Before my eyes, the stranger’s rosy cheeks grow
pale. She’s young with a sweet face framed by wild auburn hair, reminding me of
my sister in a way that makes me squirm. Her eyes are closed and deep wrinkles
cut into her brow. Her lips purse as though she's in pain. As she wilts like a
flower without sunlight, I sense my own body grow stronger.
Her magic gives me life.
My life will be her death.
I open my heart to the power and pull, ripping it from her
thieving soul, draining more and more away. Her body slouches, weakening, but I
don’t care. It’s no less than she deserves. Her ancestor stole this magic from
my sister, stole my sister’s waking life, so it’s only justice I steal it back.
Aerewyn.
I try to whisper her name, but no sound passes through my
lips. It’s been so long, I’d almost given up hope, and now she’s so close. I
can see her rose-red hair shining in the summer sun. I hear her laugh like warm
mist on my skin. I see the woodland green of her eyes, bright with mischief. My
best friend. My other half. My sister.
Aerewyn, come back to
me.
The magic floods beneath my skin and I close my eyes,
imagining she’s there. A single tear slips down the side of my face. The power
begins to fight me, begins to draw back, but I don’t let go. I don’t want it to
end. I don’t want her to leave. I need to free Aerewyn’s magic so it can find
her, wake her, and bring her back to me.
I feel the stranger’s body collapse against my chest. I feel
arms shake us. I hear the shout of muffled words. But I’m lost in the power and
the past and the possibilities. I’ve killed humans before. What’s one more if
it will bring Aerewyn back to life?
As the magic sinks beneath my skin, I’m distantly aware that
something else has worked its way there too—a little piece of this stranger’s
soul. Suddenly, pictures fill my mind, flashing faster than I can control,
colors and lights and sounds I can’t process as they fly across my vision,
stealing it away. A little girl with a princess crown. A carriage ride. An
earthquake that sent her flying. A new world. A dark prison cell. An
underground home. A kingdom of beasts. A lost prince. Memories, I realize. The
girl’s memories. As her life drains into mine, I see it flash before my eyes.
Years of loneliness and heartache. Weeks of bright love. All winding down to
this moment.
The magical tie between us snaps.
In the whiplash, she stands and stumbles back. I open my
eyes, trying to blink her memories away as a guttural scream pierces my
confusion.
“Omorose!”
That’s her name. I know it like I know my own, as though it is my own. But I’m Nymia—Nymia the
faerie vigilante, not Omorose the human scourge. I force the broken piece of
her soul away, down into the dredges of my mind, not entirely sure what to do
with it.
I know enough to know I need to deal with it later as I sit
up and blink, utterly confused by my surroundings. When I stole the magic from
the shifters and cast the spell for healing sleep, I’d been in a small room of
a large castle, on a plush bed beneath heavy blankets, surrounded by stone
walls as a fire crackled in the corner. But that’s not where I’m waking up.
The air is cold as ice. When I breathe, white plumes billow
by my lips before fading into the dim light. I’m lying on a cot of some kind,
in a tent. Through the slit in the canvas flaps, I see snow illuminated by
moonlight. When I drop my feet over the side of the bed, they land on a thick
wool rug, cool against the frozen ground. Omorose’s body is draped lifelessly
across a man’s lap. She struggles to keep her eyes open as she stares longingly
into a face I can’t quite see. The man holds his hand to her cheek, cradling
her as though she might break while he caresses her rapidly paling skin.
“What did you do?” he whispers.
There’s such heartache in his tone, my own chest pinches
witnessing it. Omorose tries to open her lips, but she has no strength left.
The strip of her soul that somehow braided with mine cries out. Colors flash
before my eyes, stealing my vision for a prolonged second. Just like that, I
know what she’s done as though it’s my own life we’re discussing.
Before I cast the spell for my healing sleep, I’d heard
rumors that human magic was cursed. No one knew exactly why or how. Some said
the magic cursed itself as a way to gain freedom. Others believed the faerie
priestesses had cast a spell cursing all human magic with their dying breaths.
More still that humans had accidently cursed themselves by using a spell they
had no right to know. To be honest, I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned,
if they were cursed, they deserved it, just as they deserved the blades I
plunged through their hearts.
