35 Beatrice
35 Beatrice
In one horrible flash of light, Elowen and the sword went flying in opposite directions.
Beatrice watched her friend hit the ground hard. Elowen did not move.
Instinct like none Beatrice had ever felt ignited in her. She wanted to run to Elowen—but an Order member grabbed her, his
expensive cologne reeking. He ripped her wig off.
“It’s Beatrice of the Four!” he called out, attracting more attention.
Suddenly, Order men descended on her from every side, like carcass hawks wheeling over their next meal.
Beatrice fought, ducking under blows, slashing forward with the quarter sword she’d hidden in her riding boots. In the fray,
the braid she’d concealed under her wig came loose, whipping behind her with every movement. Improbably, the pounding of the
revel room’s music helped her, providing the rhythm for her dance of destruction.
Emerging from the melee, Beatrice saw with enormous relief that Elowen was conscious, if barely. She was crawling with feeble,
hungry strength toward the Sword of Souls, which glimmered weakly. Its power was diminished, but not yet gone.
Elowen was close. So very close. In seconds, she would have her hands on the weapon. She would be able to finish what she’d started, vanquishing the sword’s magic. She would complete their quest.
Only—into her path stepped Todrick van Thorn. Fully revived.
She’d forgotten how formidable van Thorn was. He effervesced with evil. The revel room’s cutting lights shone off his dark
hair. The vigor of viciousness sparkled coldly in his eyes, like he considered nothing around him to be real, only a game.
Dressed in funereal shades of night, he surveyed the chaos into which he’d been resurrected. He grinned.
Nearby, Beatrice noticed, Vandra was climbing onto the stage where the musicians played. She lined up her shot from the elevation,
loosing an arrow directly at Todrick.
It glanced off his heart, ricocheting with the smallest shimmer of dark magic, leaving him unharmed. He was... No. The sword had not only reanimated him, Beatrice realized, heart plunging in horror. The foulest man in the history of the
realm did not merely live. He was immortal, the sword’s magic coursing through him in protective power.
“I’ve missed this,” he declared.
The first words from Todrick’s mouth quieted the fighting nearest him. He held men’s gazes—they were not used to hearing the
undead speak. With magic or without, however, his presence was commanding.
“I’ve missed the fear,” he went on. “The pain.”
He shrugged grandly.
“Why pretend? In the moment of my death, what infuriated me were the hours, the days I’d spent ingratiating myself to others.
Pretending I wanted only what was right for Mythria . The way the realm should be ruled.” He shook his head. “Pretenses of philosophy. Of noblesse.”
He reached for the sword of the man nearest him.
When the fighter handed the weapon over, Todrick promptly ran him through with it.
“I’m done pretending,” he stated. With every word, Beatrice watched how he captivated even while he unnerved. The worst part
was she understood how it worked on them, the Order’s men. The resentful, the dissatisfied, the self-righteous, the proud.
She felt how he drew them in, a blackhearted beacon. “I want this for me ,” he drawled . “The domination. The oppression. It’s fun. I like it.”
He dropped the sword. With the clang of cold steel, Beatrice felt herself flinch.
“I’m going to enjoy ruling you,” Todrick told the room. He laughed in delight. Tossing Clares and Order members alike out
of his way, he strode forward with unnatural power.
When his eyes fell on the sword, however, he frowned. Elowen may have been too late to stop his resurrection, but she’d weakened
his weapon. The sword no longer held the power he needed to rewrite reality for all of Mythria.
If his glee was unnerving, the darkness of his disappointment was downright frightening. He rounded on Elowen with disgust.
“You stupid girl,” he hissed. His voice held no velvet, only venom. “You’ll pay for that.”
When he started for Elowen, valiant Clares rushed him. Van Thorn waved his hand once. His pursuers stopped. Their postures
suddenly relaxed.
Beatrice had fought Todrick before. She knew what was happening. Using his head magic, he’d rewritten the reality surrounding
him. Anyone close to him no longer believed him to be their enemy.
Beatrice locked eyes with Clare, who was fending off Order men across the room. Both of them were too far away to get to Todrick.
Myke reached him instead.
In the midst of the fray, Myke pulled the wickedest man in Mythria into a hug.
Beatrice felt her eyebrows rise. She expected Todrick to push Myke off, intent on resuming his vengeance. Van Thorn did not.
Rather, he clasped Myke close, returning the embrace warmly.
“Thank you, my friend,” she could hear Todrick say.
