Etcher/Varias
“Varias.”
I shot upright on the mattress in Keyja’s cottage, clutching my chest. The stabbing spasms in my heart and ribs were so intense I could hardly breathe.
I’d felt this before—the Dark King’s hold. He wanted something.
“What?” I croaked it out, but it was enough. The spasms eased off, and I sucked a grateful breath through the residual pain. I hadn’t ignored the Dark King’s call and for now, that meant mercy enough to let me breathe.
The fact that I felt grateful to him for easing back his torment—even a little bit—made me despise myself. I was weak… but perhaps I always had been. Something, after all, had compelled me to bind myself to the Dark King in the first place. Even before I’d had a physical master, I’d been controlled by my own blind fears and desires. Now, I had a new fear—that I wouldn’t live long enough to ever be truly free.
Freedom. It was the thing I wanted most—and the one thing I knew I could never have.
A vision of the grassy expanse near the eastern edge of the dome forced its way into my mind. He wanted me to go there, which meant there was almost certainly a messenger waiting there for me. I knew exactly whom he would have sent. Miravel. The Dark King loved jabbing his sword in and twisting it, and nobody could twist a weapon into a raw wound like she could.
I slid my legs over the edge of the bed and sighed. Keyja had left me here to rest. If she came back and I was missing, she would worry—but it would be worse if she saw me leaving to meet Miravel and followed. I would have to make sure Keyja was still out of sight before I headed to the barrier.
I was just heaving my sore body up from the bed when Keyja strode into the cottage.
“Oh! You’re awake!” She crossed the room to set her small armful of herbs on the kitchen table, then turned to me with a smile. “Are you hungry?”
I was, but I shook my head. “I need to walk—to get some air.”
Keyja removed the apron she’d been tying on and dropped it on the table. “May I join you?”
Her face was so full of affection and so empty of suspicion, it gutted me.
She saw my expression shift, though I quickly tried to hide it.
“Varias—” She moved toward me, mouth twisted in concern. “What is it?”
The truth burned like fire in my chest. I needed to tell her. I wanted to tell her. I stepped toward her. “Keyja, I—”
Lancing pain shot through my ribs, dropping me to my knees.
“Varias!” Keyja rushed toward me. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t even bring myself to look at her. I shoved to my knees and rushed out of the cottage.
Though I heard her yelling after me, she didn’t follow… and I didn’t stop running until I’d reached the eastern edge of the dome. When I slowed, breathing heavily, I found Miravel smirking at me from the other side of the transparent barrier.
“What do you want?” I barked at her.
Her hand fluttered to her chest, and her smirk turned into an expression of mock hurt. “Varias! Is that how you would speak to an old friend? I am here on the king’s business, with an important message!”
For all her games and manipulations, she was the Dark King’s henchwoman. I had to proceed carefully. “Forgive me,” I grunted out, not caring to make it sound genuine—we both knew it wasn’t, but she still expected me to play the game. “What is the message?”
Her frown curled up into a grin. “They’re coming, and there will be nothing you can do to save her.” At her words, a dark cloud moved over the dome, dimming the sunlight.
“Varias!” Keyja’s shriek sliced across the field.
I spun, and my heart stumbled in my chest. Darklings covered the dome. Hundreds of them, clawing at the magical barrier in a frenzied mob. Several yelped and jerked back in pain—the wards Keyja had set were clearly affecting them—but more just surged in to take their place. The sound of their claws scrabbling against the dome’s surface filled the air like a rush of wind through leaves.
Keyja’s magic was tied to that barrier. Her strength–and Tofa’s—was all that was holding the darklings off.
I spun back to Miravel. “Call them off!”
She tilted her head and grinned at me. “I’m afraid that’s not in my power, Varias. This is in your hands, now.”
“Keyja!” I shouted as I spun toward the cottage, suddenly desperate to find her. Was she still inside?
A bolt of white-hot lightning shot up from the village courtyard in the distance, crashing into the barrier above—so she had made it there. That bolt was her and Tofa’s attempt to ward off the assault. Crackles of electricity surged over the barrier’s surface, sending entire clusters of darklings flying with yelps of pain. But for every darkling that shrieked and pulled back from the dome’s surface, two more flooded in.
