Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
My initial thrill of finally accessing Cordelia’s dream realm extinguished as soon as an eerie stillness engulfed me.
The town square of Salem stood as quiet as a graveyard, as if time had stopped.
The air buzzed with fear, tension, and a sense of unrest. The darkened clouds above moved and cast more shadows over the cobblestone streets lining colonial buildings with closed shutters and drawn curtains.
Standing before me, the dark witch’s brows furrowed in a thin line over her serious expression.
Cordelia lifted her arms, casting her spell.
What would it be this time—more evil branches, an earthquake of shaky stones, or a tornado?
Her hands rose higher, and a weathered wooden platform appeared at the center of the square.
I did a double take.
“Witches’ gallows,” Cordelia said.
A chill ran through me as I remembered the image of her mother burning at the stake. It was a memory too painful for Cordelia to face. After all, she was still human underneath the evilness, with emotions and feelings just like anyone else.
“How can I forgive them, child?” Her voice quivered. “How can I forgive those who punished innocent people?”
The witches’ gallows behind us creaked louder, and my eyes widened.
“They tore lives apart,” she said, her lips pressed together in a grim line.
My mission was to retrieve my stolen wolf spirit, which meant I had to kill her to release it. But first, I could try to reason with her, my voice shaking slightly from nerves.
“You can’t take revenge by corrupting everything with your dark vengeance, Cordelia. You can choose to forgive and move on,” I said, but I understood my mistake as soon as the words came out.
Anger flashed in Cordelia’s brown eyes. “You don’t have any right to talk to me about forgiveness when you haven’t even forgiven your mate.”
Her words were razor sharp. The guilt wedged between us like a wall, slowly expanding until there seemed no way that we understood each other completely.
Cordelia’s breathing accelerated, and I realized that based on my experience dealing with the dark witch so far, she would never take my side. Somehow, that had to be okay.
“I let you keep the bracelet. Why come here?” she asked.
“You know why I’m here. You stole from me,” I replied.
“And you stole from me.”
At that moment, I knew that my original plan to talk Cordelia into giving back my wolf spirit would not work.
“I need my wolf spirit back. Did you take it from me because the vampire Queen is your ally?”
She eyed me. “I side with no one, child. If your father pays well, I can work for him too, but I don’t think he’s fond of me.” She chuckled. “And it’s more fun pitting him against his enemy. I don’t want the vampires and werewolves to be at peace.”
Cordelia was against a repeat of the past, before the Salem trials, when vampires and werewolves were allies and wanted the witches to work for them and do their bidding.
“But I’m a half witch, Cordelia. My purpose is to reach a peaceful agreement with the vampires so we can co-exist, but I promise you I will protect the witches. They won’t be enslaved or used by the other supernaturals. If I am the werewolf Queen, I can ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
I’d been making too many promises—first to the three witches and now to Cordelia, and before that to the Alphas and my father. I’d also promised Hayden to stop thinking about Torin. My promises were like a castle built of sand. It could crumble away in the slightest breeze.
“I can be the next werewolf Queen and bring peace in our realm if you let me have my wolf spirit back.”
She shook her head without hesitation. “I like our current situation better.”
I ground my teeth but couldn’t stop the loud groan from escaping my mouth.
“Cordelia,” I warned.
“You’re too na?ve, child. Wolves were involved in the Salem witch trials too. Maybe not your father directly but one of his ancestors. All supernaturals should suffer the consequences now. And you’re one of them,” Cordelia hissed and then mouthed a spell.
The stone bricks elevated in the air and flew toward me. I lunged to the side and fell on my stomach, barely avoiding a collision with the stones. They could have crushed my head and bones.
“No more talking. That was your chance to change,” I said, standing and wiping my hands on my jeans.
Straightening up, I summoned my own magic. The bracelet extended into a whip, and I cracked it hard on the ground. A mesmerizing display of sparks burst at the spot where the weapon struck the soil and rocks. The tiny dots of bronze light swirled in the air around the witch.
