by K. A. Linde
“He’d better be pleased after that,” Benetta muttered.
She stoked her finger down the tiny face and played with all the little fingers. Staring down at her daughter like she was a little miracle.
“What will you call her?”
Benetta sighed in pleasure. “Selma.”
“It’s perfect.”
The minute Benetta was left alone, the candles extinguished, and the room was cast into darkness. Benetta didn’t cry out as a figure materialized out of thin air into the room.
“Hello, sister,” Benetta said. “Did you come to offer your congratulations?”
Malysa glowed the bright gold of the Domara people. Her self-portaling clearly, perfectly intact at the time. Her face was set in a look of disgust. “This has gone on long enough, Benny. Having a dalliance with a human is one thing. Becoming his prize breeding mare is quite another.”
“I know it is hard for you to believe, Lysa, but this is what I want. I love Henrik. I love our daughter. This is nothing like home. We are not bound to live out our lives like we did back in Domara.”
“We are meant to rule,” Malysa hissed. “Not create these abominations. Have you considered what happens if you breed magic into the line?”
Benetta smiled and kissed her daughter’s head. “Then, we start the academy we were always denied.”
Malysa looked at her, horrified. “I thought you were my sister.”
“I am, Lysa. Why can’t you accept that this is a good thing?”
“How can you not see that this is beneath you?”
“I don’t want to rule. You rule. I will have my family.”
“So, that’s it?” Malysa asked, straightening. “You’re turning your back on your only family.”
“I’m turning my back on nothing but your all-consuming control. You are no better than Father if you try to force your way of living on me.”
Malysa took a step back in shock and horror. Then, she disappeared in a clap of blackness.
“I didn’t see her for many years after that,” Vera whispered. “I should have worried more. But I was busy with a new family and a new life. I didn’t see what she was becoming. How she was gaining her title—the goddess of destruction.”
3
The Destroyer
“Benetta, come quick,” Henrik cried, rushing into their home.
She was on her feet before he even reached her. She admired the shot of gray through his hair while she still looked as if she were in the blush of youth. “What is it, my love?”
“Your sister.”
The words clearly froze her in place. “Where is she?”
“The woods. Out by the old cabin.”
“What will I find when I get there?”
“Something I wish that I could shield you from,” Henrik said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “But you are the only one who can stop her.”
“Take care of the children and send word to Selma immediately.”
Henrik grimaced. “Do you think it will be necessary to warn our daughter?”
“Selma might be our firstborn, but she is also the strongest in my gifts. I trained her the best I could. She is training others now. It would be best for her to be ready…”
She didn’t say anything else, but Cyrene could see that she was trying to prepare her husband for the worst.
“I won’t be long,” Benetta promised. It sounded like a lie.
Benetta reached in her pocket and withdrew a gold coin. The same gold coin that Cyrene held with the face of a woman and a raised motto rimming the outside. The coin that Malysa had given to Cyrene while she was in the midst of her blood-magic fever dream. The very same one that Malysa had used to try to recruit Cyrene.
Cyrene’s eyes were wide as she turned them on Vera, who just nodded. Benetta flipped the coin, and a portal opened.
“You knew the whole time,” Cyrene hissed at her.
Vera winced. “I am sorry, Cyrene. You had to discover it on your own.”
“You told me a coin had never been used as a talisman before,” she accused.
“Matilde said that,” Vera whispered. “And, to her knowledge…one never had.”
“You lied to her, too? She’s your…”
“Twin?” Vera finished on a sigh. “Let’s just continue the story.”
Cyrene shook her head and then watched as Benetta stepped through the portal and onto a snow-covered path covered in bright red blood. The scene was beyond gruesome. A horrifying display of cruelty. Men lay scattered across the path in no discernible pattern. Just pure slaughter. Throats slit, guts gouged from the navels up, bodies hacked to pieces. She had never seen anything like it, and though it had happened more than two millennia ago, she still gagged at the sight.
Snow crunched under Benetta’s boots as she walked through the carnage toward the cabin at the top of the hill. A woman stood before it, a shining goddess in mourning white. The gown was splattered with the blood of the dying men. And Cyrene could taste it then. Blood magic.
Her body sizzled at the feel. She was thankful it was a vision and that she couldn’t taste the sweet, tempting elixir for herself. Blood magic was the most addictive substance on the earth. She had used the blood magic from her parents’ deaths to save King Edric, and as far as she knew, she was the only person to ever survive it. Still, it tempted her. And she could feel it in the air here.
Cyrene looked toward Vera. But she was staring at her sister and the scene unfolding.
“Lysa,” Benetta said softly. “Lysa…are you okay?”
Malysa turned then and faced her sister. The dark pupils were completely blasted out until it appeared her entire eyes were black with power. With madness.
“Now you come, sister,” Malysa snapped, her voice a whip.
“What has happened? What…what happened here?”
“I killed them,” she said dismissively.
“Yes. But why? They were innocent men. They didn’t deserve this death.”
“They were not innocent. They were nothing,” she growled.
“Tell me,” Benetta begged. “Tell me what happened. How to help you.”
