The High Priest's Daughter

by Katie Cross

  My heart stopped. “He’s going to face Dane?” I asked, breathless.

  “Yes.”

  “But Dane!” I cried. “He’s a Watcher and a High Priest. Papa is strong, but surely Dane is at least as strong and is able to see future possibilities on top of it. He’ll see Papa coming!”

  “It’s possible,” Stella said. “Dane is a very powerful witch. But your father feels this is the only way we can stop them and save more lives. We don’t know if the West Guards will attack the castle tonight or not. Several of them returned back to the West.”

  “What if something happens? What if Dane wins and I never see Papa again? The last things we would have said to each other would have been—”

  I broke off, unable to finish. Stella squeezed my hand.

  “He doesn’t plan on losing, Bianca. Isadora says there’s a chance it will work out, that unexpected circumstances could fall into place that would enable us to pull ahead. She didn’t say what those circumstances were, of course, but we must trust that she would not lead us astray.”

  Even Isadora’s blessing brought me no comfort. I stared at the floor in stunned disbelief.

  “Our Protectors that spy on the West report that at least five contingents of West Guards have disappeared,” Stella continued, rubbing a hand over her weary eyes. “As there have been no new attacks, we can only assume something is in the works.”

  The word Protector stirred my mind back to Merrick. “Did he kick Merrick out of the Protectors?”

  She shook her head. “No. Derek was upset with Merrick, but he thanked him for keeping you safe. Merrick is still in the Brotherhood.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Reassigned away from here, I believe.”

  “Why would Papa care so much about Merrick and I?”

  Stella pushed her lips to one side with a hint of a smile. “I think that had something more to do with your father’s fear of losing his daughter to a handsome young witch.”

  “Jikes,” I whispered, for so many reasons.

  “I’m not privy to all the details, but I believe that Derek was nothing more than a protective Papa last night and not a High Priest. Go easy on him. He bears the weight of a Network of witches on his shoulders. He’s terrified he’ll lose you, or somehow fail you. Your fight with Mabel really scared him last summer.”

  I stared at her. In all the years being a Protector’s daughter, of never knowing if he’d come back, I’d never felt this kind of blood-curling fright in my life. The stakes hadn’t been this high before.

  “It’s never been this scary,” I said.

  “You’ve never been the High Priest’s daughter before. And, for the record, neither has anyone else in all our history.”

  “I’m beginning to see why Esmelda pioneered the tradition,” I said ruefully, and Stella agreed with a humorless chuckle.

  “Yes. It would seem she understood a great deal about the world of magic and politics.”

  A heavy bank of black clouds hovered on the horizon. Lightning streaked across the sky, and I heard a distant roll of thunder. Wondering if I’d ever talk to Merrick or Papa again, I fell into a restless swirl of thoughts, not having felt so helpless since Mama fell into my arms.

  “Stella,” I whispered. “I’m not going to lose Papa, am I?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know, Bianca. I don’t know.”

  My friends eluded the Witchery, and the castle bustled with preparations, so I lay on the divan alone to sort through my heavy thoughts. Reeves had been puttering around the apartment, cleaning everything twice, so the gentle smell of lavender lulled me into an uneasy nap under a churning afternoon thunderstorm.

  Another nightmare captured me as soon as I slipped out of consciousness.

  I stood at the mouth of a watery, musty cavern. The air seemed wet when I reached out to touch the glistening cave wall, unable to feel the cool, slimy texture with my fingertips. Water covered my bare feet, lapping around my ankles. Darkness oozed out of the stalactites dripping from the ceiling, and the gentle hiss of waves rolled in from behind me. My hand went for Viveet but found nothing.

  A flicker of bright torchlight around a corner caught my gaze. When I ventured forward, a familiar heaviness pressed into me like an oncoming wall of wind. I struggled to breathe.

  It all felt so real, and yet …

  I gave you plenty of opportunities to avoid my wrath, Bianca Monroe. Tonight you shall see what happens when you don’t obey my will.