Every claw to the dome, Keyja would feel it like claws down her own back. How was she even still standing?
My legs itched to run to her, but Miravel’s voice pinned me to the spot. “Don’t go running off yet, Varias. We still have terms to discuss.”
The two LeyGuard men rushed out from the village in the distance. One took aim with a pistol while the other called whips of flame, both ready to take down any darklings that breached when Keyja’s magic failed. It wouldn’t be enough.
It would never be enough.
Near the cottage, Mraugathal’s branches flailed—I didn’t have to hear him to see his panic.
I spun back to face Miravel. “Tell me what to do,” I pleaded with her, pressing my hand to the barrier. “What does the Dark King want from me?”
“Your presence is required at the Hub,” Miravel said, her dark eyes glinting. “The prince is heading for the Hub as we speak, and the girl is already there. They will ask you to do a ritual, and you will… take things into your own hands. Understand?”
My heart turned to ash in my chest. “He wants me to kill them.” If I did that, after Keyja had welcomed me in and vouched for me, after I had reassured her that despite the LeyGuard girl’s vision, I intended no harm… if I betrayed Keyja like that, she would never forgive me. I would never forgive myself.
I straightened and clenched my jaw. “The LeyGuard are Arcvale’s allies. And the young prince is Keyja’s friend. I won’t do it.”
“You know he could kill you where you stand.” Miravel’s grin deepened. She was enjoying this.
I nodded once. “I know. Let him do it. I will not harm the prince.”
Her face hardened. “Then Arcvale—and your precious Keyja—will fall.”
My chest went cold. So this was the trick of the game. I was to lose, no matter what I chose. I drew a breath. “No. There has to be another way. I’ll come with you—I’ll return to him. Or he can have my life, right now, if he wants. He can take it.”
Miravel laughed, a cold, brittle sound. “Your life? Obedience, Varias. Your undying loyalty. That is what he wanted, and you have already failed him. You betrayed him once before, and in your heart you have already betrayed him this second time, and we both know it. Your life means little. He cares only what you can do for him.” Her eyes narrowed into a glare. “He has told you what he requires. Do it, or suffer the cost of your betrayal to him.”
I pressed my hands to the barrier. “Miravel, please. Is there no other way? Nothing else he wants? Why does he care so much for one fallen prince? He is no longer even Teionyr’s ruler!”
Her expression hardened. “The prince and the girl must die, and you are the simplest way to accomplish that. But have no delusions—his desires will be achieved, whether through you or otherwise. You are saving no one in your refusal, only dooming that which you claim to love. Pleading does not suit you, Varias. Do what the Dark King has asked, or he will show no mercy here.”
A cold, numb sensation flushed through me. How could I do this to Keyja, betray her in that way? But if I didn’t—
“Varias!” Keyja screamed from the courtyard.
I spun toward the sound.
“What will it be, Varias?” Miravel called after me. “Whose blood will you have added to your conscience, when this night is through?”
“Varias!” Keyja shrieked again, her voice panicked.
I had lost the game already, but I still had one choice where Keyja could be spared.
I drew a shuddering breath, then turned back to Miravel and shoved my hand against the barrier.
As an ArcFae, the barrier responded to me, but Keyja’s wards resisted me. I pressed harder, and the barrier flickered under my touch, then parted. The pain I had expected from the ward was barely a tingle, this time—Keyja’s magic was already weakening. I forced myself through the rift, and found myself inches from Miravel’s smug face.
“A wise choice.” She smiled, then flicked her wrist into the air.
The darklings launched up from the dome like a mob of frenzied vultures, then surged away into the night.
The air fell still.
“Better, my love?” Miravel cooed.
My stomach roiled as I glared at her. “If I do this, you will never speak to me again. You will leave me alone—both of you.”
She sneered at me. “We have already made a deal, and you have yet to deliver your end. We promise no further bargains. Even this was a mercy you didn’t deserve. Stop begging and go do what you’ve promised. ”
Rage seethed through me as I faced her. “I loathe you. I loathe you both!”
She smirked at me, eyes glinting. “More than you loathe yourself?”
I stormed away, but even once Miravel was out of sight, I could still feel her grin boring into my back… and her question boring into my heart.
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