Chapter 33 #2
“She was very disturbed from the beginning. She betrayed both of us before we were even born, promising to give her child away. Then, she cursed me and our entire kingdom. That’s why we’re locked in this perpetual winter.
The curse even killed my mother—the Queen, I mean, not the maniac who unfortunately birthed us—and I’ve been alone ever since. Until you, that is.”
“What happened to her?” I ask, leaning forward.
Silvia laughs. “Does it matter? She didn’t deserve to live after she killed my mother.”
“You killed her?” I ask, unable to keep the tremble out of my voice.
Silvia looks over at me, frowning. “I probably should have, but no,” she sighs, examining her nails.
“I imprisoned her in the west tower for her crimes, and frankly I think I should be given credit for being so merciful. You really can’t understand unless you knew her as I did, but of course that’s not your fault.
Don’t worry, I don’t blame you for feeling attached to the idea of our mother, but I promise you that we’re better off. ”
All I can do is nod, unable to force myself to agree with her. At least now, I have an idea of where Fox and the others might be, assuming that our mother isn’t the only prisoner in the west tower.
Silvia doesn’t seem to have noticed my lack of reaction. She has spotted a hang nail, and is examining it closely, frowning. She bites off the tip of her nail, examines it again, then folds her hands in her lap. When she looks at me again, her wide-eyed expression is back in place.
“Anyway,” she says, in an affected tone.
“Ever since then I’ve been trying to end this terrible winter.
If I could just break through the ice...
” Her voice cracks. “I’m sure my mother is still in there, preserved.
I could save her, but I—” She looks down, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. “I don’t have enough power.”
I don’t believe a word she’s saying, but I force my lips into what I hope passes for a grateful smile. “I’ll help you.”
She beams, clapping both hands together in excitement. “Really? You would?” Silvia’s face lights up with childlike delight. “We should start right away!” she exclaims, already half-rising from her seat.
I place my hand on her arm. “Before we do that,” I say carefully, measuring each word, “I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” she squeals. “Whatever I can do, I’d be happy to.”
I meet her eager eyes and force myself to hold her gaze. “I want you to free the wolves.”
Silvia freezes mid-motion, her eager smile vanishing. The temperature in the room seems to drop.
I expect her to deny any knowledge of what I’m talking about, but she doesn’t.
She frowns. “Why?”
My eyebrows raise. I don’t know how to answer that question, because to me, it seems obvious. “Because it’s the right thing to do?”
“If this is about your wolf specifically,” she says, her voice suddenly brittle. “We can discuss his situation if he survives.”
“No,” I say firmly, meeting her gaze without flinching. “It’s about all of them. I’ve met them, spent time with them. They’re good people, Silvia.”
“All kingdoms have armies,” she says with a slightly patronizing smile.
“Yes, but in other kingdoms it’s voluntary to join the army. Other kingdoms don’t force children to fight monsters, or prevent their soldiers from forming soul-bonds.”
“Did you know they hate magic?” Silvia asks, her voice hardening. “They were only too happy to bring every magic user in the kingdom here and turn them in.”
I lean forward, my hands steady despite the anger building in my chest. “Yes, but they hate magic because you’re using it to hurt and oppress them,” I counter. “It’s understandable that they would be wary of the thing used to hurt their children.”
“I thought you would understand,” she hisses, color rising in her cheeks. “I thought you would be on my side! I don’t even need to free your precious wolf for you,” she says, examining her nails. “He’s already free, and you’re still all ungrateful.”
“How would you know that?” I ask, my voice steady despite my racing heart.
“Because I saw him earlier and tried to command him,” she says, then freezes, realizing her mistake. “I couldn’t make him obey like the others. He’s not bound to me.”
I can’t pretend I didn’t catch her slip. “You said he was unconscious.”
Caught in the lie, Silvia doesn’t even bother to defend herself. Her face transforms before me—her delicate features twisting, that carefully crafted mask of sisterly affection crumbling away.
“Where is he?” I demand, stepping closer, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “Tell me where Fox is. Now.”
Before I can react, a whoosh of warm air hits me with the force of a brick wall.
I go flying backwards off my feet, and hit the bookshelves on the opposite side of the room, knocking the breath from my lungs.
My instincts take over and I push back with my own magic, sending Silvia stumbling backward into the opposite wall.
I stagger to my feet at the same time as Silvia, both of us trying to beat the other to the next punch.
She wins, her eyes narrowing as she extends her hands out.
The bookshelf behind me trembles violently.
I spring away just in time, before it erupts into flames.
Sparks, wooden splinters, and torn pages fly in all directions like deadly rain.
I thrust my palms forward, channeling my magic to immobilize her, but instead of the familiar rush of power, I feel a disturbing shift in the current between us.
There’s a tugging deep inside me, as if someone is trying to unravel my very essence. I gasp in pain as weakness floods my limbs. The sensation reminds me of how hollow I felt after saving Gunner, but a thousand times worse.
