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My brows dropped and I remembered how I felt when I healed Abuela. How even now, I felt the remnants of her ailment like sludge in my veins. Ghosts of what it was in her, but there just the same.
“Will it be enough to leash you, I wonder…” Her head cocked, dark eyes observing me with sick satisfaction.
I stepped forward. She was merely a witch. A mortal masquerading as immortal. I could cut her down, even with Abuela’s sickness breathing through me. I had to believe my strength would be enough.
“Ah, ah, ah,” she clicked her tongue. “We would hate for you to rush in here and end up hurting her.” She dipped the stone, cutting open the top of Eden’s shirt to reveal the lifted key beneath her flesh. The tip of the stone carved into Eden’s skin.
Eden winced.
I took a step forward and then one back.
Panic hit me square in the chest.
The wound over the key bled for a split second before the blood ascended back into the injury and the flesh healed.
“The thing about these keys is they can’t just be taken.” Vindictia’s mouth dropped to a pout. “Maledictia tried desperately to find them but they just appear when it’s time in the place where they belong.” She rolled her eyes before a dark laugh left her. “How dramatic.”
The wretched taste of sickness filled my mouth but I swallowed it down. “Let’s make a trade,” I offered, my hands held up in surrender. “Eden for Maledictia.”
Her head cocked again as she considered. The pointed stone still carved into Eden’s flesh beside the key. “That feels like it should be a good deal, doesn’t it?”
My stomach rolled over. Pain pierced my innards and sweat beaded my brow. No matter how much of my power I tried to push through me, I couldn’t rid myself of the rot that tried to take root. The waterfall of magic I stepped through would not cease its work. I had to be rid of it if I was to go against the witch and protect Eden. I steeled myself, trying to appear unaffected.
“Isn’t that what you wanted? What you’re doing all this for?” If all of this wasn’t for Maledictia, I wasn’t sure why she did this.
“No.” She bared her teeth. “Maledictia merely paved the way. Illuminating a path I didn’t realize was even there. Now I know just what she was after. I know she wasn’t the mad thing your world spewed vicious lies about. She was a visionary who saw through the stories to the truth. Saw the potential for harnessing demonic powers. Saw how useful you beasts could be if you were leashed and led.”
I didn’t have time for this and couldn’t care less about Maledictia and Vindictia’s twisted minds. “What exactly do you think this will accomplish? You can’t have the key. Not while it’s in Eden.”
“Ah… but that’s not really true, is it?” Her lips moved but no other words came out. She inhaled them, keeping them from being heard as she carved another little cut in Eden’s chest.
“Stop it!” Flames erupted over my skin.
“Make me.”
I wanted to but I was too afraid of what that would mean for Eden. She healed from the cuts on her chest but the ones on her knees, arms and wrists remained.
Because the threads never gave her a reprieve. The thought made me risk a single step. I had to believe whatever magic our mating gave her would be enough to protect her from the witch just long enough that I could save her.
I had to show Vindictia that she wasn’t the only one who could threaten something loved. In the centre of my chest, I felt the tainted magic. The blend of Maledictia’s wretched intentions encased in my rage. Like a rope in my mental grasp, I tugged and felt the pull of Maledictia.
“Release her,” I threatened as the statue appeared beside me. Despite the strike that sent me here, it appeared unharmed and in the same condition it had been when Arzen retrieved it. It was time to level the playing field. “Or I will destroy Maledictia and you’ll be forced to confess this is as much about her as it is about whatever power you leeches are after.”
Her lips continued to move and the stench of witchcraft intensified.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re not wrong,” she admitted with another little notch in Eden’s skin. “As much as I try to distance myself from the affections for my sister, as cumbersome as I find them, I’m not yet ready to say goodbye. Family has a way of worming their way into your heart even if you don’t want them to. Of binding you. Weakening you. I was weak and desperate in my search for her and then I became organized. Planned. I’m not ready to say goodbye.” She pressed her cheek against the side of Eden’s face. “Tell me, demon. Are you?”
I held my hand out, allowing my power to coat Maledictia. “If I say goodbye then we say it together.”
Her eyes flitted back and forth between me and the statue. She made a face that made it impossible to decipher her thoughts before she let the sharpened stone dance around her hand. “Do you not care about the others?”
“What?” My anger was getting the best of me. I could feel the way it forced my form to shift. I surrendered my hold on the mortal flesh and felt myself rise, growing taller as my hooves replaced my feet.
“The others,” she whispered. “The senile women and this one’s companions. Do you not care what types of tricks I’ve used to lure them away? What moths they follow to their madness and undoing?”
I said nothing. She wanted to tell me so there was no use urging her. Instead, I extended my hand and rested it on Maledictia’s shoulders. The rock crumbled in my grip, scattering debris onto the floor.