  Angelina’s voice sent a shudder down my spine. The weight of her power threatened to push the very marrow from my bones. It seemed stronger than it had ever been.

  There’s nothing you can say that would change my mind, I replied, surprised when I didn’t hear my own voice echo off the cave walls, as if I wasn’t even there. But I was. Wasn’t I?

  Oh, I think there is something that will change your mind. Your own weakness is clear.

  “You’ve come to fight me, Derek,” a thick, accented voice said, startling me with the way it rolled around the empty space. “Just as I had always hoped.”

  I peered around the turn to see a man standing within a circle of torchlight in an open area. Cords of muscle rippled through his bare chest and arms. A pair of thin linen pants rolled halfway up the calves covered his legs. The rhythmic sway of a braid hanging down his back swung back and forth. My heart seized. I choked over my own fear. Dane.

  “I came to destroy you, Dane,” Papa responded easily.

  “You came to die.”

  “I don’t start fights I can’t win.”

  “You won’t win this one because it’s not me you’ll be fighting.”

  Papa! I called, but it faded in my own mind, a wisp of a dream. I wasn’t really there, just as I wasn’t sleeping back at Chatham Castle.

  You made your weakness very clear.

  Through the darkness of the cave, I could just make out Papa’s face. He stood back in the shadows, not showing the same arrogance as Dane by flaunting his power in the light. The torchlight gleamed off Papa’s half-armor, stained with dirt and streaks of blood. Despite the situation, Papa certainly appeared confident.

  Dane smiled, his perfect teeth glowing. “You may think that killing me will help your cause, but you’re wrong. The Western Network doesn’t fall or thrive on my life. My orders do not move it forward. In fact, I’m not the true leader of the West after all.”

  Papa’s eyes flickered in a second of uncertainty. Out of the shadows glided another witch with a familiar hourglass figure and dark ebony hair. I knew her by the darkness that accompanied her and the even keel of her unwavering voice. The voice I’d heard in the Western Network. The voice that plagued my nightmares.

  The voice that threatened to take everything away.

  “Derek Black,” Angelina said, stepping closer to the circle of light but hovering in the shadows. “You’ve come to save your Network, have you?”

  Papa said nothing, keeping his eyes and attention split between Angelina and Dane, who stood on opposite sides of the circle. Papa reached back to make sure nothing but the wall remained behind him.

  “Angelina,” he drawled. “I expected to see you here.”

  “Did you?” she asked, though her voice betrayed no inflection. “Yet you came anyway.”

  I sloshed through the water to the other side of the cave where I could see Papa more clearly, but my movements made no ripples.

  “Aren’t you going to try to transport away now that you’ve seen me?” Angelina asked. “I expected your instincts to be faster than this.”

  Papa’s grip on his sword tightened. “Not my courage. I never leave a fight.”

  Angelina sashayed into full view. A beam of light fell across her raven black hair and fine-boned facial features under pale white skin. She had a slight build like Mabel but stood shorter. My heart stuttered in my chest when I noticed the familiar blue eyes peering out of her face. Unlike Miss Mabel, who moved with a sultry attitude and seemed
to find sarcastic amusement in everything, Angelina appeared quiet and composed. Monotonous in the most frightening way.

  My eyes narrowed on her beautiful, familiar face. If the eyes were dark brown, and the skin more wrinkled around the eyes, she’d look exactly like …

  I gasped. Isobel.

  My horror multiplied exponentially. Isobel. The powerful, aged High Priestess of the Eastern Network. My new friend. She’d been Angelina all along. My trusted companion that helped me save Brecken, that loaned me her Volare. I grabbed the wall to keep from falling. It wouldn’t have mattered. I wasn’t really there; she’d trapped me in an ominous in-between.

  You made your weakness clear. Angelina’s voice sounded amused, and for a second, her blue eyes flickered to where I stood.

  A thousand questions spun through my mind. What of Niko? Did Diego know? Had she killed them already in her bid to take over the world? Why had she posed as my friend? Where did Miss Mabel fit into all this?