It’s as if she’s draining my magic. I didn’t know that was possible, but there’s nothing I can do as I feel my power draining away, flowing toward Silvia’s outstretched fingers like water down a drain.
Silvia advances toward me, palms forward, triumph gleaming in her eyes. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to kill you. I’ll leave you with just enough that you can spend the rest of your life in the tower, just like our mother.”
I gasp. My chest aches, like she’s splitting me down the middle, tearing my very heart from my body. I fall forward, collapsing to my knees, and find myself eye level with my satchel and Fox’s sword, forgotten and leaning against a chair. My heart skips a beat as my gaze narrows in on the sword.
Silvia might be more powerful than me, but magic isn’t my only weapon. It’s as Fox told me a long time ago: “It’s hard to do magic without hands.”
My vision narrows to the sword’s hilt. Heartbeats thunder in my ears as I crawl forward, nails scraping stone floor. I force one knee under me, then both. My trembling fingers find the leather grip of the sword and I haul myself up.
Silvia lets out a cruel laugh. “You don’t even know how to use that, do you? Go ahead, try, you’ll probably stab yourself before you ever reach me.”
I smile, grip the hilt with both hands, and swing.
The sword slices easily through both of Silvia’s outstretched hands, like a knife through butter. For one suspended moment, the world stands still. Silvia is frozen in disbelief, her face blank with shock.
Then as if in slow motion, her eyes follow the path of her hands as they slide off her wrists and hit the floor with a wet thud. The invisible siphon that had been draining my power vanishes instantly, and I gasp for breath, as if a heavy weight was just removed from my chest.
Silvia staggers backward, blood spraying across the stone floor as she lets out a piercing, earth-shattering, scream.
My eyes widen in horror, the reality of what I’ve done only now dawning on me.
Then, in a sudden burst of red feathers, Silvia’s wings explode out of her back, tearing through her blue silk gown.
I just barely have time to register that her wings are a different color than mine, before she’s rushing past me, sprinting toward the door of her workshop, trailing a river of blood up the stairs behind her.
I drop Fox’s heavy sword, and dash up the stairs after Silvia, my intuition no longer screaming at me not to and instead urging me forward. I slip on the bloody stairs and nearly topple over, but finally reach the top.
I hear the sound of a door banging in Silvia’s bedroom below, then voices and the pounding of feet on the stairs, but I barely register it as I turn in a circle, searching for my twin.
We’re in a round tower room. Half the room looks similar to my own workshop back in Vernallis, with shelves of books and different colored bottles, a long table covered in notes and ingredients, and an enormous cauldron hanging over an empty fireplace.
The opposite side of the room opens onto an enormous balcony, where there’s nothing but a low railing separating us from the wide, open sky.
Clearly, the balcony is exactly where Silvia is headed. She sprints toward the railing, her crimson wings fanning out behind her.
I raise a hand to stop her, then hesitate. She’s running away, injured and bleeding. It’s not in my nature to attack someone from behind like this, and I don’t know what to do.
Before I can decide, the top of Fox’s blonde head appears on the stairs. Relief washes over me as he emerges, seemingly unhurt. His eyes find mine, the same relief and something else I can’t identify mirrored on his face.
Then, his gaze flicks toward the balcony just as Silvia reaches the railing and launches herself into the air, wings beating furiously, arms still bleeding freely. Fox’s face hardens with determination, and unlike me, he doesn’t hesitate for a second.
He raises the sword, which he must have grabbed seconds after I dropped it, and hurls it through the air. The blade spins through the air and slices through Silvia’s right wing just as she leaps into open air.
She crumbles midair, and plummets downward out of sight, her screams carrying back to us as she falls. I scream too, though more from shock than fear, and race across the room.
The freezing cold wind whips at my hair and face, drawing tears from my eyes, and I hang over the edge of the balcony just in time to see her hit the snow in an explosion of red and white.
The very instant Silvia hits the ground, I feel something shift in the world around us—a current of energy rippling outward.
A deafening boom echoes through the castle and the balcony shakes beneath my feet, nearly pitching me over the edge of the railing.
I hear the smash of Silvia’s glass bottles hitting the floor, and the crunch of icicles shaking loose from the roof over the balcony.
Then, Fox is there beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist and hauling me down to the floor beside him. We lie there for a moment, waiting for the tremors in the earth to subside. When it stops, I meet Fox’s gaze head on.
There’s so many things I could say—that I should say—but nothing comes out.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls. Then a second one joins in, and a third, sounding as if they’re moving closer.
Fox and I both sit up straighter, and Fox struggles to his feet, dragging me with him. We look over the edge of the balcony.
Below, a massive gray wolf bounds across the courtyard toward Silvia’s broken form—a heap of torn blue silk and bloodied feathers half-buried in crimson snow.
More wolves emerge from the shadows, their howls echoing off the stone walls. Then, as one, they converge on the body and begin tearing into it with claws and teeth.