by Meg Bonney
“Lanora, what are you doing?”
“You can’t keep killing these people! My friends, my aunt! You have to free them. Please!”
My father shook his head. “Lanora, these are no friends of yours. They are Magics. Do you not remember what I told you? The Magics murdered so many.” He gestured to the prisoners around him.
“No,” I said.
“Lanora, these monsters were the ones who took you away from me. Your mother and that evil rat took my sweet baby from me. And now―now, we will rule together, you and me. You will rule the Ember Isle. It is your heritage. Please, come over here, dear. Put that sword away.”
“I am doing this with or without your blessing,” I yelled back, lifting the sword.
“Asher, stop!” Jason screamed. I turned to see what he was yelling about.
It was Aunt Ruth. Captain Asher was holding her up by her neck, and he had a sword laid across her chest. Ara lay on the ground, holding her face.
“Stop it! What are you doing?” I yelled.
“Lay down that sword. Lay it down now,” Captain Asher ordered. His eyes were cold, his voice robotic.
“Asher!” Jason yelled again.
“Do not hurt her!” I slid my sword into my scabbard. “Don’t hurt her.”
I stood slowly and raised my hands.
“Madison, no!” Ren screamed.
“Maddy, what are you doing?” Jason yelled behind me. “Keep going!”
“That’s my girl,” King Dax said. “Those two, there—seize them!” My father pointed to Jason and Ren.
“No!” I yelled as two guards grabbed Jason and Ren. “Dax, stop this, please!”
My father remained still and silent. He raised his chin.
“Let her go. Help her! She was going to be your wife!” I pleaded to Captain Asher.
“That was before. Before I knew what magic really was,” he replied with a cold stare.
“Magics must die. All of them,” my father called out to me as he stepped over another body.
“My mother was a Magic, and you loved her! What the hell happened to you?” I shouted angrily.
“Your mother was weak. She isn’t even here to defend her people against me. She is nothing. She means nothing to us. Magic needs to be extinguished from Everly, Lanora. All of it, no matter the cost,” my father spat back.
“My name is Madison.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“That is a name that criminal gave you. No, you are Princess Lanora of the Ember Isle, a Strongblood, like me.”
“She is not a criminal! She raised me. And, funny thing about my bloodline, pops. I take after my mom, too,” I stated angrily.
“What are you taking about?” my father asked.
“A Witch and a Strongblood,” I replied. “I’m both.”
“Impossible. You can’t have her bloodline. One always beats the other. You are a Strongblood,” he said dismissively.
“Well, something that you don’t know about me is that I tend to be a bit of a rulebreaker.” I rubbed my palms together and took a deep breath. Then I concentrated on the torch hanging on the wall near the courtyard’s entrance. It flared up, nearly igniting the guard standing next to it.
“Stop it!” my father yelled.
I looked at the torch again. The flame grew even larger than before.
“Stop this, now!
“Afraid they will see? Afraid they will see what I am and think you are a Magic, too? How many did you tell, Dad? How many did you tell that I am your daughter? Enough that they will overthrow you, thinking you are Magic, too?” I had all the torches burning high by now.
“Stop this!” King Dax roared.
But I couldn’t. Truth was, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, and I had no idea how this newfound power worked.
“Release them or you will be sorry. I mean it!” I shrieked at my father, trying to maintain my confidence.
“I do not take threats, dear. Not even from you. Being my daughter is a gift, and this is what you do with it?” King Dax turned and nodded at Captain Asher.
And just then, just as I met Aunt Ruth’s eyes, my entire world irrevocably changed. Captain Asher swung his sword into her bound wrists, severing her hands with one swift flick of his sword.
I sprinted to her, but I felt the weight of the spell in my steps. I ran as fast as I could to get to her. Terror filled her eyes as he lifted the sword up. I didn’t look at the blood pouring from her handless arms. I ran, as fast and as hard as I could.
But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t fast enough. Every meet, every practice, every sprint meant nothing now.
