Witch Queen (29 page)

I couldn’t remember. My head felt numb, and
yet there was something there, clinging to the edges of my mind. I
felt lost, like something was missing. But I just couldn’t find it
or explain it. I tried to grasp at my memories, but all I found was
blank, nothing. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, but I felt
different, lightheaded, like I’d had too much cheap ale. The world
around me bounced and wavered. It kept shifting, never settling,
not quite real.

A moan came from behind me.

I whirled around with my heart in my throat
and reached for my weapons. But I wasn’t wearing my weapons belt.
There was nothing there. Weird, I always kept a weapon on me.

A woman was kneeling in the center of the
room with her back towards me. Her long black hair cascaded down
her back in waves, and she was wearing a forest-green cloak. There
was something oddly familiar about the shape of her body, about her
hair…

“Who are you?” I moved towards the woman.
“Excuse me? Who are you, and what are you doing in my home?”

The stranger was holding her stomach, and
her head hung low over her chest.

I reached over and grabbed her shoulder,
pulling her around to face me.

“I said, who are—”

“Elena?” said my mother.

I staggered back in surprise.
“Mother?”

My mind
whirled
wildly. “But,
you’re…how…?”

“Elena,” my mother said again. Her face was
streaked with tears, and she continued to hold her stomach.

“Why, Elena? Why?”

My throat closed up, and I had to force the
words out of my mouth. “Why what? How is this possible?”

I took a careful step forward and examined
my mother carefully.
How could she be here with me now?
My
father had killed her years ago when I was just a child…
or had
he?
My memory of my mother was unclear, and I couldn’t hold on
to it. My memories hid in the far corners of my mind. They called
for my attention, but I just couldn’t retrieve them.

Was I going mad?

My mother pulled her hands away, and they
were covered in blood.

“Why?” she cried, staring at her hands. She
looked up to me. The pain on her face brought tears to my eyes.

“Why would you do this to me? To your
mother? I love you, my darling girl. Why would you do this to your
mama?”

“What are you saying?” I cried. Only then
did I notice that my mother was kneeling in a pool of her own
blood.

“Mother, you’re hurt. You’ve lost a lot of
blood. I have to get you to a healer.”

I started forward but I halted when I saw
the fear in her eyes.

“Mother,” I sobbed. I didn’t understand.

“Who did this? Who did this to you?”

Her lips moved as though she could not say
the words, and then she muttered. “You did. You did this.”

I gasped. “Mother, you’re not thinking
clearly. You’re hurt. Let me get help.”

“You did this,” my mother continued.
“
You
killed me.”

My blood went cold.

“Mother, you’re not making any sense. You
know I would never—”

“
You
killed me.” My mother pointed to
my hands.

I looked down to my hands and cried out. In
my right hand was a bloodied dagger. I screamed and tossed the
weapon to the ground, horrified.

“No, no, no!” My body shook. I felt hot and
cold all at once. My throat tightened as though invisible hands
were choking me. I couldn’t breathe.

“I didn’t—I couldn’t—this isn’t real.”

Nausea hit me, and I was sick until the bile
burned my throat and nose. I couldn’t see through the blur of tears
in my eyes.

Had I done this? Had I killed my own mother?
My own flesh and blood?

My hands were stained with my
mother’s
blood.

“No. This can’t be!”

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands
over my ears in a desperate attempt to block it all out. But the
nightmare grew darker and threatened to pull me under.

My mother sobbed. “I loved you more than
anything. I gave up everything for you…and you’ve killed me.”

I opened my eyes just as she collapsed on
the floor.

“Mother!” I rushed over to her and pulled
her into my arms, rocking her.

But she was limp and heavy and cold. I held
on to her desperately, but I felt her life force slip away. I’d
killed my own mother…

My guilt sent me cascading into a blackness
so deep that I knew I would never wake. It was going to consume my
mind until there was nothing left but madness.

Or was it just a figment of my imagination?
Was I trying to cope with what I’d done? Had I believed lies all
these years?

