Chapter 19 #2
Mal watched Zimsy for a moment longer before letting her slim body slam to the floor.
Maeve pushed off the ground to rush towards her, but Abraxas grabbed her waist, firmly pulling her back.
She shook in his grip as another wave of spinning nausea passed through her.
Her cheek prickled with growing, sharp Magic where Mal had struck her.
Zimsy didn’t move. Maeve couldn’t even see if her chest rose and fell.
“Stop,” whispered Abraxas in Maeve’s ear, his voice dry and strained. “Stop fighting.”
Maeve pulled against his arms around her, but her hands met a bar of steel around her. She was pathetically weak. Mal’s Magic along her arm pulsed in satisfaction.
Mal flung an arm out behind him, where Alphard made a break for Maxius. A solid beam of Magic zapped across the Throne Room, sending Alphard into the wall with enough force that he fell and did not rise again.
“Let her go, Abraxas,” commanded Mal.
He looked away from Zimsy’s body. With the wave of his hand, she disappeared from the floor, black mist in her wake. Abraxas’ arms around Maeve loosened, but Maeve didn’t move away from him, and he did not drop his hold.
“Do not think you will be sliding by unscathed, Abraxas.”
Mal didn’t move towards them, where they clung closely to each other on the floor. His lip curled up at them.
“Betrayed by my two closest allies,” he said evenly, no trace of the lethal power he’d just used affected him. “I should have seen it myself, Abraxas. I should have known that you would choose her over me if it came to it. Punishment for not returning your feelings after all this time?”
Abraxas went stiff behind her.
“This one stings, Abraxas, I must admit. Knowing you conspired to help her erase my memories, when I gave you reign and power over anyone else. I trusted you with my world, my life. . .with her.”
“She is my blood, Mal,” said Abraxas carefully. “We did what we thought was best.”
Mal laughed. “Your blood?” His eyes slid to Maeve, then back to Abraxas. “Have you forgotten she is not of Pureblood? That you bear no relation to her mother and therefore none to her?”
Abraxas shook his head. “I have not forgotten. She is still my blood.”
Mal merely nodded. “We’ll see exactly what your blood means to you by the time I’m finished with you.”
Maxius remained across the hall. Slow breaths rose and fell from his little chest. How would she ever tell him about Zimsy?
The sounds of her mutilation echoed across her mind in such a paralyzing and distracting way, she couldn’t prepare herself for Mal’s advance. Abraxas shoved her to the side, placing himself before Mal. Mal’s hand shot out, gripping Abraxas’ face.
Abraxas flinched as Mal’s fingers tightened, forcing his mouth open. He raised his free hand, and with one sharp movement of his pointer finger, blood sprayed his chest. Thick, bright-red blood poured from the corners of Abraxas’ mouth.
“It’s like you have all forgotten that what runs through me is not the same as you!” Exclaimed Mal, seething with fury.
Abraxas’ body hunched over as Mal stood and released him. Only then did Maeve see her cousin’s tongue fall to the marbled floor in a pool of blood. Juliet’s muffled scream slammed straight into Maeve’s chest.
Mal’s words settled against her. The weight of them. The truth of them as he stepped towards her. He was, even without Shadow to aid him, different from the rest of them. He was born better. Stronger.
It was in his blood.
Maeve scrambled for Maxius, her face hot with dried tears and her body on fire as each movement was nothing but agony. Mal raised a single finger, threatening Magic branching in all directions, and called out to her with a voice of warning.
“You have others in this room you love, Maeve. Do not continue to get in my way.”
She didn’t have it in her to Obscure again. Getting to Maxius would take all she had left. Even then, once she did, where could she run with him? Her Magic continued to drain from her grasp with each pulse of Mal’s lingering force on her body.
He was right. She’d never grasped just how superior he was.
He’d never used it on her.
She crawled towards Maxius with one good arm and hadn’t even realized she was moving. He was far. Too far. Mal’s footsteps echoed across the space, taunting her with how unhurried they were.