I wasn’t fast enough to save her.
I screamed as Captain Asher’s blade sliced through her neck and the life left her tear-filled eyes. Aunt Ruth’s body convulsed as it fell to the ground like a crumbling piece of paper. Blood began to pool around her limp body on the sunburnt grass of the courtyard. Captain Asher left her there and returned to King Dax.
“Ruth!” I shrieked in panic.
She was dead.
The courtyard fell silent as I reached her. Her body had started to shrivel and turn gray.
Aunt Ruth was dead.
I dropped to my knees. My sobs echoed through the silent air as I laid my hand on Ruth’s arm.
“Ruth,” I said softly.
I heard a few gasps around me as a soft light fell over the ground. I wiped my tears and looked up. A massive swarm of tiny little lights descended, hovering above us, illuminating the entire courtyard in a soft yellow glow. Fae.
I looked back down at the body of my aunt and started to shiver, even though I was sweating. I touched her arm with the tip of my finger and traced the stiff lines that were forming in her hardening skin.
“Aunt Ruth, it’s okay. It will be okay. I will fix this. I promise.” I stroked her desiccated arm, unable to see through my tears. “Aunt Ruth. I know why you didn’t tell me about my parents. I understand now. I needed to see it on my own.”
“Madison?” I heard Ara’s soft, gentle voice next to me. I didn’t move, staying fixated on Aunt Ruth’s corpse.
“I am so sorry. I am sorry I said I hated you. I didn’t mean it. I hope you knew that I didn’t mean it. Everything you did―he training, the workouts―you knew it would come to this. You knew I would be here someday, didn’t you?” I paused as if waiting for an answer, but there was only silence.
“Lanora!” my father yelled, but I ignored him. “Lanora, come here now.”
“I will make you proud. I will. I will help these people. I will be a leader, like you said. I will,” I murmured, gently wiping my cheeks.
“Go, Madison,” Ara urged me sympathetically, her eye puffy and bleeding from where Captain Asher must have struck her. “You need to hurry.”
Three guards rushed toward me and Ara. I looked at Captain Asher and my father, who stood near the doorway of the courtyard.
“Ara, don’t kill him,” I said. “My father. You can’t kill him.”
Ara’s mouth dropped open slightly.
“I heard you by the campfire. Promise you won’t. I can’t lose them both today.”
Ara tilted her head to the side. “Okay, I will not touch him. You have my word.”
“Thank you, Ara.” I wiped more tears from my face. “I can handle him.”
“I will take care of the guard. Go!” Ara said, and took off toward the oncoming guards.
I stood up, gave Aunt Ruth’s body one more look, and slowly walked back to the center of the courtyard. The sickness from the spell wasn’t as strong as my adrenaline, and I powered through. At the center, I knelt and pulled my sword with a renewed strength, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t feel.
I failed. I couldn’t do it. I had failed.
I could hear them all yelling. I could hear Ren yelling at Captain Asher. I could hear Jason yelling at me to do the spell, but I could not move.
I sank a little fart
her toward the damp grass-covered ground of the courtyard.
I had failed.
As I closed my eyes, ready to give up, I felt two arms wrap tightly around my waist and lift me up from the ground. I didn’t need to look to know who was holding me so carefully.
“Jay?” I whimpered, barely able to speak.
“You aren’t in this alone, Mads. I have you,” Jason asserted. I could hear the pain in his voice as he spoke. He was crying, too.
“Say the words,” he whispered.
“Magic binds the Magics’ line to ’mid the temple doth confine,” I recited. “A strong, a royal, and Rosewood must bleed…”
“Good. Keep going.”
“Onto dagger or sword; ’tis the three that they need to break the bind. Royal must they be to plunge foil to soil so the Magics go free,” I finished.
“Now the sword part.” Jason said. “You’re doing great, Mads.”
I lifted my sword, then plunged the blood-soaked blade into the grassy ground.
