Page 109 of Malicent
Never erase me.
She’ll see it every time she looks in the mirror. I finish carving rather quickly, my excitement getting the best of me, not caring if the lines are jagged or if the scar heals poorly.
I don’t want it to heal. I toss the dagger aside; the blade lands with a dull thud on the grass. Then I release her hair, lettingher body—small, broken, and trembling—crumple forward to collapse in the dirt.
She doesn’t move.
Her body shakes from the invasion: my blade through her skin and my mind through her soul.
My own wound—the one she left on me—is already knitting closed.
Hers never will.
I walk forward, crouching in front of her. “Did you pray to her?” I ask softly, mockingly. No answer, just the ragged sound of her breathing. She keeps her face buried in the tall grass.
I lean closer, my voice a blade all its own. “Allow me to tell you something no one ever has.” My next words are cruel and final. “You are not rare, Millicent. You are not special. You are not chosen.”
“You’re just a witch who swallowed the needles of the abuse they fed you, until they could stitch you into something new: a pet, a fun little experiment. No better than a necromancer’s half-dead puppet.”
I pause, savoring the words.
“Your kind is a disease.”
I rise to my full height, standing over her like a gravestone.
“Don’t worry, little star.” I mock, using the loving name I heard her mother call her all those years ago. “You’ll join mommy soon enough. I’ll make sure of it.”
I don’t look over my shoulder. I don’t need to. Whatever humanity that once lived inside me—whatever thin, pathetic leash that held the monster back—is gone.
I do not need a mirror to know my eyes are black holes now.
Bottomless. Starless. Devouring.
I do not need to check the cage deep inside my soul to know it is empty.
The monster is me.
Vyraxis circles overhead, wings stirring the trees into a howling frenzy. She looks down, waiting.
I wave her off with a flick of my fingers.
“You can eat her later,” I say, voice as casual as tossing scraps to a hound.
“Go rest.”
She beats her wings once, twice, ripping at the sky with every stroke until she vanishes into the night.
All that’s left is me and the ruin I've made.
Chapter 28
Millicent
A LAUGH RIPS FROM THE BACK of my throat, my voice raw and broken.
It shakes loose from my chest, wracking my body until pain spears from the carved section of my breast to my back.
The pain sharpens; it’s bright, almost blinding, but it only feeds the laughter.
