She closed her eyes and opened her arms—and her heart—to the Darkness.
26
Laced with Death
It hurtled toward her, all rage and excitement, just as it had when Emrysa first encountered the Darkness in the blackened forest.
Fear caused her bowels to weaken, a hot trail of urine scolding her inner thighs. It was coming. It was coming.
“No!” roared Merlin.
Their eyes locked in one pain-ridden, desperate stare that spoke a million apologies and love songs in less than a moment. He raised his hands to his heart. He mimed the words, I’m sorry, and with his hands in a circular motion, threw a spell at her.
It was laced with black.
It was laced with death.
It was the death spell.
Her face dropped; dread replaced by sorrow. Her last breath forced itself from her lungs with her dismay.
Merlin was trying to kill her.
I cannot let the Darkness take you, my love, Merlin whispered in her mind, even so, his voice broke, she felt his sobs. I will keep you alive... in my heart.
The Darkness and the death spell hit Emrysa together, in perfect unison.
And there was nothing.
27
Choices
Dying was like a dream. All the fear disappeared, and Emrysa was left with nothing but an all-knowing calm.
There was darkness, but not the darkness of dread, but instead the absence of anything.
There was nothing but a cool, dark calm.
Ahead, in the distance, a light began to glow and flicker with a pale shimmer.
She walked toward it.
Curious.
As she did, images played to the left and the right of her, larger than life, as if life was happening on a huge screen. Moving pictures before her eyes.
Some made her stop and ponder.
Some she walked by without a second glance.
None made her feel anything other than... curious.
Emrysa, what was once Emrysa, stopped as one scene faded and abstract images began to play.
A raven’s amber eye.
A hilt of a sword.
Hands as old as time clasped around a slender neck.
Curious.
She continued.
Then another cascade of images caused her to pause.
A flame-haired maiden with fire in her heart.
A winter-skinned girl with a dragon in her soul.
A reflection of Emrysa, but not Emrysa staring sadly at a golden pendant in her hand.
Curiouser.
She continued toward the light. To her right, a dark army raged. To her left, a wicked secret lay buried.
She kept walking.
She reached the light and waited. It seemed like the right thing to do.
A voice, a whisper, a wise tone spread around.
The Darkness is coming. We have not much time. Will you fight the Darkness? Or, will you harness it? The choice is yours.
Emrysa listened to the options without emotion, and simply wondered, will I fight it, or will I harness it?
There was a hiss, and Emrysa turned to her left. A small puncture appeared in the nothingness, and through it a darker shadow began to spool.
The Darkness is coming, the voice whispered more urgently.
When Emrysa turned back to the front, bearing in mind the small hiss of shadows, she noticed two marble plinths awaiting her. Each with a large crystal sat atop. She knew she had to touch them. And so she did.
One was orange. The other yellow.
Not much difference between the two.
Do not be fooled, your next choice has the ability to change the world.
Emrysa held each in turn, knowing what would happen if she decided to walk back into the light. Two very different futures laid themselves out before her.
Will I fight it, or will I harness it?
The hiss of shadow began to spread, and an idea of urgency brushed her mind as softly as a butterfly’s wing.
I must choose now.
Yes, you must. There isn’t any time.
Can I stay here? Emrysa asked, curious.
If you wish.
Emrysa considered the futures. Considered her choices. Considered the havoc each future could cause.
Is there another choice? Emrysa asked.
There are always choices.
Calmly, Emrysa picked up the orange crystal, then, almost as an afterthought, also picked up the yellow crystal, and slowly walked into the pale blue light, leaving the place behind her to crumble to dust as if it had never existed.
28
Raven Heart
Her first inhale back into life seared her lungs with burning pain. The force of life, heart, and soul hit her, bombarding her with memories and emotions, and something else she couldn’t quite place.
Whereas moments before everything and every thought seemed so calm, now the torrent of feelings overwhelmed her.
The choice she had made paralyzed her with fear.
She knew what was coming.
A heavy, heavy, burden lay ahead.
She felt hot, clammy. More than hot. On the ground she began to itch at her skin, tearing at her leather clothes.
She rose, screaming, wild like a banshee. Her skin. Her skin!
She didn’t notice everybody around hover into a protective stance. Two separate groups of the Alchive Council. All she could think about was the burning sensation in her veins. With a flash of magic, she stripped herself of her clothes, marveling at the power in her hands.
“She has the Darkness within her, you insolent fools!” Nimue called out. “She has the power of worlds and danger in her blackened heart. Look!”
And look they did, to Emrysa’s naked body, snaking with black vines toward her heart. And over the sacred heart-space, a huge, sprawling dark mark inked itself upon the canvas of her body. Veins like the reaching tendrils in the darkened forest branching ever out.
“We must kill her again before she realizes her full power!” Nimue ordered and half of the Alchive Council prepared their spells.
The other half looked on helplessly to the crying, inconsolable Dermot. The young pretty witch who soothed him, the magicless girl hovering from one agitated foot to the other, and the steadfast Ffroth. Merlin had already left, disappearing in the instant he cast his killing spell toward the love of his life.
