Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
SCARLETT
R avenna sleeps beside me, exhausted from the events in the last twenty-four hours. Tendrils of her black hair have escaped her usually immaculate formation, curling against her pale skin. Beneath her lashes, her eyes move rapidly— dreaming , perhaps.
The chambers she's provided for me in the eastern tower of the castle are a study in elegant restraint—black silk sheets on a bed large enough for two or three, silver candlesticks holding crimson tapers, walls of polished obsidian that reflect the eternal night filtering through glass windows. Unlike the excessive opulence of my own castle, everything here serves a purpose. Beauty and function in perfect balance.
Much like the queen herself.
I hadn't intended to join her in her sleep. After she showed me to my chambers, I'd planned to check on her a few times throughout the night, to ensure the wound at her side wasn't festering. Instead, I found her collapsed across her bed, still fully dressed, her body finally surrendering to the exhaustion she'd been fighting.
Without thinking, I'd moved to help her into a more comfortable position. She stirred just enough to grasp my hand, murmuring, "Stay," in a voice I couldn’t walk away from. And somehow, between removing her shoes and loosening her dress, I found myself lying beside her, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath.
Now, hours later, I study the woman who has so completely upended my understanding of myself.
How quickly everything has changed. A week ago, we were strangers, rival queens maintaining an uneasy peace. Now we're allies, certainly, but more than that.
I lift my hand, examining the faint shimmer beneath my skin where sigils similar to Ravenna's occasionally appear, then fade. Should I be afraid? The Queen of Hearts I was a week ago would be terrified. But I find I'm not afraid. Curious , yes. Wary of the unknown, of course. But not afraid of what’s happening with Ravenna.
Perhaps because I've already changed in ways I never anticipated.
I watched her take a blade meant for me, fought alongside her against Edmund's forces, felt her magic flow through my veins like liquid euphoria. I kissed her in the liminal space between our kingdoms, merged my magic with hers through the Blood Tree, and saw the way our united power affects everything it touches.
And I actually like who I am when I'm with her. The queen I'm becoming with Ravenna feels more authentic than the Queen of Hearts I've been for years.
Beside me, Ravenna stirs, her eyes opening slowly. For a moment, she seems disoriented, unused to waking with another beside her. Then recognition dawns, and something softens in her expression.
"How long was I asleep?" she asks, her voice still husky from rest.
"A few hours." I resist the urge to brush a strand of hair from her face, maintaining at least some semblance of proper distance. "The sun hasn't moved, of course, but the castle has grown quieter."
A small smile touches her lips. "The sun never moves in Darkmore. It's the world that shifts around it."
"A fitting metaphor for its queen," I observe. "Constant, unchanging, while others orbit your gravity."
"Until now." She reaches for my hand, and our magics connect immediately, the current of power flowing between us as naturally as breath. "Until you."
The admission hangs between us, weighted with significance. Neither of us has been particularly forthcoming about what's developing between us. We've acknowledged the physical attraction, certainly. The short kisses we've shared have left little doubt about our mutual desire. But it’s so much deeper than that. We just haven’t said it aloud.
Perhaps because naming it would make it real in ways we're not yet prepared to face. Perhaps because queens like us aren't supposed to feel such things—not for rival monarchs, not for anyone. Vulnerability is a luxury neither of us has permitted ourselves in years.
"How is your wound?" I ask, deflecting to safer territory.
Ravenna sits up carefully, her hand going to her side. "Better. The pain is receding, though not completely gone."
"May I?" I gesture toward the bandages visible at the slit of her dress.
She nods, turning slightly to give me better access. I pull at the fabric, widening the slit, leaving her side completely exposed. The bandages around her torso are pristine, but when I carefully unwrap them, I can see why—the wound is healing rapidly, the black veins fading to gray, then silver, before disappearing entirely near the edges.
"It looks great," I observe, tracing the skin beside the faint wound, bringing goosebumps to the surface.
Ravenna watches my hand move across her skin, her breath catching slightly when I touch a particularly sensitive area. I don’t miss when she sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, letting her eyes roll slightly as they flutter closed.
Fighting back a smile, I apply a fresh bandage with supplies left on the bedside table, trying to ignore the intimacy of the moment.
"We should consult your great mirror," I say, finishing with the bandage.
Ravenna nods, rising with more ease than before. She reshapes her dress with practiced movements.
At the center of Ravenna’s grandest wall stands the great mirror itself, its black frame carved intricately, along with thorny vines that seem to move subtly when viewed from the corner of the eye. The surface doesn't reflect but rather churns with silver mist, occasionally parting to reveal glimpses of places, people, and events yet to come. There’s a large crack running through the center of it, distorting many of the images.
"It's alive," I breathe, sensing the consciousness within the glass. Not human, not entirely sentient in the way we understand it, but aware. Watching . Waiting.
"In a way," Ravenna agrees. "The mirror has existed since Darkmore's founding, accumulating knowledge, power, and awareness with each generation of blood magic wielders who have consulted it. It knows more about my kingdom than I do."
