Savage Reign

by Melody Locklear

  He thinks he’s won. He thinks I’ll be around, they’ll be around, to watch them grow, but I’ll hold them in as long as I can lest they be born into this madness. When they are I do hope I am far away from here.

  However, while I’m here, it can’t help to milk the cow for all it’s got. “When your mother was pregnant with you, did she ever experience anything…odd during her pregnancy?”

  Theon quirks an eyebrow at me in confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean…” I take a deep breath, searching for the right words to explain what I’m trying to say. How do you tell a man that you think there is something wrong with his unborn child? “Did she ever tell you that she felt anything weird? Anything…dark?”

  “Dark?” I watch exactly what I’d been trying to avoid unfold in his blue eyes. Worry, offense, further confusion. Why do I care if he thinks I believe him a monster? Another impossible feat from the fetus growing inside me.

  “Yeah. Like your magic?”

  This seems to ease his mind a little. “No, nothing like that. Nether, it’s the magical essence that flows through the living and the dead, but it isn’t dark magic itself. It’s a window to dark magic, to be sure, but it isn’t dark itself. Pregnancies to nether children are as normal as any other. You needn’t worry, love. Your baby will be healthy. They both will be. Besides, a Zodiac’s magic is contingent on when he, or she is born so it’s, for lack of a better term, gifted its magic upon its birth. You never know what will happen. You could go into labor early and have a couple of Scorpions floating around in there.” I make a face and he laughs. “I probably could have worded that better.”

  “Ya think?”

  Theon laughs again and makes his way back over to me. His hand comes down on my shoulder and my eyes fly up to him. “Everything is going to be alright love. I won’t let anything happen to you or those babies.”

  His words are meant to soothe me, but they do the opposite. It feels like a threat, like no matter what happens his babies are exactly that. His and he’ll protect them as such.

  Even if that’s from me.

  My hellbaby allows me to eat the Danish without incident. I haven’t eaten much more than pastries and crackers as of late and yet I’ve grown a tiny baby bump over the last few weeks. Nothing strategically placed dresses and tops can’t hide, but it’s there and the subtle kicking has commenced.

  Theon’s reassurances that my pregnancy should be normal does anything, but. It just means that nether has no part in the darkness I feel from this baby. There is dark, dangerous magic inside of him. I know it as well as I know my own name. And I know something must be done about it.

  I consult the library. Maybe there’s something in there that can tell me what it means that I’m feeling such darkness from my fetus, and control. It’s larger than the one back in Limacore and has twice as many categories.

  A kind librarian directs me to a shelf where there are many books full of information on Zodiac pregnancies. I gather as many as I can carry, take them to a table, and get to work.

  I find a few interesting facts. Like what Theon told me today about a Zodiac baby’s magic being dependent on delivery. All of this information is helpful, but it doesn’t say much about power inside the womb. Nothing about a baby dictating its mother’s eating habits or manipulating her feelings regarding the father.

  I’m just about to give up when I realize I’m not alone.

  “Hey stranger.” I say to Haydan who is standing at a shelf not far from where I’m sitting.

  He glances over his shoulder and smiles when he sees me. “Hey there, little fire user.”

  “You were gone.” I say. I haven’t seen him in weeks.

  “I was.” he admits, but offers me no further explanation.

  “Another recruitment run?”

  “These Serpentarians keep me busy, that’s for sure.” he says, slipping into the seat across from me. His deliberate attempt to avoid answering my question is not lost on me, but I don’t call him on it. Haydan Kasanoff is still a mystery to me. In our world mysteries mean you don’t trust them until they give you a reason to. “What’s going on here?” he asks, eying my stack of books.

  “Honestly? I have no idea.” I admit. “This pregnancy, it doesn’t feel right.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s something wrong with this baby, Haydan. Something sinister. I can’t put my finger on what, but I can feel it.” His response is not what I expect. Foolishness, Kol called it. All in my head, Clea told me. Instead I see fear in Haydan’s eyes. “Haydan, what is it?”