The earth shook beneath Cordelia’s ankle-high boots. She swayed but steadied herself, even though she kept watching the fusion of dark and light magic emitting from my whip.
When the ground opened underneath her feet, she summoned a whirlwind cloud that carried her to the hard stones on the sidewalk without disconnecting her hard gaze from my witch weapon.
I lifted my whip above my head and cracked it again, aiming at the witch. It ignited with dark and light flames. The tip of it managed to hit the witch in the chest and stomach. Her eyes widened and lips parted as her body flew back several feet.
I smiled and walked to where Cordelia lay on the ground, looming over her petite body.
She seemed to be in a trance, staring at my witch weapon.
My whip tightened around her neck, an extension of my emotions.
My shadow fell over her, and all I saw was my dark silhouette.
My torment and hurt swirled dangerously in my chest.
I felt ready to kill Cordelia.
At this moment, I thought I would feel fear. I thought I wouldn’t be strong enough to stand up to Cordelia.
But I was wrong.
The dark magic circulated in my veins, spiking my determination and will to take Cordelia’s life. A surge of power coursed through my veins, making me feel invincible. Indeed, dark magic was alluring and powerful.
With one jerk of my hand, I could snap her neck with the whip. The darkness inside me thirsted for destruction, distorting my thoughts, whispering in my mind, urging me to break Cordelia’s bones.
I shook my head. It was an act I never thought I would consider.
“No,” I muttered. “It feels wrong.”
Why wasn’t she defending herself?
I let out a groan. As I stared at the witch’s brown eyes, I thought I saw something familiar and warm there. In a moment of clarity, I realized that my desire to kill the witch was not truly my own. It was a force that clouded my judgment. The dark magic corrupted me from the inside, my very soul.
“Why won’t you give me my wolf spirit? I don’t have to kill you.” My voice sounded like I was pleading with the witch not to give me another reason to kill her.
She lifted onto her elbows, and the sinister smile she gave me shuddered my body. Her lips twisted with dark intentions, stretched unnaturally.
And I realized that Cordelia couldn’t be saved from the darkness.
“Because you’re still one of them. Because I’m not interested in a peaceful future. Everyone should suffer and feel the pain I felt when I watched my mother burn.”
I cracked my neck to the left and right, trying to calm my nerves. The allure and strength of the dark magic flowed from the whip and seeped into my body. It traveled into my arms and settled in my racing heart.
“You’re not making it easy on me, Cordelia.”
She rubbed her chest, wincing. Crawling on all fours, she finally rose before me.
My whip still hung around her neck. She raised her hand, and my fingers holding the weapon twitched.
She touched the whip, still smiling. Cordelia felt the material between her fingertips and caressed the dark-orange flames as if she admired the magic.
Dropping her hand to her side and lifting her gaze to me, she said, “You wouldn’t kill your own aunt, would you?”
A dark bark of her laughter followed, sending a cold chill down my spine.
I stumbled back. “No, that’s not true,” I whispered.
“I’ll give you a moment to work it out in your head, child,” she said and watched me carefully.
I took a sharp breath. I had to consider it.
I’d always sensed some familiarity with the dark witch.
The warmth in her brown eyes matched mine.
My soul knew she was telling the truth. I suspected the woman who stood next to Cordelia from her memory was my biological mother, but now she’d confirmed it.
Cordelia and Willa were sisters. Their mother burned at the stake.
After the witch trials, Cordelia changed into a dark witch, but the three witches said Willa was a light witch. I had only one logical explanation—grief and pain must have altered Cordelia.
I drew in another deep breath. My own grief and pain could change me completely, too—the thought finally sinking into the depths of my mind, striking me with the consequences.
I could be like the woman before me—my aunt.
The dark magic had amplified my will to take another’s life, making it seem easy and justifiable.
