Chapter 6
Prism Malefic
Strange thing, my carelessness in taking a phantom hoof and following it through a shimmering forest. I’d always harbored immense care.
Oh, I was so careful, wasn’t I? As a little girl, I was in tune with all of my mother and matri’s tones.
There were their “We’re fighting but not telling you we’re fighting” clipped tones that filled me with sadness.
Then there were their angry tones when Rumor and I would venture too far during our games or quests to build forts in the woods.
Of course, there were happy tones, too. Delight and laughter, whimsical joy when they’d hug us tight or join in as we played.
Those were all standard in a happy family, I assumed.
It was the late night tones, though, especially towards the end… those were the ones that haunted my dreams. I wished so badly I could make out what they were saying. There were only snippets here and there.
“Alchemy, I’m so afraid they’re going to take her.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
The worried tone. The panicked tone. The desperate tone.
I was careful to stay tucked in my bed as I strained to listen.
There was no sneaking around Matri—she heard everything.
I even worried once that she could hear my breathing, and if it were irregular, she’d no doubt be at my bedside checking to see if I were having a nightmare.
So, with steady, even breaths, I fought to listen to their hushed, late night conversation.
A conversation not meant for mine or my snoring sister’s ears…
yet one I wish so badly they’d shared with us.
Would it have changed anything? Did any of their worries come to pass?
Did exactly the thing they worried about indeed happen?
If so, how did they know it was coming and what had they been doing to try to stop it?
There was so much I wished I could ask my mothers.
So much wisdom still left in dust, not imparted to us.
My moms were great women and, from what I’d heard, powerful witches.
So powerful in their magic and in their love, they’d made us.
Their love created my sister and me. That made us special, Empath, Rumor’s crone, had told us once my moms were taken.
I hated thinking about that day… I couldn’t bear the thought of that day.
I missed them so much.
What would they think of where Rumor and I had ended up? One of us in love with a monster… the other a ruthless killer. Rumor as she stood and hailed darkness at my mate, shocking him through the chest, and in one swoop of terror, taking away the thing I loved most in this wretched world.
Evil.
I could sense it.
My sister was evil.
The way she moved, the power she wielded, the darkness in her gaze as she killed without thought or remorse.
That was not the older sister who’d rocked me to sleep as I cried for months after our mothers were taken.
That wasn’t the sister who braided flowers and runes into my hair on my failed wedding day.
It wasn’t her… or was it exactly her? Was that who she’d been this whole time and I just couldn’t see it?
I could hardly think or feel past the hole in my chest. Any spare moment of space between thoughts, my mind would snap back to Vore.
The rise and fall of his chest after he fell.
The caress of his hand in my hair, cupping my cheek as my tears stained his rough palm.
He called me his claimed, but I had claimed him just as thoroughly.
And now he was dead.
Because of her.
Now what?
I’d taken the hand—I mean hoof—of a strange being in the mossy mist. I followed the creature forward, not knowing what I’d unwittingly accepted with my compliance, but also, I didn’t really care.
My life was over. I’d walked straight into the blue fog after losing my love and hexing my own sister because my life was over without Vore.
Strange to think of what might have been if my wither hadn’t stolen me on my wedding altar.
What if Birch had shown up? In that moment, I would have been Prism Viper, living on a farm, lying awake at night next to a man who didn’t love me.
If Birch had come for me that day, I could have very well been staring at some farmhouse ceiling, wondering why I still felt empty and hopeless inside.
As if a part of me always knew there was magic, mystery, and adventure awaiting me in the claws of something horrific and wonderful.
I’d just never been brave enough to reach for it.
No one had ever seen me suitable to deserve it either.
Not until Vore.
Vore saw me as I was.
Plain, ordinary, and remarkable—with or without magic.
My wither had saved me.
Now… now what would I do without him? I could never go back to horse rides with common men.
There would be no more leisurely cooking stew in the cottage with my sister.
