“I haven’t needed you in years.” My fingers glowed with blue Fire, and I raised my arm. “You aren’t who I am.”
“Wait—” she pleaded, but her words turned to screams as my blue Fire ignited her form. I wrapped tendrils of Spirit magic around her form so she couldn’t move, binding her as the flames licked up her body. My flames consumed the part of my soul that still dared to hope I could be someone I wasn’t, and she cried out in pain as her flesh singed away by the Fire. Smoke filtered from her body and through the open balcony, turning the sky black.
It should’ve hurt, but it didn’t. I felt nothing but relief, and a sense of freedom that I was finally rid of her. Eventually, my blue flames burned only air, and I pulled back my power.
I had no regrets. That bitch had to die, because she wasn’t strong enough to keep moving forward.
I felt lighter once she was gone, as if she had been holding me in shackles the same way the Warden and Charlie had. I would not become a prisoner to anyone— not even myself.
I sat taller in my chair as I turned toward the door, finally the woman I needed to be, finally ready to meet my destiny. They wanted a villain for their queen, and by the gods, I was going to give them one.
I was made for no man. I belong to myself.
I wrenched open the door, fully expecting that I’d have to take down a full battalion of guards on my way out. But I didn’t have to— Kallie stood over them all with a bloody dagger in one hand, an illusion spell still burning in the other. Bodies of Elves were scattered all around the living area. I wasn’t sure if they were dead or just knocked out, but I supposed it didn’t matter either way— not with what I was about to do.
“Kallie,” I breathed, and I rushed to her. She hugged me tightly, and I said, “I knew you’d never leave me.”
Best friends before anyone else, that was what I truly believed.
“I wasn’t going to leave you in there,” she swore. “Never.”
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
“Watching the battle. The one he… started.” Kallie couldn’t bring herself to say Charlie’s name. “I stayed behind, because I didn’t trust him.”
“He locked me up, Kallie.” Tears beaded at my eyelids once again, but I wouldn’t allow them to fall. Why bother to cry when my tears would soon cease to have meaning?
“I know. I was going to confront him, but I realized it would be a better idea to get you out.” She sheathed her dagger. “What’s the plan?”
I wasn’t sure if she was going to understand. But Kallie knew me better than most people in this world, and we had a deeper connection in some ways than even Charlie and I did. There were things I could discuss with her that my husband just wouldn’t get.
Clearly.
“He’s not going to quit, Kallie. No matter what you guys do, he’ll go forward with what he wants,” I stated. “The only thing that’s gonna stop him… is me.”
“If you’re going to fight him, I’ll help,” Kallie stated.
“No.” I reached out to grasp her hands and squeezed them in mine. “I’m going to make sure he can’t do this ever again. Or anyone else, for the rest of time.”
Kallie blinked as she slowly caught my meaning. “You’re going to do it? You’re going to break the connection between the spirit realm and Earth, end the world?”
“The world, the afterlife, the universe… all of it.”
Kallie nodded and squeezed my hands back. “Okay. I’m with you.”
“Really?” I was shocked beyond belief. Didn’t she want to give any kind of protest?
Kallie nodded again. “After going to the camps, I don’t see the point in fighting anymore. All the bloodshed is just going to continue, even centuries after we’re gone. Our descendants are going to forget about this war just so they can go fight in another.”
Kallie’s lips trembled as she struggled to hold the tears inside. “And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep enduring flashbacks of what the Dollmaker did to me for the rest of my life. Or the fact that every day, there’s another woman out therewho’s meeting the same fate, and I can do nothing about it. I love Marcus. But I don’t want to keep living like this. I don’t think it’s fair for anyone else to, either. I just want it all to be over.”
“Itwillbe over, Kallie. We’ll do it together, so not you or me or anybody else has to suffer anymore,” I promised. “Best friends until the end.”
“Always.” Kallie shuddered. “You know Charlie is going to try and stop you.”
I dropped her hands, and my mouth fell into a thin line as I steeled my tone. “I refuse to be afraid of my husband.”
“Then let’s go,” Kallie said. “Where are you going to do it?”