A blur of motion appeared before her. Her body twisted, compressing against another as someone Obscured her, and they landed next to Maxius. Pain shot through her entire side at the contact. Maeve looked up at Arianna.
Her sister’s voice was icy as she uttered the words she’d never given Maeve. “Usque ad mortem, Sinclair.”
Her sister dropped her hold on her and stood, leaving Maeve on the floor next to Maxius. Mal continued his steady pursuit towards them. He reared back his arm and fired at Arianna. She stepped forward.
Bright blue lightning scattered across the hall, uncontrolled and wild. But it was not from Maeve’s fingertips that it poured.
While Maeve kneeled before Maxius, chanting Magic with a voice nearly not her own, Arianna Sinclair stood with two fingers furiously pointed at Shadow. Smoke dissipated from Arianna’s fingertips, as her face was lit with discovery.
Her eyes lifted from her fingers to Shadow.
Arianna’s blast of lightning was stronger than Maeve’s had ever been, even if it lacked the control Maeve had previously perfected.
“It seems the Sinclair sisters share in their electric abilities, Dread King,” commented Shadow, just inches from the throne Arianna had just exploded.
Arianna crossed the hall boldly towards Mal, towards Shadow, not a single step held a drip of fear. “You controlled the Dreaded Dead, did you not?” she asked, her question directed at Shadow.
Shadow smiled at Arianna’s fury. She relished the pain in Arianna’s eyes so sinfully, it seemed, that she did not feel the Magic pouring from Astrea and Juliet. Their whispers were barely audible as they assisted in placing protective enchantments around Maxius.
“I did,” said Shadow proudly. “I do. Did I take something precious from you?” Her voice lacked all remorse, already knowing the answer to her inquiry.
Knowledge of the past, knowledge she herself had not hidden, flooded Maeve’s senses. Arianna wouldn’t last long against Shadow, and so Maeve knew time was limited. Though she was grateful her sister was clever enough to bait Shadow into gloating, giving Maeve the time she needed.
She placed two fingers on her palm and sliced the skin open in one swift movement. Placing her bleeding palm on Maxius’ chest, she offered everything for his protection.
Absolutely all of her.
Pain began to cut through Maeve as her offering took hold.
It happened all at once, through her entire body.
Death’s hands grabbed her mind, each of her bones, holding her in an iron grip of observation.
More hands appeared and began clawing with long, sharp, dirty fingernails across her bones.
An icy prickle walked slowly down her spine, piercing each segment, meticulously covering all of her.
They stalled, Magic giving her a chance to turn back.
Spinel appeared in the archway across the hall, his bright and wide-set eyes locked on her. Maeve’s brows pulled together as his sudden appearance at Castle Morana shifted through her. Always at Maxius’ heels and always curled near him.
And now he was here. When she was on the verge of pouring every bit of her Magic forth in order to protect Maxius.
Spinel’s head dipped to one side, and Maeve took it as a silent encouragement. He disappeared silently back into the shadows behind him, and she accepted the exchange of Magic as more lightning cracked wildly behind her.
At once, those filthy hands that had fastened themselves to her very essence began scraping and clawing with relentless and unyielding intentions.
They drowned her. Again. Again. And when she was certain she was drained completely, they pulled more air from her lungs, only to crush them again.
Again. And Again. Maeve begged them to stop.
Each dirty fingernail that ripped her skin felt like a hundred lashes, the pain building with each claw that stripped away her Magic.
But in the absence of Magic pouring from her in sacrifice, she felt a beam of power that stretched farther than she could understand.
It had no destination. No end that she could rationalize.
But the Magic vibrating along the thread was pure.
It was a friend. She pulled gently on the strand of Magic and pleaded for her son.
Get him out of here.
The line of Magic sharpened at her call.
Her blood was on fire, forged of something new. The hands worked diligently until every fiber of her Dread Magic was sucked from her.
Her center tilted as she slumped sideways. She barely saw the pale-blue crystal slowly encasing Maxius vanish with his sleeping body.