Chapter 78 Irena
IRENA
I’m chained in the dark for hours. I have to stand—the chains won’t let me sit.
I don’t even want to lean back against the wall—a trickle of water is running down the stones behind me and slimy black moss has grown there.
The scent of rot and damp invades my nostrils and I shiver with cold in my drafty cell.
It makes me realize what Valen went through when Kellis had him trapped down here. No wonder he hated me when we first met—no wonder he still hates my people.
I don’t blame him.
The iron manacles chafe my wrists painfully, but I pull against them just the same. I keep thinking I could get my hands free, if I just twisted a little more. I only stop when I feel blood—warm and sticky—trickling down my wrists.
I try using magic too. I can feel it inside me—swirling around like an untapped source of water, deep underground. Maybe if I went back to the Lady of Thornmere, she could teach me how to tap it—like drilling a well to get to what I need. But for now, I can’t seem to reach it.
I wish I still had the key I used to unlock Valen’s magical chains—but I doubt it would fit my own, regular iron manacles. And besides, even if I had it—how would I reach to unlock myself? My arms are held wide by the chains—I couldn’t reach one hand with the other even if I tried.
So I’m stuck…chained here and waiting to see what might happen next. Whatever it is, I’m sure it won’t be good.
My fears are answered an unknowable time later when I finally hear footsteps echoing in the dungeon. I stiffen, pushing myself back against the cold, slimy stones behind me as though I could melt into them and hide myself away.
But there’s no hiding from my fate—it’s coming towards me, which I realize as the footsteps grow louder and louder.
At last a light grows in the cell and a torch comes around the corner. My cell door is unlocked and two familiar faces come into view.
“Well, well, my dear Princess—and how are you feeling?” the Head Healer asks, as he puts his torch in a nearby bracket and comes over to me.
“Yes, little sister—how are you?” my big brother asks—or rather snarls—he looks angry and unhappy. I hope that’s a sign that Sir Horace is keeping his word to guard my mother against everyone—including Kellis and the Head Healer.
“How’s Mother?” I ask in reply.
“Oh, on the mend, to be sure,” Kellis snaps. “Some of the guards spread the word and the whole Court is already rejoicing! And it’s all thanks to you.”
“You ought to be rejoicing too. She’s our mother,” I say to him. I look at the Head Healer. “And you—you promised to safeguard the Queen’s person and health—you swore an oath to serve her!”
“I swore to protect the Monarch of our kingdom—and your brother would be a far better ruler than the Queen,” he says calmly.
“Why, because he’s a man?” I demand.
“Exactly,” he says, with complete certainty. “Women don’t have the intelligence or capacity to lead a country.”
“My mother was doing fine before you started poisoning her!” I snap.
“You may think that, but there was much she wasn’t attending to,” the Healer says. “For instance, your brother wants to extend our territory but she refuses to go to war with Verdelia.”
“What? But Verdelia is our ally!” I protest. “They’ve stood beside us through wars of aggression by foreign invaders for years. Why would you want to make war on them?
“We need their lands,” my brother says firmly. “For the defense of our own country.”
“No, we don’t! That’s ridiculous!” I protest. “Besides, if you attack Verdelia, our other allies won’t trust us anymore. We’ll be cut off and friendless as a country. No one will come to our aid if a larger kingdom attacks!”
“Now you sound like Mother,” my brother snarls. He looks at the Healer. “Women are so stupid about these things—never wanting to go to war because they’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.”
“I’m afraid of destabilizing our entire country and economy!
” I shout, my voice echoing in the dungeon.
“What do you think will happen if we can no longer trade with our allies? We’re not self-sufficient, you know—we import a lot of goods from them and they from us!
You’ll ruin our peace, stability, and prosperity just because you’ve convinced yourself you need to own land that belongs to a friendly ally who has never threatened us in any way and has done nothing but support us! That is madness.”
My brother’s face twists with anger.
“This is what comes of letting a woman get educated! I knew those tutors Mother allowed you to see were filling your head with foolishness.”
“It’s not foolishness—it’s common sense!” I protest. “And if you don’t listen—”
“Enough!” my brother shouts. “I refuse to hear any more of this—my mind is made up!” He turns to the Head Healer. “I do believe you said you had a potion that would do my sister good, did you not?”
“I have two potions in fact,” the Healer says, coming forward. “One will make her sleep…and the other will make her sleep forever. Which one does Your Majesty wish me to administer?”
He holds up two identical vials of bright green liquid, glinting in the flickering torchlight.
My stomach does a slow, forward roll. Oh Goddess, no! They’re going to kill me—I know they are.
“You can’t do this to me,” I protest, shrinking back against the stones. “If you kill me, Mother will know. She’s seen me already—she knows I’m somewhere in the castle.”
