Calyx lifted her stricken gaze to the bright fullness of the moon, remembering as if it were yesterday. She had made a hard, hard choice that day, comforting herself with the knowledge that the fate of the world depended upon it. Yet, now, Aggie's sacrifice had been for nought…
Calyx had been caught off guard by the pull of magic from Andoherra through the portal, after being starved of it for twenty years. It was an unexpected challenge, one that she hadn't anticipated, and which had blindsided her.
An anomaly, a fluke – a fleeting moment that had cost her everything.
She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin upon her knees, feeling powerless despite the storm of magic raging through her blood. If only they hadn't ended up on earth in the first place…
*****
She watched the fickle crowd roar, seethed at the injustice of mob mentality as they crowed support for the glamourous Firekin. They should be grieving their Queen! Traitorous bastards! Beneath the thick wool of her clock, her magic flared. She broke her gaze away from the scene unfolding to settle herself and quiet it before it gave her away. For there, half-melted into the shadows of the opposite gallery, she could see a dark, brooding Witchkin.
Irrevocably drawn to her, she paused to watch the other – when Calyx had previously caught a shimmering strain of power from that Sorceress, the singular curiosity it had evoked had been responsible for keeping her in the vicinity far longer than she had intended. She could not deny her inquisitiveness – a second Lat'Nemele? Such a thing had not been seen in nine thousand years… And so she had stayed to observe, to gain an idea of the opponent she might have to face when the Heir came of age. And she'd overheard Fayne say her name, the sigh of it raising stippling across her skin.
Nerys.
The stranger she had not known existed, until recently. The stranger who should not, theoretically, be able to exist.
Thankfully, Nerys was presently distracted and hadn't noticed her magic flare. The brunette's eerie gaze was fixated on the flamboyant redhead marching down the length of the Great Hall. Calyx turned her attention back to the proceedings beneath them, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out at the injustice.
Below, the Firekin – pretentious, presumptive bitch – had reached the Throne.
It was too convenient, too coincidental – Calyx harboured no doubt whatsoever that it was she who was behind the murder of Asbeth. She would have stormed down and put a stop to it, thrown her immense power at the feeble Firekin, but for the fact that a Sorceress of her equal measure stood just across the hall.
A Sorceress who was on Fayne's side.
The Firekin sat down. Calyx could see she was afraid, and it lifted her heart a little. Too bad that the rumours about the Throne smiting one not of the blood were not true. The Throne only fed from True Queens – that was the test. So she was pleasantly surprised when the room shuddered, and the ground opened up to birth a monstrosity made of lava. But the let-down followed fast as she glanced across at the other Lat'Nemele, whose form shimmered with working magic. Nerys' hands danced, commanding the magma beast like a marionette, and Calyx, watching, had to admit that her magic was something to behold.
As the crowd below watched the charade of fire and brimstone, Calyx watched its commander. Nerys' dark aura seethed with power. Her bright eyes were magnetic, all-encompassing. She moved like a dancer, flowing in time to the hum of the elements; shadow and fire teased across her smooth skin, rippling in arcs of muted light. Despite herself, Calyx was mesmerised. The woman was beautiful, deadly, irresistible – the call of her magic hummed to Calyx, purring into the depths of her soul.
Luring her. Daring her.
It stopped. Calyx shook her head, coming back to herself with a crash. Below, a raucous cheer told her that the Firekin had been declared World Queen. Calyx's gaze drew down in surprise, and then, cursing her lack of concentration, snapped her attention back up to the other Lat'Nemele.
But Nerys was nowhere to be seen.
Calyx stiffened and shifted the sling that held the Heir, wishing that she'd left her somewhere safe. She listened hard; her magic wavered in warning, but she was hindered by the aftermath of the other's fiery conjuring. She couldn't gauge anything with certainty. Holding her breath, she squinted into the shadows.
And Nerys' lilting voice puffed into her ear from behind.
"There you are, dear," she purred.
Shivers raced the length of her spine as Calyx spun around, igniting her magic. Nerys stood a hair's breadth away, staring her down with a cold, polite smile.
"Enjoying the show?"
"A farce, if ever I've seen one," Calyx growled in response, taking a step backwards.
Nerys laughed, and her faux merriment tinkled through the brittle air between them.
"You don't like your new Queen?"
"Presumptuous to a fault," Calyx hissed, taking another step away, "That puny witch will never be my Queen!"
Calyx took a third step as Nerys' tone dropped dangerously. "I'll have your tongue for that, dear – a gift for your new Queen."