My head throbbed, and a searing pain shot
behind my eyes. I couldn’t stop shaking. The room spun. The world
around me spun out of control. I looked down to see my mother’s
body shimmering like a ghost, as though she wasn’t really
there.

This wasn’t real.

“Yes, it’s very real.”

A voice behind me had read my thoughts, and
I felt a chill through my veins. I knew that voice. I looked down.
My mother was still cradled in my arms. A moment ago she had almost
disappeared.

“You killed her.”

That voice again.

I clenched my jaw and gently laid my
mother’s body on the ground. I couldn’t look at her face for fear
that I would lose myself in my guilt. I could still hear that
strange beating, like the heartbeat of a god.

I staggered to my feet and turned towards
the voice.

I blinked at another version of—me.

A perfect duplicate of myself was looking
back at me. Even the small scar on the top of my left eyebrow was
the same. The way I stood was the same. It really was another
version of me. It was almost as if I were staring into a tall
mirror. But this wasn’t a mirror image. It was another person, like
an identical twin.

I was going mad.
Had I died and was this
my own personal hell?

The other-me smiled. Her image was so
familiar that it sent a painful jolt through me.

“You’ve been living a lie for too long. You
must accept it. You killed her. Accept it now.”

“I could never kill my own mother in cold
blood.”

The words tasted as bitter on my tongue as
they felt in my heart, and my eyes stung with grief.

“You did,” said the other-me with a voice
that was cold and without emotion. “But you can make the pain go
away. You can make things right again.”

“But how?” I tasted the salt of my tears
around my lips. “How can I make
this
right? How can I live
with this pain? With the knowledge of what
I’ve
done? I will
go mad with grief.”

“You can make it right.”

The other-me handed me a golden sword. “You
must
kill
yourself. Only when you
die
will things be
right again. Only then will the pain stop and this nightmare go
away.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not possible.
This can’t be real.”

The throbbing in my head increased, and when
I wiped my nose, the back of my hand was covered in blood.

The other-me’s eyes widened. “See, it’s
already starting.”

She grabbed my hand, put the sword in it,
and gave my hand a squeeze.

“If you don’t want Mother to die, if you
don’t want Jon to die…then do it, Elena. You must do it.”

“Jon?” I shook my head. My heart ached.
“Where’s Jon?”

The other-me smiled. “He’s dying. But
you
can help him.”

She took my hand with the sword in it and
twisted it around until the tip of the blade pointed to my left
breast.

“You must kill yourself to save him—to save
your mother—your life for theirs. You know this is the right thing
to do. Your life means nothing, but theirs means everything…do you
want them to live?”

My lips trembled as I stared at the sharp
edge of the blade.

“Of course I want them to live…”

My eyes darted back to my mother’s form.

“Your mother will be alive again,” said the
other-me.

“Kill the darkness, Elena. Kill yourself,
and then you’ll be with Mother again. We’ll be a family again. You,
your mother, Rose, and Jon. Don’t you want that?”

“I do…but,” I shook my head and swallowed
back the bile that rose in my throat.

But there was a little voice deep within me
that told me this wasn’t real. My mother had died at the hands of
my own father.

I found my voice. “I can’t.”

“Do it now!” the other-me screamed. “You
must
do it. Do it!”

The other-me’s face darkened and twisted
into something repulsive, something that didn’t look like me
anymore.

And then something inside me snapped.

I pushed the other-me back. “You’re not
real.”

I said it again with more conviction as my
mind slowly cleared. “You’re not real. This…Mother…
I
didn’t
do this. I didn’t kill her. My father killed her. This is magic…the
seer’s magic.”

The other-me snarled. Her face—my
face—warped. Her eyes went completely black, and she lunged at
me.

The other-me pushed me in the face with the
palm of her hand, and I staggered back. I didn’t realize that she’d
taken the sword from my hand until I saw it in hers.