Malysa looked away then, off to the mountains beyond. Her voice was even, but her hands trembled. “I met a man. I thought…I thought, if you could be happy with these mongrels, then I could find that same happiness. He was a young lord, wealthy, with all the right words. Words of flattery. But it was a joke, a lie.”
Benetta tensed.
Vera went rigid, as if anticipating the blow. Cyrene bit her lip and waited.
“He made a mistake. He thought me a fool. He thought I was not what I’d said I was—a goddess in truth. He invited his friends here.” Malysa’s mad gaze met her. “They thought that a woman could not defend herself. That a woman was nothing more than a vessel. A worthless piece of flesh for their organs to violate.”
“Lysa,” Benetta gasped, taking a step closer.
“Their mistake was paid for in blood. All of their blood.” She reached down and retrieved the head at her foot. She callously threw it to Benetta. “Return this to your village as a reminder of what will happen to men when they seek to take advantage.”
“Oh, Lysa, I’m so sorry.” She took another step forward. “Please let me help you. Let me wash you and clean your clothes. I’ll…I’ll take care of you.”
Malysa grinned then. That old, familiar darkness winking into existence. The black edges coating her fingertips. “No. I think not. I think…this is just the beginning.”
And then Malysa turned around and walked into the cabin.
Cyrene looked at Vera. “Did you go after her?”
A tear trickled down Vera’s face. The vision wavered with her emotions and the drain on her magic. “I tried to reach her many times, but she was lost to me. Some would say that I should have stopped her then. With all those men at my feet. But I did not disagree with her then, nor do I now. She was my sister, and she was hurting. Though I wish I could have fixed what c
ame later.”
The vision reassembled on a battlefield. The castle of Byern was in the background. Not quite as magnificent as it was today, as it had still been under construction. But, clearly, much time had passed. Enough time that the Doma court had begun, evidenced by the variety of colored dress of the magical users on the battlefield.
“Malysa and I spent three hundred years circling each other. While I was creating the academy Malysa and I always dreamed back home and helping generations of my family run the country, my sister was creating her own dark world. Corrupting a branch of my family to make the cursed Nokkin, creating the Indres, awakening her assassins—the Braj—and making dark artifacts. We fought many battles. But it all came to a close here.” Vera winced. “Or so I thought.”
Benetta’s lithe figure and mass of curly brown hair appeared then, stalking off of the battlefield. She still seemed to be no older than Cyrene. Possibly younger. Though Cyrene knew she was several hundred years old at this point.
Cyrene and Vera followed her away from the war and up into the mountains.
A few moments later, Malysa appeared.
“You called, sister?” Malysa asked.
Her madness had only intensified. She’d lost weight. Her eyes were all black, dark circles hanging heavy underneath, and black was running up from her fingers over her wrists and to her elbows.
“Let us finish this once and for all.”
Malysa laughed without mirth. “You think you are a challenge for me, little sister? You command nothing. And you were always weaker than me.”
“Yes,” Benetta agreed easily.
She shucked off the cloak she had been wearing and removed a book that Cyrene had seen many times. The book that Basille Selby had given to her sister, Elea, on the day of Cyrene’s Presenting. The book that Elea had given to Cyrene as a birthday present. The book that had started everything.
Vera reached out and clasped her hand. Her skin was clammy, and her body turned from solid to a wisp. Cyrene could hardly hold on to her.
“Soon now.” Vera’s voice was carried on the breeze.
“Oh, a book.” Malysa cackled. “You always were the scholar, weren’t you?”
“Once, you wished to become that.”
“No, I was the politician, dear sister. I wanted the knowledge to rule. No more. Once, I wanted you to be the academic at my back. But, no, you had to choose them.”
“I didn’t choose them, Malysa. I would be happy in a world where we could all live in harmony.”
“I made the mistake of believing that was possible once, too. But never again. I have my own children now.”
“If that is what you call your abominations.”
Vera shook and gasped as the vision wavered. Her magic running dry. “Just…a little more.”
“Are you sure?”
Vera didn’t answer. She just concentrated.
Malysa and Benetta fought then. A magical fight like nothing Cyrene had ever seen. True light and dark clashing together. A battle that would be replayed in history over and over. Replaying this civil war, this family feud, that shook the heavens.
Then, Benetta removed something from her pocket. A diamond. The diamond. Malysa’s eyes went wide with shock and greed. But Benetta channeled her energy into the diamond, she said a phrase from the book, and bright light cascaded from the talisman. She directed it at Malysa.
Cyrene shielded her eyes from the blinding light, and when she looked once more, Malysa had been split in two. A body lay on the floor, and a dark spirit hung in the space before it. Severed.
Benetta clutched her chest, gasping for breath. Blood ran from her nose and out of her ears. Her body shuddered with exhaustion. She slowly rose to her feet, but something was different about her. It was as if her glow had diminished…even though she had dampened it for so long.
Tears fell down Vera’s face. They watched Benetta try and fail to open a portal with the coin a half-dozen times before she regained enough energy to force it to open. She took the dark spirit high into the Haeven Mountains and trapped her sister away forever.