  “No, Derek,” Angelina said, pulling me from my frantic thoughts. “You never have left a fight, have you? You’ve proven a formidable foe, which Mildred must have suspected about you. My daughter had good reason to fear your innate strength. If it weren’t for you and that vile witch Mildred, I’d already be the most powerful witch in Antebellum.”

  “Forgive me for not apologizing,” he retorted.

  Angelina didn’t smile the way Miss Mabel would have. She regarded him through tempered eyes.

  “I don’t like it when witches stand in my way,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Fortunately, you won’t stall me anymore. I have you right where I want you.”

  Papa kept a wary eye on both of them. Transport! I screamed in my head, but I knew he wouldn’t. Papa would never back down. Not even at the expense of his life. Is this what Isadora had seen? Is this what she said must take place so that the Network could be saved?

  “I don’t fear you the way Dane does,” Papa said. “I fight my own wars.”

  “You may try battling me with curses or a silly Mactos, but Almorran magic is infinitely stronger than yours. It will absorb any puny attempt at harming me. Almorran magic is a power unto itself, you understand, and draws all spells into its own strength. Use magic against me, and I’ll crush you with it.”

  Papa seemed unimpressed. “Let’s end this war on my Network, shall we?”

  Angelina’s expression didn’t waver. “You’re so certain you can? If you don’t fear me yet, perhaps I simply haven’t given you a reason.”

  Papa’s sword fell. He dropped to his knees with a shout. His knuckles and hands tensed until the skin blanched. His head dropped back on his shoulders as he silently screamed; his arms and legs writhed. Both Angelina and Dane stared at Papa as he fell into the water, his body contorting.

  No! I screamed into the nothing of the space from which I watched. Papa, no!

  My heart cramped in incomprehensible pain. What if Isobel—Angelina—had brought me here to watch Papa’s death? Mama’s gray eyes flickered through my mind again and again. No, I couldn’t bear losing Papa. Not this way. Not ever.

  “What do you think now, Derek?” Angelina asked when the awful tremors ceased. His body spasmed. He tucked his head into his chest with a groan. “That’s what I thought. Your pathetic magic renders you nothing against my power. You might as well be a mortal for all you can do against the Almorran Master, you fool.”

  Almorran Master. Just as Isadora had speculated. Papa pushed a hand against a rock and slowly, one breath at a time, straightened up, out of the water. Under Angelina’s scrutiny he rose, nostrils flaring, face contorted, to stand on his own two feet. Rivulets of water dripped off his armor when he held out a trembling hand, and his sword leapt back to his grip.

  “It’s going to take more than that,” he muttered, voice hoarse. Angelina sighed.

  “Very well.”

  Papa fell again, dropping his sword a second time. His body splashed in the water, writhing. This time he yelled through clenched teeth, his eyes shut in agony. It went on and on until the moments felt like hours.

  “You’ll kill him,” Dane whispered. Angelina’s eyes glowed a fanatical red. Magic exploded through my chest, tripling my power in an instant.

  “What a pleasure that would be.”

  “At the expense of your other plans?” Dane asked.

  Power ran through me in long, desperate rivulets. “Angelina!” I roared, putting all the force of my building magic behind the words. This time my voice reverberated through the cave, through whatever strange spell she had over me. Dane glanced up in surprise, though his darting eyes didn’t see me. “If you kill him, I swear on my life that your daughter will never leave the dungeons.”

  The vile magic infusing pain into Papa’s body paused. He went limp, head falling back against a rock. His eyes rolled back in his head, and for a moment he looked so pale I thought I was too late.

  “Go on, Bianca,” Angelina said, her eyes falling right on me. “Explain yourself.”

  “I’m the only one with enough of Papa’s blood in my veins to let Miss Mabel go,” I continued, projecting my voice from the in-between where her Almorran powers entrapped me. “If Papa dies, I’ll transport into the middle of the ocean with a rock tied to my legs so that no one can ever release the magic. Your daughter will rot in the dungeons, bound there until she dies.”

  Dane stepped back against the wall, unsure of where my voice came from. My wrath echoed through the cave in great swells. Angelina closed her eyes and then opened them right onto me.

