Yanna grabbed hold of my shoulders, shaking me in half-suppressed emotion, even as Warrick thumped Donal on the back. All around us, I saw hugs and cheers, mixed with sadness over the witches we’d lost at the bottom of that cliff.
My mind was still with the spaces underground though.
I felt my friends down there.
I no longer needed the volcanic stone.
I felt them through the very rock, through the soles of my feet where I stood on the surface of Othala. I knew a strength I’d never known before, feeling them there.
I knew I would never let myself lose that connection again.
More than that, I felt exactly what I must do to keep my promise to them.
Chapter 21
THE CAPITOL
WE GOT BACK via trucks we procured on the other side of the walls in the north.
Then, when we got closer to the Capitol itself, we found a cluster of boats that would bring us in along the swollen river.
We were more than simply Phoenix Squad by then.
We were Eagle Four, as well, and Ibix Eight.
Donal had used magics and later, electronic messages to inform those back at the Black Fortress that we were no longer bound to the white witches rule. I listened to him try to explain it several times, that the fire lizards were now free, that they were no longer in the employ of white magics, but I could tell by the frustration in his voice that they still didn’t quite believe him.
I knew it would not matter, not yet.
Those who had been out in the field felt it when their magics returned, and came with us willingly enough when Donal explained to them where we were going.
By the time we boarded boats along the Chons-Nai River, I felt satisfied we had enough numbers to do what needed to be done.
Donal stationed gunners aft and stern on each boat, to shoot at ravagers if they got too close to the boats. We wove in and out of Heaven’s Sky, and strangely, rather than resenting it, I found it even more beautiful than I had before.
I remembered the story Donal and Yanna told me, about Ilric the Brave and the first Regent, the great witch Ilawanai, and I smiled.
The two magics were never meant to be at war with one another.
They were meant to work together.
They were meant to complement one another, not to compete... to share their different beauties with one another, and with the world.
I felt Heaven’s Sky as coming from above, just as the fire lizards came from below. I felt how they formed a ring around the world, around Othala, where above and below met somewhere, on either side of that ring.
I felt the sheer, unadorned beauty in that.
I also felt how it got corrupted when some tried to cut the white off from the red, only serving to choke both of their powers. None of that was done for magic. That was done for the glory of a few egos and small minds, nothing more.
I was determined to reunite heaven and the gods below.
When we pulled up to the docks at the back of the castle, I barely recognized it as the same place through which Donal and I had been taken in chains in the middle of the night.
Expediency required that we employ some force, of course, including at the dock itself.
Even so, no shots were fired.
Rather, the red witches aimed their much more deadly guns at the humans at the gates and demanded that they disarm. To emphasize the point, a few of them also made winged creatures out of fire magics, which cowed the guards so much, the remaining few who held onto their guns dropped them at once, letting them clatter to the dock’s wood.
Those in the Regent’s Guard who knew me stared, unabashedly, when they realized who I was. A few of them seemed to think I might be a ghost.
It wasn’t until I went up to one I knew from when we were children, shaking him roughly when he only stammered at me, that I finally got some answers.
“Garet,” I said at once, the instant his eyes focused on mine. “Is he still alive?”
The man, whose name was Morli, once more stared at me like I might be a living spirit.
I shook him again, more firmly that time. “Mor!” I said, sharper. “Did they kill Garet? Or is he still alive, in the prison?”
“H-h-he’s still alive. All of them are. They were to be killed tomorrow.”
I released him at once, exhaling. “Good. Go let him out of his cell. Let all of them out. Now. If anyone asks, tell him it’s Regent’s orders.”
“Th-th-th––”
“The Regent, yes,” I said. “And no, I don’t mean that cowardly murderer, the Lady Annika.”
Morli’s jaw dropped. Still in some state of shock, he looked from my face to the significantly less friendly faces of Warrick and Donal beside me. Something in those last two seemed to decide things for him and he nodded, so hard it might have been comical if it wasn’t for the fear I saw in his expression.
He nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to get away from us.
I looked to Yanni and Choki. “You’d better go with him,” I said, sighing. “Take a few more with you, if you can. Disarm any others in the Guard you find who cause you trouble. Lock them up if you have to, but don’t hurt anyone, if you can help it.”
Grinning at me, like she enjoyed the prospect a little too much, Yanni took off after Morli, with Warrick, two witches I didn’t know and Choki right on her heels.
Glancing up at Donal, I sighed again when I saw his scowl.
“Garet?” he grunted. “That is your first priority? Really?”
I scowled back. “He’s a friend. And you’re being stupid.”
On his other side, a witch named Jana overheard me and burst out in an involuntary-sounding laugh. Jana was an Eagle Four I’d befriended on the trip down, and she seemed to find me and Donal amusing in general.
Donal scowled at her, too, but didn’t speak another word about Garet.
Well, not in front of the others, at least.
We marched into the Regent’s reception hall right at the start of the nightly banquet.
I had about forty red witches and warlocks with me by then, in addition to a handful of the human guards who’d basically come over to our side as soon as they saw me alive and I told them that it was Lady Annika who’d tried to have me killed.
