Chapter III.30 #3
Shit. Rosmilda was right about one thing. Miria didn’t know enough about this kind of magic, but she did know there was plenty Rosmilda could do with that hair. She’d been too busy working up to this moment to realize what it meant that Rosmilda had plucked it from Adaline’s head.
Miria lunged, but she was too late. Rosmilda’s shadow creatures rose from the terrace like an inky mist. They descended from the cracks in the manor’s stones. They swirled around Miria in a black wind that darkened her vision and stole her breath.
She heard Adaline cry out, but the sound was so distant.
Cold, the dreadful chill of a winter’s nightmare enveloped her.
Her skin prickled with it, the blood in her veins ran sluggish.
Miria clawed at the shadows, but her fingers passed through them like the ethereal creatures they were.
Closing her eyes, she focused her mind inward, reaching for her magic, for the pure rush of power that could overcome this spell, but even as she called upon it, it slipped through her fingers.
She’d used so much already—too much, probably—and Rosmilda’s spell was taking what remained, draining it before she could use it to fight.
Miria collapsed to her knees for the second time that day, bones slamming into stone, pain reverberating through her spine, her head.
Exhaustion set in. In her chest, her heart beat heavy and slow.
For so long, her magic had been a natural part of her, a sense as deeply ingrained in her any other.
She barely remembered what it was like to not have access to it.
Unbidden, her memory of that first day in Yali’s cottage passed before her eyes. You have strong magic in you, and you will make a great witch if you choose to be one.
Yet she wasn’t strong enough. Perhaps she’s never been strong enough. There was always someone tougher, bigger, smarter, more powerful to push her around. Sure, she was a witch, but Rosmilda didn’t have to be one to win.
Her five-year-old hands slapped Swiftdok’s dirty, cobblestone streets. Girlish laughter taunted her. And her brother’s voice, still young and brave: Next time, you get up and you push her back, and you retake what she stole.
Useless advice from a boy who’d grown up to take what wasn’t his, who hadn’t cared to side with her, who was too selfish to do what was right.
Anger sparked in Miria’s chest. Against her chest. The charm she’d made from the emotions Yali had stored for her burned her skin.
All your rage, all your fear—it’s full of power … One day, it might be useful to you.
Miria wrapped her fingers around the charm. For fifteen years, ever since her nana had first captured her rage, she’d held onto those emotions. They were a reminder of who she was, of where she’d come from. They were as much a part of her as was the blood in her veins.
But she was not defined by her blood, not her ties to her father or her brother, nor the sad house where she’d grown up as hungry for love as for bread.
She’d become something other. More. And she’d done it without hurting anyone the way her family and Rosmilda had.
She’d made her own family; she’d shed the skin that had been Greta. She’d pushed back on her own fate.
She was a witch, and for the first time, Miria realized the witch did not need Greta’s emotions reminding her of what she’d overcome.
She already knew.
Miria tightened her grasp on the charm and crushed it.
Her childish fury, her anguish and betrayal, flooded her senses.
The wails she’d let loose in the woods that day.
The terror of being abandoned and the heartache.
The absolute soul-crushing sense of cruelty and injustice set her entire body ablaze, and now she knew how to use it.
Injustice was the antithesis of magic. It was chaos, and magic loathed chaos, longed to mold it into something new and fantastic.
Miria threw her head back and unleashed her childhood power.
Magic burst out of her. Her nerves alighted with it. Her eyes were blinded by it. For a moment, she flew. For a moment, she could have scaled the manor walls, skipped from tree top to tree top. She was the fire, the storm, the Swift River roaring toward the ocean. She was unstoppable.
The shadows flung wide and dissolved into nothing.
Miria heard a scream that might have been Rosmilda’s, someone calling out her name that might have been Adaline.
But her head felt detached from the rest of her.
Then, a mere breath later, her body seemed to turn to stone.
It became too heavy for her to hold up. All her magic was spent, and she crashed back to earth and collapsed into the ground.
Her limbs were too shaky and tired to support her.
Vaguely, she was aware that the yelling around the manor had increased again, but she barely had the strength to raise her head.
Rosmilda was running, her plans having completely failed, her stolen power entirely gone.
She hiked up her skirt as new voices—the other witches—yelled for someone to stop her.
Miria grabbed the low wall around the terrace for support, so she was looking in the right direction the moment Adaline tackled Rosmilda to the ground. Rosmilda let out a muffled cry, but Adaline yanked her arms behind her and held Rosmilda in place in a very unladylike fashion.
“Next time,” Adaline said, “Remember that truly strong women would never tie their power to a man’s whims.”
Miria smiled, thought: I really love you. Then her legs trembled, and she plopped back to the stones.
The next several minutes passed in a blur, a haze of pain and exhaustion that Miria questioned whether she would ever recover from.
There was negotiating and more yelling (so much yelling, Miria longed for the quiet of her woods).
In the confusion, Hani destroyed the abomination’s heart, while Dinia and Nalki took custody of Rosmilda from allegedly powerful men who were only too grateful to have her become someone else’s problem.
They seemed much more inclined to deal with Garulf, who continued to protest his innocence in a way that no one sounded like they believed.
That was promising, but Miria needed to know what was going to happen to him, if he was to be held accountable for his part in everything, and what would become of her sisters. Winda and Katline needed someone to watch over them.
Through her haze, Miria attempted to relay all of this, but the wedding guests had fled and the guards wouldn’t come close to her. Otto might have, but Miria didn’t see him anywhere.
Adaline, too, had vanished in the time it had taken her to blink. Or perhaps she’d passed out for a moment; Miria wasn’t entirely sure.
She leaned against the terrace wall, struggling to keep her eyes open, and her gaze landed on speck of sparkling red by her feet.
Her fingers fumbled to pick up the piece of her spent charm.
Somehow this shard had survived. Maybe she’d dropped it as she’d grown tired, or maybe the magic had burned through her too quickly, exhausting her before she could use it all up.
The crystallized power glistened like blood on her palm, and Miria tucked it into her purse.
Why, she wasn’t sure. But instinct told her it wasn’t wise to leave something so valuable and powerful for anyone to find.
Gentle hands helped her to stand. “I’ve got you,” Sarel said. “We’ll get a cart to take you home.”
“My sisters …”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
They won’t be, Miria thought. Someone needs to find them.
It was so hard to form words, though.
“Adaline …” she started. Where was Adaline? Adaline could find her sisters, bring them to her. Then Miria could see them all, make sure they were all well.
But Sarel didn’t seem to hear her, and Miria found her half-asleep self loaded into a cart. She would have thought the rocking motion would keep her awake, but she was fast asleep long before the witches reached the woods.