FORTY-THREE #2
Fear rattles my body. I can barely grip the rounded handles.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Odhran, feeling my heart race into a flat-out sprint.
This is my only opportunity to overpower the dragon while he’s between two bodies.
While he’s vulnerable. I look for the iron poker by the hearth and run towards it, tripping as my feet slide on broken glass.
It hurts to hold it with the cut on my palm.
It’s so deep I can see white between the parted flesh.
Blood trails down the black iron rod, dripping onto the cracked tiles below.
Aed’s hands enlarge into claws with talons sharp enough to tear me into ribbons.
Raising my weapon above my head, I swing with all my might. He bled when I stabbed him. He will bleed again. The sound of bones crunching makes my stomach turn. Blood, mine and his, sprays out across the floor. He roars, falling to his side, only to stand a second later. I swing again.
“I am not some silly little girl to be pushed around. I am the daughter of a witch, the mate of a faerie prince, and I am not afraid of you.” I never wanted to be a witch.
I didn’t ask for it and have never been proud of it.
“I am a witch.” Now, I am proud, staking my claim on my heritage. My identity gives me strength.
Mother, you said you are always with me, so hear me now. Help me! Please. Her reply is nothing more than a cool and wordless whisper against my cheek. I could pretend it’s only my imagination, but I know she’s with me.
A sound, foreign to my ears, unleashes from my chest, burning through my throat like a bramble yanked from a stocking.
My scream is that of a hundred voices. Mine, my mother’s, and those of the witches that came before us.
Their power hums inside me like a swarm of bees around their queen, tightening my grip, strengthening my muscles.
I am not powerless. I lose sight of the dragon still shifting into its form as I strike and strike again.
Flesh rips like sheets of paper torn down the centre.
Bones crunch like twigs beneath my boot.
His roars turn to gurgles, and the gurgling grows weak.
“You…” He coughs, crimson splattering the floor. “You cannot kill me.” His words are drowned in blood, his body broken. “I am eternal.”
“No,” I answer him. “Perhaps not. But I can lock you away where no one will ever find you.”
Power buzzes beneath my skin like lightning about to strike, crackling in my ears.
“This is my room. My safe space. My mind. Here, I am the one in control. I make the rules. You have no power here.” Shattered glass rebuilds in their windowpanes.
Doors right themselves upon their hinges.
The cracks in the tiles retrace their paths until none are present.
“Here, I can do what I want.” Iron bars grow from the floors like ivy weaving over the walls and windows. “I am tired of being made weak.”
The cupboard door swings open at my command, but Odhran stays inside. His wounds are wet with blood, as dark as night. His eyes are sunken, his skin sickly pale. Rushing to him, I grip his arm. “Come! We need to hurry!” I feel my hands begin to tremble once more.
“I can’t. He commanded me to stay.” I recall Odhran’s frustration when he first met Aed. It knows my name, Bryn. My real name. Do you understand what this could mean? I think I’m going to be sick. It’s my fault he’s trapped here. I never thought…
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Odhran Cian Delaney, I command you to get out of this cupboard so we can get the fuck out of here!”
He flops onto the floor with a groan, and I help him to his knees. My fingers curl into him, refusing to let go. “We need to hurry.” I’m trying to keep the concern from my voice but failing. My knees buckle under me as Odhran leans on me.
“He used my name.” Odhran coughs. “My real name. To hide me in there, but also…”
Aed rolls onto his stomach. Half man, half dragon.
His leathery wings flop limply onto the tiles beside him, shielding him from view.
“Bryndis!” My name is a rough command, which only urges me forward, causing me to move faster.
“You cannot do this!” His back curves as he rises, but we’re already at the door, standing on the precipice of freedom.
“Yes, I can.” I narrow my eyes at him. Iron vines snake up from the floor, weaving an impenetrable net between us and him. I watch as he stumbles towards us, one wing dragging behind his naked human form, but I shut the door before he can say anything more.
“I thought you left me,” I finally admit.
“Mo Stóirín, I am sorry.” There is a pain in his eyes that stretches far beyond the physical.
His expression is empty and dull. My stomach turns.
“I, Odhran Cian Delaney, heir to the Geimhreadh throne, reject you, Bryndis Ashglo, as my mate.” He takes a step away from me.
I fold forward, gripping my chest as though its contents have been torn out of me.
Odhran flinches, turning away, the sight of me alone making him ill.
“No!” I force the word across my lips even as I struggle for breath. “I refuse your rejection!” But he’s already gone, leaving me to wonder if he even heard me at all.
“It’s your doing, isn’t it!” I practically snarl, opening the door to glare at Aed, resting against the bars in his human form in the far corner. His wounds have healed beneath still wet blood. “You told him to reject me!”
“Perhaps I did,” he says with an amused shrug.
“Perhaps I didn’t. You will never know, will you, little witch.
” Aed’s laughter echoes through the room as tiles shatter around me.
Cracks chase up the plastered walls, tearing through shelves and paintings.
“You thought iron could cage a dragon like me? Look again!”
It is only then that I see the blurred lines of the bars rippling like shadow over a stream.
They hum my name. The bars aren’t iron at all.
They’re my fears, my nightmares, my most terrible memories.
They’re the vines springing from the floor, tearing my safe room to pieces—what cages the monster inside of me.
They won’t hold. It won’t work! They rattle in response to my doubts.
I back away from his prison, hollowed chest and broken hearted, filled with nothing but fear, grief, and pain.
Leaving the Great Room, I hear nothing but Aed’s growing laughter, cruel and threatening, echoing through my mind right down to my bones.
It won’t last. Nothing ever does.