I must say, walking into that hall was strange.
It was about as surreal a scene as I could have imagined, even apart from how completely different I felt, compared to the last time I had been in this room.
What made the experience even stranger was, no one even noticed us at first.
Some of that was due to the odd placement of the main doorway and the size and dimensions of the room. The hall’s perimeter also housed thick marble columns that broke up visibility from the Regent’s main platform, which stood against the far wall, opposite the doors. Between that and the music playing, no one glanced up at first, but continued talking loudly as musicians played in the circle formed between the long line of laid tables.
Even so, I found myself watching them all for those first few seconds in something like disbelief. Glasses chinked and silverware clanked and the occasional drunk-sounding laugh drifted towards us from one of the courtiers seated at the lower tables. Familiar faces gossiped in small clusters around the lead table at top, the one reserved only for royals and their families, which stood on the highest of the two platforms.
As usual, the hall and all of its tables were mostly full.
Servants wound between the guests, filling wine cups and setting down trays of food.
Jugglers juggled in the center between the long tables and a painted clown rolled around on the floor. Musicians seated in a line under the highest platform played comical refrains as the audience laughed.
I watched it all, and could only feel the absurdity of it.
How had I ever been afraid of these people?
When I spoke aloud, projecting my voice through the cavernous room, every eye turned towards me. The musicians stoppe
d playing with a screech on their strings. Voices ceased their conversations. Even the clown stared towards us, his mouth open.
Like the guards, they looked almost comical as they gaped at me where I stood.
“I apologize for interrupting your meal,” I said, my voice holding a trace of sarcasm I couldn’t control. “I am Lady Maia, of the Black Fortress.”
Silence. They all gaped at me still, like I were a ghost.
Raising my voice still louder, I spoke in clear, ringing tones.
“I have returned here to right the lies spoken of me and my family. And to bring justice to this throne, in the hopes of restoring its integrity to the benefit of our people.”
Silence.
Every face stared up at me, as if I had spoken in a tongue no one knew.
“Where is the false Regent?” I said, my voice sharper, echoing in that open space. “Where is my proclaimed mother... and later, aunt... the Lady Annika?”
My eyes moved to the center of the high table, as someone stood silently.
Somehow, I had missed her there before, but I saw her now.
Decked out in a bejeweled, gold and white robe I recognized from the previous Regent, my Aunt Kalia, the only woman I’d only ever known as my mother stared down at me, that same contempt etching her features that I remembered from my youth.
“You would dare to come here?” Coldness shone from her hazel eyes. Her slim form hugged every contour of the embroidered and jewel-encrusted dress. “You would bring this... dog. This animal of a warlock with you? Here?”
Glancing to where her eyes fell, I saw Donal scowling up at her, that red fire glowing brighter in his eyes. Reaching out, I touched his arm with my hand, squeezing him there in reassurance. He looked at me when I did it, frowning faintly, but I saw the understanding in his eyes too. The mercy I pleaded wasn’t for Lady Annika.
It was for every other soul in this hall.
I knew Donal agreed with me on that.
Even so, I knew his sister must be on his mind, as well, and the fact that she was likely still imprisoned here somewhere, perhaps below this very building.
Feeling my jaw firm at the thought, I looked up Lady Annika again.
“The game is over, auntie.” I spoke caustically, but left no question in my voice. “The time of pretending red magics do not exist, of pretending the twisted thing you have made of white magic is all there is... it is over. That fiction is dead. Finished.”
Lady Annika’s face changed for the first time.
I watched color bloom up her cheeks. I thought maybe the expression I saw there was fear at first, but after watching her for a few seconds, I realized it was anger.
Not anger. Fury.
A murderous rage rose in her. I knew it was not at the thought of her precious white magics being corrupted by myself or Donal.
No, she was furious that I would dare to try and take this from her.
“That magic is profane!” she shrieked, pointing at me. “You are a bastard’s daughter! You are nothing! No one! You roll in the dirt of those vile, dark, animal magics, and have the temerity to come here? To threaten me?” Her eyes seemed to grow a few shades darker. “Are you forgetting what we hold over your kind? Are you forgetting we hold the keys to your race... a bunch of reptiles slithering in the mud? That’s all it took to control you. Reptiles! Throwback animals from a throwback race!”
Around me, red witches and warlocks bristled, gripping their guns.
I raised my hands, again calming them.
Already, I had been calling to my friends below the earth.
When I felt them answering that call, I turned back towards the woman I’d once called my mother. A woman I’d done everything in my power to make proud of me, to serve.
“You killed Nalia,” I said. “You killed her... your own sister. You tried to kill me. And while I may not be your daughter, if you are telling true, I was still your niece.” My throat tightened. “I never knew my mother. I never knew anything about her. I’ll never know her now. I’ll never even know who my father is... because of you.”
That time, another voice broke into the silence.
That voice was so familiar, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
My Uncle Karlen’s voice rang out loud and clear, angry-sounding.
“That is not true, Maia.”
