I won’t be alone for long.
She gently pushed the image of the thousands of Dreaded Dead ascending upon Aterna, shattering their walls, his beautiful Capital City at risk of ruin. The feeling of his people’s fear. The idea of Maxius’ future on the line. The Vexkari markings of Reeve’s dragon curse flickered as he filled with fury, and their eyes remained locked together. Maeve smiled softly, kindling the rage she felt surging through his breaths.
Burn them all, Reeve,she commanded, solidifying his animalistic desire.
Violet fire erupted from him as he allowed his transformation. It was different than the last time she’d seen the beast take over him. He didn’t fight his rage. He used it.
With a screech and enough force to shake the side of the mountain, Reeve rocketed into the sky, his glorious wings spread wide as he conquered, not just controlled, his beastly form.
“What a wicked curse,” remarked Shadow. “Though it seems he’s learned to use his rage at last.”
Maeve turned back to her.
“How do you expect to fight me with just Shadow Magic? I have gathered a force of Dread Magic greater than your Aterna into my veins once more, Little Vi—”
Maeve cut her words short, closing Shadow’s throat with a pulse of her Aterna Magic that surrounded them, and ensuring she didn’t utter the name that only one was allowed to call her ever again.
Two fingers extended at Maeve’s side, lightning rippling across her knuckles, wrapping her wrist. “You talk too much.”
Shadow’s toothy grin faltered, and the lines on her face hardened.
The Aterna Magic surrounding them surged with Maeve’s breath, warming her skin as small flecks of snow and ice began to gather in the air.
“I want to show you something,” said Maeve, letting her mental shields down.
Intrigue flickered across Shadow’s stolen eyes as Maeve made herself vulnerable.
“I found something of Prince Darius,” continued Maeve. “I think you’ll want to see it.”
Shadow’s reply came quickly and with a sharpened tone. “How could you possibly have a memory of his?”
“Because objects hold memory. Books, vases, paintings. . .” She held up the Dread Ring on her finger. “Jewelry.”
Shadow’s pupils widened as her eyes locked on the ring. The ring Maeve knew donned Darius’ finger during Shadow’s time with him.
“You’ve already shown me these memories,” said Shadow, deflecting. “The trick is old.”
Maeve hummed. “It’s not a trick.” A lie. “Don’t you want to see a lost moment of his before either you are sealed or you defeat me? Because either way, you’ll lose all chance at seeing him this way.”
“What way?” she snapped, but Maeve could hear the resolve in her voice, wavering, like she’d already decided to fall for Maeve’s cruelty.
And she had.
Maeve slid them both into a deception and savagery that would top the chart of her wrongdoings. As Castle Morana’s Crown’s Quarters manifested, reflecting across their shared mind-space like glass, Shadow’s beloved Prince Darius was not alone.
If Shadow had been desperately naive enough to believe Maeve had something kind to share with her, she was quickly corrected. Shadow’s Magic tensed, coiling around her protectively.
“That isn’t real,” she said darkly, her eyes trapped on Darius and the fictional woman Maeve inserted into the false memory.
“But itfeelsreal,” hummed Maeve. “Doesn’t it?”
And she was certain, by Shadow’s tightened throat, by the way her Magic weakened, by the unmistakable feeling of helplessness that Maeve forced upon her, that it all felt real to Shadow.
Maeve spoke softly, urging Shadow to view her precious Darius the way she’d been forced to watch Mal. “Until you dipped us further into your mind and I saw just how madly in love with Darius you were, I hadn’t considered taking it a step further. Twisting it all, bending the reality in your mind to one of pure agony. You’re right, the first time I held your memories captive, it was a trick, a distraction. But this is so much more. At least, it is for me. At first, I considered altering your memories in a way that made you feel the sting of his rejection, the weight of his unrequited love. But doesn’t it burn so much more this way? To feel his anguish as he’s forced into the arms of another? While she corrupts him and takes him in ways he doesn’t want?”
Maeve had doubted whether this particular form of torture, inflicted on Shadow for purely selfish reasons, would work. But as actual drops of tears formed in the corners of the demented woman’s eyes before her, she knew she had plunged Shadow into misery.
And she relished it.