She approaches the mirror, drawing a ritual knife from a sheath at her waist. The blade is black iron with bits of silver running through it, the handle carved from what appears to be bone. With practiced precision, she slices her palm, letting blood well up before pressing it to the mirror's surface.
"Mirror mirror on the wall, show us," she commands. "Show us what Mara has found beneath Ironwood. Show us how we can counter her plans."
The silver mist within the mirror churns violently, reacting to Ravenna's blood. The smaller mirrors around the chamber begin to pulse in rhythm, their surfaces glowing.
Then Ravenna gasps, her body going rigid as the mirror pulls her forward, drawing her consciousness into its depths. I grab her around the waist, keeping her from collapsing, but the action connects me to the mirror's pull as well. Our combined magic creates a circuit, a pathway that the mirror uses to draw us both into vision.
The room around us fades, replaced by swirling mist that gradually resolves into a vast underground chamber. At its center lies that same pool of liquid we saw in the mirror before.
Around the pool stand figures from an earlier age—three women, sisters by their similar features, each wearing a crown that combines elements of all three kingdoms. Their hands are joined, forming a circle around the pool, and power flows between them in visible currents of magic. Not heart magic or blood magic or iron will, but all three combined. A unified power.
"The founding queens." Ravenna's voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, our consciousnesses merged within the vision. "Before the division, before our kingdoms became separate entities."
The scene shifts, showing conflict erupting between the sisters. Words we cannot hear but whose meaning is clear—disagreement, discord.
The unity shatters. Magic that once flowed in harmony now fragments, splitting into three distinct currents. The sisters pull apart, each taking a portion of the unified power—heart, blood, iron. The pool itself begins to sink deeper underground, its power retreating from those who cannot agree on its purpose.
"The sundering," I understand now.
The vision shifts again, showing the aftermath. Three kingdoms where once there was one. Three magics where once there was unified power. Three queens who were once sisters, now rivals, establishing the borders and limitations we still maintain centuries later.
But beneath it all, the pool remains. Dormant but not destroyed, hidden but not gone. Waiting for the day when unity might be restored, when transformation might flow freely once more.
The scene changes one final time, showing Mara as she is now—corrupted, twisted, her original magic perverted by something darker. She stands at the edge of the pool, but it has changed as well. Where before it was neutral, neither good nor evil but simply power in its purest form, now it pulses with illness. Black veins spread from where Mara touches it, infecting the very source of magic itself.
"She's poisoning it." Horror fills me as I understand what we're seeing. "Not just using its power, but ruining it at its source."
"If she succeeds," Ravenna says, her voice tight with dread, "all magic will eventually be tainted. Heart, blood, even Ironwood's suppression abilities. Everything that flows from the pool—and all magic ultimately does—will carry her corruption."
The vision shows the potential consequences—Underland's chaotic beauty turned dark and twisted, its magical creatures transformed into monstrosities. Darkmore's twilight deepening to absolute darkness, its subtle power becoming cancerous, consuming . Ironwood's suppression magic transformed into something that doesn't just contain power but ruins it.
And at the center of it all, Mara, no longer fully human but a vessel for corrupted magic, a conduit for the tainted pool.
"How do we stop this?" I ask, desperation edging my voice. "How do we counter corruption so fundamental it affects the source of magic itself?"
The mirror pulses, and new images form. Ravenna and I standing together at the edge of the pool, our magic flowing in a pattern of balance and harmony. Where our combined power touches the corrupted pool, change occurs—not purification exactly, but more complex. A restoration, a return to magic that is neither purely destructive nor purely creative but contains the potential for both, leaving choice rather than compulsion.
But the vision also shows the cost. As we channel our combined magic into the pool, the very fabric of our beings begins to change. The boundaries between Scarlett and Ravenna, between heart and blood, between Underland and Darkmore, grow increasingly indistinct. Not two queens working in concert but a unified force, a merged entity, a transformation so complete it can never be undone.
"The price of balance," Ravenna whispers, understanding before I do. "To counter Mara's corruption of the pool, we must offer ourselves for transformation. Not just our magics merging temporarily, but our very essences combining permanently."
The vision fades, the silver mist of the mirror releasing our consciousnesses and returning us to Ravenna’s chambers. We stand before the mirror, both breathing hard, our hands still joined, our magics flowing between us more strongly than ever.
"Did you see?" Ravenna turns to me, her eyes wide with the implications of what the mirror revealed. "Did you understand what it was showing us?"
"I saw." My voice is steadier than I feel. “I understand.”
She searches my face, looking for fear, for hesitation, for the inevitable reluctance to sacrifice individual identity for merged consciousness.
"Perhaps," I say slowly, "this is what was always meant to happen. Perhaps the sundering was a mistake, the separation of our magics an artificial division that has limited what we could become. Perhaps Mara's corruption is forcing us to confront a truth we've been avoiding for generations."
Ravenna's eyes widen slightly, taking in my ideas.
I squeeze her hand, feeling our magics pulse in response. "The founding queens were sisters who allowed discord to divide them. We began as rivals who found harmony despite our differences. Maybe that's why our magics merge rather than conflict. Maybe we're the ones meant to heal the sundering, to restore the balance that was lost."