She dove at me, and the sword missed my neck
by an inch as I jumped back. Her movements were fluid and
calculated—perfect, just like mine.

She had stolen my moves.

As the other-me got closer, a primal rage
rose in me, and I dropped low and spun around fast, sweeping my leg
across the floor. The other-me went crashing down. But she surged
to her feet and swung the sword at me so hard that it would have
taken my head off if it had connected.

I leaped back and ducked. Without stopping,
I dove forward and slammed my elbow into the soft part of her
back.

The other-me staggered forward but recovered
quickly. Too quickly.

She came at me swinging. Her movements were
fluid like a dancer.

Is that what I look like when I fight?

The other-me swung, but I blocked the strike
with my forearm, twisted and kicked her hard on the knee. I heard a
bone break and a groan, but she spun and kicked me hard in the
stomach.

I pitched forward and hit the ground. I knew
that she was right behind me, ready to finish me off.

The so-called silver dagger that the seer’s
magic had made me believe I had used to kill my own mother lay on
the floor in front of me.

I grasped the dagger in my hands. Whether
the weapon was real or not didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered
was that in
this
reality it was real, and I could use
it.

I moved instinctively and came up behind the
other-me. And as she turned, I thrust the sword into her
stomach.

She blinked once, her face a mask of fury,
and then her body began to evaporate until she disappeared like a
specter.

I staggered back and braced myself. The room
spun faster and faster until the sick escaped me, and I crashed
onto my knees.

The world stopped. My stomach settled, and I
blinked and looked around.

I was back in the arena.

Slowly, my mind cleared as though a fog had
lifted from it. I was on all fours on the ground, like a wounded
animal. Warm liquid trickled from my nose and ears. I looked around
the arena, but the faces were still blurry. I could see that their
lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what they said over the pounding in
my ears.

I stared at my hands. They were shaking, and
no matter how much I willed them to stop, they wouldn’t.

How long had I been here, fighting with
myself, fighting my own demons? Hours? Minutes?

It felt like a lifetime. I felt like a
fool.

And as my eyes adjusted, I could see the
smiles on the audience’s faces. I must have put on quite a show for
them—the mad half-breed.

I gasped as I struggled to stand. I’d
endured three witch trials and lived. But my mind wasn’t on my
victories, it was on something else.

I spotted the augur witch, and I
attacked.

I reached out and swung at him with my last
drop of strength.

The augur’s silver eyes widened as my fist
connected with his jaw, and he stumbled back. I was already on him
when his back hit the ground.

“You son of a bitch!” I spat and knocked out
his front teeth with a left hook. “I’m going to kill you! Kill you
for what you did to me, you bastard! You silver-eyed prick!”

I put all my weight into another swing, and
the witch’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. He stopped
moving.

But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

In a wild fury, I hit him again and again
until I heard the bones in my knuckles shatter, until the witch’s
face was unrecognizable. His face looked like a smashed raspberry
pie, but I kept swinging.

And just when I believed I’d killed the
bastard, something hit me in my back, and I pitched forward and
landed in the grass. I could smell magic.

The four remaining trial witches moved
towards me. Their pendants glowed, and they were furious.

I could see my own death reflected in their
eyes.

“Stop!”

The king’s voice cut through us like a
blade. The witches all froze in mid-step.

I looked up to the royal box.

The delight in the witch king’s cold,
appraising gaze made me squirm. The witch king stood.

“I’ve seen enough for today.” His voice
boomed around the arena, and only then did I realize how still the
spectators were and how much I hated them all.

I held the king’s gaze fiercely. The arena
was silent.

“Given the disadvantages of your human
blood,” said the king, “I’m surprised you’ve managed to survive
these first three trials.”

The witch queen’s face paled, and her eyes
flashed with anger. She regarded me with disgust. I probably
deserved her disdain after what I’d just done, and I probably
looked dreadful, but I didn’t care what either of them thought of
me. It didn’t matter what any of them thought. I hated them
all.