“Yes, of course, child. Please take care of yourselves. Remember the prophecy. Be ruthless. You’ll find the truth,” Yaga said, slowly getting toher feet.
Taking my time to center myself, I breathed deep and exhaled several times before I found Vada’s eyes, letting her know how I was feeling without words I could express yet. I led her out of Yaga’s hut, then slid down the chicken legs, only to realize her house had taken us to the outer edges of the forest near the Autumn Court’s entrance. This saved us probably a day’s walk on foot. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked Vada.
“Yes, sweet girl. Let’s get this done. Are you still okay with the plans?” she replied, hand clenching mine in support.
“I don’t think we have any other way around this. We walk through the front door, and we make it happen. I need you to promise me something.” I turned, stopping her before we got within eyesight of the gates.
“Anything. What do you need?” Vada responded, wrapping me up in her arms.
I snuggled in close, praying this wasn’t the last time we’d get the chance to do this, “I need you to promise me that you will find a way out of this castle, even if I don’t. I need you to stay safe. I need you to be willing to leave and get help if this goes tits up.” My lips were trembling as I struggled to rein in my emotions. The jitters were getting to me, and this may have been my last chance to show any sort of reaction for the foreseeable future. I needed her to know that I would do whatever it took to protect her.
Her jaw ticked. “I’m not sure that I can promise you that. I will tear this world, and every other world, down for you. You have to know that.”
I pressed my palm against her cheek. “I do know that. I understand now why you feel the way you do. We deserve to figure this out. But our best chance is by getting help. My father will not kill me. He wants to use me. If I’m captured, it’s thebest worst-case scenario. If you’re captured, that’s a different story,” I told her.
“Adaela ÓDubhlaoich, I am immortal in the way that Gods are immortal. I can die, but I will not stay dead unless very specific circumstances prevent my resurrection. I will do my best to make sure we’re given the best shot to get out of here. If the worst-case scenario happens, I will do my best to get you out by whatever means necessary. If that means that I leave here to get help, I will. I promise that you will never be alone again. That’s as much as I can give you right now,” Vada said seriously, shaking me a little to get her point across.
I sucked in a deep breath, straightening my spine and lifting my chin. “If that’s the best you’ll offer, then I will take that with the hope that scenario doesn’t happen.”
With that, we stepped out of the woods directly in front of the gates. We timed it so that we got here during shift change. The coast was clear. I felt myself reverting to who I used to be. The amount of pain faced behind these walls was worse than anything I’d ever suffered out on a battlefield. I expected that I would not come out of this unscathed, but my only hope was that Vada would. I had to trust that she had the experience and the judgment to do what was best for all, and not just for me.
The first guards came into view, and instead of waiting for them to sound the alarm, I sent out a blast of death magic, incapacitating all of them before they even knew what happened. I wasn’t using the full force of my powers just yet. I didn’t know which ones were being forced into their roles and which ones were gleefully complicit in my father’s tyranny. It would be unfair to take lives from those who were just a product of the system they were born into.
I tore through the gates, making my way to the throne room my father would be in, Vada keeping up with my quick pace. I was used to being short and having to compensate for tallerindividuals. I threw the doors open to the throne room to see my father holding court. The euphoria of letting my death magic out to play still concerned me with how easy it was to push it out toward the individuals in the room, but this time, I made it precise. My father was the only one standing. His guards, the audience, and the staff were all taking an interminable nap. My shadows left me next, a tidal wave bursting through a dam as they rushed out from underneath my skin, pinning my father to his throne as he attempted to stand. This was paramount to our success, since even though my father was not as strong magically as I was, he was deadly with a weapon. He no longer could control my shadows, and the irritation on his face indicated that he tried.
“Father, so nice of you to hold court as a welcome home gift,” I said, swaggering toward him and refusing to bow.
He sat back in his throne as if he wasn’t tied there by my shadows, giving off the air of authority he had perfected over the years. “Daughter. What brings you back to Underhill?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I was transported from a portal here as someone was caught trying to murder one of my constituents. Tell me, Cernunnos, were you involved?” I began walking up the stairs toward him, and nothing about his countenance changed. He was a master at manipulation, so I had to determine truth from fiction.
