by Skye Horn
Thea and Ethel sat huddled together in a clothing shop. With all the forcefulness of a mother’s voice, Mirielle had ushered them inside, demanding they remain quiet. The shop’s clerk, whose name Thea had learned was Mr. Bloomington, had no objection once he heard who Thea was. Instead, he just continued to gape at her with wide, ogling eyes that made her want to throw one of the hard leather shoes from his shop window at his head.
“I shouldn’t be hiding in here,” Thea said to Ethel in a low whisper. “If my sister is out there, hurting people—”
“Then you are the one she is looking for,” Ethel interrupted, clutching Thea’s hand.
“Exactly!”
“Shh!” said the store clerk. The girls returned their gazes to the small crack in the curtains that showed them the street outside. People were running in all directions as a black mist crept across the ground, birthing shadows that whipped out at the fleeing villagers. Some Fae used magic to fight off the darkness that threatened them, but many were dragged away kicking and screaming by invisible hands. Thea could see Mirielle a few feet beyond the shop door, fighting off the dark magic that threatened their hiding place with a barrier of water she’d summoned from the snow at her feet. Thea could see was the soft blue glow from Mirielle’s slightly trembling hands and knew whatever magic she was performing protected them for the time being.
“Whoa,” both Thea and Ethel said in unison, but Thea could see how much effort the magic took. Kieran had mentioned that each Fae specialized in a certain elemental magic, although Thea hadn’t discovered what hers was yet, Mirielle’s was obviously water. It didn’t matter how long Mirielle fought though, dark magic overpowered elemental magic that the Fae typically wielded. Thea had discovered that the night she and Kieran had fought Amara. Sure, Thea had caught Amara off guard that night, but they’d lost the element of surprise; she had no idea how to wield her magic. Kieran had only focused on little else but her learning how to hold a sword or run away, and despite her fear, she refused to run now.
Where were King Aragon’s soldiers? Thea wondered furiously. Kieran hadn’t been on duty today, but they’d assigned other soldiers to the village to make sure none of Malachi’s followers showed up. So, where were they now? Why weren’t they protecting everyone?
Thea recalled the icy tentacles that had restrained her in Ireland, and a mixture of fear and anger made the muscles in her back tighten and twitch. If Amara was here because of her, then she couldn’t just sit here and watch as the villagers ran terrified through the streets or were dragged away for whatever game Amara now wanted to play.
“Kieran will come,” Ethel said, as if it was supposed to help her feel better.
“I don’t need Kieran to save me. I need to help these people.” The guilt of hiding away while people like Mirielle fought to protect her made her sick. She stood, ripping her hand out of Ethel’s, and ran out the door, ignoring the pleading she heard behind her from both Ethel and Mr. Bloomington.
“What are you doing?” Mirielle said, her eyes widening as Thea rushed past her magical water barrier, drenching her to the bone, and directly into the shadows. She didn’t reply.
The sky above had darkened into a deep gray, and bile rose in Thea’s throat at the sight of the bodies scattered on the ground. She hadn’t been able to see them through the shop window, but now she did. Their limbs were twisted at odd angles and their lifeless eyes ripped at her guilt as her hands trembled. There were men, women, and children’s bodies. Those who hadn’t been fast enough or strong enough to get away were left in puddles of their own blood that stained the cobblestone streets.
My fault, she thought in horror as the shadows that had tormented and murdered parted, creating a path for her to follow, leading her exactly where Amara wanted her to go. She clenched her hands into fists as she passed more bodies, at least a dozen of them—dead because of her.
However, the screaming had stopped and a deathly silence chilled her to the bone. She hoped that meant the rest of the village had escaped.
“Amara!” Thea called out into the darkness for her sister, and heard a familiar wicked laugh, followed by something else, something that made Thea’s anger falter into panic.
“Thea!” This was not a female’s voice, but a man’s, a man she’d already failed so many times before.