"It would change everything," she warns, though I can see the idea resonates with her as well. "Our identities, our kingdoms, the way we rule."
"Everything is already changing." I gesture to the smaller mirrors that surround us, their surfaces now showing hybrid roses blooming across both kingdoms, darkening skies over Underland, bright patches of sky in Darkmore. "The transformation has already begun, Ravenna. The only question is whether we fight it or embrace it. Whether we let it happen to us, or actively shape what we become."
She falls silent, considering. I can see the conflict in her eyes.
"There's something else," she says finally. "Something the mirror showed that you might not have understood."
"What?"
"The price of transformation isn't just our separate identities." Her eyes hold mine, unflinching despite the difficulty of what she's saying. "To counter Mara's corruption, to heal the pool, one queen will need to remain. To become the guardian of the unified magic, the anchor that maintains balance."
"Remain?" I frown, not comprehending. "Remain where?"
"Within the pool itself." Her voice is soft but clear. "One queen must fall, Scarlett. One of us must become one with the source of magic. One must cease to exist to ensure that corruption never takes hold again."
The revelation hits me harder than anything before. Not just transformation, but sacrifice. Not just change, but end .
"The mirror showed this?" I ask, though I already know she’s not lying.
She nods, her expression somber. "Not explicitly, but it was there in the vision. As we healed the pool, one of us was drawn into it, becoming part of the magic itself rather than merely its wielder."
"Which one?" The question escapes before I can stop it. "Which one of us falls?"
"The mirror didn't show that clearly." But something in her eyes makes me suspect she's not telling the whole truth. That perhaps the vision was clearer than she's admitting. "Perhaps it depends on choices yet to be made. Perhaps fate hasn't decided."
Or perhaps she's already decided, already determined that she will be the one to make the ultimate sacrifice. The thought sends a spike of panic through me. The idea of losing Ravenna, of continuing without her, of facing a transformed world where she exists only as part of the magic rather than as the woman I've come to—
I cut the thought off before it can fully form, not ready to face the implications. Not ready to name the emotion that makes the prospect of her sacrifice so utterly unbearable.
"We need to know more," I say instead, turning back to the mirror. “There has to be an alternative.”
Ravenna's smile is sad, knowing. "There may not be alternatives, Scarlett."
"I refuse to accept that." The Queen of Hearts resurfaces, stubborn and demanding. "There is always another way, always a different approach, always a choice. Show us," I command the mirror directly, pressing my own hand against its surface. "Show us how to defeat Mara without losing each other."
For a moment, nothing happens. Then, slowly, the silver mist begins to swirl again. Not pulling us into vision this time, but forming images on its surface like a conventional reflection.
It shows us approaching the pool together, our magics already extensively merged. But instead of one of us being drawn into the pool, we stand at its edge, channeling our combined power into the corrupted waters. The process is slower, more deliberate, less dramatic than the previous vision. And the transformation it shows is less complete—we remain recognizably separate beings, though changed, enhanced by each other's magic.
But there's a cost to this approach as well. The illness recedes more slowly, lingering in the deepest parts of the pool. Mara is defeated, but the taint she introduced remains, dormant but not destroyed. A potential threat that future generations will have to monitor.
"A temporary solution," Ravenna breathes, holding her hand over her heart. "Not an end to the corruption, but a delay."
"But we both survive," I point out. "We both continue, changed but present. Isn't that worth considering?"
She studies the vision thoughtfully. "Perhaps. But at what cost to future generations? What burden are we placing on those who come after us, simply because we couldn't bear to be parted?"
The question hangs between us, unanswerable for now. The mirror's surface clears, returning to its normal state, as if it has shown us all it can—or all it's willing to.
"We don't have to decide at this moment," Ravenna says finally. "There will be time to determine... which approach we take."
Which sacrifice we make, she means. Whether we risk future generations to preserve our present connection, or whether one of us gives up individual existence to ensure permanent safety.
"Yes," I agree, though my mind is already racing, searching for alternatives the mirror hasn't shown. Seeking a third path, a different approach, a way to preserve both the future and our present. "We should focus on the immediate challenges. Finding the pool, understanding Mara's plans, preparing a war."
Ravenna nods, but I can see she's not convinced by my apparent acceptance.
I will not lose her. Not to Mara, not to corruption, and certainly not to sacrifice. There must be another way, a path the mirror hasn't revealed. And I will find it, whatever the cost.
"Scarlett," she begins, her voice softer than I've ever heard it.
But before she can continue, the chamber door bursts open. A shadow-warrior stands there, breathing hard, his composure shattered by whatever news he brings.
"My Queen," he addresses Ravenna, bowing hastily. "Forgive the interruption, but a messenger has arrived from the border. Edmund's forces have broken through our western defenses. They carry crystal devices in greater numbers, and they're accompanied by creatures that seem... wrong ."
Ravenna straightens, the vulnerable moment passing as she reassumes her role as Darkmore's queen. "How many?"
"Hundreds, Your Majesty. And they're moving fast, heading directly for the castle."
"Alert the army. Prepare the blood sigils for defensive configuration. Send word to Commander Lysander to mobilize all available forces." Her voice is calm but commanding, that of a strong ruler.