Messy Business
Cova looked at my outstretched hand as if it were poisonous.
“Please, time is not on our side.”
Her eyes flicked from my palm and back to meet my gaze. Her hesitation was as plain as the imminent danger we faced.
“Please,” I urged. “I need to know. To see what happened. It might help us get out of here.”
My fingers buzzed with magic begging to be let out, like it was coming alive in her presence.
“Will it—will it hurt?” She took a step toward me.
I softened my features. “Not at all.”
Her hand hovered over mine. “What are you searching for?”
“Your necklace,” I stated plainly. It was the key to everything. “It’s important to them and if I focus on finding it, it might tell me what they’re planning.”
She froze again.
“What is it?”
“They don’t have the necklace,” she breathed.
I retracted my arm and wrapped my fingers around the gritty metal bars.
“What do you mean?” My hunger for her knowledge gnawed at my insides. This wasn’t gossip about the latest scandal over tea during a social visit. This was life and death. The possible toppling of a violent regime.
“Cova!” I yelled, making her flinch slightly.
She steadied herself, something I have never seen my infallible sister need to do before. Cova lifted her gaze to me. The light blues of her eyes were serious but soft. Vulnerable, even.
“I hid it,” she admitted so softly, I almost couldn’t hear the words over the dripping water of the dungeon.
“You what?”
“I hid the necklace from them.”
Lydia turned to face us, intrigued despite her anger.
“How?” A prickling shiver raced down my spine as I remembered his feeding on me. I shook away the memory and re-focused on what she had claimed. It didn’t seem possible.
“I…” She looked at her own hands. The open palms smoldered in greeting. She closed them, choking the shadows that had danced on her palms. “You’re not the only one with magic, Rey.”
The center of my world split open. After the shame I felt for being different.
After the disappointment I continuously resurrected within Cova again and again.
Now, after a lifetime of turmoil, she was finally backed into a corner and forced to admit that she too had secrets. Enormous, life eroding secrets.
She had magic.
We had magic.
And she may have saved us.
So rather than reflecting the hurt and shame she’d gifted me with over many decades, all I said was, “Show me.”
Cova paused. Her silence questioned me and I nodded in encouragement.
She blew out a shaky breath as she opened her clenched hands again and let the dark mist spill from her palms. Translucent wisps of night fell gently to the dungeon floor like fog slithering across a forest floor.
First the shadows surrounded her. Then, they spread to Cova’s adjacent cells. The darkness floated a gentle greeting to my ankles. Lydia let out a nervous gasp and lifted her feet away from the smoky visitor.
“This is…incredible.” I was in complete awe of her. Of this raw, unfiltered talent. My own magic swirled in my gut like it was asking to be let out to play. Like recognizing like.
I opened my hands and light spread, illuminating the space. Power purred beneath my skin as if to thank me for releasing it to greet its equal opposite.
A gentle ringing echoed off the walls, the thin beams of light singing and chiming to one another, an ethereal conversation. And where the light and dark magic met, they hissed a tender greeting. No retreat, no battle, but a simple acknowledgement. Like acquaintances touching palms in a dance.
I smiled at my sister and saw the expression mirrored back at me.
“You have shadow magic. You can conceal things.” Like a key had forced open a stubborn lock, everything clicked into place.
Where had the necklace gone? Nowhere. It was right where it had always been. Cova used her magic to hide it.
Cova touched her neck, the stone now revealed against her skin. There it was. The shard of Lorana’s stone. All wasn’t lost.
My light retreated at the realization. Cova’s shadows followed suit and the dungeon was dark and quiet again.
My sister and I stared at each other, words failing both of us.
I knew she held a trove of secrets close to her chest and always assumed our shared secret about Lydia’s true parents was the most damning. But here she was, with the same magic in her blood that led to my societal condemnation.
Cova was smarter than me. Better at concealing her gift. Because concealing was her gift.
“How long?” I looked at her and restrained myself from asking too many questions too quickly.
“Since we were children,” she admitted. I suspected but I’d never known for sure. “At first, the flares were random and small. Items would disappear and I wouldn’t be able to find them for days. I hadn’t even known I’d used my magic.”
I remembered the feeling. The fear of not knowing if I touched someone if it would accidentally trigger a vision. The magic was always ready and willing to serve. It took me years of practice to secure a leash around its wild inhibitions and learn to use it only when I called.
