34. Kiaran
Kiaran
A melie was quiet from the moment we left her family until we saw the soft glow through the windows of our little cottage come into view.
“Is someone at the cottage?”
I hadn’t mentioned to her that the High Priestess would be joining us tonight, there was already too much weighing on her.
But there was no avoiding it now. Whatever Amelie had been plotting, she had no time to work on it today.
Selfishly, it was part of the reason I wanted to get her out of the cottage.
I needed her to stop fixating on solving a problem that had no solution.
I had no idea how the night would go, I stopped thinking about it the moment Amelie pulled me through the portal to meet her family.
I decided it didn’t matter. If the High Priestess killed me before I killed myself, Amelie would continue to live.
If she took Amelie from me, I would lay my life down with her.
So either way, Amelie would find happiness.
Whether it was with me on the other side or without me and set free from the shackles of my curse.
“Yes. Some of the Coven members will be joining us tonight. ”
Amelie’s eyes widened, my decision to not tell her that detail suddenly feeling like the wrong choice.
Too late now. We landed in the clearing and I felt Amelie retreating.
I could smell her fear. It was overpowering her usual vanilla and strawberry scent and it wasn’t something I’d picked up on her since she first escaped into the Forest.
Reaching my hand out to her, I waited for her to be ready. She wouldn’t look at me. Instead she was staring through the window attached to the kitchen, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman sitting in Amelie’s spot at the table.
“Amelie…”
There wasn’t much to say, she knew what was coming and maybe it had just hit her that she didn’t have a fully thought out plan. For my girl to not be in control, it would crush her. I needed her to be with me or the thought of her panicking would destroy me.
She took a brave breath and then my hand. I didn’t need to lead her though, she met each of my strides and walked with me to the den of Coven members waiting for us.
Kiaran, please let me try. I’m not ready to lose this.
Amelie pleaded to me. Before the ritual started, I would offer my life in place of Amelie’s. I didn’t need to know her plan because no matter what it was, one of us wouldn’t rise with the sun tomorrow. It would be me.
Do not try anything.
I warned, but the pain she wore on her face told me she wasn’t listening and I joined in her concern, knowing whatever happened tonight was out of my control. She wouldn’t listen to me and whatever she had planned would get her killed.
Standing in front of the door, Orla gave us the opportunity to speak before she opened it for us.
“It’s time.” I thought I might be anxious in this moment but I wasn’t. Sacrificing myself for Amelie would be the only good thing I ever did in my life, and I was okay with that.
Tears had already found residence in her water line but she kept a brave face.
“You are everything to me. Do you know that? This,”—bringing her hand to my heart—“beats for you. No matter what the morning sun brings, unless you are at my side alive, there will be nothing worth living for.” A lie by omission.
She didn’t need to know the state I would be in when the sun rises.
That being by my side in the morning didn’t mean what she thought.
I would stay by hers though. I will follow her until the end of her days. I’d find her, dead, alive, or a Lost Soul. Every single fucking time. When she woke in the morning, I wouldn’t be here to console her. I needed her to know that all that I was, was because of her.
“I can’t begin to–”
“Please don’t,” she whispered through the cracks of her broken heart. “Please don’t say goodbye right now.”
A few tears betrayed her strong iron walls and spilled on to her cheeks. I used my thumb to brush them away.
I love you, magic man.
I love you more, pretty girl.
The door creaked open and the sheer power of magic in the room whooshed passed us.
I took a step in and Amelie quickly stepped beside me.
“Father didn’t want to join us?” I asked, closing the door behind me and stepping up to the kitchen table. No one said anything in response.
In my periphery, Amelie’s gaze slid to me as realization washed over her. I could feel her begin to shake, her palm going cold yet sweaty. She squeezed my hand, trying to pull my attention from those gathered around our kitchen table.
“Mother,” I addressed the woman who bore me in the most disrespectful way I could. She was here as the High Priestess of Avonya’s Coven, but I would not give her the satisfaction of being named by her place in it.
“Kiaran,” she replied, “lovely to see you again.” The twitch under her eye a dead giveaway that I got under her skin for a moment.
Amelie leaned into me and I knew exactly what was making her blood boil beneath her skin, “Mother?” she whispered. I didn’t take my eyes off the wicked Valla McCalmont but I nodded to Amelie all the same.
