I stiffened, blinking up at him. “She wasn’t an old woman, she…” A laugh forced itself out of me, as I realized that he was just trying to lighten the mood. It sent a painful stab through my chest. I gasped. “Don’t … don’t make me laugh, please. Just … help me, Jer.”
He stared at me, long and hard, and then he released me. “Well, you need to look your best if you’re going to be meeting with your stepmother. Those pajamas aren’t going to cut it. Where is your stepmother?”
“I … don’t actually know,” I admitted, glancing about the room. Retreating to my room, I fetched my purse and produced the mirror, which I handed to him. “Ask it while I change.”
He nodded as I shut the door behind me to change. I was going to meet with my stepmother, and she needed to know that I was still standing strong, even as I was dying. So, of course, I chose the bright red dress that was the best thing that I’d brought with me from home and shoved my feet into my black heels. I needed some height on her. Then I grabbed my hairbrush and stalked back into my living room.
“I’m ready,” I announced. “I’ll brush my hair on the way. Where are we going?”
“Your father’s house,” Jeremy told me, offering me the mirror.
I nodded as I noted the image of Editha sound asleep in my father’s bed, and then slipped the mirror back into my purse. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” he agreed, and offered me his arm with an explanation of, “I don’t want you to fall down the steps in those.” He nodded at my feet.
I frowned. “This is not my first time in heels, Jeremy.”
“I know,” he admitted, and he wasn’t smiling. “But you’re not steady on your feet right now.”
In the end, I was grateful for his arm. The stairs were nasty when combined with my lightheadedness, and I probably would have fallen without the heels. But we made it to the car and Jeremy helped me inside.
“Just so you know, I still think that I should be taking you to the hospital,” he admitted, starting the car. “Are you sure that this will work? Do you even think that your stepmother will be willing to see you?”
“There isn’t a doctor in any realm that can cure me,” I informed him, running the brush through my hair. “My father already tried all of them, if you’ll remember. “No, I don’t think that Editha will surrender easily, but I plan to make this work.”
“Will she even let you into the house?”
“Moot point when I have a key that will open any lock,” I pointed out, and then I gave another gasp and pressed my hand to my heart. It was racing too fast. Way too fast.
“Give me that.” Jeremy snatched the brush from my hand and tossed it into the backseat. “I want you to relax. Stay calm. Prove to me that I’m not being an idiot right now.”
“You’re not,” I assured him, seeking his hand, which he gave me without a fight. “I might be though. I ate that apple. No one made me do it, but I did.”
“Why did you do it?” he asked, squeezing my hand.
“Because I didn’t have a choice,” I told him, closing my eyes. “It was me or the worlds, and here I am, clinging to the hope that I can talk my stepmother into reversing the magic she used on me.”
“Well, if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you, Gwen,” he assured me.
“I know it has to be – the mirror said as much – but I don’t…” I swallowed and opened my eyes to stare at Jeremy. “I’m scared, Jer.”
He squeezed my hand again. “Of course you are – you’re dying. Now be quiet and try to keep yourself calm. I don’t want to lose you.”
I stiffened, then smirked up at him, making my own attempt to lighten the mood. “Oh? Are you sure? You do realize that you prosed and I accepted earlier tonight. This could be your last chance to be rid of me and all of my problems.”
“Gwen, please don’t joke about that. I’ve nearly lost you twice now. I don’t want to spend another moment without you, rest assured.”
“But I might not be able to talk Editha into removing the poison,” I admitted. “If that’s the case, then I intend to take her down with me, one way or another. That will leave the line of succession broken.”
“Will it?”
“I don’t have any children, and both father and I were only children,” I explained. “So what I mean to say is … I’m declaring you my heir. We’re engaged. I can do that. If I die, my powers will go to you – even before Editha.”
He blinked. “I see.”
“Don’t worry, I plan to have taken care of her and this poison consuming me,” I assured him. “And Alfen is prepared and you know more than I did. I’m just … declaring it. Warning you.”
“Please don’t die.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m going to try not to. Believe it or not, but I’d much prefer to live – without my stepmother or my heart condition hanging over me.” After a moment, I added, “You know, it manifested differently in every world, the poison. In one realm, I’d had a rock fall on me and nearly crush me to death.”
“I’d prefer it if you’d stop talking about dying,” Jeremy stated. “You’re just working yourself up. You’re not going to die, Gwen. You’re going to get better, and we’re going to get married, and you’ll get your father’s heritage back, and we’ll have a whole household of kids so we won’t have to worry about only children…”
He went on, describing our future life together. It was nice, really nice, and I’d never realized that he’d thought about it so thoroughly.
Before I knew it, we’d arrived in front of my father’s house, the house where I’d grown up. Until Editha had cruelly evicted me.
“What now?” Jeremy asked.
I reached for my purse. “I’m going alone. I … don’t want you tangled up in this.”
“You’re about to faint on me,” Jeremy returned. “I don’t want you alone.”
“I need to do this alone. I can do it. Just … this is my house. I know it like the back of my hand. I … need to do this on my own.”
I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, my head was pounding so now, but I knew that Editha was only going to take me seriously if I did this on my own.