Ice-blue fire licked at her palms, spreading along her forearms. Calyx moved again, sharply. Four steps clear, and with a fractional head start, she bolted into the Betwixt. Nerys leapt after her with cruel fingers outstretched, chasing her into the darkness. Calyx sensed her magic enter with her, and panicked. She knew she had to get away – far, far away. With that thought held tight between her teeth, she stretched her magic to its absolute limits and – accidentally – teleported herself Beyond, well past the deepest mazes of Betwixt.
Nerys did not follow.
Clutching the Heir tightly against her, Calyx spiralled out of control, to the very edge of her consciousness, and then leapt for the only window she could see. She burst out into an alien place. Somewhere no Witchkin should ever be...
*****
Calyx ran her hand through her long, golden hair, tugging at it in morbid frustration. She remembered being insensible and disoriented, pushed to the limit of her power, which had abandoned her the second she'd arrived upon the magicless Old World. Clear as day, she recalled the old woman stumbling upon her in the carpark of the shopping mall moments after landing. The old bitch had recognised her immediately, and swooped down to relieve her of the child. Caught unprepared, Calyx had bolted so that she might orient herself, thinking to retrieve the child later, when her magic returned – but only a very faint shadow of it ever did.
She twisted her nose in disgust, remembering the bureaucracy she'd come up against, trying to regain the Heir. There were an awful lot of rules on the Old World, most of which had painted Calyx as mentally unstable, and leant themselves to ensuring that the old woman could become the child's legal guardian. And so had followed twenty years of Calyx stalking in the shadows, cautiously and without notice, diligently planting suggestions in the girl's mind from afar – keeping myth and magic a priority in her imagination.
She was basically a verified stalker, for God's sake.
And in the interim, she'd searched desperately for a way back, a way out – a way that didn't require the immensely lacking power of a Lat'Nemele. Finally, finally, she'd found the map. She'd recognised it immediately, spent long years trying to decipher it without her magic, crowed with delight when she realised that the old bitch had set up camp right nearby. Of course, the crone would have known about it, but why she hadn't taken the child far, far away from it was a mystery to her. As Calyx had expected, the girl, instinctively, had sought the place out – she'd grown up playing in its vicinity. After her twenty-first birthday, when the faint shadow of Jordan's magic had woken, there had been nothing to do but hide in the darkness and wait.
On the fifth night, she'd come, as Calyx knew she would. It should have worked perfectly.
Calyx sniffed, pressing her forehead against her kneecaps to try and stave off a growing headache. After everything, she'd botched it. And, in direct consequence, she'd doomed the entire world of Andoherra. Without a True Queen to correct the imbalance, the world would corrode. It would consume itself, and everything on it.
Twenty years ago, she had failed to protect Asbeth, World Queen of Andoherra.
Today, she'd lost Andoherra's Heir.
Aggies' sacrifice had been for nought.
And she'd broken the last vow she'd made to her Queen.
"I'm so sorry, Asbeth," she mumbled, blinking away fragile tears, "I promised you I would keep her safe, that I would keep your world safe. Now, I can't do either…"
She bowed her head, but a fitful wind interrupted her melancholy. It tugged at her dress, teasing her with elements of wild-magic. She looked up, alert at once. The eddying magic pulsed around her, prodding her to her feet, and she stood bristling, reactive, pushing her misery aside. In the distance, gaining rapidly, a dark storm of feral magics was brewing. The thrilling power of wild elemental magic driven before the calamity ghosted over her skin. A thousand barbs of electricity set her blood aflame. The sheer force of it reminded her of a different magic she'd felt before, many years ago. A magic that had lured her, dared her…
She remembered amber eyes, mocking her, haunting her dreams for twenty years.
And the flame-haired Queen, sitting on Asbeth's Throne.
Calyx had nothing left to protect, nothing to hold her back. She buried her sorrow beneath a hot tide of anger – this time, she would answer their presumption with blood. Even as she felt the whispered promise of the ending world caress her skin, she realised she had time. She'd failed at preserving life, but in returning to Andoherra she had reclaimed the power that could bring about death.
And she had but one option remaining to her for a chance at redemption – revenge.
Somewhere high above, a shrieking cry rang out as ungainly silhouettes cruised along the thermals ahead of the approaching storm. Calyx looked up and smiled, showing off small, sharp fangs. Harpies. Perfect. A little target practice to get her magic flowing.
With deadly deliberation, she built the magic in her palms until it overflowed in liquid fire, dripping in deadly golden drops to set flame to the ground around her feet. With the intensity of a hunting hawk, she watched the harpies come.
She was ready. The world of Andoherra might be ending, but Calyx would make sure that before it did, Fayne and Nerys left it – screaming – on a tide of blood and tears.