A great flash of light blasted through the courtyard. The weakness that I had been fighting lifted from my body like a sigh of relief.
“No!” my father screamed as the Magics began to stir. Some stood immediately, while others rolled and shifted on the ground.
I turned and hugged Jason tightly.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Anytime.”
My father ran toward us.
Ara and Ren were fighting the guards who were trying to detain the freed Magics. “Go help them. I’ll deal with my father,” I said.
Jason nodded and went to join Ara.
“Help each other. Everyone out. Do not harm anyone. Leave the Ember Isle! Go!” Ara shouted.
I looked at Aunt Ruth’s body, hoping the spell would undo what Captain Asher had done. But it hadn’t. Why would it?
More guards started to pour in, and Magics began to attack them in defense. Screams rang out in the courtyard.
“Do you see what you have done?” Captain Asher yelled at me. Jason roared as he charged Captain Asher and punched him so hard in the side of his head that he knocked him out cold. But Jason didn’t stop there. He stayed on Captain Asher, punching him over and over until Ren pulled him away.
I wanted to go to them. I wanted to, but I knew my mission wasn’t over. I needed to distract the guard and the king long enough to get them out.
Ara waved her delicate hand, and the fae descended into the courtyard. They circled around the wounded and seemed to help lift them up and carry them out. My father stopped and swatted at the fae.
I looked at the chaos around me. Magics and guards locked in combat. Blood sprayed, screams rang out, and the horror just continued to grow. Bodies flew as the Magics regained their strength.
“Maddy?” It was Ren.
“You need to go!”
“Stop them!” I heard the king yell behind us as the courtyard emptied. The Magics were winning and escaping. We had won, but it didn’t matter to me now. I had lost Aunt Ruth, and that was more crushing than I ever could have imagined.
“Go! I will distract him. Get them out of here!” I told Ren. “Find Gullway. Make sure he is safe!” My voice cracked. The noise of the scattered battles happening around us threatened to drown out my voice completely, but Ren knew exactly what I was saying, even if he couldn’t hear me. I needed them to leave. I needed my friends to get to safety.
“We are not leaving you.” Ren grabbed my arm.
“Listen to me! You have to take Jason. Promise me you will keep him safe. He won’t go on his own, Ren. Promise me,” I pleaded. I tried to maintain my authority of the situation as I looked back at him. I couldn’t possibly say good-bye, so I didn’t try. Jason was running toward us with Ara.
Tears filled Ren’s emerald eyes as he ran his hand through his hair, nodding.
“Ren, promise to take him somewhere safe,” I begged.
“I promise, Maddy. I promise,” Ren said softly as I backed away.
“Maddy!” Jason pulled at my arm. “We have to go!”
“No.” I pushed him away.
“Maddy, you did it. We can leave now,” Jason pleaded as Ren and Ara grabbed his arms.
I watched as Ren and Ara pulled a violent and screaming Jason with them. Jason’s wails carried over all the other noises in the courtyard. I looked away, unable to watch him as he realized I wasn’t coming with them.
I couldn’t go. I wasn’t finished here yet.
“Lanora!” my father yelled at me. He looked panicked, stalking angrily toward me as his cape billowed behind him. His eyes darted around madly as the chaos spilled out of the courtyard into the temple halls and out of sight.
“Guards! Guards!” my father shouted, pointing them toward my friends. I needed to keep his focus on me. I needed my friends to escape, and I knew just what to do.
My father grabbed my elbow and shook me. “What have you done?”
“Sorry,” I replied. I pulled the glove from my sword hand. “But wait…there’s more.”
“What are you doing now?” King Dax looked around, clear anxiety on his face.
“Better call your guard over. I call this the big finish,” I yelled back over the growing roars of the few remaining Magics and guards fighting.
“I may only have a little Witch in me, but it’s there. I hate to break it to you, but your daughter is a Magic, King Dax.” I grasped the sword in my hand, and it lit with a bright flash of blue. I felt my wounds healing. Warmth ran over me and my skin tingled.
