Light returned slowly to the hall as the clouds of darkness dissipated. They were alone in the hall. Mal’s grip on her wrists loosened, and he leaned back, still straddling her.
Long exaggerated breaths slipped from him.
The Hall was desecrated. The once swirling marble pillars were chipped and cracked, now a pallid grey stone. The floor too. The windows in the hall were wide open, the glass previously in them scattered everywhere. The ceiling was bare. The tapestries had burned into nothing.
Maeve’s arms moved across her eyes and face.
“Take me away from here, Mal,” she cried.
Without argument, he Obscured them from Castle Morana.
She folded her arms across her chest in the long corridor that led to her father’s basement where the portraits of her family hung. The previously empty portrait between her Grandfather Alyicious and her brother Antony now held a portrait of her father sitting behind his desk, smoking a cigar.
She had been to this portrait many times in the past two days. It was the only proof her mind accepted that he was truly gone.
Someone had poisoned the person she loved more than anything. Whose heart beat closest to hers. Whose dazzling and mischievous smile was the cure to all her ailments. He would never come strolling through a set of doors, swagger in his step and a cigar in hand.
His body was decaying already. Buried on the cliffside in Northern England, on Sinclair land, where all the Sinclair family were buried from the past three hundred years. Many came to honor her father. Hundreds of Magicals. The entirety of the Magical Militia was in attendance. Every single soldier. Past and present.
Several people felt compelled to speak at Ambrose’s funeral. Maeve heard none of their words.
Everything felt empty. Nothing struck her emotions, nothing made her smile or feel angry. She was numb. Even as she replayed the image of his body passing in her arms, nothing swelled inside her.
Her Magic was sharpened somehow, but it was exhausted, even days later.
She knew there were those that opposed them. She knew The Committee and all those who were sitting fat and happy from the power she and Mal threatened to usurp were angry. But she never dreamed Ambrose would be the target. She was prepared to fight, but it was not Maeve or Mal who had been betrayed.
Her Father had warned her about a rebellion. Those that would have never seen Mal return. Those that benefited from the current class status and structure would not accept their new way without a fight.
He had been painfully right.
Mal had not left Maeve’s side since. Not to sleep, not to eat. Even now, he was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, watching her carefully.
Maeve knew they wouldn’t kill her yet, if they planned to at all. This wasn’t just a warning. It was to incentivize her to rethink her choices. To marry Alphard or Xander and produce heirs and do her duty.
There were only so many Sacred Seventeen women of age who were free. Arianna was already married. Victoria was engaged to Damario, possibly soon Alphard. Iris was two years away from turning twenty-two and Juliet’s parents had families offering a fortune for her betrothal. Emerie was promised to Roswyn. Their wedding was a month away.
The rest of the sacred seventeen girls were still children in their primary studies. But there were a dozen or more Sacred Seventeen men without wives.
They wanted her still. They had no other choice.
Maeve took a steadying breath and tore her eyes away from her father’s portrait.
Mal was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. He was in relaxed clothing. Black slacks with a thin pressed seam and a dark blue turtleneck. The locket hung freely around his neck. No crown.
His face now had a pale red and white jagged scar, courtesy of Maeve’s unexplained lighting. Magicals didn’t produce lightning. The mark ran from his chin, jagged and broken, up across his cheekbone and through his eye.
“Will it scar?” She had asked after Irma healed him the day before.
Mal nodded. “Dark magic leaves traces.”
Maeve ran her fingers over the black lines that shot across her own neck. “I’m sorry.” She had said.
Maeve reached the top of the stairs. They walked silently to the Dining Hall. Mal pulled out Maeve’s chair, and she sat across from Arianna. Her mother sat at the head of the table. Mal stood next to her, looking down.
She felt him pushing into her mind. It took little effort and she let him slip inside.
I am a word away, he pushed into her mind.