My life was truly finished, and all that awaited me was death.
I’d accept death as an opportunity; fates would smile and me and usher me to wherever my wither’s soul landed.
Maybe that’s what this hoofed creature was.
Maybe he was escorting me to my end. Is that what happened within the blue fog?
No one had ever returned to tell the tale.
I suspected I wouldn’t either.
My mothers hadn’t returned.
If I were going to die, I at least would let my curiosity have a gander at my killer.
Looking up through the fog, I took in the massive being that led me silently forward.
Walking on lanky legs, the being’s head was an antlered skull atop an amber-furred and white-spotted body.
It was as if a large, dying deer had been bewitched to stand upright.
We stopped in a mossy clearing, in the center of a circle of stones, and the fog dropped like a curtain onto the ground. The skulled deer let go of my hand and stepped back as if to let me take in his monstrous form.
“Do you expect me to be afraid?” I asked, not even recognizing my weary, sorrow-ladened voice. “Because I can promise you, whatever you are, I’ve contended with, befriended, and loved monsters greater than you.”
“More fearsome, I am sure. Though greater… no, you have not,” the antlered skull rumbled, sounding how I would imagine a storm cloud would sound if it had a voice.
I sucked in a breath, feeling the hole in my chest grow larger with each passing moment. Each breath I breathed was another puff of air between me and Vore, and I didn’t want any more of those. If this were it, let it be it. “Well, get on with it,” I ordered weakly.
The being with unnerving slowness cocked its head in answer. Despite my grief-induced delirium, something like fear tinged inside me as its hollow sockets where eyes should have been stared down at me.
“Kill me—if I’m not already dead, that is. If I am…” I looked around. “Take me where the Malefics go so I can begin my search for my claimed.”
The creature considered for a moment. “You’re claimed. Claimed. Only one demon species refers to such a thing.”
“Withers,” I whispered. “Yes. My love is—was—is…” I stammered, not ready to put Vore in past tense. “A wither.”
“Archdemon, as they are known in the Underworld. It is hard to earn the love of such a being… impossible to rid yourself of once gotten. More a curse than anything. Wouldn’t a witch prefer the affections of a man?”
“I would take the curse of my wither over the blessing of any man.”
“Fascinating. Though, you Malefic witches have always been the contrary and obsessive sort, haven’t you?”
“How do you know of the Malefics?”
“I have met many of your ancestors.”
“What are you?” I dared to ask. “Where am I? Is this the afterlife?”
“You are different from the others. Soft… yet sharp. Underestimated, aren’t you?”
I swallowed, clutching my dress at my side. What did this creature want with me? How did it come to be so familiar with the Malefic line of witches? He spoke abnormally, slow and ancient, each word heavy—much like I’d grown accustomed to hearing the withers speak in Nisse.
Nisse.
Home.
The hole in my chest grew.
“Please,” I asked. “Please, just let me go. If this is the end, let it end already.”
The creature hummed a low, animalistic noise. It outstretched its hooves. Suddenly, two doors appeared on either of its sides, knocking the breath from my lungs with surprise.
One door was smooth, onyx black with dark silver hinges.
The other door a faded, sun-worn pink with splinters and cracks in the wood.
“What—what is this?”
The creature cocked its antlered skull again. “I don’t usually do this, so I advise you do not take my generosity for granted. I offer you a choice, enchantress.”
Enchantress.
It was the second time I’d heard that word… the first was when a fairy called me it as she flew from my thumb in Nisse. That magical night that now seemed so very far away.
Enchantress.
Was I an enchantress?
Rumor had always been the one magically gifted.
While I knitted with Mother, Rumor was trained in the woods with Matri.
While I gardened and sat moon water on my windowsill once a month, Rumor ran off to secret solstice coven meetings.
My moms whispered about Rumor, fretted over her use or misuse of her magical gifts. Rumor was special.
I was an inconvenience. A plain, ordinary mouse in the corner.