“Kill her, kill her now.” Nimue’s small tribe cast, and the combined spell pummeled into Emrysa who did nothing but laugh.
A sly smile crept over her face. “You know nothing!” Emrysa sneered. She threw her arms outwards and a thousand ravens burst forth from her heart space, cawing into the dank cave. She threw her head back and laughed a sad, pitiful laugh.
Nimue’s tribe tried again.
“Don’t,” Dermot sobbed, “please, don’t kill her. Don’t kill her. I can’t lose her again.”
But they cast anyway. This time sparks of black flame danced around Emrysa, swirling as angrily as the Darkness had before.
“There’s another way. A way to contain her,” Ffroth said.
“Then let’s do it,” Dermot spat. “If it means it will give us time to work out what to do then let’s do it.”
“Oh!” said Ffroth wearily. “It will give us time, all right. Too much time. What do you know of alchemy, young man?”
“Rather a lot,” Dermot said.
“Good.” Ffroth threw him several vials from the folds of his robe and Dermot knew of their power at once.
“I’m sorry, sister,” Dermot yelled. “I’m sorry.”
He smashed the vial on the floor, Ffroth threw his in the same place and the chemicals mixed and swelled.
“We need a combined effort. We need a holding spell. All of you, Nimue, that goes for you too.”
And they threw their spells toward Emrysa. She didn’t even try to stop them. She just locked eyes with Dermot, watching as the blue glow lit up his face, reminding her of only hours earl
ier when he chased her down the corridors laughing into the winter sun.
She smiled, full of pity and pain and pride—full of courage and bravery and her deepest, darkest fears. Emrysa knew it would be a long, long, time before she would see his face again. She knew her incarceration would hollow out her returned heart and soul in the time it would take. She was full of knowing…
Knowing her name would be spoken with harsh lies, spite, and harsher half-truths.
Knowing the rumors would grow to legends based on nothing but hidden secrets.
But also knowing, that one day, her time would come.
The spelled raced toward her; it was coming. She smiled and called out over the chorus of witches’ incantations, “The Darkness is coming, and the moon-marked will rise.”
She had no idea how twisted her last words would become in the long slow, centuries she knew she would have to endure...
Part III
“When we finally realize that the truth doesn’t exist, but rather, it is molded to our own perception of reality, marred by our own memories and emotions, and the passing of time—only then, will we begin to truly see.”
–Emrysa Cheval
29
A New Perspective
The images dissolved leaving nothing but the whiteness of The Void.
Emrysa took a theatrical bow, low and elegant like a ballerina. She stood, slowly, gracefully.
“And so, you see.”
Amara and Fae stared, mouths open, as Emrysa’s memories faded from their own.
“Well don’t stand there catching flies!” she barked.
Fae was the first to speak. Her eyes rimmed red, perhaps because she sensed Emrysa’s loss of the dragon heart the most. “All this time. All this time you’ve been trying to help?”
“Oh, don’t be so gullible, sister,” Amara barked, suddenly realizing quite how similar she was to her aunt. “This is just her version of the truth. Doesn’t make it’s real.”
Emrysa slow clapped. “Bravo, bravo. You’re not as stupid as you look.” She smirked at the irony. “But still, the time has come for you to choose.”
“To choose what?” Amara asked.
“To choose sides.”
Amara and Fae shared a worried glance.
“Choose wisely,” Emrysa said, then, with a roll of her eyes, “Because how many times have I had to say, the bloody Darkness is bloody coming!” She blew out hard and regathered her calm. “So, back to my original question. Are you going to help me fight the Darkness or not?”
She was met with silence. All around The Void began to drip away, the truth spell having completed its incantation. The hall around them suddenly vibrant and busy and chaotic.
Fae nodded, biting her lip as she thought. She looked around at the crowds standing dumbstruck. How long had passed? Moments? Hours? Seconds? Had everyone else experienced Emrysa’s memories too?
“I will fight,” Fae said, feeling the truth in her bones. “I’ll fight against the Darkness with you.”
She stepped forward to Emrysa’s side, and Hemeth was quick to follow.
“I too,” said another voice in the crowd and then another.
Emrysa, instead of looking pleased, seemed bored. As if she knew this would happen all along but still had to play the part to get everybody else to catch up. She scanned the crowds for Dermot’s face, only then did a crease of sadness emerge at her ruby red lips.
Many more witches joined Emrysa. Amara still stood steadfast.
“Well, what are you waiting for you stupid girl?” Emrysa said, exasperated.
Amara hissed, yet stepped forward to join Fae at Emrysa’s side, taking a side glance at Bedivere in his compelled state as she did.
“Perfect timing!” Emrysa said, and with that, the large doors of King Arthur’s hall swung open.
A dozen elder witches and wizards strode through.
Emrysa smiled.
Fae’s heart nearly leapt from her chest. “Mother!” Fae called, watching as their mother headed the march.
