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For now, it gave her great satisfaction to see the emerald greenery wither and retreat before her as heat emanated from her staff. The trees on nearby cliffs were joining with the vines. The foliage banded together, creating an army of sorts against her.
There is nothing more frightening to a forest than the threat of fire.
The Dark Fairy laughed as she sent a surge of green light toward the branches, which recoiled from the heat. She wished the forest would give her a reason to set it ablaze. But she reined in her desire for destruction, reminding herself of her purpose and destination.
Maleficent resented having to travel at that time; she hated being so far away from the Sleeping Beauty and the lovestruck prince who threatened her plans. A few short days earlier, the princess had pricked her finger on a spindle, just as Maleficent’s curse had decreed. Maleficent had ordered her goons to abduct Prince Phillip and bring him back to her dungeons, where he would be well away from the sleeping princess. She couldn’t have him intervening in her masterful plan. But even so, the Dark Fairy needed help. She needed witches—powerful witches who could help her bind Sleeping Beauty’s curse so that the princess would never wake. If she couldn’t kill the princess, Maleficent would have to content herself with Aurora’s forever dwelling in the land of dreams. So the Dark Fairy ventured to Morningstar Kingdom.
How she wished she was traveling by her preferred method of flames. But she wanted the witches at Morningstar Castle to know she was approaching. She wanted to give them time to grieve the loss of the sea witch and the odd sisters before she arrived. Maleficent knew the reason for her visit would be obscured by fear if she showed up without warning. So she took her time and walked slowly to Morningstar Kingdom, following her beloved crows. The canopy was so thick now that she could not see her birds flying overhead, but her magic was strong and it allowed her to see the path that lay before them through their eyes. She loved that aspect of her magic more than any other. It made her feel like she was flying with them, untethered from the world. But Maleficent did not need magic to find her way. The witches’ hearts drew her to them, shining like a brilliant beacon among the ruins of some of the greatest witches of their age.
Maleficent had sent Diablo ahead to Morningstar Kingdom. As he circled the castle, she could see the extent of the carnage and destruction left in Ursula’s wake. Engulfed in the remains of the sea witch, the ancient fortress was almost pulsing with hate. Maleficent had no love for Ursula and didn’t grieve her loss. In fact, she thought the many kingdoms on land and sea were better off without such a power-hungry and foolish witch. Ursula had put all their lives in peril by creating a spell so dangerous that the odd sisters were now suffering its consequences.
Maleficent couldn’t see into the future like some witches and fairies, but she was a good judge of character. She had sensed the amount of power Ursula had been hoarding, and she had been certain the sea witch would betray the sisters. She only wished that the odd sisters had listened to her warning. Maleficent had once loved the odd sisters deeply, though lately they were more like strange relatives she barely tolerated, and avoided at every opportunity. She struggled to remember them as they once had been, to remember how she’d loved them. But that feeling—love—was a mere memory.
Perhaps that was for the best. The odd sisters had become troublesome nuisances, growing more and more deranged as the years had passed. She could no longer feel their presence in the world—or in her heart—and she suddenly felt a kinship with the sisters that she hadn’t felt for some time. She tried to remember what it was like to care for them—or for anyone, for that matter. But she couldn’t. And now the sisters were lost to her; too far gone for her magic to reach them. It almost made her sad.
Sadness. That feeling had eluded her for so long that her memory of it was like a faded dream. And that was where those sisters were: in a dream, lost forever to the waking world.
Wandering in dream. Alone.
Maleficent didn’t want to think of what the sisters dreamed or what their dream world was like. Living in the dreamscape meant inhabiting the darkest and deepest places of the mind. She couldn’t fathom what secrets sprang to life for the sisters in their new reality. She shuddered at the thought of the land of dreams being invaded by the sisters’ nightmares, and she wondered if they would find the sleeping Rose in her own corner of the dreamscape.
Damn those sisters to Hades, with their mirrors, rhymes, and lunacy! They just had to save their precious little sister!
But the old queen in the mirror had said it best. “Like many of us, Maleficent, those loathsome sisters were unable to think clearly when their family was in peril.”
Maleficent had laughed at the old queen, whom she knew as Grimhilde. For her to be speaking to Maleficent of concern for family of all things…But she’d choked down her words like jagged stones, unwilling to speak with the old queen about her daughter, Snow White, who now thrived as queen of her own kingdom.
The thought made Maleficent sick.
What must it be like to live such a charmed life? To live untouched by the strife that had been ripping so many kingdoms apart? But that was the old queen’s doing, wasn’t it? Somehow her magic was even greater now than it had been when she was alive. Grimhilde reached beyond the veil of death to keep her daughter and her family safe. Perhaps that was Grimhilde’s punishment for trying to kill Snow White when she was a child. Grimhilde had taken her own father’s place in the magic mirror. She would forever be Snow White’s slave, as Grimhilde’s father had once been hers. She w
as cursed to be Snow White’s protector—never at rest. She was always watching Snow White while she slept, forever shielding Snow’s children and grandchildren. Eternally bringing happiness to that infernal brat and her brood.