“Please?”
He sighed. “Check on her with the mirror, first. I don’t want you going in there unprepared.”
“Fine.” I withdrew the mirror from my purse and ordered it to show me Editha. She was awake now, pacing the length of my father’s bedroom.
“I think she knows I’m dying now,” I stated. “Good.”
“Good? How?”
“It’s her magic, and she can transfer herself between realms like I can,” I explained. “And if she knows I’m dying, it’ll make her reckless. She thinks that she’s won.”
“Well, just you stay careful,” he told me. “I want you to come back to me.”
I smiled up at him, then wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his lips. If these were our last moments together, as well they might be, then we needed to savor them.
“I love you Jer,” I told him, pulling back. “I’m going to do everything I can to come back to you. I promise you.”
And then I opened the car door, produced the key from my purse, and hobbled to the front door. In hindsight, maybe the heels weren’t my best idea, but I couldn’t regret the effect they gave.
The door opened easily with the key, and I winced a moment, expecting alarms. I had no doubt that my stepmother would have changed the code after my banishment, which would prevent me from turning them off. But they stayed silent, and I took a deep breath to summon my courage again.
I chose to not go to my father’s bedroom. I couldn’t taint my childhood memory of it as a safe haven from the nightmares and monsters under my bed. Instead, I crept through the halls to his office, where I could handle my stepmother from behind his desk. There were alarms enough to trigger in here – and I knew where every single one was. One touch of the safe, without the magic key, and the house exploded in ear-piercing wails.
I grinned, sat down in my father’s leather seat, and waited for my stepmother to come to me. It didn’t take long.
The wails shut down the moment she stepped into the room, and she glowered at me. She was still in her nightdress, hair a mess, curlers still in her hair.
“Too good to just crawl into a pitiful corner and die, I see,” she stated, wrinkling her nose at me.
I smirked. “No, that would have been too boring. I see you’ve come alone. Don’t think that I’m worthy of the police, do you?”
She laughed, nearly dashing my hopes of intimidating her. “Child, you have but hours left to live. The poison will soon run its course, just as it was meant to six years ago until your father interceded.”
“You cured me then,” I pointed out. “Why can’t you now?”
“I have no reason to,” she answered. “You’ve served your purpose. Besides, I can’t. That poison can’t be cured. If I remove it from you, it has to be given to someone else. I’d have to kill someone – or something – innocent. And I know you, Gwen. You couldn’t bear that. No, you’ll take that poison with you, because you’re that self-sacrificial. Just like your father. Your stint in the second realm just proved it.”
I lifted my chin. “Who said that it had to be someone innocent?”
Her eyes widened, but she quickly recomposed herself and forced a smile. “That poison is too good for a common criminal. No, I’m afraid you can’t tempt me with any sort of deal.”
“Well, that’s good,” I admitted, shakily standing. “Because I wasn’t thinking of a common criminal, and I’m not here to make a deal. I’m here to claim what is mine.”
And then I gasped again, and this time not because of my heart. I had woken up. Eirwen. I closed my eyes as my own memories washed through me – clear and focused, not the hazy dreams that they’d been before. And, with them, the power that was my birthright, and I understood.
I smirked again as I opened my eyes and saw that Editha, for the first time, regarded me with fear. She’d felt the change, the shift in power.
“It seems,” I said, “that I just passed the final challenge.” I placed my purse on the desk. “In here are the six treasures that I won from you. They’re what you want, aren’t they? Or they represent what you want. Why don’t we take this to the first realm, Vira? I can’t wait to talk there.”
And, with that, I shifted to my own realm.
***
I came to inside a glass coffin, just as Alfen had promised, and all six of the treasures I’d collected were scattered about me, for this was their proper realm. The key was in my hand.
The coffin could only be opened with this key, from the inside. In theory, I could stay in here forever, and Editha could never gain them.
A coughing fit overtook me. Oh, right. The poison had manifested in my lungs in this realm. Just brilliant. On second thought, I’d promised Jeremy that I was going to do everything I could to stay alive. As soon as I had the cough under control, I fit the key into the lock and opened my confinement.
I was in the grand throne room, in full view of a crowd. I saw Alfen and Hywel, standing on one side of the throne, staring at me in concern, no doubt over the return of my sickness. Rhosen stood on the other side, her face passive and unreadable.
In the throne, where she very much did not belong, was Vira, my stepmother.
I fought down another coughing fit, using it to buy me time to stuff the treasures into my too-large sleeves, which were lined with pockets.
Finally, when I had breath enough restored to me, I slid down from my pedestal. “Vira, don’t you know that none but the chosen is allowed to sit in that throne?”
She smirked, no doubt at the wheeze in my voice. “Maybe I was a bit hasty, but look at you. It won’t be long before you’re gone.”
“Perhaps, but the throne isn’t yours,” I spat, staggering towards her. Lack of oxygen made me as dizzy as my racing heartbeat had in the eighth realm – perhaps more so. “You are a traitor, and can never inherit that throne.”
Her eyebrow flickered. “Really?”