“I do believe your mother thinks you were a figment of a dream,” the Healer says, smirking. “She woke once, asking about you, but I told her you were still away.”
“But Sir Horace has seen me too—and some of his guards!” I protest.
“Yes, well…everyone can be silenced one way or another,” my brother says dismissively. “The important thing is to get rid of dissenters so we can get on with our war.”
“Agreed, Your Majesty,” the Head Healer says nodding. “Your Majesty always knows best about these things—about everything, really.”
“Yes, I do.” Kellis lifts his chin arrogantly. “And anyone who disagrees—anyone who’s disloyal to me—will suffer swift and certain retribution.” He looks at the Head Healer. “You know which potion to give her.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The Head Healer nods and ustoppers one of the vials. He steps towards me, reaching for my face with one hand as he brings the poisonous green liquid to my lips.
“No!” I gasp and try to twist away, but he has me by the jaw and his grip is strong. It hurts as he grips my face and pours the green potion into my mouth.
I spit and twist but at least some of it goes down my throat.
He’s killed me—I’m dead! whispers a horrified voice in my head.
A sense of anger fills me—rage, really. This horrible old man is poisoning me so he and my brother can ruin everything good and kind and beautiful about our kingdom. So they can indulge their greed for money and power and corruption—it makes me so angry I could explode!
Suddenly, I feel a bolt of power surge through me—it’s like I’ve finally tapped into the magic inside. I feel something go shooting out of me like a bolt of lightning—and it goes directly into the Head Healer.
He’s knocked back three feet, trips, and lands on his rump.
“Oof!” he gasps.
“What the hell?” Kellis frowns as he looks between me and the Healer. “What happened?”
“I…I don’t know.” The Healer scrambles to his feet and puts a hand to his head. “I feel…strange.”
“You look strange too,” my brother says to him. “What’s happening to you?”
Both of us stare at the Head Healer because, in the flickering torchlight, it’s clear that something extraordinary is happening to him.
Right before our eyes, his beard—which used to be long and bushy and gray—begins to shrink. It grows shorter and thinner, like it’s being reabsorbed into his chin. Truly, it’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.
But stranger things are in store. The Head Healer gets shorter too. He used to be one of the tallest men in our Court, but now he shrinks down and down until he’s several inches shorter than Kellis…and then he’s even shorter than me.
“Oh, what’s happening to me? What foul magic is this?” he howls…and his voice is higher too. Almost…womanly, as strange as it sounds to say.
Then he clutches at his chest, an agonized look on his face.
“It hurts!” he moans. “It burns!”
“What is it? What did you do to him?” Kellis shouts at me.
“I don’t know!” I shout back. “But look—he’s got breasts!”
And so he does. The Head Healer is now sporting a pair of the largest breasts I’ve ever seen—I mean, they’re even larger than mine and that’s saying something.
They push out the front of his robe, making him look unmistakably feminine.
His face has changed too—his features are still recognizable, but they’re softer now—rounder.
Suddenly I understand what my magic did to him. But it is Kellis who speaks it out loud.
“He’s a woman!” he exclaims, his face filled with horror. “By the One Goddess—you’ve turned him into a woman, Irena!”
The Head Healer’s face fills with disbelief.
“No, it’s a lie! It cannot be!” he moans in his new, higher voice. He feels his face. “My beard!” he moans.
“Forget your beard, man—you’ve got tits now!” Kellis exclaims.
“I can’t. I…” The Healer explores his own chest with shaking hands. His face registers disbelief…disgust…and finally terror. “No…no!” he shrieks. “What have you done to me?” he demands, turning to me. “What have you done?”
I know what the magic has done—I understand it now. It’s turned him into what he loathes and fears the most—it’s made him into the kind of person he’s spent his life denigrating and ignoring.
It’s turned him into a woman.
Good for my magic, I think and wish I could bring it out again—to get me free of the manacles. Unfortunately, my thoughts are beginning to feel a bit scrambled. The potion, I think. The potion he gave me—how much got down my throat?
Enough to have an effect…though I don’t yet know if it will be lethal. I can feel my thoughts slowing down and a bitter taste is growing in the back of my throat.
But a moment later, I’m awake again because Kellis is advancing on me.
“You little bitch!” he snarls, hatred twisting his face. “You think you can use your magic against me? You think you can stop me? Well, think again!”
And he draws his dagger.
I have only a fraction of a moment to see the shine of silver in the torchlight before there’s a flurry of motion in the shadows. A huge hand wraps around my brother’s raised wrist, stopping the blow, and another wraps around his throat.
“Touch her and die,” a deep, familiar voice growls.
Fiery eyes flash in the torchlight and there, standing behind my brother, is Valen, looking like an avenging god.