Reaching blindly into my pocket, I grabbed the bristles of the first comb, not caring that it pricked the pads of my fingers and scratched my palm. Finally looking back, I stared in horror at the giant Shadowkin that chased us, glowing fire dripping from its jaws. Mogra was perched behind its neck, black robes flying behind her like the tattered wings of a raven. Once again, she was like two images pressed together into one, a strange mix of old and young, ugly and beautiful as she hurtled towards us on the back of the huge demon.
Not daring to wait a second longer, I let the first comb fall from my trembling hand. There was a loud crack, a low, deep rumble, and the ground began to shake beneath us. Mogra looked startled and the circling Wyverns screeched in terror, flying higher in the sky and momentarily abandoning the chase. Behind us, the ground split open as huge, thorny trees sprung from deep inside of the earth; reaching up, up, up into the sky. Like the sharp spikes of the little black comb, the thorny trees stretched out in an endless straight line, blocking Mogra’s path and halting the giant dog in its tracks.
“Was… was that…” Rapunzel gasped beside my ear, her words almost lost in the wind. Hassa continued running, too focused on getting away to waste his breath, although his pounding heart and wide eyes told me that he was equally amazed.
“The comb,” I said, almost shouting even though Rapunzel’s face was right beside mine.
“Magic.” Powerful magic. I could feel the burn of it crawling over my skin like sparks, the cool bite of it on my tongue. Wherever that magical object had come from, it was obviously very strong and had probably taken more than one enchanter to create.
Behind us, the rumbling and shaking had ceased, but Mogra’s frustrated screams carried through the giant thorn-trees and over the empty stretch of the plains. Trying to calm my racing heart, I risked a second glance back over my shoulder. There was another wave of sharp, hot magic and a huge gust of air almost knocked the three of us to the ground. Miraculously, Hassa managed to keep his balance, throwing his arms out to either side and jerking forward. Rapunzel and I were almost thrown from his back, but somehow we managed to remain astride.
A fierce, howling wind was blowing apart the trees, creating a pathway through the thorns. With several swipes of its giant paws, the Shadowkin barreled through the enchanted barrier, howling its frustration as burning green ichor oozed from the gashes on its chest. Her hair flying behind her, Mogra urged the beast forward again. We had slowed her, but not stopped her.
The Equiarre were faster than the birds, built for running and speed, but I could tell that Hassa was beginning to tire. Carrying two fully-grown women on his back, one with child, sapped his strength. “If you have… any more ideas… or magic…” he panted as Mogra began to regain the ground she had lost, wasting precious breath, “use it now!”
Shoving my hand back into my pocket, I reached for the brown comb. It was thicker than the first one and made of sanded wood. It felt warm against my fingers as I turned around and hurled it directly in Mogra’s path.
This time, the earth did not shudder and quake, but the ground beneath us began to change, growing slick and moist beneath Hassa’s hooves. He adjusted his gait to stay on top of the thick, soggy mud that was quickly spreading over the ground, relieved when the soft earth became hard again. Directly behind us was a large, sticky brown pool of swamp water and mud. It blossomed out like a puddle of rain, growing larger every second until it was a river of thick sludge.
“Will she cross?” Rapunzel shouted, her words covered by Mogra’s frustrated shrieking and the howling of the demon dog.
I hoped not, but my instincts told me that a swamp would not be enough to stop such a powerful sorceress. We were running out of options, and unless we came up with a way to stop Mogra permanently or allowed the rest of the Liarre party to find us, we were as good as dead. I wanted to tell Rapunzel that I loved her, but I shook the thought away. It was inappropriate. Right now, we needed to survive. But… “I love you,” I told her anyway.
I looked into her eyes and for a single moment, the sounds around us faded away. Reality intruded when Hassa said, “she’s through!”
My neck jerked sideways as I threw my head over my shoulder, horrified to see that Mogra’s Shadowkin had picked its way through the swamp. He was drawing closer, his superior size and whatever enchantments Mogra was using on him lending their advantage. They were going to catch us.
“Last chance…” I mouthed the words with dry lips, sending up a prayer to any god or spirit that would listen. Reluctantly, I unwound the blue scarf from around my neck, letting it fly behind me as I waited for the perfect moment. The wind almost tore it from my hand, but my cold, stiff fingers held on tight, refusing to let go. I hoped that Doran’s last enchanted gift would be enough…
When Mogra was so close that I could see the pits of her eyes, savoring her victory, I dropped the scarf.
One second. Two. Three.
With a huge, rumbling explosion, the earth began to shake again, pieces of rock jutting up from the ground and pushing us forward, down. We fell forwards, pushed by an enormous wave of rock and grass and earth. The ground rippled, shuddered, and then fell open into a wide, gaping pit.
The three of us clung to each other, but the mass of stone and roots and dirt pushed forward, almost collapsing on top of us. If Rapunzel was crushed…
“Secutem!” This time, when I shouted the Word of Power, a shield of magical energy curled around us in a tight ball, weaving together like a rope net hardened by seawater. Magic burned my skin like an open flame, blazing in my muscles and screaming along all of my nerve endings. The magical threads pulled tighter and tighter, stopping the raining shower of dirt from collapsing on top of us as we rolled forwards, carried by the momentum of the avalanche. Then, silence.
