Lingering smoke from the fires was complemented by strong spices and charcoal. I’d never been to the kitchens before tonight. I peeled my eyes away from the doorway, which led out into the black of night, and turned my focus to the girl who lay dead at my feet.
I couldn’t hear anything besides the insects in the gardens. I turned her head to the side with the sole of my shoe and pressed my lips together when I saw the poppy-colored bruise from when I’d hit her on the side of her head with a rock. It hadn’t gone as smoothly as I’d planned. I could still hear her pleas from the last seconds of her life before I cut her throat.
She’d fought me when I’d come up behind her. The servant girl had been preparing pastries for breakfast. Some nobles had awakened early and demanded their food no matter the hour. She tried to stab me, but that’s when I grabbed the stone. I’d thought the blunt trauma to the head would stop her, but she was a fighter until the very end.
Regret seeped into the corners of my cold heart, then I reminded myself why I had chosen this woman. Unlike us, the lowborn were not permitted to use magic, by the king’s law. They labored with their hands and by the sweat of their brow. It was a difficult life for a servant, even one who served in the castle, but it did not excuse her actions. She climbed the ranks by any means necessary. She was cruel to children, and she was rumored to have poisoned a man, but then, I’d always found rumors to be revealing. She had a darkness in her that mine recognized, and I had chosen her. If I had to take a life, it wouldn’t be an innocent’s.
“You wanted youth,” I said, hoping she would be enough. “She is no older than nineteen.” I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of what I had done in my stomach. Blood was splattered over the uneven ground. Crumbs and flour had mixed with the blood, and I hoped it would pass as a wine stain once I scrubbed the ground. Crimson veined out over stone and pieces of hay, reaching my feet. First, I’d need to dispose of the body, and the moat was the best place I could think of. It was not too far to drag a body without being seen but was deep enough she wouldn’t surface straight away.
“Finally, Evangeline, you are strong. One of mine.”
Relief squashed my residual guilt. What I desired was in reach, power unmatched by any mortal.
The servant’s soul twinkled out from her chest, rising in a glorious ball of light. I ran my hands down my face, sweat beading on my forehead. The light was enraptured by darkness, swallowed whole.
I felt it before I heard him again. Power reached through me. It was strong, coiling around my center until I couldn’t breathe. My broken body could not contain it. I’d made a mistake. My lips trembled, my hands shook, and my legs weakened. I fell to my knees, my hands seeping through the blood. Then, a headache came with stars that filled my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut in response. Pain ripped with each breath, any movement crippling me.
It felt like every cell in my body was alight with fire. I couldn’t move and was certain I was about to die. What would become of me? A murderer. The afterlife did not accept such monsters. I’d be banished to the place of nothing, where souls ambled for an eternity, looking for shreds of their old lives, finding no happiness, stuck between worlds.
“NO!” I screamed, because I didn’t want to die. Tears trickled down my face, patterning my cheeks with trails left behind.
“It is done.”
The torment slowed, pulling me into a slumber I did not want but couldn’t deny. I needed to move the body before anyone found us. It was almost six. Servants would be down soon. Before I could protest, my eyes shut, and I was in another place.
Shock erased all feeling. It was dark inside the lair of the beast. He snarled and grappled for the scraps of my humanity that were slipping away. I could sense every part of him, even the most vulnerable. If he gave into his humanity, then a thousand years of guilt and torment, beyond the realm any sorcerer or fae could comprehend, would descend upon him.
He howled into the night, and snakes hissed at the sound. Small animals thumped to the beat of his aching heart.
I cleared my throat. “Master.” I had expected a strong figure, not this. “What is wrong?”
He stood straight, then tilted his chin, forcing away all agony in my presence.
“Now that you have your power, we can meet face-to-face.” His voice echoed around us, bouncing off stone and jagged edges of gray. He emerged from the shadows. His eyes locked onto mine, sending shivers through my soul.
“I must awaken. Where am I?”
“You are asleep. Your body is in the kitchens, but your soul is here—for a time. Few have done what you have. Most are unwilling to sacrifice, but you are not weak like them.”
I narrowed my eyes. Something didn’t feel right. “You’re hurting,” I stated, my voice trembling. “I can sense it in every rattling breath. What is it that scares a necromancer who does not even fear death?”
He spat on the ground, and ink-black spots smattered the grainy floor. “Those who fear death fear freedom. Death is a release. It is peace. You young ones, so fickle.” He ran one of his long talons over drawings on the stone wall. “Immortality is a curse, a life without anyone to share it with.”
