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“Please. Please. The pain.”
Though Maeve stood several feet away she could smell the poison and understood its caustic base. She had a strong sense of just how much suffering the woman had endured and would still endure at the hands of these witches.
Laura kept calling to her. “Help me. Please, help me. Take my life. Please. Do as Veyda has instructed you. Please, Maeve. Please.”
Laura had known her name. Maybe Veyda had invoked it.
Maeve could now recall how her feet had moved in the woman’s direction on their own. She climbed the three carpeted stairs of the killing platform so that she was right next to Laura.
She saw into one of the long burns on her leg. She could see bone. Tears flowed down her face. What was happening here was vile beyond words.
Laura grabbed her wrist. “For the love of God, set me free from this pain.” Her breaths were high and shallow.
Veyda’s voice was once more in her mind. Yes, you should kill her. If you don’t, I’ll put her on the pyre while she’s still alive. The flames will burn slow and steady and it will be your fault that she suffers.
As if to prove her intention, several men arrived wearing black masks and capes ready to remove Laura.
Maeve felt the grip on her wrist lessen.
Veyda again. I can make this last until dawn, then take her to the pyre.
One of the witches, her eyes dark with evil, brought her a long, sharp blade, curved in at the sides. Rubies glittered on the handle.
Maeve had searched her witchness. Was there something, anything she could do to save Laura? But she’d only been a witch for two short weeks. She had no skills, no understanding of her abilities.
Nothing.
“Please.” The voice was hoarse and weak.
Maeve remembered taking the blade and climbing the final step so that she stood directly over Laura’s body.
“Yes. Straight through my heart. I’m ready, Maeve. You can do this.”
But Maeve couldn’t.
Then one of the witches drew near and in a quick, cat-like strike spread a tiny portion of the caustic poison on Maeve’s arm.
Maeve screamed.
Veyda explained her reason for the poison. It won’t last long and there won’t be a permanent scar. I just wanted you to have a taste of Laura’s pain.
Maeve called on the angels in heaven to give her the strength to end the woman’s suffering. “I’ll do it.”
One of the witches carried an antidote and spread it over Maeve’s wound. The pain fled.
Maeve recalled the rest of it now, what it felt like to lift the blade high overhead, to stare at the place in Laura’s chest she intended to hit, then to strike with the full force of her strength.
The sharp point had penetrated the bone and in a split-second, Laura’s life was ended.
She’s grabbed Maeve’s wrist once more as the last of her life-force left her body.
Maeve met her gaze. Laura smiled and mouthed, ‘Thank you’. The light in her eyes dimmed then vanished. Her hand fell away.
It was over.
Silence held the evil space for a long moment, then the witch-choir began a celebratory chant.
But that was the moment Maeve became a true witch. Rage flooded her mind and her body at what had been done to Laura and to herself. Yes, she’d ended Laura’s suffering but she’d also taken her life. Now that she remembered it, she would have to live with what she’d done the rest of her days.