“I missed you, brother,” Myke replied, full of feeling. He wiped a tear from his eye. “You bring out the worst in me. I have
so much I wish to tell you.”
“I wish to hear everything. Soon,” Todrick promised.
Watching, Beatrice found the moment oddly... moving. Yes, they were evil and needed to be stopped. But they were best friends,
too. Myke had spent years planning this reunion. He was not merely restoring his partner in villainy—he was reviving his dearest
friend.
Beatrice could not help looking to Elowen, who was fighting to stand. Watching the villains embrace, unlikely inspiration
found her. She should never have abandoned Elowen for ten years while grief devoured her. She should have been like Myke and
fought to bring her best friend back to the world.
If she survived this, she would do better.
When the men parted, Myke put a dagger in Todrick’s hand, the silver glinting. The weapon enchanted to steal powers, Beatrice
intuited.
Visceral fear gripped Beatrice. She pushed forward, jabbing elbows into faces, carving her path with swings of her sword. On the other end of the room, Clare was doing the same. There was no lyricism in his combat now, only frenzied ferocity. He couldn’t get free, and she couldn’t move fast enough—she would not reach Elowen in time.
The next instant, she saw she would not need to. Vandra leapt down from the stage, crouching when she hit the black marble
floor. She ripped a shield out of someone’s hands and slid the sharp metal across the floor with enough force to knock both
Myke and Todrick off their feet.
It gave Elowen the chance to stagger toward the sword.
The sword.
The powerful weapon held their only hope of defeating the invulnerable Todrick. Except it wasn’t powerful anymore, not after
Elowen had depleted its magic. It would need sacrifices. Souls.
The realization hit Beatrice with horrible clarity. Their souls could be enough to power the sword—hers, Elowen’s, Clare’s—ensuring it held enough magic for Vandra and Hugh to slay
Todrick.
It was the choice Galwell had made. How could you let someone die when you could be the one to save them?
Everything in the room seemed to slow. The rhythm of the music disappeared under her heartbeat. The darkness of the Night
Dragon closed in on her, narrowing on the consuming enormity of her choice.
But... it was one Beatrice wouldn’t make. Maybe Galwell was simply better than her. She was not willing to sacrifice her
friends or herself. Not anymore. She needed what she’d found these past days on the road with her companions, mending her shattered pieces.
Not a last stand, a doomed repetition. A path forward.
She thought of Elowen’s forgiveness of her, of how she’d forgiven Clare. Forgiveness, she realized, was the first step of
something none of them had done for the past ten years—focusing on a better future instead of living mired in the past.
We all relive what’s happened to us. Over and over. Clare’s words returned to her. No amount of revisiting our memories will change the past. We can’t return there, not really.
Beatrice could, though. She did every night.
The clash had changed the room from revel into battleground, Clares fighting Order men in one ceaseless clamor. Clare continued
valiantly forth, but his pace dragged while he wrestled more opponents than even he could handle. Vandra struggled to wrench
her bow free from men who’d seized the weapon’s shining frame.
While Beatrice watched her friends fight off foes, get back up after being knocked down, continue to fight without giving
up, she stood still.
She closed her eyes, everything around her fading as she sank into her powers. The veil of the past rose, gossamer curtains
greeting her. For ten years she’d endlessly relived what had happened on one devastating day, over and over. On this quest,
she’d learned the virtue of making new choices, of fighting her expectations, of forcing herself to forgive and grow and change
and understand instead of repeating old mistakes.
How could you change the future?
By doing what you couldn’t in the past.
In her magic, she returned to just minutes ago. She rewatched in her own eyes as Vandra dragged Elowen toward Myke. Distantly,
she felt blows bruising her, blades cutting her. She resisted the pull of the present, fighting to remain in her magic.
Vandra was speaking to Myke. In seconds, Beatrice knew Myke would plunge the sword into Todrick. But right before their plan
could collapse, Beatrice did what she had never once imagined possible.
She stepped out into the past.
The shimmering curtain of magic resisted her movement. Head pounding—muscles fighting reality itself—she pushed, straining her power. I can do this , she counseled herself.
She ran. When Myke leapt from the dais to where he would stab Todrick’s corpse, Beatrice was there, waiting, right where he
landed. Using his surprise, she wrenched the Sword of Souls from his hands.
Under the crystalline lights, she looked to Elowen. Elowen looked to her.
In their locked gazes, perfect clarity passed. They needed no practice making wordless plans. They’d done it since they were
children.
Beatrice threw the sword right to her, changing the future.