by Cara E Holt
I grin. I can’t help but enjoying goading her. She had come here to see me at my lowest and gloat. She deserved everything I threw at her. “Three times a day, and he loved it. He begged me to feed from him some days.”
“You made my son your blood whore?” she spits. A venomous look defiles her perfectly put together face.
I smirk at her and shake my head. “A blood whore is someone who is mindless from the venom, they become devoid of their own thoughts. Drayce was a willing participant. He enjoyed it. He wanted it.”
She surprises me when she strides forward and strikes me hard across my face. I laugh as I taste my blood on my tongue.
“Say what you came to say and go,” I spit, squaring up to her. She towers above me in her heels, but I would not let her intimidate me.
“I just wanted you to know that although you brought ruin to our door, that we will rise from this. Theon has this morning agreed to the engagement of Drayce to Sereia Balfour,” she delights in telling me.
“Is Drayce okay? Is he not in here?”
She grunts, wrinkling her nose. “They have pardoned my son of his crimes. The council realised you had bewitched him and he was not in his right mind.” She crosses her arms and smiles. “He hasn’t asked after you once, you know. In fact, he smiled and was the obedient son we raised him to be when we told him the news of his engagement to Sereia.”
That statement hits me harder than her slap to my face did. I fight to keep my expression devoid of any emotion and I snigger. “Well, I hope they are both miserable together. You and your family are poison, just like the rest of this corrupt council. One day I’ll play my part in bringing you all to your knees.”
Astrea shouts for the guard who has remained close by, and he opens the door for her. “I’ll be watching front and centre when they bring you out to meet your fate.”
“Until then,” I tell her, gesturing to the door. “How someone like Drayce came from someone like you, I do not understand.”
With one last look down her nose at me, Astrea turns abruptly and leaves. The scent of her hatred lingers long after she has gone.
I have a half hour to compose my thoughts before Amila returns to our cell. As soon as she enters her face is full of questions. She sits down on her bed facing me.
“Well, who was she?”
I sit up and face her, tucking my greasy hair behind my ear. “That was Drayce’s mother.”
Amila frowns. “She didn’t look like she was here to tell you they were trying to get you out.”
I snigger and roll my eyes. “She hates me. She hated me before she even knew I was a hybrid. She came to gloat, to look down her nose at me.”
“Well, it’s a long nose to look down,” Amila says bitchily and I can’t help chuckle in response.
“On a plus, Drayce isn’t in here,” I inform her. That had been the one positive about her presence here today. I now knew that he was okay.
Amila tilts her head and observes me. “Something she said is bothering you, though.”
“It’s stupid,” I say with a deep sigh. “She said he hadn’t asked after me once.”
Amila shakes her head at me, her curls bouncing. “You can’t believe anything she says. She will say anything to get to you by the sounds of it.”
I nod. I know she is right. I couldn’t believe her, but the doubt was there in the back of my mind. Did he not care? But if he didn’t care then why would he have gone through all that trouble to protect me and hide my true identity? I guess none of it mattered now. At some point in the very near future my life would be over and whether or not Drayce cared would be inconsequential.
A few hours into the morning the following week, two guards arrive at our cell with shackles in one of their hands. Amila and I both look at each other, both of us wondering which one of us they have come for.
“Amila Toothaker you are to be taken up for your trial. Please step forward and place your hands together in front of you.”
I jump up and sweep her into a hug. “It’ll be okay. Be strong,” I tell her.
Amila hugs me back. “Strong is my middle name.”
The guard becomes impatient and grabs her and snaps the chains closed around her wrists and ankles.
“Move it hybrid.”
“Good luck,” I shout after her, peering through the bars, as I watch her slowly slip from sight.
There is no way of knowing the time here, but I estimate that she has been gone over two hours. I pace our cell, chewing on what little I have left of my fingernails. What if they had taken her straight to her sentence? What if that had been the last time I would see her?
I try to focus my mind on other things, like what herbs you needed for an attraction spell or what herbs you could grow in winter, but it was pointless, my mind just drifted back to Amila and if she was okay.
It is possibly a half hour later when I hear footsteps and rushing to the cell bars I peek out. I breathe a deep sigh of relief when I see her being escorted back to our cell by the same two guards who came for her earlier. I stand silently as they open the cell door and release her from the chains they had placed her in. They slam the door shut behind them and without a backward glance they stalk away.
I search her face, trying to gage what has happened. She walks over to me and takes my hands in hers.
“Tomorrow,” she tells me softly. “Tomorrow, I will face my death sentence.”
It rips the air from my chest at her words. “No.”
“Yes,” she tells me firmly. “There would never be any other outcome Elara.”
I squeeze her hands. “There has to be something we can do.”
Amila smiles sadly at me and squeezes my hands back. “Like what? Do you have some magic carpet to fly us out of here hidden under your bed? It’s done.”
A tear falls down my face and she reaches out and wipes it away. “Don’t cry.”
“But you don’t deserve to die,” I say, feeling helpless.