His mouth dropped open.
“I have spent so much time thinking about you, about what I would say to you if I ever met you. And here you are―big bad Dad. You killed Aunt Ruth. She gave up everything for me. I never…” I gripped the sword tightly and pressed my lips together.
“Why couldn’t you just be wonderful? Why? Why couldn’t you just be the dad I wanted you to be?” I begged as I felt my last wound heal. “Why?”
“Stop this! Stop this magic,” my father demanded. His face was red, and his eyes narrowed.
“I can’t. Don’t you see that? I don’t know how to control it. This is me. I am a Magic. I am everything you hate. You can hate me, but it won’t change who I have become.”
My father shook his head. His focus wasn’t even on me now. He was scanning the area to see who else had seen me, who else knew what his daughter was. My first real act of rebellion against my real father, and he was more concerned about how it made him look, not about me. I studied the tension in his face; the way his eyes widened, his jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared when he exhaled. It was exactly what I looked like when I was angry.
I am my father’s daughter.
“My father,” I said shaking my head. “No matter how many times I say it, it will always sound weird. You are my father. I found you.” My lip trembled beyond my control. “And you were supposed to be wonderful.”
Some of the Magics and the guards were watching us now—the few who remained. They had all seen who I really was. My father turned to see them all staring at us.
“No,” he said sharply.
I looked up at him, waiting for him to say something comforting. Maybe he would surprise everyone. I was his daughter. His hatred of Magics couldn’t possibly be stronger than the look of joy on his face when he had seen me by the castle gate.
My father leaned his face toward mine and I smiled back at him. Maybe this would work out after all! Maybe…
His low, gruff voice was soft. “Lanora, you may have freed them today, but I will kill every last Magic. All of them. You cannot save them. You cannot beat me.”
I met his eyes for a moment. The loving embrace and warm smile were distant memories now. I wasn’t the daughter he longed for; that was glaringly clear. I was just a Magic in his eyes now. His eyes that looked like mine.
I opened my mouth to speak to him, but before I could, he grabbed my sword hand and spoke to the peopl
e in the courtyard, not to me.
“I would rather you die than live as a Magic!” he yelled loudly, so that everyone could hear.
And then, before I realized it was happening, King Dax, my father, plunged my sword straight into my gut.
I gasped loudly and buckled over. As I stumbled back, he looked down at me. His amber eyes filled with contempt as I started to fall.
What just happened?
I heard more screams as my head smacked into the grassy ground. Everything looked a little foggy in the night air of the temple courtyard. I tried to move my fingers along the browning blades of grass beneath me. It wasn’t like the hard grass at home. It was soft and silky, even.
The grass couldn’t distract me from the heat that was burning in my stomach. I coughed. Blood spurted from my mouth, and I rolled to my back as I smeared it away with my palm.
“Maddy!” a familiar voice screamed. Someone was there next to me. My gaze fell to the side as I saw my father running away, his cloak flapping as he ran.
And then someone knocked him to the ground in a crumple of bodies. Somebody was on him.
I saw Ara and heard the familiar sound of the seashells in her ponytail as her hands wrapped around mine. Her touch gave me more comfort than I thought possible.
“D―Did they get out?” I managed to ask.
Then Jason and Ren’s faces were there, too.
“Madison, please stay. Please stay,” Ren said quickly.
“It’s okay. She’s a Witch, it’s the head and the hands, right…right?” Jason asked frantically.
“That is full Witches,” Ara said. “I―I do not know about half Witches.”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but I couldn’t tell if the words actually left my lips or if I only thought them.
I felt lips on my forehead. It was Ren. They all looked so sad.
“Shh,” I tried to say, but the blood on my lips made it a larger effort than I could handle. “It’s okay… It’s all going to be okay…”
Jason’s face came into focus. He was yelling and holding my hand, I thought.
“My Jason,” I slurred as I coughed out more blood. I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn’t move anymore. The heat that radiated from my stomach had consumed me.
