Chapter 50
With Aterna Magic forged against her bones, Maeve had never felt more certain of her place in the Magical world.
Her legs were tucked beneath her at the center of Sanctum. The smooth stone was neither cold nor warm against her skin, as though the temple maintained its neutrality through and through. The three white trees told her much without ever speaking.
“There is truly so much Magic in the air here,” she observed.
Reeve hummed in agreement as he circled the trees.
“It almost feels similar to Vaukore,” she said. “In the way that my home on Earth felt alive. Like it had its own thoughts. Its own feelings.”
“Enough Vexkari will do that,” answered Reeve. “This place is older than we can fathom. These trees were likely the first life here. At least,” he said, his fingers brushing the smooth bark, “that’s how they feel to me.”
She recalled how strong she’d felt in the library at Sinclair Estates when she cast the brutal spell that removed Mal’s Dread Mark from her chest. It must have been the same feeling Mal had when he relied on the strength of Vaukore to experiment with Vexkari.
He turned towards her and seated himself on the steps leading down from the trees.
“You get out of there the moment something goes wrong, Maeve.”
She nodded. “I will.”
A few hours ago, it was only a theory she’d written down weeks ago when studying Shadow Magic in Judyth’s memories of Vaukore. But she’d pulled it off successfully, twice. Once was good luck, twice was understanding, as her father would have said.
Afraid to attempt a third practice run and deplete her energy entirely, she now prepared to jump into two minds at once: Shadow’s and Mal’s. Shadow’s first, to distract her, and Mal’s second to speak to him without Shadow’s interference.
One-hundred-and-thirty-two seconds.
That’s how long she’d been able to hold on to two minds, separating herself between them.
She closed her eyes and, with a strong breath, jumped into Shadow’s mind. She allowed the void, the darkness, to hold her, not calling Shadow’s memory or current state forward. Just nothingness, until she sensed her enemy. With a youthful voice and a sinister signature of Magic, Shadow spoke.
I was wondering when you’d come talk to me.
Maeve didn’t reply right away.
I’ve been waiting months for those jealous eyes to seek me out.
Jealous. Jealousy wasn’t what she felt.
She felt disgusted.
How’s your cousin and the boy? I was beginning to wonder if he’d ever leave my castle. I tried so hard to break him. She laughed. Such loyalty to the Dread King.
If Shadow wanted to listen to herself taunt and talk, then Maeve would let her. That would enable her to speak to Mal with greater ease.
“I want to help you,” said Maeve, “if you’ll let me.”
Doubt filled the empty air.
“You haven’t managed to become with child, yet,” said Maeve.
That doubt turned to fury.
“I can help you.”
And how, she hissed, can you help me?
“Because I’ve remembered now that conceiving Maxius was different than any of the other times Mal reached his climax.”
The air shifted, and Maeve could smell desperation.
“Would you like to see—”
Why, why, why would you ever aid me—
“Because you got me to Reeve,” she said plainly, perfectly hiding how painful the words were to voice, even though they were merely part of the deception. Her next words, however, were painful. “And I intend to stay with Reeve.”
Shadow fell silent.
Maeve pulled out the oldest trick in her book: a singular, in real time, false memory that played out before them in hopes that the lie would occupy her attention long enough for her to speak to Mal.
“Is that a yes?” asked Maeve.
Yes, hissed Shadow.
She drew forth the perfected “memory,” not a crack out of place, and let it manifest around them. It was fabricated, as Maeve would never show her the night she and Mal conceived Maxius.
Feeling Shadow’s attention fully enveloped in her false memory, she grounded herself and prepared to move to Mal.
It was like looking at two different things using both eyes, one as the focal point and one as a close periphery.
She kept Shadow in her periphery and slid into Mal’s mind with such ease her heart constricted at his weakened state.
Darkness swirled around her, spiraling up from the ground and swirling above her.
Flecks of cosmic night flickered in the darkness.
And he appeared before her. He was himself, nothing like the version she was certain occupied Castle Morana in the present.
Nothing like the Mal she’d seen so utterly destroyed a few weeks ago.
This was her Mal. He was clean, his pale skin held a soft flush of life, his hair was perfectly placed, a small, soft ringlet brushing across his forehead. He stood tall, with a smile made for weakening knees.
And his eyes were a dark hazel dream once more.
His voice was like coming home.
“Is this my Little Viper, come to see me at last?”
Maeve returned his smile in earnest.
He was utterly himself in their joined consciousness. His eyes scanned down her body, slowly drinking her in, then snapped up to her eyes.
“You were his Inheritor?”
Mal had always had a keen sense of Magic. It came as no surprise to Maeve that he realized at once what power ran through her. Shadow, still occupied in her distant vision, made no notice of her entrance into Mal’s mind.
Maeve nodded, answering his question. “I’m coming to get you,” began Maeve, and Mal shook his head at once.
She searched his face, darting back and forth between his eyes.
“That’s too dangerous,” he said after a moment.