She guides me down to my bed and we both sit together, side-by-side, still clutching each other’s hands. “It doesn’t matter if I deserve it. All they care about is ridding the world of another hybrid.” She sighs and fastens a determined look on her face. “I will not spend my last night on this earth feeling desolate. Tell me a funny memory from your childhood.”
We spend the rest of the day swapping childhood memories and talking about our first experiences with boys. I tell her about the time I spelled a boy’s penis to shrink to the size of a peanut after he tried to grope me at a birthday party when I was twelve. Amila laughs when she tells me about the time she put farting powder in her teacher’s drink at school. I laugh along with her, but inside, I am filled with sadness and dread that this beautiful young woman will be taken from this world tomorrow, and all because she is from two different supernatural species.
Both of us lie awake that night, staring at the ceiling. Eventually I climb out of my bed and climb into hers and we lay together, cuddled up in silence. Somehow exhaustion must win and I hear the soft breathing of Amila as she sleeps. I lie there watching her and my heart breaks.
SAYING GOODBYE
The sharp sound of the alarm wakes me with a start. I immediately look around me in panic and stop when I see Amila stood leaning against the bars, smiling at me.
“Morning,” she greets me with a smile that looks out of place on the face of someone who was being executed today.
“Morning,” I reply. “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question to ask, and I regret it the second it leaves my lips. “Stupid fucking question, Elara. Stupid.”
“It is fine,” Amila reassures me again with a smile. “I am okay. I am at peace with my fate. The mother goddess will meet me at the other side and guide me into the Summerland.”
“What do you think the Summerland is like?”
Amila smiles and closes her eyes. “I like to think the skies are blue and the landscape is green with lush rolling hills and it’s full of wildlife and flowers.
Maybe even a chocolate fountain that spills over the crevice of one hill and hot men are everywhere in togas.”
“That sounds amazing,” I reply, trying to smile when inside I am distraught.
She opens her eyes and winks. “I’ll try to save a few of the better looking one’s for you.”
I touch my heart and laugh. “You are too kind. I like dark hair and firm bums.”
We both startle when we hear the guards’ boots echoing from down the corridor. Panic floods me as their steps become louder, getting closer. I launch myself over to Amila and wrap my arms around her.
“I’m so glad I got to be here with you.”
“Back at you, girl.” She pulls back from me and takes my hand in hers. “I want you to promise me something?”
“Anything,” I pledge, as tears fall down my face.
“Fight for our people. Make a stand.”
“That might be difficult from within this cell,” I say hopelessly.
Amila shakes her head firmly. “This is not the end for you, Elara Latimer. I feel it in my bones. You will carry on and you will do great things. I’ll be watching you and supporting you from the Summerland’s. Look for rainbows.”
One guard grabs her arm and I cling to her, not wanting to let go.
“Get that bitches hands off her,” he orders the other, and with brute force he pulls me away from her. They chain her in cuffs and pull her roughly out of our cell.
“In injustice we find purpose,” She tells me before she disappears from my sight. I rush to the bars and cry silently as I watch them take her away. I don’t know what possess’ me but I sing the winter solstice song as loudly as I can and I am amazed when other inmates all walk to the gates of their cells and they start to sing with me. I can only hope our words of finding the light will give her peace as she leaves us behind.
I curl up in a ball in my bed and weep. I feel so angry and desolate at the same time and I just wished now that they would come for me and take me to my death. I had only known Amila a mere two weeks, but I had spent every hour of those weeks with her, and with nothing to do but talk I had come to know her well, as she had me.
For the next two weeks, I barely move from my bed. I refuse my food and refuse my hour’s exercise in the circle. I have lost the will to keep going. There was no point in anything. I am curled up in my bed one endless morning when the locks to my cell door click open and a guard stands there with shackles in his hand.
At last, I would learn my fate.
I am chained and escorted silently by the two guards towards the lift that takes us above to the council buildings. As I pass other cells, the inhabitants look at me with a knowing look in their eyes. That I was not long left for this world.
The lift climbs floor after floor until it comes to a stop and I am guided up a stairwell. We come out into a circular room, packed with people. I shelter my eyes as the brightness of the room blinds my eyes, which have become accustomed to the darkness of the prison. As my sight adjusts, I look around the room and note each councillor is sitting in his or her seat and at the centre is Dario De Meath. Over to the right there is an area for what I presume is spectators, because sitting there is Astrea and alongside her is Sereia and her sister Evony Black. They all sit there in their finery and sneer at me.
I look for my parents, but they are not here. I can only presume they have had to go into hiding as the guards would have probably arrested them for hiding my true identity. I could only hope they were both safe and together. I am surprised when I spot the high priest from the Bennett coven. He meets my stare and I feel like he is trying to convey for me to be brave. My eyes then fall on Councillor Theon Black and for a second I think I see sympathy in his eyes as his meet mine for a brief second before he averts his gaze and busies himself with some papers in his hands.
“The court is in session,” Councillor De Meath barks as he bangs his hammer on the table.
A magic pen transcribes on paper as he speaks.
“Elara Bennett, I charge you with breaking the accords by failing to reveal your hybrid status. The sentence for this is death. How do you plead?”