I turned to find Karlen standing as well, near one of the long tables on the floor. His eyes held mine alone, too bright even in the torchlight and chandeliers of the hall. He looked up at Annika briefly, his eyes somber, then back at me.
“Maia, you deserve to know the truth of who you are.”
“Be silent, old man,” Annika hissed at him.
“I will not be silent... not anymore.” He glared at her, then turned his gaze back to me, his eyes somber, but holding a determined cast. “I didn’t see the point of telling this before, when I thought you dead, but Nalia was not your mother, child. Nor was Lady Annika.” Hesitating, he glanced around the room, then back to me. His eyes grew bright, right before he went on. “Your mother was the Regent Kalia.”
“Liar!” Annika slammed her hand down on the table above, her voice a snarl as she stared down at Karlen’s face. “You are a lying, crazy, old fool! Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s true,” Karlen said coldly. “As you very well know, Annika.” He looked back at me. “I know it especially well, dearest, because I am your father.”
I stared at him, feeling my heart thudding painfully in my chest. I couldn’t make sense of his words at first, but they felt so right, so true, I couldn’t refute them, either.
I almost wondered if some part of me had already known.
Donal reached for me, laying a hand firmly on my shoulder, exuding heat.
I fell into his strength, taking a deep breath as Karlen went on.
“I know she regretted, every day, that you ended up with her sister, Annika,” he said, still speaking to me. Turning towards Annika, he raised his voice, exuding a hotter anger. “I know she regretted that up until her death, Annika. She saw how you treated her only daughter, and she felt powerless to stop it. You used Maiwe to blackmail your sister for years... threatening to expose her as a red witch and banish her into slavery at every turn. Threatening to lock her in the fire temple and force her to live a live underground, trapped by delusions and despair!”
By the end, my uncle––no, my father, my mind corrected in wonder––was nearly in tears.
Looking between him and Annika, I got lost there, in my childhood, in the reality of everything that must have occurred behind the scenes, everything I didn’t know about.
All of the pieces clicked into place. Clear. Irrefutable.
My “uncle’s” marriage to my Aunt Jalinee, arranged in the wake of my birth, likely to silence gossip around him and the lawful Regent.
A jealous sister, Annika, taking everything she could from that secret and using it to control the throne and the throne’s successor.
My mother, the Regent Kalia, forced to suffer in silence, or condemn her only daughter to slavery and banishment.
Looking at Annika now, seeing the proud, unapologetic coldness of her eyes, the surety of her own righteousness, the entitled arrogance that she deserved everything she got, everything she managed to claw away from or steal or manipulate from anyone else... I knew.
The thought made me sick, but I knew.
It had to be true.
“You killed her,” I said, as that sickness roiled my belly. “You killed both of your sisters. And you tried to kill me. After all, why be Regent’s Blood, when you can be the Regent yourself? What else did you have in your sad, pathetic life? What have you ever had, auntie, that you didn’t steal from those who must have once loved you?”
She only smiled.
It was that same, contemptuous smile I remembered.
Raising her voice, Annika proclaimed, “All you have done is prove that my sister, the Regent Kalia, was unfit for her p
ost. That she was a liar, and impure, and should never have been Regent in the first place... a shame I tried to protect her and this family from for most of her life.”
Annika’s voice grew colder still as she pointed at me.
“And you, of course, are the most unfit of all, niece. Your blood has been tainted by that foul bloodline from the moment you were born. You are a throwback... a stillbirth from those ancient times, when witches and warlocks were little better than animals!”
The last part of her speech got lost partway in shrieks and panicked shuffles from our side of the room. Chairs screeched across the tile floor. White witches and warlocks frantically tried to climb up on them, trying to get away from something on the floor. Others ran between the tables, trying to get out of the banquet hall altogether, making their way for one of the wooden doors leading out into the gardens.
I knew it was too late for that, though.
I could feel my friends all around me now.
I only looked down when two of them stood on either side of me, their long tongues flicking out between black lips. Up close, I could see their blue and gray skin between the glowing red and gold patches. Their veins pulsed that light through their very skin, exuding power.
I lay a hand on each of their heads, stroking them fondly.
When I glanced back, smiling at Donal, I saw alarm on his face.
He hadn’t run like most of the others, nor had most of the red witches and warlocks who had come into the hall with me. But they all stared at me now in awe, like they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing as I touched the great heads. When the lizard to my right nudged me with an impatient butt of his blunt nose, I turned back to the remaining group of white witches and warlocks, and once more raised my voice.
“This time of ruling white witches is over,” I said, my voice final. “It is done. We will no longer be your slaves... nor do we wish to enslave you, although justice will need to be done, to at least one in this room.”
I aimed a cool stare at my aunt.
“I strip you of your title of Regent, Lady Annika,” I said. “The people will decide who will take your place... among all the witches, not only those of white blood. Additionally, no longer will some arbitrary rule require some archaic notion of ‘purity’ to hold that title. The Regent may be married and have offspring. They may also be not married and not have offspring. They may be female or male. They may also be removed, if they cease to serve the will of their subjects.”
Red Magic: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 6 (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 22
