By the time the serpents abandoned their previous meal and slithered on ahead of me, the other two witches were ready for them, casting water toward them. I left the witches to their battle with the snakes, narrowing my eyes on where Lord Byron waited beside my mother with two Guards at his side. One of them pressed the tip of his sword to my mother’s throat, his act the only thing that kept me from attacking outright.
“Drop the sword, Estrella,” Lord Byron ordered, glancing out the corner of his eye to where one of the sea witches approached. Her body was drenched from the rain, her navy hair plastered against her face as she flung the body of one of the snakes off her arm.
“Do not deceive yourself into thinking we are on a first-name basis just because I have seen you fuck women who looked like me,” I snapped back, raising my sword to point it at him. “You haven’t got the first clue who I am now, but there is one thing you can know with absolute certainty. Any chance you had of walking away alive vanished the moment your men put their hands on her. Now you can spend your last moments knowing that my face will be the last thing you see before I send you to The Father for final judgment.”
“You think you can fight two Guards before they kill your pathetic mother and you? They’ve instilled you with an inflated sense of self-worth. You are nothing but a Fae male’s whore,” Lord Byron spat, the ground absorbing the spittle that sprayed from his mouth.
In spite of the iron humming beneath the snake in my hand, my Viniculum darkened, the swirling lines of shadows writhing around as I stroked the fuzzy golden threads around me. They shuddered, acting as if they too would reject my call before they finally allowed me to wrap them around my fingers and pull. Behind me, the magic touched the closest body. It rose from the ground, its presence behind me noticed as the dead sea witch rose from what would have become her very wet, watery grave. “You would be wise to be careful how you speak to me. The God of the Dead is not fond of people insulting his mate,” I said.
The sea witch’s body stepped forward, feeling far too familiar as some twisted part of me danced within her. It replaced the soul that had moved on, the part of her that lingered in the air around us, waiting for burial or burning.
Waiting for the ferryman to take her to the Void.
There was a hole where her heart should have been, devoured by the snakes that had claimed her. Even a witch couldn’t survive the loss of a heart. I felt the emptiness and I filled it with myself instead—with my purpose and my determination. She stepped forward slowly, approaching her sister witches with sluggish steps as they stared at her in horror. Killing someone we loved, even while knowing they were already gone, was not a task most were familiar with.
It was a dilemma that threatened to impair anyone who did not spend time with the dead. Those moments of doubt, of questioning their instincts, were the moments that would lead to the end of all they loved.
Because the dead cared not for the living, reanimated woman only served my demand for blood. For vengeance.
She served my desire to watch the world burn.
She attacked the one witch who remained standing, the other still grappling with the remaining snakes in what had once been the gardens I’d toiled in for the entirety of my life. I took a step forward toward Lord Byron, knowing the witches were handled for the moment.
“Drop the sword, or I’ll slit her throat,” the Mist Guard said, pressing the blade deeper into my mother’s neck. Blood welled at the tip, staining the iron blade with the viscous fluid. I uncurled my fingers from the hilt of the sword, feeling the serpent around my shoulders unwind her body from the weapon until it dropped to the ground at my side with a heavy thud.
The magic of Alfheimr rolled through the boundary, dancing across my skin. It awakened the part of me lingering beneath the mark, the darkness that stained my soul. My fingers burned with ice, my eyes bled to black as I tilted my head to the side. “Step away from her. We both know you need something far stronger than a human woman to reform the Veil.” I glanced toward where the witch fought against her dead sister. The body dropped to the ground with a twist of my hand, crumpling into a pile of flesh. The remaining witch breathed deeply, leaning forward to place her hands on her knees as she glared at me. Her fingers twitched at her sides, ripples of water forming as she began to chant beneath her breath. “Use me instead,” I said, turning my attention back to Lord Byron.
I would die at the Veil. Give my life to the formation of the a one to save my mother. The villain of my story might have changed, shifting Lord Byron from my worst nightmare to someone barely worth a thought, but some fates were written in stone.
All the threads of my fate led me here.
“Use you?” Byron asked, taking a cautious step toward me. “Why would you agree to such a thing?”
“Because I love my mother. I love in ways that we both know you will never understand. Not with your own self-hatred and the way you’ve become the portrait of everything you hated as a boy,” I said, the answer resonating inside of me. Part of me wondered if it wasn’t for the best, if I needed to stay on this side of that boundary in spite of my promise to my mate. The reality that waited for me on the other side meant that my death might be a blessing to the world.
I was Mab’s lost daughter. There was no other explanation for the monstrous thing that existed inside my chest.
The Princess of Air and Darkness.
Byron nodded toward the Guard, watching as the man released my mother and stepped away from her chair. She heaved a sigh of relief, but her face shone with tears. “Estrella, don’t do this. You must let me go.”
The snake that had draped over me retreated when I glanced toward it, winding its way down my left arm and brushing against the mark on the back of my palm as it lowered itself to the ground. It slithered toward my mother, wrapping around her legs and settling on her lap as if it were a pet. The others abandoned the witch they fought with on the ground, grappling to steal her life the way they had the other.
They followed the larger snake, forming a barrier around her that even the Mist Guard would hesitate to cross. I stood alone, glaring at the man who’d tried to take everything that made me who I was, and who had tried to bury me under the weight of his expectations.
The man who’d replaced the love I’d had for my father with something hideous and loathsome.
The sea witch at his side stepped forward, rage stamped into her features as her sister rose to her feet beside her. Byron held out an arm to stop them both, his head nodding as he held out his other hand. The Guard placed an iron blade into his open palm, and Byron stepped back to gesture me forward toward where the sand at the very edge of the garden met the sea. “Come, Estrella. It is time for The Mother to cast her final judgment upon you. You understand you cannot be allowed to have the gift of another life. Not with a mate waiting for you.”
“The Father will take me to Valhalla,” I said, stepping forward slowly. I forced myself to ignore my mate’s shouts behind me and the slaughter of the men he killed in his effort to get to me.
I stepped up to the edge of the ocean, the icy water lapping against the toes of my boots. Byron grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat as I stared up at him. My only regret in my death was that it would be at his hand. That I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of watching the life bleed from his eyes. “But I suggest you hurry. My mate seems quite angry.”