20. Kiaran #2
I started untangling Amelie’s hair with the wooden comb Fern placed next to the tub, raking gentle lines through the tendrils of curls. Her head tilted back to give me better access, allowing me the honor of taking care of her.
She let out a soft giggle, one she was clearly trying to muffle.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking the thought out of her head. I watched to see if I could catch it.
“Not much about your day is funny to me, I’d like to know what’s lightening your mood.” I was trying to say it nicely, but truly it felt wrong to be laughing right now.
“I..” She thought about her words and then leaned all the way back to my chest, my arms naturally folded around her. “I was sure I’d never meet your mother but I guess I hoped maybe she would like me.”
The admission hurt. Amelie spent most of her life feeling like no one could love her properly. The people who were supposed to fill her with love forgot to do that, lost in their own survival. She spoke highly of her father but her mother was a touchy subject.
“My mother is complicated. There is a reason the Coven holds her as high as they do.”
“What does she do for them?”
Thinking carefully about revealing things that were held to the highest standard of secrecy within the Coven, I explained as cautiously as I could.
“My mother is the adjudicator. She makes all final decisions about fates, punishments, magic used in the mortal realms, exiles, you name it. It goes through my mother to be finalized.”
“Mhhh.” Amelie sighed in thought. “You made it sound like the High Priestess was the most important position in your Coven? What is the difference between your mother and the High Priestess?”
“There isn’t much of one, they work very closely together to make things happen.”
Something clicked with Amelie in that moment and she pulled herself away from my hold to look at me, the warm water trickling off of her.
“Your mother chose for you to be sentenced here?” White hot heat flamed her voice, hostility toward the woman who birthed me at an all time high. As if sending my big brother after her wasn’t the worst thing in Amelie’s eyes that my mother could have done.
“She was,” I admitted. The memory of that day too painful to let it take up space in my mind. I gently shake it away as Amelie turned completely to face me, sitting with her knees scrunched to her chest, she ran an arm down my tattooed bicep.
“How could she do that?” She bit down hard on each word as she choked them out. Rage emanated from her, the gold in her eyes ignited as her brain worked.
“She was heartbroken, Amelie. I killed her baby.”
Her lips pursed and the fire exploded in her eyes, though she had more control of it now than she did earlier. She was channeling it differently, letting it fester in her heart right where the notion of my mother sending me away sat.
You did not deserve this. Her voice in my mind was soft and loving, a far cry from the expression on her face.
Tucking her wild hair behind her ear, I smiled at her. “Maybe not, but here I am. I don’t deserve this either but here you are.” A tear slipped from my eye, my soul reminding me of the imminent fate we were coming close to crossing.
Her fire dwindled, the water pouring from my soul killing it.
“Why are you crying?” she whispered to me.
It could have been the fact that we had very little time left before I lost my life.
I would take my own before they could force me to take Amelie’s.
Or maybe it was the fact that I only got a few months out of all my years to experience love.
It was potentially because I knew that soon, a war would break out.
The Witches would come to the Forest when I didn’t sacrifice Amelie on Winter Solstice and peace on Earth would be forever changed.
At least in this corner of it.
But ultimately, I thought it was maybe that the woman in front of me had barely lived.
She survived daily, but she was mortal. As far as I knew, her ancestry didn’t change that fact.
Her lifespan was so short that in the eyes of the world it would hardly matter, but in that short time she’d barely experienced love, freedom, protection and overall happiness.
I had three hundred years to do something meaningful with my life and I didn’t.
I gave that up, I had every opportunity in the world but was careless with each one.
Amelie didn’t have those opportunities. Even now, she was here because she had to be. She left her family behind out of survival, I left my family behind because I was forced to as a consequence of my own actions.
Amelie deserved so much better than what the fates gave her.
After our bath, I helped Amelie get ready for bed and held her as she dozed in and out of sleep as I read to her from the book I’d started.
“Can we sleep in your bed?” she asked sleepily when I finished the last chapter. The thought hadn’t occurred to me but my bed was far more comfortable and had a lot more space for the two of us .