Marcus’ voice called out for her desperately. She ran toward it, as fast as her blistered feet would take her, screaming for him. A prickle of dread formed between her shoulder blades as she reached the center of town—the eye of the magical storm. Amara leaned casually against a stone fountain in the middle of the courtyard, taunting Thea with a smile as she unfolded a piece of paper.
“Dear Marcus, I’m sorry that I can’t say this to you in person.” Amara read the paper aloud in an even more annoying tone than usual. She’d never missed a chance to mock Thea. “But by the time you get this, I’ll already be gone. I loved you, but so much has changed. I’ve changed. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
Thea didn’t look at Amara, although she heard her letter being read aloud. She’d slipped that letter under the door of his apartment in the middle of the night, too cowardly to face him before she’d left for Ireland. She couldn’t escape facing him now, though. He stood directly in front of Amara as she crumpled the letter, dropping it onto the ground with an overdramatic oops, and pulled a dagger from her knee-high leather boot. One of his eyes was purple and swollen shut. Blood dripped from his nose and split lip, staining the snow at his feet.
“Marcus.” Thea wanted to run to him, but as if reading her mind, Amara pressed the sharp edge of the dagger against the soft spot on his throat. The snow grew more crimson.
Marcus did not react, though. Instead, his single open eye stared at Thea like he wasn’t really sure if she was there or not. He had a dreamer’s gaze, and his words scratched against his throat when he tried to speak. “I thought you were dead.” A single tear stained his cheek. “I came after you—”
Amara kicked the side of his leg, and with a hideous crack he crumpled into the snow, screaming. The leg was bent at an unnatural angle, and Thea could see the slivers of bone piercing his skin even from a distance. Amara laughed as Thea screamed and moved forward, only to be stopped by Marcus’ bloodied blond hair being jerked backward so the dagger could more easily be seen against his throat. Thea’s body trembled, and there was a painful clutching behind her sternum.
“Do you know how easy this was, sister?” Amara asked, faking a pout as Marcus let out a sob. Thea watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall against the knife, but soon both of his eyes were closed and she wondered if he’d passed out from the pain. There was so much blood spurting out of his leg now, creeping toward her through the quickly melting snow. It steamed, releasing the stench of metal into the air. “There I was, stranded on the other side of the portal until the next full moon, and your boyfriend comes wandering in with a picture of you, asking if anyone has seen you.”
Marcus’ mangled body made Thea want to puke. She tasted bile in her mouth, threatening to push its way past her lips, but her anger outweighed her nausea. She wanted to kill Amara for what she’d done to him. She wanted to run at her now and rip the dagger from her fingertips to shove it directly into her chest. Thea knew nothing about killing someone, let alone someone as powerful as Amara, but she didn’t care at this point if she died trying.
Amara reveled in Thea’s anger, as if it were a reward for her behavior. She giggled as she continued her story, stroking a finger along Marcus’ cheek. Her hand was the only thing that kept him from crumpling into the lake of blood beneath him.
“I told him I knew where to find you and he followed me like a pathetic, lovesick puppy. Humans are quite stupid, you know.” She glanced up and Thea noticed, to her horror, that Ethel had followed her. Mirielle now stood, gripping the younger girl by the forearms—holding her back from joining Thea. “Of course, I still needed to wait for the full moon to recharge my magic, so I had a little fun with your hum
an toy.” She smirked now, winking at Thea as she leaned down and pressed her lips against Marcus’. He whimpered, and when she pulled away, Thea felt the magic sparking at her fingertips, itching to be released. She was losing control.
“Don’t do anything silly, sister,” Amara said, eyeing Thea. “I’m here to make a deal with you, but first, satisfy my curiosity. Does Kieran know you have a boyfriend? Or are you just shutting it up with two men? No judgements here, but I think Kieran might not like the idea of sharing you.”
Thea knew Amara was baiting her and was glad Marcus appeared to be unconscious for this conversation.
“Let. Him. Go.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” She laughed. “No bother, then. Marcus here shouldn’t feel bad about all the naughty things we did since you’ve moved on with another man. Not that he had any choice in the matter.”
