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The echo of my scream bounced around the room like a mountain yodel that carried for miles.
The door creaked open and Queen Odette entered. She crossed and stopped in front of me, opening her hand. “Looking for these?”
My lock picks sat in her palm. She turned her hand over, and they dropped to the ground, along with the last vestige of hope I had.
I snarled and lunged for her as red fury filled me, roaring like an unchecked forest fire.
Queen Odette recoiled, stepping back, her face falling into a mask of shock for a brief instant. She brushed her dress, reset her face, and then turned towards the door, snapping her finger.
A figure wrapped in a dark cape crossed to her. My mother’s sword peeked out from under the fabric.
“That’s my sword,” I snapped, glaring at the figure.
A skeletal hand came up and pushed the hood back.
I stared in horror at the empty sockets and the thin grey mask of skin covering the skeleton that stared in my direction. When it raised the sword, turning it one way and then the other as if inspecting it, I thought I would vomit.
“I believe that is yours, correct, Margaret?”
“Yes, my grace,” the skeleton said in a gravel-laden voice.
It had been almost fifteen years since I’d heard that voice, and although it sounded like she was speaking through a layer of dirt, I still recognized it. My knees nearly gave out. Even though I had guessed that Queen Odette had given my mother’s dead body reanimation, it still shook me to the core. This thing, this monster, was my mother risen from the grave to serve this... this vile, evil bitch.
My brain couldn’t grasp it.
Flashes of my mother brushing my hair, tucking me in bed, kissing my forehead, singing me lullabies, hugging me until her sweet floral scent wrapped around me as tightly as her arms... So many vivid memories. And every one of them overlaid this skeletal thing with my mother’s real features.
“I would like to see how sharp it is,” Queen Odette said.
The skeleton of my mother raised the sword, pointing it at me. She paused and tilted her head. Even though she didn’t have eyes, I could almost envision her bright blue irises peering at me in her silent and questioning gaze.
Queen Odette studied me. “Shoulder.”
Even before she finished saying the word, the tip of the sword sliced through my shoulder, scratching over bone and slicing tendon before the metal scraped the wall behind me.
My breath locked in my chest as the pain flared, hot and wild.
When the blade retracted, I cried out.
The skeleton showed the bloody sword to the queen.
“That will be all for now, Margaret,” Queen Odette said, dismissing the dead mage.
Hot liquid dripped down my side, staining my shirt. I watched the thing that was once my mother scuttle out of the room like an insect. My mind screamed, but I wouldn’t allow another sound to escape from my tightly closed lips.
I focused on the queen.
An amused smile played on her lips, and all I wanted to do was wipe it off.
She reached out and poked the wound in my shoulder, digging her finger between the broken folds of skin.
My eyes bulged with the pressure of my agony. I grunted, clenching my teeth. Tears burned as they filled my eyes, but I couldn’t give in. I didn’t care if she cleaved off my arms, gouged out my eyes, cut my tongue out. She was not going to get me to agree to give her my magic.
That would be the world’s death sentence.
She wiggled her finger, scraping her nail on my already raw skin. “I have a feeling physical anguish will not be the thing that breaks you.”
Her whisper left me cold. I stared at her and reached deep inside myself, mentally stroking my writhing magic, trying to calm the panic gripping every cell.
With a vicious yank, she dislodged her finger and wiped her hand on a clean section of my shirt. She tapped my nose. “I’m sure I can find something to break that resolve of yours.”
She turned dismissively and marched out of the room.
Air rasped into my lungs as my chest tightened. My shoulder throbbed and my back ached. I glanced at the windows and the darkening skies. Dread laced its icy fingers through mine and squeezed in a painful grip.
I prayed.
I prayed for my mother.
I prayed for my friends.
But more than anything else, I prayed for a miracle.