But in these memories that aren’t my own, I see the truth.
The magic is cursed. It's a burden
Omorose has lived with for most of her life, a constant weight, a constant
fear. Her magic is beautiful. Visions flash through my thoughts of flowers
blooming to life, of trees growing taller, of vines creeping up walls as petals
unfurl, and of dried fields returning to lush meadows. Her magic is to give
nature life—such a faerie gift it almost brings a smile to my lips, until I remember
it comes at the cost of my sister. Then a twisted sort of pleasure floods my veins
as I experience her curse in visions of pain and agony—bits of her own life
being stripped away.
The man’s question comes back to me.
What did you do?
Hardly a second has passed since he muttered the words, and
yet, I’ve lived an entire life behind my closed eyes. The perverse glee I’d
been feeling a moment ago fades away, replaced by stilted disbelief as full
understanding of her sacrifice blossoms inside my mind.
What did she do?
“She saved my life.” The answer spills from my lips, a soft
whisper, surprising me as the words roll out, steeped with undeniable truth.
She used her magic to save my life, knowing the entire time that because of her
curse, it would kill her.
I glance at Omorose in time to see her lips twitch with a
smile. Then her body goes limp as death takes her.
The man cradling her in his lap trembles and gently shakes
her shoulders. He glances up, swiveling his head in search of help, eyes
bloodshot and strained. I recognize him in an instant—those smoky gray irises,
that onyx hair, the aura of wildness saturating the air around him. He’s the
shifter prince I tricked, whose magic I left intact while I stole the power
from his people. He was a young boy when I cast the spell for healing sleep,
and something must’ve gone horribly wrong, because he’s a young man now.
Did I fumble the words?
Was I too weak to properly cast?
Was the magic simply above my training?
The spell should’ve taken months, no more than a year, yet
it seems a decade could’ve easily gone by—a decade in which I slept peacefully
ignorant while his people remained trapped as little more than animals, unable to
shift, unable to speak, captives to their baser instincts, leaving him and his
parents the only humans in a town of beasts.
Hatred spills from his gaze as he turns toward me.
To be honest, I don’t blame him.
“Do something!” he demands, voice hoarse and crazed.
Cole, I remember his mother calling him, though it seems
more from a dream than a memory. I’m having trouble rectifying the change
between then and now, between boy and man, between hopeful and unhinged.
“Help her!”
Help her? I think,
mind still on his mother and her warm voice. Then I pause, remembering the girl
draped lifelessly in his arms, and recoil. Help
her?!
I flick my gaze back to Omorose, suffocating her foreign
memories as they try to rise to the surface of my mind. I bring my own to the
forefront instead. Memories of laughing with Aerewyn as we snuck through the
forests at night. Memories of dancing with Aerewyn during the summer solstice as
magic simmered and sparkled in the breeze. Memories of spying on the elders,
testing our magic, and dreaming of the future ahead—dreams that were snuffed
out when her magic was stolen, then mine, then the world’s, all because of
humans like this girl draped pale as death before me.
“There’s nothing I can do,” I murmur coldly. Someone of her
bloodline murdered my sister and stole her magic, then passed it down from heir
to heir until it finally reached Omorose. As far as I’m concerned, this is
justice hundreds of years in the making. “Besides,” I add to drive home the
point, “I wouldn’t help a human thief even if I could.”
“You’re no better,” the prince snarls, offering a glimpse of
the beast trapped beneath his skin. As his arms tremble, I watch his hands,
half expecting them to change to claws. “You stole everything from me.
Everything.”
“That wasn’t personal,” I snap, denial my gut instinct.
Doesn’t he realize why I needed to borrow the magic from his people? Doesn’t he
realize I’m trying to save beings like us? Doesn’t he see I’m trying to free
the magic? To stop the humans?
No, I suddenly realize as I stare into his broken eyes. He
doesn’t. All Cole knows is that I showed up at his castle in the middle of the
night and stole his people’s magic. He went to bed with an eager heart, and
woke to find his entire kingdom destroyed. Of course, he doesn’t understand my
reasons—I never explained. The healing sleep should’ve only lasted months, but
it lasted years. I shattered his childhood. I crushed his innocence. I didn’t
mean to ruin his life, yet somehow I did. No matter how good my intentions
were, I’m the bad guy in his story. And now here I am, awake while the woman he
clearly loves is dying in his arms. She didn’t sacrifice her life to save mine.