Thea couldn’t take any more of the banter. She raised her arms, ready to blast Amara with magic the same way she had before, but instead, she was pinned painfully to the ground by dark magic. The surrounding mist twisted into shadows and seized her arms and legs like strong icy hands, bringing her into a kneel with no effort at all.
“You didn’t actually think I’d let you do that again, did you?”
Thea spat as she tried to break free of the vicious grip, tasting blood on her bitten lip. None of this would have happened if Kieran had just taught her how to do more than run away. If she knew how to control her magic then maybe she could have done more to fight Amara—but instead, she was trapped like prey being forced to watch the predators approach. It infuriated her, but that anger wasn’t only directed at Kieran. She’d spent so much time worrying about her feelings for him—worrying about fitting into this new world she’d discovered. She should have been more demanding of learning magic.
It didn’t matter how many scenarios she played in her head, though. She couldn’t think of a way out of this without more death. The people in the village had died because Amara wanted her, so the only choice she had, the only way she could stop more death, would be to do whatever Amara asked.
“Now, I would make you a fair deal,” Amara continued, but Thea doubted that her sister had ever planned to do such a thing. “But I can’t let you go unpunished for disobeying King Malachi. You are, after all, one of his subjects, and therefore, by law, required to do as his soldiers command.”
Amara smiled cruelly as Thea’s half-frozen flesh trembled under the snow-soaked dress. Her eyes watered when Amara’s dark magic forced her chin up.
She strode toward Thea, practically dragging Marcus with her through the snow. Thea tried to cry out to him but felt as if she were choking on the mist around her. Ethel stared at Thea with a brightening red face. She was shrieking for Thea, but Mirielle was holding the thrashing girl back.
If circumstances had been better, Thea would have thought it was funny to see the older woman restraining Ethel like she was a rabid cartoon character, but amusing or not, Thea knew Mirielle was saving Ethel’s life.
“This is what happens when you disobey King Malachi and our queen, Morrigan!” Amara was enjoying the moment of spotlight in front of Thea. It fed her ego as if it were a starving animal. She stopped in front of Thea, holding Marcus’ face just inches in front of hers. Thea fought as hard as she could against the icy grip of darkness, but she felt completely out of control. Her panic was taking over as she fought the growing shadows of her own soul, focusing on trying to conjure the magic Ainé had helped her use before.
Where was Ainé now, though? Where was the advice she’d so willingly given when it had been Kieran’s life at risk? She prayed, for the first time in her entire life, and was met with nothing but silence. Tears stung her eyes as she looked up at Amara’s cruel smile.
“Please,” she all but whimpered. Tears flowed freely from her eyes now. She would result to begging if it meant saving Marcus’ life. “We are sisters… PLEASE! I’ll do whatever you ask—”
The word sisters brought an unusual look to Amara’s eyes, as if she were hearing it for the first time, but it disappeared the second Thea noticed it. Amara looked around, her face shadowed in darkness.
“We’re only sisters when you need something, right?” she said, sounding almost hysterical. A raven swooped through the veil of mist, landing on Amara’s shoulder with a sinister caw. “Well, Morrigan’s wrath is far worse than yours, dear sister.”
All hope disappeared when Amara met Thea’s eyes again. The raven’s talons sank into her shoulder, causing a thin trickle of her own blood to mix with Marcus’. Amara no longer showed any amusement with the situation; in fact, suddenly her eyes were no longer her own. They were an endless black.
“You will discover what it means to defy me,” Amara said, but the voice no longer belonged to her. Thea recoiled at the sound of it; it was the sound of death itself.
Morrigan.
Amara, or Morrigan, leaned down and whispered something into Marcus’ ear that made his uninjured eye reopen. He looked at Thea for help, begging her without a word to save him, but she could do nothing. Her tongue felt like sandpaper in her mouth, and she choked out a sob, begging Ainé to set her free.
“My sister is preoccupied at the moment,” Morrigan said through Amara.