But that was not me. I would not be able to live with myself in the future, knowing I’d killed my own aunt, the sister of my biological mother. If I ever faced Willa, how could I tell her I’d taken her sister’s life?
Dad had taught me to think twice before taking another life, and I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. Not only because she was my family, but also because I wouldn’t let the dark magic within me win.
This woman wasn’t some faceless evil force out to destroy me. But instead, someone who I shared blood with. My head spun and throbbed, but the emotion in my chest told me my mind had made its decision.
I dropped my arm by my side as I realized that no matter what she’d done to me—all the danger, tests, and choices she’d put me through—I couldn’t bring myself to cause her suffering or kill her for that matter.
My whip slid down over Cordelia’s body and dropped to the ground.
The magic around it had now changed to only light flames, the dark ones nonexistent. The dark magic had faded and retracted to a place where I hoped it would be locked away. My choice had an effect on my witch weapon and its magic. Was this the choice the three witches had warned me about?
Cordelia stepped forward and reached out for me. “You are only a choice away from becoming a dark witch, child. Join me. I’m your family. I could give you a new home and a future.”
I took a step back, putting more distance between us. “No, I’ll never be like you. Besides everything else you’ve done, you destroyed another realm with your darkness and left your sister in prison in the fairy realm.”
Cordelia’s eyes widened, and a flash of regret passed over her face, but a hard and unrepentant expression quickly extinguished it.
“I could make you a dark witch,” she said.
I shook my head. “The athame you searched for? You said it was part of your family. Does my mother have it now?”
“It seems this way, child. She used it to engrave your bracelet, which means she left you all the books behind for a reason.”
The witch books, enchanted bracelet, magic maps, and magic sword connected me to my biological mother. She wanted me to find them.
“But for what reason?” I mumbled.
“To free her from prison, child,” Cordelia said, and our gazes locked.
At least Willa was alive. Imprisoned in the fairy realm, but alive.
The Book of Banished Souls had revealed the dot on the map leading to the Hollywood sign. The Grimoire Book of Athame had led me to the enchanted weapon, and The Book of Shadows and Memories had shown me Torin’s past.
I sucked in a sharp breath. It made sense that my mother had sent me a weapon because she expected me to fight demonic fairy creatures to free her from prison. The magic map led to the Hollywood sign, but I didn’t know the importance of this location.
“What’s behind the Hollywood sign?”
Cordelia’s evil smile widened. “The portal to the fairy realm.”
I took another deep breath. “But then why send me a witch book to unlock someone’s memories and not make it available to me? Only an opening spell could have opened that book.”
Willa must have known that I would grow up without knowledge of casting spells. Did she want me to search for other witches in the human realm? If there were more witches in this realm, Willa might have hoped that I would join a coven, like the one with the three witches, to learn witchcraft.
And sending me the ability to view someone’s memories was strange because she couldn’t have predicted I’d choose Torin’s memories. Was Willa hoping that I would use the book on my father? It was a possibility if she feared that he wouldn’t tell me about her.
Cordelia shrugged. “My sister had something in mind, but you have to ask her yourself.”
“You bet I’ll ask her. I wouldn’t leave my mother in prison, especially after who knows what she went through to send me the books and the weapon,” I said absent-mindedly, averting my gaze.
Think, Breanna. Think.
The shimmery gold snaked around my forearm. I rubbed my eyes and sighed. I couldn’t reconcile why Willa would give me the power to see someone’s memories. My head throbbed.
When I looked around, Cordelia was gone. The dark witch knew I would pay her a visit, and her plan all along was to tell me she was my blood relative. She’d made it clear that she wouldn’t help me or Willa.
Ignoring thoughts about my witch heritage, I focused on the most important issue and its consequences.
I’d failed to get my wolf spirit. As tears welled up behind my eyes, I let the thought sink in.
There was only one option left to become the werewolf Queen. I had to be marked by Hayden to save Torin—the only way now to ascend the throne as a human lacking a wolf spirit.