She did it to save his—to bring his people back, to return their magic and
reunite them with their prince, to heal his lonely heart before her curse
inevitably killed her.
I sigh as all my self-righteous anger oozes away, replaced
with sympathy. Whatever brought us to this moment, I don’t want to cause him
more pain. I meant what I said—it wasn't personal, none of it was. Voice
softer, I clarify, “And this isn’t either. There really is nothing I can do.
I’m not strong enough to break her curse, not by myself.”
“What curse?” The prince goes still. A droplet of dread
oozes down my spine. “Her curse is pain.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. The sound is dark and disdainful
and dripping with irony. Of course, the human lied. That’s what they always do.
That’s who they are. A long time ago, a human prince lied to my sister, filling
her head with beautiful dreams that could never come true. And now it’s a
different world, a different age, a different game, but the players are the
same. A human with beautiful lies, and a magical being who fell for them.
I want to hug him as I would’ve my sister.
I want to shake him and shout at his stupidity.
I want to cry.
Instead, I give him the truth.
“Dear prince, her curse is death.”
“No,” he whispers. His pale skin goes positively ashen as
the blood drains from his cheeks and his eyes go wide. His face twists in pain
as he pulls her limp body to his chest. “No!” This time, the word erupts as a
roar, tearing its way free and spilling into the world ripe with anguish.
“There has to be something, some way, some…” He hunches over as his voice
cracks. With a gentleness I never would’ve expected from a man whose wildness
permeates the air, he brushes his fingers against her cheek, staring down with
such intensity I have to look away. “Please,” he begs. “Please don’t leave me.”
Despite myself, I almost want to help him.
Not her. Not the girl with Aerewyn’s stolen magic.
But this prince who’s breaking right in front of me.
I spent years hardening my heart so I’d be prepared to do
whatever it took—and I mean, whatever it took—to return the magic to the world.
I’ve lied. I’ve killed. I’ve turned my back on all the principles of peace I
was born to believe in—though, to be fair, I sort of think those principles
turned on me first. I’ve become someone I don’t think my former teachers would
even recognize. But for the first time since I was a girl, a crack works its
way slowly across my shell, fracturing and expanding as my chest swells with
his plea.
Unfortunately, there really is nothing I can do.
I wasn’t lying.
Faerie magic is only a shadow of what it once was, and worse
yet, I was never properly trained on how to use it. I was still a novice when
the world fell, still learning my elemental power, still years away from
understanding how to warp it into the grand incantations the priestesses used
to weave. I don’t even know all the ancient words, only a limited few. Whatever
or whoever wove the curses into the human magic, they were far more powerful
than me. I don’t know how to break her curse, and I’m not strong enough to
bring back the dead.
Which she is.
I know it the moment the magic detaches from her limp body.
A subtle golden shimmer rises to the surface of her skin, a faerie glow to
match the one always emanating from my own. All faeries have it—I never thought
it was strange until the first time I laid eyes on the dull, lifeless skin of a
human. Ours sparkles with magic, a mix of sunlight and stardust we can’t shake
away. For a moment, I swear I see Aerewyn before me as the power lifts off
Omorose’s body and, still glistening, billows in the air. Then she’s gone. The
magic whisks away, vanishing in the blink of an eye and leaving me no chance to
follow.
I’m left alone with the prince I’ve helped destroy.
His cries fill the small space of the tent, forcing out the
air until I’m suffocated by his grief. My body splits in two, divided by the
worst side of myself and the best. Half of me wants to do whatever I can to
help fix this situation I know I’ve inadvertently caused, to ease his pain. Half
of me wants to use the opening to escape, to run away and find my sister, who
at any moment will be waking to a world she doesn’t recognize, confused and
terrified and probably still wrecked by the betrayal that will be fresh in her
mind. I’m torn between this prince I broke, and the sister I brought back.
Yet, the choice is easy.