Yet now… now I was being called an enchantress.
My blood tingled beneath my skin, and something hummed inside my chest…
my magic, if that’s what it was, felt like the fluttering wings of a yellow canary.
Bouncing, bright, tweeting its songbird melody into the spring day.
It felt beautiful; it felt like my mother, a bit, and yet it also felt like me.
Like a part of me I’d perhaps ignored or overlooked in favor of being small, of playing the part as the little white mouse.
“A choice of what?” I asked, holding the little bird close inside my chest.
The creature gestured to the pink door. “If you’d like to move on to your paradise, you may walk through this door. Here, you will find your worries gone. Your memories of this life will be of the good and cheerful times. There is no pain, there is no loss, there is no sorrow.”
My broken heart twisted.
That sounded so good.
That sounded so terrible.
To forget Vore? To only remember the good and not the harrowing journey of obtaining that joy…
Yet the pain within me was so immense, so all-encompassing, the honey-sweet dripping temptation of its erasure…
it beckoned me forward a tiny footstep. I stared down the splintered pink door for a moment before turning my attention to the other, opposite, brooding dark and polished door.
“And this one? Where does it lead?”
The skulled face gestured its antlers towards the cold onyx.
“To step through this passage is to markedly move toward darkness. It is the knowledge many a wise king seeks, yet only the foolish peasants find. Your mind and magic will no longer be your own. Turn this knob and you will be ushered into the gates of the Underworld.”
With that cheery introduction, I should have been sprinting toward the pink door. However… it was an option for a reason, I suspected, and I had to know why.
“The Underworld?” I asked.
“The place where dead things go… where restless souls wait.”
The bird in my chest beat its wings wildly and chirped. “Does that mean… could I search for Vore’s soul there?”
“You could… yes. Though, there is no guarantee you’d find him… and even smaller guarantee you’ll like what you find.”
“But there is a chance?” I clarified. “Even the smallest chance?”
“There is a greater chance of misery and torment for eternity… however… if your archdemon’s soul is anywhere, it would be held in the Underworld.”
My breath came in short bursts as my two choices stood on either side of my strange escort.
It would be so easy to push through the pink door.
I closed my eyes and imagined stepping into the warmth of sunshine.
A creek prattled in the distance and butterflies glided by.
If my mothers were anywhere, they were there waiting for me.
Mother would be waiting with a lemon pie, tears in her eyes, ready to hear of my life here.
Matri would pull me in for a warm hug, and I would sob happily into her embrace.
The pain gone. Only the tales of how I loved a monster, and he loved me back.
If I walked through that door, the memories of Vore’s love would have to be enough. They’d be all I’d ever get again. But I’d be happy, my soul at rest, the sorrow gone.
However… the black door. It towered over the green moss, tall and cold and formidable.
Squinting my eyes closed, visions slithered into my mind.
Hollow darkness housed snarling creatures and the piercing sound of howling wind.
Evil awaited me there with expectant, folded hands at a long table.
Thorns twisted over scorched trees and barren land, and the air twisted with malice and grief.
But I listened… I listened…
And then I felt it.
Somewhere in the cracked earth, beneath the seething black… the warmth, the claws, the teeth, and undying love… the canary in my chest sang.
Vore.
Vore’s soul.
My decision was easy.
My feet were weightless as I walked forward.
The deer’s skull tilted in curiosity as I strode past the pink door. I wrapped my palm around the cold, black knob. “I’ve made my choice.”
If a skull could smile, I feel I saw one from the creature then. “So be it,” he answered.
I opened the door.
I stepped inside.
A gust of cold wind and long, disembodied screams sucked me into a vortex.
Pulling me down… down… down…
Towards death.
Towards the Underworld.
Towards the only love I would ever seek again, even at the risk of eternal damnation.
To my monster.
Towards Vore.
He’d stolen me on my wedding day… and I’d be damned if I didn’t steal him back from death.