Page 43 of Malicent
My heart…slows
Why?
Why…slowing…?
…heart…?
slow…
I KNEEL IN THE BLOOD-SOAKED ruins of my home. Red rains down on me. Thick, warm—endless.
My mother lies beneath me, unmoving. She’s still warm. She can’t be gone.
“Please get up.”
The copper tang of blood chokes the air. The crackling of flames devours the silence.
Beasts linger in the shadows around me. Fangs flash. Claws tear. Screams cut short,
They are feasting.
I lift my head, panic clawing at my ribs.
How am I here?
This happened before. Yet, I’m here again.
The massive beast crashes through the temple roof, the impact rattling the ground.
Cage sits atop it.
This is where fear should take me, where despair should shatter me.
Something is different this time.
Power courses through my veins.
As I rise into the air, a slow, wicked smile spreads across my lips. A voice purrs up my spine like a whisper wrapped in silk.
It does not belong to me, nor anyone I know.
“Kill him.”
Dark and thick with pleasure, her voice purrs seductively and I feel compelled to obey.
And I will. Gladly.
I raise my hand, feeling the power expand and consume me.
The fabric of the sky rips apart at my call. A jagged tear in the heavens splits open like a wound.
Tendrils of light spill from it—not golden, not warm, but raw, searing destruction.
Lightning obeys me.
It slams down mercilessly, burning white-hot as it tears through Cage’s body. The thunderous boom roars in triumph, echoing like laughter.
My laughter.