…
One star shone down on me, its cold, pale light washing over my face in ghostly, gray-white sheets. I shivered, wrapping my arms tightly around myself to keep warm. The dim velvet sky became a shimmering black lake and I could see my features reflected in the endless pool of darkness.
Suddenly, my eyes and the sweep of my cheek rippled, changing and reforming as another face. Before I could look away, I saw my mother staring back down at me, swallowing the faint light of the star in the black pits of her eyes.
I touched my cheek. So did she. My lips parted. So did hers.
“Ailynn, my daughter.” I heard the hiss of her voice in the whispering wind.
“I want nothing to do with you,” I told her, trying to sound braver than I felt. I had no idea whether I was navigating through a dream or some other reality, but I was afraid.
“You are disgusted with me, but the same darkness lives in you.”
I turned my back on her face, unwilling to look. Seeing my face merged with hers was too much to bear. “I am not you,” I protested, but my voice was weaker this time. Whether this was real or imagined did not matter. It had cut to the bone of my deepest, most secret fears.
Mogra did not listen. “Oh, but you are, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh.”
“I am of your flesh, but I will keep my soul.”
The voice hissed seductively in my ear, snakes’ tongues in the night wind. “You stole my treasured girl, my princess. She will corrupt you and poison your heart with jealousy.”
“No,” I shouted, whirling around, but our merged face was gone. There was only the wide, empty ocean of grass rippling around my ankles. She had disappeared, slipping away as silently as a specter.
Then her shadow seared itself to mine, creeping over me from behind and swallowing me whole like a storm cloud swallowed the moon. “But you have already felt the burn of jealousy. You have touched its twisting coils. We are the same, you and I.”
I choked on my own breath. Was it true? Was I tightening my hold on Rapunzel out of jealousy? I watched the first layer of sky as I peeled back to reveal not just one, but a sea of stars. The pinpoints stretched out in the shape of a great dragon, wi
ngs open, guarding its golden horde.
But when I closed my eyes and pictured my Tuathe’s face, I saw her smiling at me. There was love and trust in her eyes and it made the soft stone in my heart weep and melt. Icy fear was washed away in a warm current of love.
“I am not you. I will never be you.”
“You cannot change what you are. You are a Witch’s daughter.”
I stood firm before the sky-dragon and my mother’s voice, a proud and determined tilt to my chin. “My name is Ailynn Gothel, and I am whoever I choose to be. I walk my own path.”
The stars scattered like refracting droplets of light on the water. There was a great rush and roar of noise as new space opened before me in the empty place the stars had left. Looking down, I saw Mogra’s figure pinned beneath a slab of rock, looking smaller and frailer than I could ever remember seeing her. She stared up at me, her face young again, but tired looking. There were lines around her mouth and dark smudges beneath her eyes.
“Ailynn… help me.”
For a moment, my hand twitched, arm extending. Part of me wanted to free her, even after everything she had done to hurt us, but what if it was a trick? Part of me realized that I was not completely in control of my own body, but I could not seem to resist. Still undecided, I reached toward her, but as our hands brushed, I felt the crackling of magic and jerked my arm back.
“Ailynn…” I felt her presence inside of me, probing at my mind, trying to twist my will. The current between us sparked, leaving me with a piercing headache. That was when I understood exactly what Mogra was trying to do. Her body was still trapped beneath a pile of rock, broken, but if she could possess me, she would have a new, young body to use instead.
I stumbled backwards, hands thrown up to protect my face, horrified. The more distance I could put between us, the safer I would be. I tried to reinforce the walls around my mind, refusing to let her in.
“Come back!” she shrieked, the image of the twisted old hag flashing before my eyes. “You are my daughter! You belong to me!”
I felt my eyes sting with tears because my mother was truly lost. It was not the first time I had realized this, but the full truth of it crashed down around my head. “I am a person, not a pet or a body for you to use. Neither is Rapunzel. My soul belongs to me.”
“Selfish girl. You would not even help your own mother?” I was not sure whether I could only hear the words in my head or if they were spoken aloud, because her lips were not moving.
“You are not a mother to me anymore.”
My head exploded with pain, red and white streaks of agony painting themselves across my consciousness. It was unbearable – a hissing, glowing poker behind my eyes. I screamed, falling to my knees and cradling my head in my hands. I heard a voice mumbling and realized it was mine – “No… no… Maker, please let it stop… no - please…”
My stomach heaved, threatening to empty itself on the ground where I was holding myself up with one elbow. “Let. Me. In.” The words pounded against my skull like a heavy fist on a door. I clapped my hands over my ears. “No! Secutem!” The shield-mark lit my throat on fire, almost making me choke, but I spat it out between clenched teeth. Immediately, the pain receded and Mogra howled with rage.
I staggered upright and ran, sending rocks and roots and earth flying beneath my feet. I did not look back even though her screams echoed in my ears. I ran until my legs gave out and I sank to the ground, crying so heavily that the tears blinded me. But at least I was alone. I had escaped. The foreign presence in my mind was gone. In fact, my thoughts were blissfully silent.