  “Come with me.” Haydan stands and takes my hand, pulling me from the library before I can object.

  He pulls me through the corridors of the palace into what looks like Theon’s private study.

  “Haydan, what’s happening?” I ask him nervously. Fear coils in my chest and I can’t ignore it. When Serpentarians start to show fear you know something is wrong.

  “Throughout the years we’ve collected prophecies, pieces of parchment detailing events that have yet to happen.” Haydan explains in a hurry as he opens a drawer stacked with rolled up prophecy scrolls. “Seers, they see things that could or might happen, right? But prophecies, they’re as good as written in stone. When I was young I had a bit of an obsession with prophecy scrolls, because the thing about prophecies, they always come true. And I think I might have pieced one together about your baby.”

  “What?” Suddenly my mouth is dry and I can barely find words to form a complete sentence.

  “This darkness, does it feel like it could be magic?”

  “Y-yes, but deadly. Worse than nether. Like…” I fumble over my words. What does it feel like? Think, Volterra. It comes to me, making my skin crawl. “Snakes.”

  Haydan halts for a moment. “Snakes?”

  “Snakes. Whispering, curling, poisoning. It feels like snakes, in my mind, my body.” My child. I don’t say that part out loud. If I do it’ll make it true and I don’t want it to be. Even if this baby, these babies are Theon’s I don’t want them to be vile like him. I want them to be good, like me, like Amara, like Aaric. I want them to be a blessing on this world. Not a curse.

  Haydan grabs a notebook and opens it up on the desk across the room. “Alright. So over the years I’ve pieced together many prophecies and located their scrolls. I did this for Theon because he was sure there was one about Amara, predicting her incredible magic. During my research I found something else. I couldn’t piece it all together, but there were predictions about a nether-born baby that would have incredibly dark, twisted magic. I took notes about everything they said, but I could never track down the original prophecy scroll.”

  “What does it say, Haydan?”

  He looks up at me, wary to tell me what he has written down. “Haydan, tell me what you wrote.”

  “It’s not good, Kara.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “From what I’ve gathered about this particular prophecy it states that a nether-born child would be born and, I quote ‘lay waste to the world’.”

  There are many appropriate reactions to this news. Tears maybe, rage definitely. It would be so easy for me to set the whole room ablaze in my fury. Instead I leave. I march right out of the room, leaving Haydan torn and confused.

  I march across the whole palace—it takes twenty minutes to do so. Twenty minutes of stewing on the news that my baby is destined for destruction.

  My first stop is Clea. If a prophecy can predict events a Seer must have seen this coming. If there’s one in the palace she’d know about it.

  Clea’s dropped her soulless façade given Theon knew all along that her soul is back. That simply means she’s gone back to being a moody bitch instead of a cruel one. I knock on her chamber door, uncertain. There are no guards outside her room like mine, and Theon’s, and Kol’s. Punishment for lying to him? Or maybe Theon really just doesn’t care about the sister who’s stuck by him for a thousand years.
r />   “Go away.” she calls to me.

  I swing the door open and find her curled up in her bed, not even dressed for the day. “It’s two in the afternoon. Get up.” I say coolly.

  “I’m pretty sure I said go away.”

  “And I’m pretty sure I don’t care. Get up.”

  Clea throws the blankets back and shoots me a daggered glare that might have once scared someone when she was without her soul, but now she just looks like a harmless cat who hasn’t showered in days.

  “Is this just because Theon has been ignoring you? Aren’t we a little old for temper tantrums?”

  “Maybe if you had at least tried to convince Theon that I was still soulless then maybe he wouldn’t have stopped including me in his diabolical plans for world domination and we’d know what he was planning to do about getting Amara back from the Vakrovian prince.”

  “World domination, huh?” I mutter, unaffected by her outburst. ”Is that the plan?”

  “I don’t know.” she pouts, assuming her place under the covers.

  I could try and play the role of friend to her, like I might have once upon a time. I’d tell her that Theon isn’t worth a moment of her misery and that we’d figure out another way to get our information, but with Haydan’s revelation about my potential fetus I don’t have the patience.