I could hear a woman’s voice catching in the breeze, whispers that dissolved as quickly as they had come. “What is this place?”
“My home.”
I swallowed hard. “That’s it? You said a life without anyone to share it with… You must mean love. The voice, is that her, the person you wanted to share your life with?”
“You are observant.”
“That’s what happens when one is forced to live in the shadows.”
He squinted. “A fate I understand all too well.”
“What happened?” I asked. “We share power. I have proven myself to you. Please, tell me.”
He inhaled deeply, then blew out a lonely breath. “She suffers a fate worse than death.”
“What could be worse?”
“Her soul is shattered.” His words were hollowed, as if he had repeated them thousands of times. “Pieces of it remain like dust particles, lost in all corners of this world. I can tap into parts of her, but only for a moment before she fades away.”
“That’s what you use your power for? To get a glimpse of her?”
“I cannot die because I will not leave her alone, without peace.”
The hairs on the back of my arms stood erect, and tears pricked my eyes. It was the most tragic love story I’d ever heard. While he was a monster, I felt compassion for the man hidden behind layers of evil, created only to protect his heart and savor his love. “I’m sure she would have wanted you to be happy.”
His expression faltered for a micro-second. I would have missed it had I not been staring at his blue, thin lips. We stood in silence with dripping from somewhere behind us as the only sound. Lost in thought, I looked up at the crystals that shone from their homes among the crevices and holes. Gem blue and emerald green sparkled even in the dimmest light.
“I grant you great power,” he said facing the wall, so I couldn’t make out his face. “Go back to your body and show no mercy to those who hurt you, but take care.” He paused, then turned to look back at me. There was an invasiveness to his stare that I wished to escape. “You are cursed. I sense it attached to every cell in your body. It stole your beauty from you at a young age.”
My lips parted. I ran my fingertips along my skin, feeling the craters beneath my touch. “I was told, yes, but why am I cursed? How did this happen?” Looking down at my talons for nails, I sighed. Someone was responsible. As a baby, I was adored—beautiful, so I was told—then around the age of three, I changed. It wouldn’t have pained me if it hadn’t pushed everyone away from me and lost me my crown. “Tell me what I need to do!”
He flexed his fingers, forcing me to my knees with nothing more than a look. Agony ripped through me and tugged at my nerves, dropping me to the ground. I opened my mouth to scream, but no one could hear me there.
“Do not mistake my bringing you here and giving you power for vulnerability. I gave you magic, and I can take it away.”
He clicked his fingers, and I breathed relief. I forced myself to my feet and looked at the monster once more. “I will not forsake you.”
“You will remember your promise, for I am not known for being forgiving.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, then gathered my skirts, lifting them off the ground, and high-tailed it out toward the sheltered sunlight. As I did, I awoke to the sound of chatter growing outside of the room. I was too late to move the body. Before anyone entered, I ran through a connecting door, through another kitchen, almost tripping over a box, and out another door until I reached the edge of the gardens. My legs ached, and the skin on my hands were cracked. Blood stained my dress. I had to get back to my room, unnoticed, but how?
The castle had come to life with the rising sun, and guards were stationed at every entrance. I felt my newfound magic prickle in my fingertips. I closed my eyes, and the flowers around me wilted, then died. It moved through me like natural magic did in the fae, except mine was wicked.
It was unlike the Berovian’s who channeled the elements, or the sorcerers in Magaelor who used
ancestral magic, channeling it through their staffs and soil. Ritualistic and sacrificial magic was the only one with no bounds, but unlike natural magic, I could harm another with it. I was unbound by the laws of magic held by both kingdoms and the islands between.
Even the fae who live on both islands couldn’t match my power. I raised my head, feeling more powerful than ever. I glanced in the direction of the trees. I needed a distraction. I closed my eyes, then willed it. Fire erupted, its flames licking their way over dry bark and dead leaves.
“Over there!” one guard called, followed by tens more. It only bought me minutes. As they ran in one direction, stomping over dead wildflowers, I ran in the other, toward the castle. When I reached it, I moved out of the way as a small crowd swelled steadily. Moving to the left, I reached the space under the castle leading to a secret passageway. After forcing it open, I crept down the stone steps that connected to one of the corridors in the east wing.
It was time to take back all that had been stolen from me. It was time for my reign.