Merlin flashed from where she was in a puff of Mist and appeared next to me.
“I don’t think I’ll kill you now,” she said, in a low venomous tone; madness and vengeance in her eyes. “But you need to pay for killing my sister, Hazra.”
Her sister? The other mistweaver had been her sister? Now the pained look on her face when I’d mentioned killing the mistweaver made sense.
Spikes slowly speared into me from the mist clamping me to the wall. My armor stopped most of them, but where my armor didn’t cover, my neck, and hands and the small gaps between the plates, pain burned through my skin. I gritted my teeth, not wishing to give her the pleasure of hearing me scream. But she could clearly see I was in pain.
“Oh, yes, that is delicious, but not the sort of pain I wish you to feel. No, you need to feel the pain of loss, of losing someone you care for deeply.” She swung her head around looking at those in my party. “Your sister perhaps?” she said. “That is fitting, yes. But she is already dying.” She swung her gaze back to me. “But no… you need to suffer so much more than I did. Twice as much perhaps? Shall I take another from you?” Her head swung around again and locked on Alvere. “The King perhaps? You love him, do you not?”
“No!” I couldn’t help it. The word escaped my lips before I could stop it.
She chuckled. “Yes, that would be perfect. A sister and a lover.” Her gaze returned to me. “I’ll cripple your body so you’ll no longer be a threat and take those you love from you.” She laughed. “That is what you get for working against me, little one.”
The Mists around me crushed in harder, pin-prick-spikes digging deeper. I felt the bones in my arms crack, heard the hollow popping sounds. My ribs would give way next. Even my armor, strong as it was, couldn’t stop this force.
Merlin laughed as she flashed away in a swirl of mist to arrive next to Alvere, who was up and had his sword out, his honor-guard creating a circle around him. But they were facing out and never saw Merlin grasp his neck and lift him from the ground. She looked back at me as she choked him, his sword falling from his spasming hand as he flailed against her. She circled slowly so she could keep eye-contact with me as she brought Alvere’s face to hers in a mock kiss. Mist flowed from her mouth to his, into him and the spasming stopped suddenly.
She grinned, then vanished, disappearing with Alvere, both gone.
No!I tried to scream, but I had no air. I was struggling to breathe as pain surged through me. Ribs fractured and cracked in a new surge of pain. Merlin might not have been trying to kill me, but she might just have done so. As hard as I struggled to hold on, to hold out, to fight against this magic, I couldn’t. My breath wouldn’t come and the world shrank into darkness, and pain, and loss, before I finally blacked out.
I’d enraged Merlin, and it had backfired horribly.
I knew I wouldn’t die, not yet, she’d promised that. But as I fell into darkness, I also knew… I’d lost this fight.
* * *
I woke with a gasp.My eyes snapped open to see the haggard and exhausted face of Ant above me.
“Oh, thank the Spirits,” he breathed.
I still felt pain over so much of me, but my breathing was coming easier, my ribs feeling like they were intact. He must have thought me dead, but I knew better. That had not been Merlin’s plan. Though I doubt Merlin’s plan had included Ant healing me either.
Still, even though my body was mending, my soul was shattered.
“Alvere,” I breathed the name, voice hoarse. “Dove.”
“I stabilized Dove, but she’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know if she’ll pull through. I’m sorry Legs. The same is true of Lady Silvermane. She’s been taken to other healers as we speak, but she’s alive, for now.” He swallowed hard. “But… Alvere is missing.”
As I suspected.
I could do so little in that moment, lying on my back in the hall. The fighting seemed to have stopped, which was a good thing, but I didn’t really care about that. My heart burned with an indomitable ache for my sister and Alvere, so I simply wept.
“I’m sorry,” Ant said softly. “I… I need to go, others need my ability.” I heard him rise and the heavy footfalls moving away.
But a moment later, lighter ones drew near. “Oh, Blessed Spirits! Legs!” Silence’s voice. A soft hand touched my cheek, one of the few spots that didn’t still hurt. I opened my eyes, but couldn’t speak, voice choked with the sobs I couldn’t stop.
Silence leaned down, careful not to touch certain parts of me — I guess I looked as bad as I felt — and pressed my face to his chest in an awkward embrace.
“They’ll survive,” he said softly. “And we’ll get Alvere back, don’t you worry.”
If he wasn’t already dead. He’d been hanging so limp and lifeless in Merlin’s grip. And even if he wasn’t dead, perhaps the mists she’d forced into him were a curse like the queen’s? If we rescued him, it might just mean his death.
“Just rest for now,” Silence said. “The fighting’s over. We need to regroup and recover. Then we can make Merlin pay for what she’s done.”
He was right.
I felt myHerogift surge within me, helping to numb the agony as I rose. My tears stopped as my jaw tightened.