“I have a plan,” she said. “Please listen.”
After a moment of consideration, Mal nodded as Maeve told him about her gamble of an idea for facing Shadow and evacuating the Dread Lands. When she was finished, Mal did not argue.
He merely nodded and said, “Clever girl.”
“Can you hang on just a bit longer?” she asked, her chest tightening at the words.
He nodded, just slightly, a small amount of disdain slipping into his features.
“I do not want to watch Maxius give up his Magic, Mal,” she said, the vulnerable words slipping from her mouth. “I don’t want to see his life ended before it’s even had a chance to begin.”
His face softened. “He won’t die, Maeve. I promise you that.”
“You will not defeat her until your Magic is one with Maxius’. That is written in Magic.”
“So is your bond with Reeve.” He smiled like the Mal she’d met at Vaukore. “I managed to work around that just fine.”
“Good,” she said shakily. “Then we are in agreement. Even if we can’t destroy her right now, we circumvent the prophecy of Maxius and seal her away just as Reeve did three hundred years ago.”
Mal’s eyes left her for the first time. “So we’re just prolonging both the prophecies?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I know how to unlock Maxius’ Magic. And once I can show him how to give you his Dread Magic while maintaining his Shadow Magic, then you’ll be able to defeat her.”
Mal’s face fell, his eyes darkened. “She has my Magic, Maeve.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“And your Dread Magic? When are you going to take it back?”
“I’m not. I don’t need it for this to work. He stays there, under protection, until she is defeated or I am.”
“So he lives forever past our deaths in a crystal coffin of your Magic?”
“He’s safe there.”
“He’s the same as dead there.”
Maeve didn’t have a reply, despite just how painfully right he was. Mal watched her intently for a moment. His voice was smooth, void of any retribution.
“Do you love Reeve?”
Maeve couldn’t bring herself to answer.
“Your silence is an answer unto itself.”
“Mal,” she said, her voice quivering.
“The thought of you finding happiness with another man is a distinct form of torture. And yet. . . I know you deserve it all the same.”
“How am I supposed to do that without you? How do I live knowing that I failed?”
“Failed? We’re not done yet, Maeve. We have time to ensure our son sees a future. If we can do that, I will consider our life a success.”
“And if it destroys you to vanquish her?”
“Then my sacrifice for my family is given willingly.”
My family. The words were just another blow. Another dream shattered.
“What redemption is there in such a sacrifice where your son grows up without the only person who understands his Magic?”
“Look at him, Maeve,” he said. “He already is growing up without me.”
“No,” she began, shaking her head.
“We are holding on to something that no longer exists. We are not sinking. We have already drowned, Little Viper. You’ve spent your Magic creating worlds in which this is not our fate.”
“And I can do it again,” she cried. “I can save you.”
“No,” he said gently. “It is time. It’s time for this reality, the true reality, to put an end to it all. I don’t have much time left. Make me a promise—”
“I can create more time,” she cried, ignoring his logic still. “I can give us whatever world we want until—”
“You already have. And she has found us in every alternate reality you create within our minds.”
“And so I’ll do it again and again until we get it right.”
Mal shook his head. “Maxius deserves what is real.”
She couldn’t argue.
After a moment, he repeated himself. “Make me a promise.”
“Anything, Mal.”
“I want you to remember me the way I was before Shadow. Before my fall. Don’t remember me as I am now. Remember our summer at Sinclair Estates, not the winter we are in now.”
Brutal words.
She would honor them.
She nodded. “I could never forget that summer.”
“It was only you I desired, then. No legacy, no crown. Just your eyes on mine.”
“They’re not blue anymore,” she said, suddenly feeling the weight of his restored appearance compared to her own.
Mal shook his head, the movement slow and small. “All I see is you.” His head tilted to the side, watching her with newfound interest. “You look so beautiful, thrumming with the power of Aterna.”
Her chest ached at his words.
He paused, looking at her. “I want to despise it, the fact that it's his, but I can’t. Not when it means you are safe.”
Shadow moved in her periphery. Her distraction was running up.
“She is slipping from my spell,” said Maeve hastily. Her voice was broken, defeated as she said. “I have to let go.”
“Do not forget your promise, Little Viper,” said Mal as his fingers reached for her face. “Remember me, as I was.”
Before his slender fingers could brush her cheek, they turned to mist. His entire body began to fade into nothing as the space around them collapsed.
“Pour toujours”, he said, his voice fading.
Forever.
Maeve pulled from his mind and Shadows at once. The soft light of Sanctum flickered back into her eyes. Reeve leaned against the smooth stone silently, nothing but the quiet trickle of water running over the rough roots of the tree filling the space.
She pulled her knees up and buried her face in them, hiding her tears from him. Reeve’s footsteps echoed across the temple.
A warm hand rested on the top of her head. The warmth faded as his footsteps retreated. Maeve held her legs close.
“A tout jamais”, she cried softly.
And always.