“I love—” Marcus said, but as Amara’s dagger cut a thin red line across the base of his neck, his words were strangled by a gurgle of sounds that would never leave Thea’s nightmares. Blood spurted out from the wound like a sprinkler, splattering against Thea’s face and clothes. It left the taste of metal and rust on her lips.
For a moment, Thea remained frozen. She told herself it couldn’t be real as Amara dropped Marcus’ body in front of her. It thrashed unnaturally as the thing that must have been Marcus gasped for air. Thea fell forward into the crimson snow as the magic finally released her. The warm blood mixed with powdery snow on the palms of her trembling hands.
She reached him just in time to watch the life disappear from his eye like the flick of a light switch. Her own body was going into shock, she knew that, but there was something else. Something that boiled beneath the surface dangerously as she heard Amara laugh and watched the raven fly away. Marcus continued to stare at her, his body spasming against the cold earth, and when he finally stilled, her world exploded into darkness.
Kieran knew he was too late when he heard her scream. It pierced his heart, and fear drudged its claws down his spine as he landed within the village square. Dark magic instantly surrounded him.
“Kieran!” Ethel screamed from Mirielle’s death-locked grip around her. He allowed himself one moment of gratitude that the agony in Thea’s scream had not been because of something terrible happening to Ethel. However, then he wondered what worse could’ve happened. His eyes searched for her through hate growing darkness. Ethel pointed toward the middle of the square; she looked terrified. “You have to stop her.”
“Now, sister…” he heard Amara say with a note of panic. “Morrigan did that, not me. You should blame our father for this, for all of it.”
“He isn’t my father.” Thea’s voice was as cold as ice, almost unrecognizable. Kieran cleared a path through the eye of the magic-induced storm and found the two girls in a standoff. Amara was backing away slowly, and to his surprise, Thea stood over the mangled body of a man, enveloped by darkness. His blood ran cold as he realized the dark magic was not attacking her, but being controlled by her.
“Thea…” His voice shook as he called to her, but she did not hear him. Instead, as he approached her, the angry shadows lashed out at him, fighting him away. He felt their cold slicing into his skin, leaving large gashes, but he couldn’t fight them without possibly hurting her.
“You murdered him!” Thea stepped over the body in front of her, towards Amara. Kieran glanced only momentarily at the dead man’s form before deciding on how to stop Thea. He lunged toward her, tackling her onto the blood-soaked cobblestone.
Amara, seizing her chance, fled through the vill
age in the forest’s direction as Kieran and Thea rolled painfully into the stone fountain. He groaned as a few of his feathers bent in the wrong direction.
“How dare you!” she screamed, pressing the palms of her hands against his chest. A rush of powerful magic tossed him away from her like a feather on the wind. He recovered quickly enough to place himself on the path between her and Amara, fighting the shadows away with one wing as the other attempted to pull Thea to a position where he could look at her. When he finally did, he saw the red tint around her black pupils.
“Thea, please.” Kieran pressed his hands against both sides of her face, trying to stop her from lashing out at him again. The darkness was feeding on her soul, erasing the woman he knew and turning her into the very person she hated most. She was almost gone.
Whoever the man in the snow had been, something inside Thea had snapped when he died. She was fueling the dark magic with hatred and grief. It would take a lot more than words to bring her back now. He wrapped his wings around her, hiding her from Ethel’s terrified gaze. He saw the pain and anger in her, and despite the way the dark magic stung his skin, he used all of his strength to pin her arms to her side and pull her body against his. If he didn’t get her back soon, he never would.
“She deserves death for what she did to him!” As Thea met his eyes, she withdrew the shadows that had so desperately clawed at him for freedom. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she wasn’t about to let Amara leave either. “Let me go, or I will make you.”
“I’ll never leave you,” he told her, and in a last hope to attempt breaking her connection to the darkness, he pressed his lips against hers, tasting the blood and salt that her tears had brought to her tongue. Thea’s body tensed up, but her lips reacted instinctively to his before she began pushing him away again. This time, though, she only used her hands. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, the red tint slowly fading away. “I will never leave you,” he repeated, holding her gaze.