Grimhilde’s love for her daughter sat in Maleficent’s stomach like a cold stone. It caused a tingling sensation that told Maleficent this was something she should feel. An inkling that this was something that would have touched her heart. But she pushed that inkling down with the others that lived in the pit of her stomach. She imagined they all looked like broken pieces of headstone. She wondered how they all fit together there and how it was possible for someone so small to carry so much. Sometimes she felt the weight of them would crush her, yet it never did. She supposed everyone carried their burdens there. It seemed like the perfect place—close to the heart, but not dangerously so.
The odd sisters had once told her that Grimhilde had also kept her pain in her stomach. To the old queen, it had been like jagged glass slicing at her insides. Maleficent wondered what was worse: the heaviness of her burden or the pain of Grimhilde’s. The odd sisters would have said both were capable of destroying their hosts. But Maleficent felt like the weight of her sorrow grounded her and kept her steady. Without her pain, she might just float away.
The odd sisters had decreed that the brat queen and her family were to be left alone, so as not to anger Grimhilde. But Snow White wasn’t entirely untouched by the odd sisters, was she? The old queen Grimhilde could not control her daughter’s dreams. That was not her providence. That was not her domain.
Dreams belonged to the good fairies and to the sisters three.
Two witches, divergent in age and in schools of magic, though with very similar hearts and sensibilities, stood on the windy cliffs near Morningstar Castle. The sea bubbled with putrid black foam, and the sky was filled with a thick, deep purple smoke that obscured the daylight and enshrouded Morningstar Kingdom in a veil of darkness.
Everywhere Circe looked, she saw manifestations of Ursula that had exploded onto their surroundings. It was sickening to behold. The destruction blackened the shores and saddened the witches’ hearts. Circe would have to use her magic to bring life and growth back to the kingdom, but she couldn’t bring herself to face the task—not just yet. She knew that in doing so, she would be obliterating what remained of her old friend Ursula.
“An old friend who ripped your soul from your body, turning it into a husk. Yours and countless other souls,” Nanny reminded her, reading her thoughts.
Circe just smiled weakly, knowing Nanny was right. But she saw that Ursula, the one who had betrayed her, as someone quite different from the one she had known as a girl. Ursula had been a wild and charismatic character. She had been Circe’s sisters’ dearest friend and like an aunt to Circe—a great witch who had brought Circe bobbles and had told her stories of the sea. This creature, the thing she’d become, wasn’t the Ursula Circe loved. Ursula had become someone else, someone consumed by grief, anger, and the desire for power. A woman who had been driven to the depths of despair by a brother who loathed her. Circe remembered going to Ursula that day; she remembered thinking someone else—no, something else—was looking at her from behind Ursula’s eyes. It was chilling to remember.
Circe had felt like running from her that day, but she had told herself it was all her imagination. She’d reminded herself that she’d always trusted Ursula. She had never imagined Ursula would harm her. But if Circe was really honest with herself, there was no way she could have denied that the creature inhabiting her old friend that day had meant to hurt her. Circe just hadn’t wanted to see it then. She had denied her fear, pushed it aside, and willed herself to see the woman she loved. And that was how she had allowed herself to be captured by the dreaded sea witch. How Ursula had been able to use her as a pawn to manipulate her sisters.
The woman she loved had betrayed her.
No, Ursula betrayed herself. And now she was dead, rendered to nothing more than smoke, sludge, and ash. She was beyond Circe’s help now. Still, Circe tortured herself with questions. Why hadn’t Ursula come to her in honesty? Why hadn’t she told Circe the whole story—the story she had told Circe’s sisters? Circe would have helped Ursula destroy Triton without the need to involve his youngest daughter. None of it made any sense. Ursula must have known that Circe had the power to destroy Triton, but she also knew Circe would never endanger the life of Ariel.
Damn Triton for the damage he did to his sister! Damn him to Hades for his complicity! Damn him for making Ursula hide who she truly was. Damn him for turning her into a loathsome creature by his own design!
It was taking everything she had not to cast curses at King Triton. She wanted to tell him that when she’d touched Ursula’s necklace, she’d seen everything Ursula had ever experienced—the causes of all her rage, sorrow, and pain. Circe had heard every foul word and witnessed every hateful deed Ursula had endured from Triton. It had ripped at Circe’s heart, as it surely must have done to Ursula’s. Maybe one day Circe would throw Triton’s words back at him. But she wouldn’t do it now. Not while her hate for him was still strong in her heart. The pain was too fresh.
