52. Maddy
Chapter 52
Maddy
M y sister falls to the ground.
Both Mother and Father fly into action, ice swirling from their staffs.
I drop to my knees and crawl to Freydis as everyone else in the room wrestles the wild, screaming fire-fae back into submission.
"No, no, no," I'm whispering. I pull her head into my lap as crimson blood blossoms on her beautiful blue dress.
"The Frost Giants can't kill on my direction anymore," she croaks to me. "This is good."
"No!"
"Run, Madivia. Don't let them hurt you—when I'm gone, you have to run."
"I won't leave you."
"You can't stay with them. They are evil."
"Get a healer! Now! Pull every string we have!" bellows my mother from somewhere above me.
Someone grabs my arms and wrenches me away, and I snap. I'm kicking and screaming and flailing my arms, screaming my sister's name through heaving sobs.
But they drag me away and the memory fades, replaced by another.
Erik is standing over my sister. She is unconscious on her bed, the palace healers having done everything they can. "This will cost you," he says, glancing between my mother and Kain, who is now shackled between six palace guards with his arms outstretched, his mouth completely covered. His eyes are burning, though. "How did it happen?"
"We caught him trying to escape the Fire Court," Mother says. "We imprisoned him and were about to turn him over to Mighty Sigrun, but he had a second staff hidden on him. He melted his shackles and stabbed my daughter."
Erik gives my mother a slow smile. "I will do nothing for her if you do not tell me the truth, Your Majesty. I am only here because you have contacts in high places. If I tell Sigrun you have a Valkyrie in your custody…"
"Heal her, please!" It's me who speaks, and my father pulls hard on my braids.
"Stay quiet," he hisses.
"She has precious little time left," Erik says, looking at me a while, then turning back to my mother. "The truth? So that we may strike a reasonable trade?"
Mother looks at Freydis a minute, then at Father. He nods, and she sighs. "She can control Frost Giants with her magic."
Erik stares at her in disbelief. "How?"
Mother waves her hand. "That's not important. What is important is that she is healed. It is not a power I can risk losing."
"And the Frost Giants, at your behest, are responsible for the Fire Court's destruction? The broken Helm of Embers you left there was to implicate him?" He looks over at Kain, who bellows insensibly from behind his gag, his eyes lethally furious.
"Correct. Will you heal her?"
Erik looks at Freydis. "Somebody very dear to me was captured by a Frost Giant shaman."
Mother raises her eyebrows. "I thought they were all dead."
"They are now," he growls. "She turned my companion into one of them."
Interest sparks in my mother's eyes. "She did? How… fascinating."
Erik shoots a furious look at her. "It is barbaric," he hisses. "Does your daughter's control over the Frost Giants extend to that kind of magic?"
"You are asking me if Freydis would be able to turn your friend back into a fae?"
"Yes."
"I don't see why not. If the shaman could do it, then it must be possible."
She's lying. She has no idea if Freydis can do it or not.
"Then I will heal her, on the condition that she saves my friend."
"Deal," Mother says.
Erik stands over Freydis and closes his eyes a beat.
My father steps close to me, handing me something cool and hard. The tiara. "As soon as he is finished, you wipe everything," he says inside my head. "And not just him. The fire-fae too."
I tense as I take the tiara. I knew it was coming.
Silently, I put it on top of my head.
Erik relaxes after a beat. "She will be unconscious a while, but she will make a full recovery."
"Thank you," Mother says. "Madivia?"
I have no choice. I do what I must to save my sister. I use the magic in the tiara.
But Erik and Kain are Valkyrie. They are the strongest fae in all of Yggdrasil . They have magical animals that lend them strength and split their souls.
The memory is vivid, and I feel the shock, and then the resistance as the magic tries to enter their minds, and fails.
I try to fight, but I know it's wrong.
The harder it is, the more certain I am that I shouldn't win.
With a gut-wrenching sense of finality, I stop fighting.
All I'm aware of is an explosion. I don't know if it is physical or mental.
I just know that I'm floating. Floating forever.
And then I wake up.