My sister laughed softly to herself. “One time, I sneezed and camouflaged myself. I followed mother around for an entire day.”
It felt forbidden to discuss our magic so openly with each other. Like this could be a bridge to the sisterhood we’d never quite achieved on our own. Her distant demeanor and secretive tendencies made so much sense now.
It wasn’t just that she had been disappointed or ashamed of the reputation I’d earned; it was the attention it brought on our family. Because if I were able to tap into such a power, it was a reasonable question to ask if others in our family had similar talents.
Dommik had assumed as much that first night in the keep. And I’d answered him honestly—I wasn’t sure if my affinity for magic ran in my family or if I was an anomaly.
My thoughts turned to the stormy-eyed commander. There was so much I still needed to say to him. And he was alive. For now. And I needed him to stay that way.
I needed him.
A flicker of a plan sparked within me.
“I hid this too.” She said simply, straining as she reached through the bars as if holding something heavy.
“What?”
The hilt of the invisible object met my hand and I looked at her in wonder.
“Cova, is this—”
Boots and clanking armor echoed through the dungeon hall.
We rushed to appear as though we hadn’t just been using long-dormant and secret magic. Cova leaned against the back wall of her cell. I sat on my cot.
A guard donning Northern Hive red came into view.
The lean male barked as he fumbled with the keys. “His Majesty has summoned you, Reyva the Bitten.”
I backed myself further into the corner of my cell.
“Guard, please, before you take her. Please bring us some water,” Cova pleaded in a voice I didn’t recognize.
“Quiet.” My cell door was open and the guard strode toward me with purposeful steps.
“Please. It’s been—such a—” Cova breathed before her body collapsed, thudding onto the brick and hay of her cell.
“Oh, fuck’s sake.”
I slowly reached my hand behind my back as the male inspected my sister through the bars and took a steadying breath to keep my heart from racing.
“She’s breathing,” the guard assessed out loud as he turned back to me. “You humans…you cause more trouble than your blood is worth—”
My hand met its mark and my fingers curled around the camouflaged blade. The guard’s eyes went wide as I landed its serrated edge in the side of the guard’s thin neck.
“You—” He coughed. “Bitch.”
I used every ounce of my rage to dislodge the blade and swing again, successfully slicing through bones. The guard sank to his knees then, but his head was still connected by tissue and flopped lazily to the side. Its eyes fixed on me.
Blood splattered and pooled as I swung one last time. The head made a squelching sound as it bounced and rolled to a final resting place. His body thudded forward.
I looked up to see a Cova wiping grime from her skirts, her face unfazed. Meanwhile, Lydia stood aghast in her cell.
She’d just learned I was her birth mother and she’d just watched me murder someone. I couldn’t imagine what she thought of me at that moment. We didn’t have the luxury of time to ponder or dawdle.
“Messy business,” Cova said, her face trained into postured indifference.
The sword in my hand was fully visible now. Its serrated blade and decorative hilt were unmistakable. This weapon wasn’t just something Cova happened upon. It was Dommik’s.
My heart sank as I realized precious minutes had passed. Vaspar said he would meet the sun and I had less than an hour to try to save him.
I needed more time. We needed more time.
I wiped the blood-stained blade against my skirt. “And we’re not done yet. I need to get to Dommik. You two should get to safety.”
That was always the plan, always the goal.
Put myself in danger so they could be safe.
It wasn’t until now that I realized that had been Dommik’s plan with me as well.
The thought both warmed my chest and brought on a fresh bout of fear for what would happen if I failed to get to him before sunrise.
Cova rested her hand on my shoulder. “As much as I would like to be as far away from here as possible, I think our chances are better sticking together. It’s more likely we get lost and caught again than escaping. This place is a maze.”
She had a point. The halls of the Hive had me turned around more often than not.
I dropped Dommik’s blade and retrieved the ring of keys from the floor. “You’re right.”
Lydia didn’t approach the bars as I worked to release the lock on her cell. She stood frozen, petrified. The metal groaned as the door swung inward. I didn’t enter, but reached a hand forward.
“Come on. We don’t have much time.”
She shook her head. “We’ll die out there.”
Cova pushed past me, not showing the same restraint or sympathy. “We’ll die if we stay here.”