“And you should not speak to me that way,” Estella said, lifting her chin. “I will give you a chance to take it back.”
“I don’t need your chances,” Svena growled. “I’m not your pawn any more.”
Estella opened her mouth to argue, but Svena didn’t give her a chance. “While you were gone, I convened our sisters. Eleven daughters of the Three Sisters, all together in one place for the first time since our mothers went to sleep, and for once in our lives, we were able to come to a consensus. You are no longer welcome among us.”
She stopped there, waiting for the shock, but she should have known better. Estella was a seer. She didn’t even look surprised. “That’s not something you get to decide,” she said haughtily. “Our mothers—”
“Our mothers have been asleep for over a thousand years,” Svena reminded her. “But if they woke today, they would be disgusted by how you’ve managed things in their absence. You are forever saying that we are the daughters of gods, but your endless, petty grudge against the Heartstriker and her seer has brought us closer to destruction than any other disaster in our history,includingthe loss of magic. Your selfishness put us all at risk, endangered Katya, and diminished our standing as a clan. That is incompetence, Estella, and we are no longer willing to tolerate it.” She bared her teeth. “Your rule is over, Northern Star. It is our consensus that your mind has finally been eaten by the seer’s madness, leaving you incapable of guiding our clan any further. From here on,Ilead the Daughters of the Three Sisters, and you will follow, or you will be banished.”
By the time she finished, Estella was shaking with rage, her hands curling into fists on the frosted carpet as magic began to rise. Svena called hers as well, ready to finish this. She was no longer afraid of the future. Estella was not the wise, savvy leader she’d once been, the dragon Svena had always looked up to. This filthy creature was nothing but a shadow, and Svena was younger, stronger. She would win. But as she summoned the ice to her hands, shaping the cold magic into a blast that would send Estella through the penthouse window, the seer suddenly slumped.
“I knew you would do this,” she said sadly, lowering her hands as she sat back down on the floor. “Your future vanished from my sight a long time ago, but I didn’t need to see to know. You have always been ambitious, Svena. It was inevitable that you would turn on me.”
“Congratulations, then,” Svena said mockingly. “You were right one last time.”
“Not this time,” the seer said, shaking her head. “I will not fight you, little sister.”
Svena paused, confused. “Then you will bow?”
“No,” Estella said with a crooked smile. “You will.”
And then her arm shot out.
Svena dodged automatically, throwing up a barrier of razor sharp ice, but it didn’t help. The moment Estella’s arm extended, one of the black lengths of chain leapt from it, curving impossibly in mid-flight to slide over the barrier and wrap around Svena’s throat. But while she saw the black chain hit, the metal had no weight against her skin, and when her frantic hands shot up to tear it away, there was nothing. Nothing at all.
“What did you do?” she roared, grabbing frantically at her bare neck.
“I fixed you,” Estella said sweetly. “Don’t worry, love. I’m going to fix everything.”
The words fell soft as snow, and when they were done, the invisible thing around Svena’s neck wrenched tight. She sank to the ground, choking as she clawed at whatever it was Estella had thrown, but like before, there was nothing to feel, not even magic. Her throat was simply closing, cutting her off, not from air, but from the world. It was like she was being squeezed out of her own body, and as she fought helplessly on the floor, Estella knelt beside her, reaching down to brush Svena’s hair out of her face as she had when they were young.
“Go back to how it was,” she whispered. “Come back to me.”
That was the last thing Svena heard before everything ended.
***
Two thousand miles away, in the heart of the mountain that rose like a thorn from the center of the vast expanse of New Mexico desert that now belonged exclusively to Bethesda the Heartstriker, in a cave stuffed to bursting with treasure and trash collected in equal measure, Brohomir, Great Seer of the Heartstrikers, fell out of his hammock.
He landed on his feet only by habit, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the horrible dream. Sadly, this too was only habit. He already knew what he’d felt was no dream.
It was a problem.
Bob turned away from his hammock with a scowl, clambering over piles of antique chessboards, watering cans, crowns, ancient artifacts, and hubcaps in his rush to get to the corkboard propped up on top of the unpainted, sideways door that served as his desk. Hisactualdesk was currently being used as a stand for the massive bird habitat he’d installed for his pigeon.
His sudden fall must have woken her, because she came fluttering over to perch on the shoulder of his threadbare t-shirt, her talons picking tiny holes in the design that wouldn’t be suitably ironic for at least another decade. For once, though, Bob didn’t notice. He was too busy digging through the massive layers of pink and yellow sticky notes that covered the corkboard like overlapping scales, looking briefly at each one before tossing it on the ground.
“No,” he muttered. “No, no, no, no—AH!”
He clutched the neon orange slip of paper like a winning lotto ticket and turned to the bird on his shoulder. “Darling,” he said sweetly. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to do some flying.”
The pigeon tilted its head, blinking its beady eyes with a questioning coo.
“Yes, far,” Bob said, showing her the paper. “As far as it gets, I’m afraid.”
The pigeon cooed again, and Bob sighed, walking over to grab the tin of butter cookies lying on top of a dusty pile of VHS tapes. He cracked the lid and picked out a sugary square. The bird perked up immediately, hopping onto his open hand. When she’d pecked the bribe to crumbs, Bob stroked her rainbow-feathered neck with a gentle finger. “Now, please? It’s kind of important.”
The pigeon bobbed her head and took off, beating her wings hard as she worked her way up through the heavy air to the tiny window at the top of the artificial cavern. Bob watched her until she was out of sight, and then he slapped the lid back on the cookie tin, tossed it on his desk, and, since he clearly wasn’t going to get another chance to do so any time soon, went back to bed.
