I'm taking part in a Halloween flash fiction with some fantastic writers. If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, here are links to catch up on "Of The Storm" before reading part 8, my part!
Part 1 by
Lori Connelly
Part 2 by
Aileen Harkwood
Part 3 by
Elise Forier Edie
Part 4 by
Paty Jager
Part 5 by
Ciara Gold
Part 6 by
Traci Douglass
PART 8...
Amaya followed Makani along the dark passage, her sister’s
hand firm on her wrist. Makani held her wedding ring held aloft to fell any
guard that appeared before them. As they progressed the air seemed to lose its
cold dampness and instead began to spark as if with electricity. The fine down
on Amaya’s neck and arms stood on end. They were close. She could feel it. When
Makani glanced back at her she could see her sister felt it too.
Sudden doubt flooded
through Amaya.
‘I can’t do this,’ she blurted, shaking her head. ‘I don’t
remember how. I’ve spent so long trying to forget the past that I can’t just
recall it all at a moment’s notice.’
‘It will come to you,’ Makani said. ‘When you need it.’
The sense of calm she evoked was so un-Makani-like that
Amaya found herself shaking her head in wonder. Was this what true love did to
a person?
‘Don’t overthink it,’ Makani said. ‘It’s not about reading
spellbooks, Amaya, or remembering those childhood lessons. It’s about being
yourself. That part of you that you’ve tried so hard to shut out – you just
need to let it in.
As they rounded the next corner Amaya felt Tasaria’s
presence in the crackle in the air before she saw her. Makani stepped boldly
into the room. Whatever Blaike had done to her, it obviously included making
her reckless. Tasaria smiled a mocking welcome, as if she’d been expecting
them.
‘Not going for the element of surprise then?’ Amaya
stage-whispered after her sister. ‘I was thinking maybe we’d approach from
behind, move with a bit of stealth…’
‘She already knows we’re here,’ Makani said. ‘What would be
the point?’
Amaya looked past her toward the queen. The Torc encircled
Tasaria’s neck and a spike of anger rose inside her as she caught sight of it.
It was not her property and it was not her right.
Her gaze slipped sideways to the corner of the room and she
caught her breath. Blaike and Bri were shackled and surrounded by a line of fae
guards. Her heart clenched as she saw Bri’s twisted body on the stone floor,
his eyes closed, his silver hair lying limply across his face, its lustre
dulled.
Please don’t let him be dead.
The possibility brought utter despair so complete that she
felt its weight would bury her. Only now did she realise her true feelings for
him. Now when it was too late.
‘At last,’ Tasaria said. Her eyes flashed coldly. ‘Waiting
is so dull. I do believe Brishan is losing the will to live.’
She waved a hand at Bri’s prone body in the corner of the
room and cackled triumphant laughter.
Amaya’s heart sank like a stone. Then as she watched, as if he had
somehow read her mind, his eyes fluttered open and widened as they met her
gaze. He was alive. The relief was immense. With it came a burst of angry
determination to take back what was hers.
She glanced away as Tasaria beckoned.
‘Now the chant, my dears. If you please.’
‘The Torc is our birthright. Not yours.’
It felt like her voice came from far away. Makani nodded
agreement beside her.
‘I’ll take that as a no,’ Tasaria sneered. ‘Good. It’s no
fun when people give in.’ In an instant she held up a hand and a surge of power
flew toward Amaya and Makani in a glittering blue stream from her palm.
Without thinking, without calling on any childhood memory,
acting purely on instinct, Amaya held up her own hand, and from it poured a
counter-stream of magic. The fae soldiers scattered, caught off-guard by the
speed of Amaya’s reaction before they could intervene. She felt the kickback in
her shoulder as her magic hit Tasaria’s head on and then she closed her eyes,
the better to focus on inching the burning stream back toward Tasaria bit by
bit.
The power had been there all along, just waiting to be
picked up. She marvelled how it had come when she needed it. She had suppressed
it with human normality, hiding all aspects of her otherness. Yet this was who
she really was. She’d been denying her soul. Had she ever felt as alive as she
did now? So complete? No, there had always been a sense of something missing. She’d
been the one that has shut it out. Just as she’d shut out the connection with
Bri, yet on some deep visceral level it had always been there, simmering away.
Makani stood shoulder to shoulder with her, held up a hand
and sent her own flash of magic to join with Amaya’s. The queen’s strangled cry
of anger and fear only served to spur them on until their combined power held
her frozen in a blaze of light. Amaya held up her other hand and the Torc flew
from Tasaria’s neck. Amaya caught it neatly.
True to herself for the first time, standing with her sister,
victory felt within reach.
Can you hold onto the past without living in it...?