  What exactly did you have in mind? she asked, her voice rippling again. This time she spoke into my mind, and I answered in the same way, drenching the cave in an unnatural quiet.

  Miss Mabel for Papa, I said, giving no thought to what it would mean for the Central Network or the war. No thought to what it would mean for me. No thought to how I’d do it.

  Interesting. I’m not inclined to let Derek live. Perhaps I’ll just compel you to release my daughter.

  It doesn’t work like that. The magic of the dungeon will only work if I do it willingly. You know that though, don’t you? That’s why you haven’t tried compelling me to do it before. That’s why we’re both here, isn’t it?

  Angelina’s lips pursed in thought. I waited, fists clenched. Papa still hadn’t moved. The gentle rise and fall of his chest gave me a weak reassurance that he still lived for now. Angelina turned to Dane. “Bind Derek,” she commanded.

  “Your Greatness, I—”

  “Bind him!”

  Dane fell to his knees with a grunt, displaying a subdued version of the same painful jerking motions that had overcome Papa. Dane’s agony ended within moments. He regained his footing, his face pale, though resigned, as if this happened often enough. “Yes, Your Greatness.”

  Why are you doing this? I asked. Why do you want to destroy Antebellum?

  Because I can.

  We stared at each other for so long the edges of my vision began to blur, forming a halo around her.

  You’ll never win, I said. Not ever. We won’t let you.

  She smiled, and a cold chill ran through my bones. With Mabel on my side, I have already won, she replied. Together my daughter and I shall finally have what we’ve worked for so long for. If you had a little less spunk and a little more intelligence, I might have invited you along. Mabel certainly thought you’d come in handy one day, and she was right.

  The dream blurred, until I no longer saw the scene in the cave. Instead, I flashed back to my visit to Magnolia Castle after the invasion. I watched it unfold again, as if I were there. Isobel sat in her chair, concern on her kind, aged face.

  “Bianca, I’m so sorry for your Network,” she had said. “You seem genuinely scared.”

  I saw myself responding, my voice echoing in a dreamlike state. “Not for me but for everyone else, for my friends.”

  “You’re very self-sacrificing.”

  “They mean so much to me.”

 
; “Are your friends safe? Are they at the castle with you?”

  “Yes, they’re fine. Leda is busier than ever helping Jansson in Chatham City. The others are … getting by.”

  My stomach clenched with disbelief when I saw Leda throwing Jansson out of the way while blue and white light exploded around them. I had done it. Angelina had gone after Leda because I’d mentioned her.

  Knowing how much your friends meant to you proved quite helpful, Angelina said, and the scene wafted away like receding smoke. You were an open book, even if you were too stupid and stubborn to listen to me after I almost killed your friend Leda.

  But you didn’t kill her, I said. Leda saw what was about to happen. She saved Jansson.

  My response didn’t provoke Angelina, the way it would have Miss Mabel. She blinked, not caring.

  You’re right. You and your friends ended up being resourceful.

  I heard myself say, I travel with Marten to the border towns quite often. My stomach twisted in horror and disbelief. I’d told her that when we had first met over hot chocolate and cookies. I’d played into her hand like a little kitten.

  Knowing that you travelled with Marten so much made it only too convenient, Angelina continued as soon as my voice faded away, to have the Southern Network attack when I knew you and Marten would be there. I encouraged Niko to push Diego to complain about the black market trading, which drew you down there just before the invasion. I had plans for you to be taken hostage in the chaos, but somehow you escaped the West Guards waiting for you.

  A hazy image of two West Guards chasing me resurfaced from my memory. I recalled the heady beating of my heart in my ears, the way Letum Wood saved me from such a horrible fate.

  And then the best part of all was when you confirmed my suspicions, Angelina said, conjuring up another memory from our second visit. I saw it happen with a heavy sense of shame.

  What is your father’s plan? Isobel had asked me. Perhaps if I can tell Diego, I may convince him to help.

  The urge to vomit curled up in my stomach. If I’d had a body in that trancelike state, I would have fallen to my knees.