  I call to my magic and it responds in kind. Without hesitance. Fire curls around my fingers, spilling down my skin until it reaches the bed. It twists through the sheets, burning everything in its path until finally it reaches Clea.

  She rockets off the bed, frantically trying to pat down the fire I’ve already called back, leaving not a burn mark in its wake. “What the hell, Kara!” Clea sneers.

  “I need to know if there’s a Seer in the palace.” I say, disregarding her rage. It can’t eclipse mine.

  “Kara, you can’t just go around mental-scorching people just because you need something.”

  “Don’t.” I sneer at her. “Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do. I just found out that my baby might possibly be responsible for ending the world as we know it so I’ll ask again. I need to see a Seer, now. Do you have one or not?”

  All the fight leaves Clea. She heaves a sigh, glancing down at her tattered dress as if just realizing that she desperately needs a bath. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in Haydan’s predictions. He fancies prophecies.”

  “And we’d be stupid to ignore the warning.”

  She sniffs the air, and then herself. “Can I clean up first?”

  I wait impatiently while Clea bathes and dresses, looking like her old self again. When she emerges from her chambers where I wait her spirits seem to have improved too. Maybe giving her a purpose again has brought back some of her old fire.

  “I should warn you. This Seer, she’s um…she’s a little odd.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Yeah, this one’s different. And she’s going to want payment.”

  “Well I—I don’t have any money. I don’t even have my own clothes. Your brother kidnapped me, remember?”

  “Not money, Kara.” she says, shaking her head.

  “Then what?” I demand.

  The Seer has her own chambers. Tucked into a quiet, unused part of the palace. Guards are posted outside the Seer’s doors, but not Clea’s?

  Clea meets the eyes of the tallest guard. “Tell Reverie Kara Volterra is here to see her.”

  He’s a fire user. I can smell the lingering scent of smoke on him. His stare falls onto me inquisitively. He seems to consider whether to entertain this request or not. Then he enters the Seer’s chambers. He returns quickly, granting us entry.

  The inside of her chambers aren’t much different than mine, if not a little plainer. Books clutter the space at the back where there is a table set up for reading and writing. I don’t see the woman anywhere in sight until she comes out of a back room.

  And suddenly I understand why the payment she’ll require was such an odd request.

  Honestly she looks younger than me. She can’t be more than sixteen. She has long, wavy locks that reach down almost to her waist, richly red, her eyes a cloudy blue. I wonder what color they might have been before she lost her sight. Blue probably.

  I also wonder how this Seer is going to help me when she can’t even see the girl standing before her.

  “Hey, Reverie.” Clea says, touching the girl’s shoulder to let her know where she is in the room.

  “Clea,” She smiles upon hearing Clea’s voice, like they’re old friends. She covers Clea’s hand with hers. “I was wondering when you were going to come to see me.”

  “I’m sorry, Rev. I’ve had my hands full with this one.” Reverie can’t see Clea nod in my direction, but she laughs anyway.

  “I’ve heard that’s quite a feat.”

  Clea’s blue eyes shoot to me and she smirks. “Sure is.”

  “Come forward, Kara.” Reverie says to me. I don’t move. I know a little blind girl shouldn’t freak me out, but she does. The way her eyes scan the room aimlessly, it sends unwarranted chills down my spine. In retrospect I’m sure she’s a nice Piscean girl.

  It takes me a moment to realize that Reverie is quite literally a girl locked in an ivory tower, guarded by serpents. Something tells me that this girl is Theon’s best-kept secret. Clea will probably be in trouble if he finds out she brought me here.

  I step forward and Reverie pulls my hands into hers. She runs her fingers over mine, as if memorizing me through touch. “She’s very pretty.”

  “Wha—how could you possibly—”

  “With her magic.” Clea explains. “When she taps into her magic she can see faces. Flashes.”

  “Is this even going to work then?” I ask irritably. I don’t mean to sound as harsh as I do, but I have to know what this twisted magic Haydan spoke of is and if it’s going to affect both of my children.