…
Chapter Eight:
I was the first to open my eyes. I groaned, wincing as I felt a familiar pain in my right shoulder. I wondered if the wound had reopened, but then I decided that it did not matter. Carefully, I opened my eyes, immediately remembering to look for Rapunzel. She was lying on her side, still and unmoving. I crawled over to her, ignoring the tears in my pants at the knee, my heart still pounding wildly from fear. “Rapunzel! Open your eyes, Tuathe… please…”
She cried out, but her eyes remained shut. Instantly, I put my hand to her belly, trying to feel the unborn child moving within her. “Please… Please be alive… Please…” I whispered that word over and over again… please, please, please… until I lost it somewhere inside of my mouth and forgot what it meant. I felt movement in Rapunzel’s abdomen, but it was not the light, twitching bumps of quickening. It was a long, shuddering pull from somewhere deep inside of her.
“Oh no… no, no, no… not even sixteen weeks yet… too soon, too soon…” I scrambled to my feet, running towards my abandoned traveling pack, which was lying several yards away. Tearing open the largest pocket, I began digging through the supplies, tossing out food and clothing in order to find the herbs I was looking for. Valerian root, Crampbark, Flaxseed Oil…
As I ran back to Rapunzel, I noticed the change in the landscape for the first time. I gasped, taking a step backwards and staring. Instead of a giant pit of mud and stone, a huge, glittering lake stretched out as far as I could see. It was the same shade of blue as the magical scarf. We were sitting at its edge among piles of displaced rock, covered in dust and dirt. Mogra was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, the avalanche had crushed her and the Shadowkin or thrown them into the lake. I never wanted to see them again.
The feel of the oil jars and the herbs in my hand reminded me of Rapunzel, and I hurried back to her. Perhaps she sensed my shadow over her, because her eyes twitched behind close lids as I knelt by her side.
“Is she alive?” A deep, hoarse voice asked from somewhere to our left.
“For now, Hassa. I have to stop the child from coming early or dying…” I crushed the Valerian root, letting the oils seep out and mix with the flesh of the plant. “Get me water from the lake. Hurry…”
Once the sedative was mixed with water, I poured it between Rapunzel’s lips, flinching when she began to cough and sputter. Finally, I coaxed some of it down her throat, grateful that Valerian did not need to be placed in boiling water. The Crampbark had already been dried and distilled into a liquid, and it was easy to paint the drops over her lips.
Soon, there was nothing left to do but try and relax Rapunzel while we watched her. She drifted in and out of consciousness and did not speak. “You saved us, young witch,” Hassa said, placing a very large hand on my shoulder. “I think that you will save them, too.”
“We cannot move her,” I said, not able to respond to his feelings of confidence in me. “I know this is a bad place to stay, and Mogra might find a way…”
Hassa shook his head. “She will not come after us now. If she is still alive, she will wait. You surprised her today, and she will need more of her creatures to help her next time.” I prayed that the Equiarre’s judgment was sound.
We watched over her for several hours, although I urged Hassa to rest. If anything else decided to threaten us, he was the only one in any condition to protect us. Her condition was mostly unchanging, but it did not worsen either, which was a good sign.
Tenderly, I stroked Rapunzel’s hair, careful not to put pressure on the ugly, puffy line of a cut on the back of her head. All of us were covered in bruises, scrapes, and gashes, and I had dressed and cleaned the worst of them, using up the last of my medical supplies for open wounds. I hoped that none of the injuries became infected, because I hardly had enough herbs left to make a poultice, and certainly not enough linen to dress them. We had resorted to washing and binding some of our wounds with scraps of our clothes.
Rapunzel remained still and did not regain complete consciousness, but Hassa’s larger body and quicker healing rate had served him well during the avalanche. “It is still early in her pregnancy,” I told him. “Not even sixteen weeks. There was only a little blood, and there are no more large contractions. I am hopeful.” I stroked Rapunzel’s hand, forcing myself to believe my own words.
Even though he had only known Rapunzel for a short time, the E
quiarre was hovering over her like a concerned parent. “She is not at sixteen weeks yet? I thought that Humani females carried for nine months. How is she so large already?”
I had my suspicions, and since Rapunzel stable for the moment, I decided to give her another examination. “I think she is carrying twins,” I said as I ran my hands over her stomach, which was far more pronounced now than it had been even a few days ago. “It is unusually early for me or her to feel quickening, especially with a first pregnancy. She is very large, and…” Using my fingers, I tried to confirm the position of one of the tiny bodies. “Yes, I think there are two.”
Twins. Even more joy or even more pain. Moving sluggishly beneath my hands, Rapunzel shifted, trying to become more comfortable. She did not wake up. The sedatives and muscle relaxants were working. I put the soft part of my traveling pack beneath her head, trying to make her more comfortable. I had done everything I could for her, and only time would show how well she would recover. I checked every candlemark to make sure that the babies were alive, afraid that their little hearts would stop beating. I knew that Rapunzel would never forgive herself if we lost them.
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