Aerewyn needs me.
I turn toward the tent flaps, already longing for the fresh
air, but someone jerks the fabric aside before I get there. A human man with
hair that glows silver in the moonlight stands in the entrance, holding it
open. A human girl with determined green eyes runs in and falls to her knees
beside the shifter prince. I jump back as a frigid wind strikes my chest,
chilling me to the bone. The tent flaps close, but the cold remains. It’s in my
skin now. A premonition. A sense of dread. The two new strangers share words
with the prince, but my ears are ringing too loud to hear as I take in the
object they brought with them.
It’s not from my world.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.
The front flashes with numbers. A blue line moves and blinks
as it zags across the black surface. Somehow, it makes noise, a beeping sound
that grates at the ears. The humans settle Omorose on the floor and press two
handles to her chest. When they push a red circle, lightning shoots beneath her
skin—it’s the only way I can think to describe it. This strange little box
makes a blast of pure energy, as though they’ve bottled up a storm from the
sky. Her body jerks on the ground. A buzz hums through the silence. Then they
do it again.
“Come on,” one of them says with stubborn defiance.
They can’t mean to…
It’s not possible…
She’s dead…
She—
The charge blasts her chest again, but this time, her mouth
opens and she sucks in a breath, suddenly alive. The two humans cheer. The
beast prince gasps. I do too, but I think it’s for a different reason.
This wasn’t magic.
This was something human. An invention of some kind, like
the ones my sister used to be so enthralled by, but so much more. It terrifies
me. While the four of them laugh and cry and hug on the ground, relishing in
their victory, I shrink back. My entire sense of the world tilts to the side,
gradually slipping away as I dart my gaze around the room. The humans know how
to cheat death. What else have they learned while I slept? What new world have
I been thrust into? And what about my sister?
Her magic is gone.
There’s no trace of her in the room, but what if they’ve
somehow destroyed it? Do they have an invention for that too? Could they bottle
her power up in a little beeping box and keep her locked away for all eternity?
I close my eyes, trying to dredge up the memories Omorose
accidently flung into my mind, but my thoughts whirl too much. They won’t
settle enough to let me focus. Instead, question after question rises to the
surface, making it impossible to concentrate, until a voice stops me cold.
“And she’s going
to help us.”
A shiver rushes down my spine as I sense multiple sets of
eyes on my skin. I blink, feigning a sense of confidence I don’t feel. My arms
are crossed defiantly across my chest, as though rebellion has become part of
who I am—something the meek little girl I once was never would’ve foreseen. I’m
not meek anymore, and no matter what power these strange humans have, I’ll find
a way to defeat it. I may be surrounded on all sides, but I refuse to be backed
into a corner. So I cock my hip, deepen my scowl, and arch my brow in a silent
dare.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” Omorose says, voice sharp with conviction. I
don’t know what she wants my help with, but the demanding nature of her tone
irks me enough not to care, especially when she adds, “I saved your life. You
owe me.”
Owe you? I want to
scream. Owe you!
She runs around with my sister’s stolen magic beneath her
skin, and now has the gall to think I owe her a favor? For what—destroying
everything I hold dear? My spell for healing sleep would’ve worked eventually.
I didn’t need her help. I didn’t want it. It’s so typical of a human to take
credit for something that was never even asked for in the first place.
I roll my eyes, unable to stop the spiteful response as it
rolls from my tongue. “You just expedited the process. I was going to be fine.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I grit my teeth. “Either way, I got out of the business of
helping humans a very long time ago, when their greed murdered everyone I know.
One act of kindness doesn’t undo all the harm your people caused, all the lives
they destroyed.”
“What about helping me?” the shifter prince whispers softly.
“My kind?”
I wince and turn toward him, guilt churning in my gut. A
glimmer of the girl I once was rises to the surface before I can force her and
her caring heart back down.
“I’m sorry.” The apology spills out before I can stop it.
I’m not sure if I’m speaking to the prince or to the girl I used to be, the one
who would be ashamed to learn of the woman she’s become—cold, and bitter, and
cruel to the very beings she was created to protect. But I don’t want to go
down that road, so I turn my focus on Cole. “I really am. What I did to you, I
did out of desperation. Believe me when I say there was no other way. I never
wanted to hurt you, but I needed magic and I needed it fast.”