My mother palmed the table and stood with all the grace of the Devil.
“Well, it’s high time we begin.”
Amelie sat next to me at the table, my mother was across from her and Adan and Mia sat on either side of her.
When the three of them visited a few days ago, Mia and Adan’s faces was covered by their High Table black veils.
I could feel my sister in the room that night, but I didn’t want to believe she was working with our mother in this way.
Seeing Adan’s unveiled and burned face from Amelie’s dream was nothing less than satisfying, but seeing my once sweet little sister’s was not.
She was supposed to be better than this.
I wished on every star I saw that our mother’s wicked ways wouldn’t poison her, but as she sat next to her tonight, it was clear there was little difference between them now.
Down to every feature, they were the same.
Mia used to look at me like I hung the moon but tonight, she looked at me like my mother always had. A disgrace. A failure. I noticed my little sister was wearing the apprentice version of my mother’s garb. A High Priestess in training.
Amelie was quiet as my mother pressed her on the events of the last few months.
It was customary to share a last dinner, though I’d hoped it could be just Amelie and I.
She was trying so hard to keep her face steeled and her fears hidden but I felt them.
Instead of answering my mother though, my girl just kept offering more wine to the table, which everyone happily accepted.
“It’s quite fitting for my brother to find someone who knows how to only cause destruction,” Mia said as she sipped the last drop of her third glass. “Not even the herbalists could bring back the garden to its full glory.”
Amelie burned holes through my sister’s eyes as she returned to her seat next to me and her eyes were glowing embers, ready to light the world on fire.
“Your brother has been lovely company,” she bit out, ignoring the insult to both of us.
“Kiaran? Lovely company?” Adan sputtered as some of his wine flew from his lips.
Amelie stared at him in disgust and my mother didn’t miss it.
“I’m sure you’re feeling quite thankful tonight, Amelie,” she said. Amelie’s eyes sparked further to life.
“Thankful?” she scoffed, falling right into my mother’s antagonizing words.
“Sure. To not be fated any longer with my family. It seems you find my son’s siblings to be unfit for your home.”
Amelie’s eyes widened but her brows lowered. I braced for the fire in her eyes to ignite the room. But instead, took a long, exaggerated breath then rolled her lips together before replying.
“I just expect our guests to be polite. Have manners. Seems the least you and your children could do seeing as you’ve laid a death wish upon your own blood’s fated mate.
” Her nostrils flared, then she darted her eyes between my mother and Mia.
“How exactly is that not a clear violation of the Witch’s Oath again?
” Amelie’s head tilted and she painted a fake, sweet smile on her face.
My mother’s lips quickly formed a tight, triumphant smile. Her eyes squinted in amusement that she found the right button to press with Amelie.
“I see why you like her,” my mother said to me. “Fire-y, just like your mother.”
“I am nothing like you,” she punctuated each word. I rested a palm on Amelie’s knee hoping to calm her, but I knew we were far past that.
“It’s insulting of you to assume I would break my Witch’s Oath to my Coven.” My mother brought the crystal wine glass to her mouth and sipped.
“ That’s what’s insulting you?” Amelie laughed in a layered, sinister rhythm. “If only you could hear the things I think of you, then you would have reason to be insulted.”
Mia cringed to herself at that. No one spoke to our mother like that. Not us. Not the Coven. No one.
Adan was laughing to himself, seemingly here for entertainment alone.
But my mother stared daggers into Amelie now.
Behind her cold eyes was a threat and I couldn’t bear it any longer.
It was in that moment that I realized it was never about punishing me.
For all the hatred my mother may have felt for me, for killing her baby girl, this was about the Morgenstern woman I loved.
Please trust me. My girl’s sweet voice caressed the ridges of my mind.
“Mother, I would like to make a request under my Oath,” I blurted out. Desperation reeked my voice. Amelie stood and grabbed the glass decanter filled with her homemade wine, then topped off everyone’s glasses once more.
“Go on.” My mother tilted her head in wait.
“Take my life, not Amelie’s.”
There was no reason she couldn’t accept it. If she wouldn’t, it would confirm that all of this was to finish her generation’s old agenda against Amelie’s ancestors.