  “My powers work just as well as they did before, Kara Volterra. Come sit. Tell me what’s got you so upset. Your aura is all over the place.” I can’t help an eye roll. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  My mouth drops open and Clea nudges me onto the couch across from where Reverie is seated on an armchair.

  “What do you know about prophecies?” I ask with an exasperated sigh.

  “I know a lot about prophecies. It’s how I ended up here in the first place.”

  It takes me a minute to understand what she’s hinting at. When it hits me my eyes flick to Clea. “She’s the same Seer? The one that—”

  “Told him about Amara, yes.”

  This girl, this child is the reason we’re all in the mess we’re in now. Without her all of this could have been avoided, including this pregnancy.

  “Tell me what you want to know about prophecies, Kara.”

  “I only need to know about one. It may hint at an unborn nether child being born with magic darker than nether.”

  “That’s a popular one, to be sure, but I’m assuming you’re asking because you think it’s your baby the prophecy is talking about.”

  “Reverie, what do you mean it’s popular?” Clea asks gently. She treats her with kid gloves and it makes me wonder what tragedy occurred that made her blind.

  “A lot of chatter about the nether baby set to take over the world.”

  “So it’s true.” I say.

  “I didn’t say that. I just said there’s a lot of talk about it.”

  “I need answers, Reverie. This baby, it dictates what I eat. I think a hateful thought of Theon and I find myself rethinking it. I feel the darkness like a poison inside me. Is my baby a monster?”

  Her eyebrows quirk at the word baby. Singular. “You’re having twins. You don’t get this feeling from them both?”

  “No.” I say, wishing I could call back the words. I don’t trust this girl, but I need answers. Even if Theon finds out about my inquiries. Even if he finds out this baby might mean the end of our world as we know it. “Just the boy.”

&nbs
p; “Is that possible? Can one twin have this magic and not the other?” Clea sounds like her brother, inquisitive, intensely curious. I shift uncomfortably in my seat.

  “That’s like asking how Serpentarian twins can be born with two opposite elements. Of course one can possesses this magic and not the other.” Reverie responds almost in reprimand, like a teacher disappointed in her students.

  “So what about the girl?” I press on. “Is she in danger of becoming like him?” I say it with disgust. I can’t hide it. I no longer feel connected to this baby growing inside me. I feel only fear for my baby girl. All the while wondering if I can take the risk of going through with this pregnancy just so she can live. If she lives he lives. And if he lives we may have a much bigger problem than Theon Beleros or Bastian Beaugrand on our hands.

  “The prophecy mentions only one child. In all likelihood she won’t be affected by this magic the way he will.”

  “How did he get this magic? Was it inherited from Theon? From me?” The thought surges through me like the same poison surging through my unborn child’s veins.

  “It’s unclear.” Reverie says dismissively.

  “If it’s inherited they would both have this magic.” Clea searches for my eyes, but they are far away, grasping for answers that aren’t there.

  “Prophecies are fickle that way.” Reverie cuts through my thoughts. “It’s clear to me that it’s the boy that the prophecy is written about, given Kara’s recount of what she’s feeling. Does that mean they won’t both be affected by this magic? It doesn’t. But it is her baby boy’s fate that is sealed. Not the both of them. Just the one.”

  “That one is my child.” I sneer, pushing forward on the couch I sit on. “I wanna see what this world will look like if I go through with this pregnancy, if I let this baby live. Show me.”

  “There is no guarantee that I’ll see anything if I—”

  “Show me!” I hiss, holding a hand out to her.

  Reverie takes a deep breath and then slips her hand into mine.

  An electric surge of pain courses through me as images flash before my eyes. Images of a world in ruin, like a plague has swept through it. Dark, gray skies hover above. All around a battle rages on, and somehow, in this Seer’s vision, I know right away who orchestrated it. My nameless baby, and those brave enough to fight against him. Stupid enough. Another flash sears through, bodies. So many bodies. Destroyed in the name of war.