I feel all eyes fall upon me, most of them looking down on me in judgement.
“My name is Elara Latimer,” I tell him, holding my chin high, “and I have committed no crime.”
“As expected, the accused shows no acceptance of her guilt. Elara Bennett, you have broken the accords and you are guilty as charged. You will be taken at noon tomorrow and beheaded and burned. Do you have any last words?”
Nodding my head, I look around the room at each and every councillor present. “In injustice there is purpose,” I say as I place my middle finger and my index finger to my chest to symbolise my dual heritage.
I startle when there is banging and shouting outside the courtroom doors. The doors burst open and my eyes widen in surprise when I see Drayce pushing his way into the courts, elbowing one guard in the face and kicking one over onto his back.
His frantic eyes search the court until he finds me. “Elara!” he shouts.
I stand to my feet and smile. “Drayce!”
More guards run into the room from behind him and they overwhelm him despite his every attempt to fight them all.
“Apprehend him,” Councillor De Meath orders, and the guards fight to take him down.
Drayce is a true-born fighter but even he cannot fight off ten guards and my heart breaks as they take him down to the floor and secure his hands behind his back.
“Take the prisoner back to her cell,” De Meath orders.
“No! Elara,” Drayce shouts, continuing to thrash, and he tries to manoeuvre out of the hold of the guards. “Elara, I love you.”
As the guards drag me backwards from the stand, I smile the biggest smile ever. “You love me?” I shout back.
He grins from where he is being held on the floor. “I love you little raven.”
A tear of joy falls down my face as his words sink into my heart and reignite it, making me feel passion and purpose once again. “I love you too,” I tell him and a sharp blast of air ripples across the room, blowing my hair off my face and knocking myself and the guards holding me down to the floor.
I don’t know how I know, but somehow I do. “The curse,” I shout to him and smiling he nods. The last thing I see is his smile before they pull me down the steps and back into the darkness.
“He loves me,” I whisper to myself as they escort me back to my cell in the deep dark depths of the prison.
Nothing can dull my spark as they unchain me and shove me roughly back in to my cell. I lie down in my bed and replay his words in my mind. Drayce Black just declared his love for me, a Bennett hybrid, and he said it in front of the public and the press.
A CLOSE CALL
I find sleep with ease that night and in my dreams Amila comes to me and whispers of destiny and of coming home. When the alarm blares in the morning I wake with a smile on my face. I can face death now that I know he loves me. I will die knowing that he has my heart, just as I have his and that alone, gives me the strength to face my fate.
When I hear the guard’s footsteps as they come to collect me I stand and straighten out my dirty grey prison attire and brush my hair down with my fingers.
“Are you ready to burn you filthy hybrid?” The guard asks me. His eyes are full of menace and hate.
I simply smile at him, which pisses him off, and he grabs me roughly and locks the chains extra tight around my wrists. As I am escorted from my cell, a lone voice begins to sing the winter solstice song and I smile as other prisoners join them and soon the whole of my level and possibly the ones below and above are all filled with the singing voices of my fellow inmates.
This time I am taken to a different floor and we climb up several steep staircases until we move through a door and out into the open air. I lift my face to the skies and soak in the light and the fresh air. I had missed this. As I am guided out further, I take in my surroundings. They have brou
ght me to a square courtyard that holds the members of the council, all sat in their seats, waiting to watch me burn. There are also spectators here to watch justice served and as I pass them, some of them spit at me and call me a monster.
I stumble when I recognise Rafe amongst the spectators. For a split second our eyes meet and he winks at me and places two fingers on his chest. I have no idea why he has come, but I am thankful that there is a friendly face here.
I am led up some stone steps to where a lonely stone slab awaits me. I am forced to my knees and the guard roughly forces my head down into position. I concentrate my gaze on a lone bird that soars in the skies above. It flies free and swift.
“Executioner,” I hear the voice of Councillor De Meath say and I close my eyes and ready myself for my journey from this life to the next.
A loud, mighty, ear-splitting bang rocks the air around me and a blast of wind knocks me onto my side. A further series of loud bangs follow it and blasts of fire and magic elemental magic come hurtling from all directions. I duck my head when a blast of fire magic whizzes by me and it misses the top of my head by mere millimetres. I yelp when an arm wraps around my waist and lifts me to my feet. Something is thrown over my head and I am enveloped in blackness. I feel another hand on my other arm and they pull me down the steps. Around me the sound of fighting and chaos continues.
“Take her, go!” I hear a male voice say, just before and I am bundled into the hands of someone else. I hear an engine start.
“Elara!”
“Drayce!” I shout back, recognising his voice instantly. A hand smothers my mouth through the hood over my head. My head is pushed down, and I am shoved onto a seat.
“Go, Go, Go!” The male beside me urges. The vehicle throws me backwards as it takes off at top speed.
“Anyone on our tail?” I hear another male voice ask.
“Not yet, but they will be soon,” the male beside me replies.
My heart hammers in my chest, as I try to take in what is happening. Whoever these people were they had just saved me from death.
