The blade slices across her throat. It draws its line of red.
It sinks in so far that blood spews from the wound.
Her mouth opens without sound, and worst of all, I see her beautiful soul leave her body in flowing, golden shadows.
A scream echoes from my lips. It shakes through the room, tearing at the structure. The ground trembles with the rage of my emotions. Cries and shouts emit from the once-quiet room. Carver’s body presses against mine as he holds me to his chest, attempting to calm me, to ground me, to save me.
The glowing apparition wanders aimlessly.
Is she afraid? She shouldn’t be alone. She needs me. I need for her to know I’m here.
As her soul drifts through the room in pure and beautiful colors, Jeriko’s hunger grows. I feel its demanding presence within my chest. In seconds, Jeriko’s glittering dark form is swarming her. I shift, swirling through the room as quickly as my magic will allow me. The shimmering colors of my magic slam against hers, but it only deters her for a moment. Her smoky form wraps around my mother’s, pulling her soul into herself.
She devours the soul in the blink of an eye.
My mother.
Gone.
Pain sears through my heart at the sight of it.
My thoughts can’t focus on anything but the hollow look in her shining emerald eyes. The way the puddle of blood beneath her makes her eyes seem darker. Ominous even.
Merrick is there, curling around her lifeless form. His face is contorted as he screams. Clothes darkening with her blood as he clutches her body to his chest. I can’t register the noise over the buzzing in my ears. My limbs have gone numb, tingling, and heavy.
The energy in me slips away. I fall, my body turning solid once again as I spiral through the air toward the cracked tile floor below.
A sobbing sound shakes from my lips just as my skull slams hard against the glossy tile.
12
Merrick
Even after Violence is gone,the room is still filled with screams. Earth, soul, and body-shattering cries of pain. No matter what I do, I can’t get the blood back into my mother’s body. No matter how I hold her lifeless limbs to me, she doesn’t hug me back.
My vision tunnels on my mother’s face. A single tear slips over her eyelid, unable to be held in by her sheer will any longer. I can’t breathe, can’t catch my breath, can’t think past the gaping hole in my chest that aches from my broken heart.
A hand touches my shoulder. A voice.
“I’m sorry, Merrick,” Casimir says.
The screaming, the cries of pain. It’s me.
Air struggles to make it down my throat past the quaking emotions that shake through me. I look up, squeezing my mother harder, her skin slowly losing its warmth. The king walks away, uncaring of the life he took today. The woman he’d once loved.
My brother’s shirt is still dark from his sweat when we’d practiced together. He lowers to a crouch at my side. Warmth seeps into me from his hand on my bicep. He touches me lightly.
“She’s gone.”
“NO!” I shout like this one word could take us back in time. Like I could save her with all the want in my body.
Casimir shrinks back.
The single strand of blonde hair that highlights his black strands falls forward on Bramwell’s face as he takes Casimir’s place at my side. He says nothing as he pats my back, leans forward, and carefully closes our mother’s eyes. Ashton’s steps flee from the room.
“She was a good mother,” Bramwell says, sorrow clear in his tone even if he doesn’t allow it to pass over his features. “She’s gone on to a better place. To the home with the gods. We will see her again one day.”
If it’s meant to reassure me, it does nothing. Nothing.