“You bound my father’s vow with both a bargain and marriage,” I continued. “He couldn’t act against you, but I have nothing preventing me. But I declare your bargain void, and your marriage false. You did not cure me – look at me, dying again from the very poison my father gave up everything to save me from.”
“Well, it’s hardly my fault if you were fool enough to take it back,” she answered, shifting in her seat to make herself even more comfortable. Well, let her enjoy it for what few moments it remained to her.
“And for that, I count you for another act of treason – poisoning the very tree of life and endangering every realm.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. I smiled – this was the very effect I wanted. The people would never accept her now.
But she gave her own smile. “Well, you’re still dying, my dear, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your position must be passed along, and you have no other heir.”
“You really think that I haven’t prepared for that? Of course I have an heir – we might not be bound by the vows of marriage, but Alfen will serve much better than you.” I shook my head. “As for you, traitor, you will never inherit the power, because you cannot. I speak the severance upon you.”
I heard gasps around me, but they were drowned by Vira’s scream – and even that was nothing as my vision drowned in darkness.
There is nothing like the bleeding space between reality. Most would look upon it and go mad – but such is the true gift bestowed upon my bloodline, the gifts that I knew my stepmother sought. I plunged into it, focusing on the bonds that Vira had knit between the realms, allowing her mind to shift between. I pressed upon them with my magic, and they shattered. And, without the ability to pass between realms, she would never be able to inherit.
Vira’s screams were the last thing I knew as my strength ran out and I slipped into unconsciousness.
I swam now through darkness, balancing the line between life and death – too weak to grasp the one, but too stubborn to succumb to the other. Time was nothing. Only the fight live.
I’d promised Jeremy. I had to fight for my people.
And then, just as I thought that life would slip through my fingers … I was jerked back. I awoke, coughing my lungs out, but very much alive.
“Oh, good. You made it through. I was worried there, for a moment.”
I forced open my eyes to find myself staring up Rhosen, who held some sort of burning pot over my face. The smoke floating out of it felt good on my lungs.
“What…” I was slowly recovering the use of my lungs. “What happened? What did you do?”
“Bought a bit more time,” Rhosen answered. “And, actually, Alfen did it. You were slipping away from us, and I still needed a few more minutes to prepare the transfer.”
“Transfer…” I repeated. “What are you doing? Where is Alfen?”
I sat up, glancing about wildly. There was no way that he’d not be there, by my side, as I hovered between life and death. My heart caught in my throat when I saw him, lying beside me, his breathing nothing but a wheeze.
“He took the poison from you,” Rhosen informed me before I could speak. “Voluntarily – and I explained all the ramifications to him beforehand. But he was desperate to save you, and we needed more time than you were giving us.”
“Oh.” I swallowed, realizing that my cough was now gone completely. “But … what are we going to do? Rhosen, I can’t let him die for me…”
Rhosen rolled her eyes at me. “You two are such the pair, always sacrificing yourself for the other. Look, I do know what I’m doing. Yes, we took a risk right now, but it was less of a risk than letting you keep the poison, at that point.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but then snapped it shut, deciding that it was best to let her concentrate. Alfen’s life was literally in her hands.
“You have no idea the lengths I’ve gone t
o gain your stepmother’s trust,” Rhosen continued, turning her attention down to her collection of magics that she was arranging. “And betraying yours was just the tip of the iceberg. But, saving the both of you, if I can manage it, will make it all worthwhile. Even if you never trust me again.”
“What … did you do?” I asked, reaching for Alfen’s hand.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She shook her head. “Maybe someday when I’ve had a chance to distance myself from everything, but I really don’t know.”
“Was Vira really that terrible?” I asked. I knew she was awful, but this…
“Yes,” Rhosen answered, and I knew that she wasn’t going to say another word.
“I must say, Eirwen, that was a dramatic severance you did,” Hywel announced, and I twisted around to see him step into the room, Vira’s unconscious body in his arms. “Good to see you finally awake. I told your father that you would be the strongest queen that we’ve seen in a thousand years. Vira truly chose the wrong time to try to attempt an infiltration.”
“It was by the skin of my teeth,” I returned, wrinkling my nose as he laid my stepmother down on the other side of Alfen. I hadn’t wanted to see the woman ever again in my life, and the air of wrongness now surrounding her. She was broken.
Also wearing the comb. I reached forward, snatched it from her hair, and slid it into my own. It was my birthright after all, that she had stolen from me.
“Well, it added to the drama,” he declared. “Well done.”
“I’m almost ready,” Rhosen announced. “Eirwen, may I have the apple for a moment? I need a vessel to transfer the poison between them, and the tree would be the easiest. I promise that it won’t have to hold it for more than a moment. He could take it from you with a kiss, but I don’t think you want your stepmother kissing him, and she’s also unconscious and can’t do it.”
I frowned, but fished the apple out of my sleeve. “You’re sure this is all right?” I asked.
“This is the easy part,” she answered. “And I’m ready to be rid of this woman. She’s been hanging over me for way too long.”
I let her take it and place it on Alfin’s head, wincing as the red crystal turned green. But when his wheeze quieted and he breathed easy, I breathed easy. I scarcely noticed that Rhosen moved the apple to Editha, draining the green into her.
The Seven Drawers Page 10