“Of course, pretty girl.” I scooped her up and carried her bridal style up the stairs before laying her across my black silk sheets and tucking her under my grandmother’s quilt. She settled into the down pillow and fell asleep instantly. Her chest slowly rising and falling.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and crammed myself into the pillowy nook Fern built for me at some point since the remodel of the attic. Opening up another book, I began reading about the history of the Forest.
Jolting like lightning struck me, I checked the surroundings of the room.
It was dark, so dark that the moonlight couldn’t even cut through it.
As if a thick, black cloud of smoke was hovering.
I could hear Amelie breathing in and out shakily on the bed.
The book I’d opened was folded with my hand between the pages.
I must’ve dozed off at some point between the birth of the trees and where the gremlins lived.
Feeling my way through the haze, I found the bed and crawled to get to Amelie. She was restless, not awake, and sweating uncontrollably. I grabbed her face and called to her, “Amelie, wake up.”
Nothing.
“Baby, it’s just a bad dream, wake up,” I said a little more frantically but she had no reaction.
Not knowing what else to do, I laid down next to her and tried to will myself to sleep hoping that she would take me into her dreams again.
My brain was on overdrive and I couldn’t find the sweet spot to fall into a slumber. Replaying the moments of Amelie and I spending days in pure bliss, I slowly felt my body relax. I thought of her lips on mine, her sweet voice and the blanket of her hair that covered me when we made love.
The world went dark before I was standing at the balcony of my sitting room at home. The sky was a dark cloud of grey, ominous air whispering around me .
Try to find her.
It taunted.
I could feel her here, but there was no sign of life.
The beach was empty and the sand was black, as opposed to its normal alabaster color.
The smell of smoke filled my nose and I leaned over the balcony to see something ablaze in the direction of the garden.
Stepping back into the room, I took a moment to listen.
Nothing but the faint sound of crackles and pops from the flames.
I took off in a full sprint down the hall and swung the door open to my bedroom.
A large man with ratty black hair was on his knees, legs kicking underneath him but I couldn’t see who it was.
I didn’t need to. Red and orange flames blazed outside the window, giving the already eerie ambiance of the room an even more dreadful feeling.
Moving for the bed, I grabbed the man’s shoulder.
Startling him, he turned and gave me a smile that was identical to mine but an insidious threat was laced between his teeth. Then I saw the woman lying beneath him.
Amelie was screaming but no sound was coming from her. Her face was a stark white as she began to realize what was happening. As if she came here in some kind of trance. She locked in on me with eyes full of unshed tears.
“Hello, brother,” Adan drawled. All too pleased with himself. I lunged at him with the force of one thousand men.
We tumbled off the bed to the floor, Adan held a nasty smile the entire time.
Reveling in the reaction he’d elicited from me.
I glanced back to the bed for a moment so brief, nothing should’ve happened.
But in the second that I took to myself, I saw Amelie no longer on it and the fire from the garden ripping through the window and crawling up the wall.
I grabbed Adan’s shirt and hooked my fist into his jaw. His head thudded against the floor. My brother looked as evil as the day he was sent away .
“Where is she?” I demanded.
His eyes were rolling and his body was limp but he was still able to whisper through the pain. “She came to me, brother. Fair game.”
My blood reached its boiling point, partially due to the fire that was burning through my room.
Where are you?
Holding my brother’s shirt and placing my knees on each side of him to pin his arms into the floor, I waited to hear her voice.
Adan’s smile crept across his face, seemingly finding a second wind as he struggled against the restraint. I hated him. We all did, none of this made sense. The idea of him being back in Avonya made this all feel so much more sinister.
Expertly placing another blow to his nose. Successfully wiping that fucking grin off his mouth, Adan collapsed. No longer struggling to free himself. I stood, taking in the room and finding the only safe way out.
Stepping over embers on the hardwood floor, I focused on where I knew the door was and tried to will away the blaze as it threatened to engulf me.