“You’re a priestess, aren’t you?”
The sound of that word shocks me still. I thought the people
of the world had forgotten my kind, that we’d become little more than a myth
lost to time. Yet if he believes I’m a full-fledged priestess, maybe that will
help me. Maybe it’ll fool them into thinking I’m stronger than I really am,
that my magic is more powerful than they could imagine, that I’m not someone
they want to cross.
“All faeries have a little magic,” I murmur with a shrug,
fully aware that their own imaginations will do more than my words ever could.
I let my response hang there for a moment, so it sinks in and expands, teeming
with possibilities. “But that’s not the point. Yes, I borrowed your magic. Borrowed. The spell was going to run its
course and the magic would have been returned to you no matter what.” I’m not
entirely sure who I’m trying to convince—Omorose, the prince, myself? The
thought of owing a debt to a human makes my skin crawl. It can’t be true. I
plow on, pointedly ignoring the smug look shooting my way. “I left your magic
alone and I left your parents’ magic alone, so the three of you could still
guide your people until that day came. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
I’m not evil.
I’m not a monster.
Again, I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince.
“Well, my parents are dead,” he murmurs darkly. “So your
plan didn’t really work out.”
The underlining fury in his tone whispers that my spell
undoubtedly had something to do with their deaths, though for the life of me, I
don’t know what.
I release a breath.
Myself—I was trying to convince myself. And I failed. I’m a
horrible person. I left this boy alone in the world because I couldn’t bear to
die without seeing my sister one more time. And I’m doubly terrible because I’m
going to do it again. I can’t stay here. I can’t help these people. Not when
Aerewyn is out there somewhere, finally alive. I’ve been waiting a lifetime for
this moment, and I refuse to wait any more.
“I’m sorry for that. I am,” I mutter, only half feeling the
words. My mind has already slipped through the break in the tent flaps and into
the crisp night, alive and wanting. I need to go. I need to get out of here. I
need to see her. “But there are things I need to do, people I need to see. And
I can’t waste my time helping a human, least of all a human who possessed
stolen magic”—Aerewyn’s magic!—“not
when other people need me.”
“Would it be a waste of your time to break a curse? To free
some magic? To give it back to the people you claim you want to help?”
Omorose’s voice latches onto my escaping thoughts and yanks them back into the
tent. I flinch with the impact.
“What do you mean?” I turn to her slowly, eyes narrowing.
“Your magic is gone. Otherwise I’d feel it.”
“My curse isn’t broken.”
“What?” Cole growls, stealing the word right out of my
mouth.
The magic fled. I felt it. If it wasn’t being freed, if it
was still cursed, then she must mean—
“It’s not me,” Omorose quickly tells the prince to quell his
fears. “When I died, my magic transferred to an heir I didn’t know was still
alive.”
All the pieces sink into place.
“My sister,” she continues, unaware of how my mind whirls
with this new information. She has a blood heir, and that changes everything.
“My little sister. My spirit traveled to her. I saw her. I saw the magic
consume her. She inherited my curse. And I have to save her. I’ll do anything
to save her.”
As I will for my sister.
Aerewyn’s magic isn’t free—it’s still trapped. It’s been
passed down Omorose’s royal lineage to a new human host, a new human thief. But
it won’t be for long. No matter what lie I have to tell, no matter who I have
to hurt, I’ll save my sister. I’ll do whatever it takes to see her again. I
refuse to come this close just to fail. Consequences be damned, I blink and
meet Omorose’s pleading eyes.
The part of me that’s still a little bit good whines in
protest, twisting my insides painfully tight, so I can almost hear a plea in my
pounding blood, telling me not to cross this line. Omorose’s memories flood my
thoughts until the face of her sister fills my mind, a toddler with chestnut
hair and big hazel eyes, the picture of innocence.
I smother the image.
I smother the protest.
I smother the good girl I used to be, and I tell this human
the one thing I know she desperately wants to hear. “I’ll help.”
I’ll help Aerewyn—but
Omorose doesn’t need to know that.
***
