It does not mean we give up on them or our love for them, only that we understand that some things are just meant to be what they are. Do you believe his love for you was real, or that it is now?”

  “I do, in many ways. But when the darker parts of him take over, that does not matter. The evil does not love me; it only wants to take my power for itself.”

  “Then perhaps his love for you will be his redemption? Maybe, though he must be snuffed out, that he had the capacity for love at all is enough to save his soul.”

  I felt my eyes sting seconds before the tears slid free. I fell into her once again, finally able to release everything that had been building inside. My sobs did not deter her. She only held me until I had released every ounce of pain and sadness onto her soaked shoulder.

  “I will stay with you, Annabell. I will be your strength through it all, and when it is done, I will help you through your grief until all that remains of Cole in your heart are the good memories.”

  My hand wiped my tears away of its own accord, then I dropped it to my side. “What about Dominic and Jack?”

  “They will understand. Of anyone in the world, Jack is the most likely to understand, right?”

  “You will see and hear things you will not understand, but you must trust me,” I warned.

  “I will. Go on, tell me your plans, and I will help you.”

  I sucked in a breath and relayed our only hope to her. It was a seemingly impossible task, but Hayden didn’t flinch or balk; she only nodded as if she were taking notes in her mind, setting up a to-do list she might check off one task at a time.

  “Is that all?” she asked when I was through, but her eyes sparkled, and her lips tugged into a smile. She made me laugh, which I assumed was her goal.

  “I wish there was some other way, but knowing what he is and that he is invincible, immortal, and ever-powerful, I see no other way,” I admitted.

  “I think you are right, but I have one question,” Hayden said. “Two, actually. First, are you certain you are capable of such feats? Won’t it change you as it did me? And second, if you are successful, will Cole not become... normal?”

  “With the help of the stars, I can absorb the darkness completely, and the light will dissolve it in a way. It’s much more complicated, of course, but I have every confidence I will succeed in that regard. Whether I survive—I’m sorry, I meant, whether Cole survives is another story. I am not sure if he will be a normal human then or if he will die without the darkness. By birth, his only purpose is to contain it, so without anything to contain, I cannot be sure... I do not know.”

  Hayden eyed me almost as if she’d caught my slip of the tongue, but she said nothing of it. Instead, she asked the next logical question.

  “And if he does survive and he is human... Annabell, you cannot expect that anyone would forgive him for all he has done?”

  Now that was something I had not considered. Further, it was a possibility that I had no time to consider, not then, since I heard the distinct sound of Cole’s wings flapping just outside the castle. Hayden picked up on my hesitation and pursed her lips. For now, it seemed, she would play along with Cole’s game of house.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ophelia

  The Salien Castle, Schwarzwald

  “FASTER, AND IF YOU can, try to jump higher,” Nathan said. “Let’s go again.” He stood and took an offensive stance, leaving me to figure out how to defend myself. He and Henry had been at it for days—more sinc
e they discovered Cole’s purpose on earth. They were determined everyone in the kingdoms would know how to fight and defend themselves by the time we faced off with Cole again.

  “I’m not sure I can, but I’ll try,” I said, hesitant since I was never any good at athletics. My brother watched carefully, studying my moves alongside those of Nathan and Henry. If anyone could help me figure out how to get out of a scrape, it was my mischievous brother, Jordan.

  “Pivot on your left foot instead of the right, then you’ll be set up to strike with your dominant hand,” Jordan said.

  I shifted my weight and did as he suggested. When Nathan came at me, I ducked and swerved on my left foot rather than trying to jump over his sweeping leg. It worked, and I ended up in a prime position to hit him—I didn’t, of course, because he was a hunter and had already anticipated my move before I had even decided to execute it.

  “Better. Good job,” Henry said.

  Seline, who was still distraught over the loss of her mother, understandably, was going through the motions with little heart. Petra, also worried about her cousin, who was frozen solid, helped Seline through her sit-ups and stretches. It seemed, for now, all we could do was wait to see what Annabell would do and train for something we could not possibly be prepared for.

  I was ready to go another round when Parker entered the training field. I felt him before I saw him, as always, and his presence was tense and worried. Nathan stood from his offensive position and glanced at Henry. Others filed out of the castle into the moonlit field, none wearing workout clothing, which meant something had happened and our plans had changed.

  “What is it?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my forehead. Parker kissed my cheek and took my hand.

  “There was an incident in Schattenland. Hayden was taken,” he said.

  “What?” I gasped as my heart bottomed out. Hayden was, without question, one of my favorite people in the forest. She always put everyone else first and was the first to put herself in danger to save someone—which was probably why she was taken.