Vera’s hand suddenly disappeared from Cyrene’s. She reached for Vera, but she was gone. The wisp disintegrating, wafting away into nothing.
Cyrene pushed her hand against the wall to walk out of Vera’s memories and nightmares. But the liquid she normally encountered had solidified. There was no escape.
She swallowed and tried to release the sudden spike of anxiety. She could get out of here. She wasn’t trapped just because Vera was gone.
She pressed against the wall again, but nothing happened. Then, the vision disassembled and was replaced by the tallest, darkest snow-capped mountains she’d ever seen. The Haeven Mountains in the high north frozen tundra.
A laugh echoed behind her.
Cyrene whipped around, and to her horror, she found a figure standing at an entrance to the mountains. Malysa. Her heart froze. She looked so like Matilde. She was Matilde. The dark spirit reunited with the body. Her curls were wild. The black had returned, climbing up her arms. She smiled wickedly at Cyrene.
“How was your walk down memory lane?” Malysa asked pleasantly.
Cyrene stilled. “You can’t be here.”
“And yet, I am.”
“What do you want?”
Malysa smiled. “I told you what I want.”
“Me?”
“I did, but now, I think annihilation to any who won’t submit to me would be nice.”
“You’re not going to win,” Cyrene said with a false sense of confidence.
“You couldn’t keep me out of your dreams when I was but a sliver of my true power. How do you expect to stop me now? Wouldn’t it be easier if you just submitted to me?”
“No,” she spat.
Malysa grinned, and it was pure wickedness. “That’s not what your friend said.”
Cyrene glared. “Let. Ahlvie. Go.”
“I would if he wanted to leave.”
“He does.”
Malysa winked at her. “I just don’t understand why you evade me, Cyrene. My sister has been a bad, bad girl. She’s lied to you. Everyone has lied to you. Why give your allegiance to those who are faithless?”
“Probably because they’re not mass murderers.”
Malysa laughed then. Laughed and laughed. “Your hands are all red.”
Suddenly, Cyrene’s hands were literally red. Blood dripping off of them as if she’d just killed all those people she feared she would.
“Doesn’t it call you?”
Cyrene shivered as if Malysa had run a nail down her neck.
“The blood magic?”
“No,” Cyrene ground out.
“It wants you to come home. To me.”
Suddenly, the need hit her full force like it hadn’t since she was cured in Fen. She dropped to her knees. It ached so bad. She thought she was going to die. The need, the want, the pain, the desire, the blood. Her stomach clenched, and she groaned.
She closed her eyes and tried to fight the blood magic from overwhelming her and leaving her senseless. She was stronger than this. She could get out of this. She didn’t need it. She didn’t want it. She had promised that she would never do it again or else it would end in disaster.
She gritted her teeth and remembered this was just a dream. Just spirit. It was all controlled by whoever was strongest. Cyrene pushed back inch by inch. Released her need for it. Shoved it away from her. Pressed it out of her body and then tossed it toward Malysa.
Malysa took a step back in surprise. Her eyes widened and then narrowed.
Cyrene knew then that Malysa was about to grasp back control of the dream. That she was here to toy with her. And, if she got the edge again, she’d never let her go.
She concentrated, and with a gasp, she fell backward out of the spiritual plane. The sound of Malysa’s screams of frustration was her last thought before she crashed back into her body, emotionally and physically spent.
4
Th
e Council
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Vera cried over and over again. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she rocked Cyrene’s body. “Please forgive me. I held on as long as I could. But she saw my weakness. She pushed me out.”
“Vera,” Cyrene choked.
“Oh, Cyrene,” Vera gasped. “You’re alive. How did you get out? She let you out?”
Cyrene’s only response was rolling over and vomiting up the contents of her stomach. She purged and purged and purged. Would have opened up her own veins to try to get the dark magic out of her bloodstream if she thought it would help. But all she felt was the tingling ache of it zinging through her system. The desire gnawing through her stomach.
Vera ran her hand down Cyrene’s back. She could sense Sarielle and Ameerath hovering nearby. Their distress was palpable.
What happened, my soul sister? I felt the great Vera break the link, her magic fracturing, but then you were gone. Pulled away from me.
The fear was clear in Sarielle’s voice as she spoke directly into Cyrene’s mind, but she had no words yet. The sensation of blood magic still crawled through her. So potent. So tempting.
“It was Malysa,” Vera said. “She pulled you to her.”
Cyrene nodded, spitting the disgusting taste of bile out of her mouth. She swallowed and winced at the raw texture of her throat. She was in no condition to speak about what had happened. The fear was still raw, and the sickness continued to escalate and run rampant through her.
She needed to get away.
Far, far away from any humans.
She didn’t trust herself. Not with Malysa’s influence in her veins. Not with the blood magic threatening for her to take a life.
She closed her eyes and dug her hands into the hard-packed earth. She was stronger than this. She had only used blood magic once. She did not want this. She was stronger than this.
“Cyrene,” Vera croaked, “what happened in there?”
Cyrene just shook her head and bodily crawled away from Vera. She wrapped her arms around her legs and then rocked back and forth, back and forth. She needed to get it out. She needed it gone.