Vada was standing at the edge of the platform, remaining mostly inconspicuous. My father sat there, showing absolutely no emotion—a tell that signified to me that he did know something about what was going on. There was no widening of his eyes, no change in his breathing. I couldn’t hear as well as Vada probably could, so I couldn’t tell if his heartbeat changed or not. Even the best of us had tells. I summoned my shadows to bring me a weapon off one of the passed-out guards. Producing the long sword, I pointed it right at my father’s neck.
“Against my better judgment, I have left you alone to rule this fucking kingdom after everything you’ve done. I left and helped create another, where others like me could find respite. Yet, I really don’t have much holding me back now. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right here,” I spat.
My father laughed. “My girl, you’ve never had it in you to kill me. I’m the last remaining family you have, and for whatever reason, that means something to you. After all these years, do you really think that I’m going to just sit here and let you take whatever you want? Have you forgotten so easily?”
As he finished his sentence, his second-in-command popped out into existence from a portal just to the left of Cernunnos’s throne. He came prepared, too, immediately shooting off magic in my direction. Father’s second wasn’t a portal weaver, so I was caught unaware. His powers were earthen in nature. I was bound in a web of vines before I could react, and Vada shot up onto the dais to circumvent any more damage to me. I took my eyes off my father, trying to find other ways to remove the vines from my body when I momentarily lost focus on the magic holding everyone in stasis, my father included. Realizing it just a bit too late, I sent out another pulse of magic toward the crowd, but my father had already risen.
While my father wasn’t nearly as powerful as I was, that didn’t make him weak. He drew a sword, stepping up to me with lightning speed to force the sword through my gut.
It took everything in me not to scream out, though the pain was agonizing. Not only had my father just stabbed me, he’d stabbed me with an iron blade.Theiron blade I’d given him, telling him it was the mythical blade I’d gone on that hunt for all those years ago. My magic left me as if I’d never possessed it. My insides felt like they were freezing and on fire at the same time. The immediate, intense cramps were agonizing, and I struggled to continue breathing normally. Instead, I took short,shallow breaths and tried not to pass out or throw up. Slowly dropping to my knees, still caught up in vines, I looked up at my father with disdain as he laughed.
“Did you really think you were going to come intomyhome, demand anything of me, and that I would just sit back and take it? Have you already forgotten who you’re messing with, girl?” my father snarled in my face, but I barely heard him over the searing pain as he backhanded me. I fell over onto my side, vines wrapping tighter around me.
I bared my teeth at him. At the edge of the dais, Vada completed a roundhouse kick to my father’s second, and I saw her take a dagger and strike it through the bottom of his chin, killing him instantly. I tried not to grimace as I said, “I never forgot, father. I had no other fucking choice.” I coughed, a little blood leaving my lips.
I choked out Vada’s name, and she scrambled over the body she just killed to get to me. Vada let out a quiet gasp and sent out a blast of seduction magic toward my father, who just laughed at her.
“You impudent little cunt. Have you not heard the stories? I’m immune to your fucking seduction games,” Cernunnos bellowed, taking a step toward Vada.
Vada laughed. “You speak to me as if I’ve not lived lifetimes longer than you, Cernunnos. I’ve been called impudent my entire life. But what you stupid motherfuckers continuously forget about is that I know your secrets, and I don’t bow to the likes of men.”
I was motherfucking myself, because if there was anything I should’ve thought about bringing before we stepped foot inside of this place, it should’ve been a healing tonic. I was wrapped in vines, desperately trying to keep my father’s guards knocked out, though that was a lost cause while I had an iron sword in my gut, slowly bleeding out around it. I should have used mywaning energy to deal a blow to my father as well, but I couldn’t think straight.
As much as it hurt, I leaned my torso down toward the sword, grunting in pain as my vision spotted. If I’d had the breath, I would’ve been screaming. I was hoping that I could cut away enough of the vines so I could loosen my arms to break through the rest. I worked out daily and had a lot of bulk to show for it, but these magically enhanced vines were stronger than I could break. I just kept praying to any gods that would hear my call that I could get out of this before I passed out from blood loss. My body couldn’t heal with iron in me. This was likely it, and I wished Vada would leave like I’d asked of her.
Vada’s shouts sounded a million miles away, calling out to me while my father held a sword at her neck, but I couldn’t really hear what she was saying. My breath was getting shallower as the moments passed, but finally there was some give in the vines. I began struggling through the pain, working on trying to loosen the vines enough to get free. A noise like a thunk distracted me from my mission as Vada had perfected some new move she had learned while working with the guards in the Demon Faction. Father was on his back, killed by his own sword.