As Mother walked the center of the hall, the crowd parting as she did, she morphed. Ageing backwards.
Fae smiled, remembering the first time she had seen her mother in her youth, when they first began their hunt for Emrysa. She saw that youthful version again and her heart swelled with pride. All she wanted was to be embraced, to tell her mother of her dragon heart.
Amara stared emotionless as Mother got closer, her youth regaining with each step. Her serious brow knotted as her mother became younger. And younger still—willowy, lithe, pale.
She finally reached them, but instead of acknowledging her daughters, Mother stared disgustedly at Emrysa instead.
“What have you done with Morganne, you bitch?” she spat.
Fae flinched at the venom. Amara and Emrysa were prepared for it.
Emrysa smiled, a mean, cruel, spiteful smile. “Nimue. So nice of you to join us.”
30
Reclaimed
Amara watched the standoff between her mother and aunt, feeling their brewing storm raging in her bones—not that she needed the strange, deep sensation to alert her. The venom between these old, old enemies leaked from them like the Darkness in Emrysa’s memories.
The middle sister cast her serious black eyes over the Alchive Council, the branch of the Council that had condemned Emrysa. Did they know? Did anyone know the truth? Who here was really fighting the Darkness? Were they all trying to fight the same demon but somehow got lost along the way? Like a maze of trees blocking the clear path, had they been going around in circles for centuries, when they could have just come together to battle the evil as one?
The evil.
Amara took a moment to study her aunt, they looked so alike—she and this woman whose memory and legend had instilled fear into witches for centuries. She, too, had despised the woman for all she represented, ever since the knowledge of her being came into existence. Emrysa caught her eye, and a flicker of annoyance pinched her features. Why does she always scowl at me? Amara thought with her own scowl and almost laughed at their similarities.
A dark mass of shadow passed the windows outside, casting an inky cloud across the hall. It covered half Emrysa’s face in shadow and Amara wondered if this was the truth of things. That we all hold darkness and light within us.
A maelstrom of thoughts continued to race through Amara’s mind.
Her mother, Nimue. How had she won over Dermot?
My gosh, my father, Amara thought in a fractured moment. An unusual warm feeling in her heart swelled for the man she had never known, had refused to get to know, and yet somehow, through Emrysa’s memories, a deep sense of kinship brewed. He was a good man. Had Mother influenced him with her purple aura as she had Merlin?
Merlin.
She watched him, his zombie-like appearance staring into nothing with the black, black eyes of the moon-marked army. He looked into emptiness with such profound sadness, Amara wondered if he, too, had relived the past through the truth spell whilst under the compulsion of the moon-mark.
For the briefest of moments, Amara grasped time and space, holding it in her mind. Slowing the world. Slowing her spinning thoughts.
She needed time.
In the brief moment she held the spell between her hands, molding and melding time as she took in the vastness of Camelot Hall—witches and innocents who had seen the truth stood with and gathered around Emrysa readying to battle the Darkness. Opposite, the Alchive Council led by Mother stared back in disgust. Would they fight the Darkness together, or fight against their past grievances and bitter lies?
Beside Emrysa, still moon-marked; King Arthur, Merlin, Kay, and… and Bedivere.
Her eyes lingered on him, before a guilty glance to Emrysa, who beneath the surface, trapped, was the beautiful and kind, and very much in love, Morganne.
What an unbearable mess.
In some ways, Amara wanted nothing more than to return to the old days and the old way, when life was simple. The
days before she first stepped out into the Mystic Wood under the command of the full moon, following Shadow into the heart of woods and the heart of Mother’s secrets. The days when the sisters were sisters of three, strange but not unusual girls living in a simple cottage tucked away in the country. Days before the Darkness. Days before lies and myths and legends.
Days before the heart-wrenching pain of unrequited love tore at her organs.
With that thought, Amara lost her grip on her spell and the world and time spun once more, jolting her back into reality.
“You planned this moment for centuries.” Mother—Nimue—barked. “All this time in your hovel, you planned to trick my daughter, to steal her life-force so I could not kill you on sight.”
Emrysa gave a self-congratulatory smile. “It was clear foresight. Something I bet you wish you possessed.”
“I don’t need foresight to know I’ll kill you the first moment I get a chance.”
“Only the weak rely on chance, you prissy little wench,” Emrysa said with a beatific smile.
Amara watched the sparring witches, then bent toward her sister. “Do you have any idea what we should do next?” she uttered behind her hand.
Fae’s face was as emotionless as the moon when she shrugged and shook her head in a gentle whisper, before jolting.
An almighty, deafening crack whipped the air. The ground of the great hall trembled.
“What the…” Amara started, looking first to Emrysa then to her mother. Whose spell is this? But by the confusion on her aunt’s face, and the alarm of Mother’s, Amara knew this was not their work. This was something else. This was something far, far darker.
Her moon-mark itched, and she cast a warning glare at Emrysa.
“Don’t you dare!” Amara yelled, having felt the first stages of the moon-mark call before.
Raven Heart Page 10
