Page 126 of Spellbound
Closing my conscience, I licked my lips and dropped my arm. “You’re right. It’s her I hate. Not you.”
He stood, catching his breath. “Please understand, she’s not a bad person. She only does what she needs to do.”
I held onto his arm, leaning over to catch my breath, with the dagger in my other hand. “I know you believe that. We don’t need to fight. You’re not the one I’m mad at.”
“I will always protect her.”
I nodded. “Then we are unwilling enemies.”
He gifted me with a small, soft smile, which only made it hurt more.
I went to stand but slipped. He was reaching down, as expected, extending his hand to help me up when I struck. I plunged the dagger into his chest, hearing the blade pierce his heart. Blood spilled in his chest. His eyes widened when he realized, gazing into mine.
Tears hazed my vision. I wanted to look away, to pull the dagger out and run, leaving him behind to die, but I couldn’t. This wasn’t like Freya. I watched him die, and I didn’t blink as the light left his far-off stare.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered when his heart stopped, and his body limped in my arms.
A lump formed in my throat as I placed him onto the snow-covered ground, his final resting place. I turned to walk away, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the clearing. “Really?” I cussed at my conscience, then turned back, picked his body up in my arms, and carried him toward where Freya was buried. I was a goddess-damned idiot for caring this much, but I couldn’t not. Despite all he’d done, all the pain he’d caused, it had all been for love, and while the motive didn’t justify his actions, it was one I could sympathize with more than Freya’s or Lucius’s.
I trudged through the forest until the snow melted and the ground became leaf-carpeted and underbrush-coated, where I found Freya’s blood and her freshly dug grave.
After waiting for the pale orb as it left his body, which Edmund had said would be there like it had been with Thalia, if any of us had stuck around for it, I captured it in a small vial I’d brought with me. I buried him next to Freya, marked the tree where their bones lay, and looked back toward the mountain. The orb would allow me to make someone else a goddess, and I planned on giving it to Thalia if I could find her in the underworld.
I made my way back up the mountain and rushed into the open door of the house. “Mona,” I said, croaking. Her panicked breaths sounded from the next room, but I didn’t want to scare her. My being a goddess was a lot to process. My being here at all probably was too. She’d grown up in a world filled with humans. All of this would be a lot, and I hadn’t got the proper reunion with her that I’d always daydreamed of.
“Ellie,” she whispered, and I heard her knees cracking as she stood from wherever she was sitting. “You’re alive.” Relief flooded her tone, and my eyes welled again. My heart caught in my throat as she appeared in the doorway, her red, fiery hair a mess and her icy-blue eyes bloodshot from crying. She ran at me and flung her arms around me. I gasped at her touch and breathed back a sob. She smelled like lilies and vanilla, and I knew that from then on I would never forget her smell.
She prodded the logs with a poker, and the fire hissed in response. I sat cross-legged across from her on the rug. I couldn’t stop staring. She was so beautiful, but her age served as a reminder of everything I had missed.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted.
“Were you ever going to come for me?”
“I was.” My words dried up at the end. I cleared my throat. “I was so scared of seeing you again or finding out what happened to you. It prevented me from just going. I was going to send a letter, but I wasn’t allowed.”
She nodded slowly. “No communication is allowed between residents of the kingdoms.”
Her Salviun twang made me smile. I hadn’t heard it in a long time. “I told myself when I became keeper I would go to you, find a way to bring you here, but the truth was I could have all along. I chose not to because I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me.” I looked at the fire. “That you hadn’t forgiven me.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Hadn’t forgiven you? For what?”
“If I hadn’t hurt Miss Thompson, revealing my powers, I would never have been forced to leave. If we hadn’t snuck out to see the witch hanging...”
She reached across the rug, and her clammy fingers curled around mine. “None of that was your fault. You were trying to protect me.”
“I left you alone there.”
“Believe it or not...” She gave me a sad smile. “I did okay.”
I looked her up and down. “I can see that.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to come here, even if you did come.”
My lips parted. I hadn’t considered she’d actually enjoyed life in Salvius—or had one to leave—only that I could bring her here, away from there. To me, Salvius had always been a grizzly, horrid place. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
Her lip curled at the corner. “I work with a doctor of the mind. We help people in asylums. I’m his apprentice. I travel all over.” She twirled her fingers, and the flames danced taller. “I found out I had magic a few years ago. I never told anyone. I knew I could come to Istinia, and I’d get to see you, but everyone told stories about how evil it was here, and when you grow up hearing it, it’s all you know, ya know?”
My brain faltered. “You’re a witch.”
