Page 11 of Queen of the Wicked
I blink, and the other nine priestesses in their blackened veils stand in a line with their sister.
Amatisi is at Yekaterina’s side, holding the hand of a shaking figure dressed in pure white robes. She pushes the figure downward and rips the veil off.
On the ground, dirtied with mud and dried blood, is a woman with blue eyes that have always looked at me with nothing but love.
I fall to my knees, the very marrow of my bones losing their strength.
“Mother,” I whisper, crawling to her. As I reach for her, she disappears.
Yekaterina snickers. “Return the magic you stole from the Well. We wouldn’t want poor Mummy to suffer the consequences of your foolishness, would we?”
“I didn’t steal anything! Please–”
“Liar!” Yekaterina shouts, her voice cracking across the sky like thunder. “The Well is dry because you drank from it!”
The sky fractures as red lightning shoots down from the sky as it did when I was here before. The Well ripples and bends.
Then I blink, and I’m somewhere else this time. Another place I recognize, and another place I hate.
The Blackwood.
I’m on my knees in the forest, blood soaking my hands. At my feet, Saddiq’s body lies still, mauled and missing an arm. I wail like an animal as I throw myself over him, weeping for the friend I lost in that wretched place.
My voice splits the trees and the rocks and the soil around us, and I’m in another place.
My dance studio.
The mirrors are shattered and vines suffocate the walls. My body is contorted into a shape my body doesn’t remember learning, and magic spills out of my fingers and toes with no direction. No control. I can’t stop it. It grows and grows and I can’t move or think clearly. I can only watch as it reaches for Kaius. Then Rowan. Then Kaius. Then Rowan.
Over and over, it slashes at them violently while I can do nothing but stare with hollow eyes. My vision begins to go blurry, and one of them lies before me, but I can’t tell which. No discerning features distinguish the body. No wings. No white hair. No eye color begging me for mercy that I can remember.
Just a dead body.
And my hands are covered in the blood.
Nine
Adelasia
I jolt awake. My body is drenched in sweat. Limbs tangled in sheets, throat raw from screaming, and head throbbing and spinning.
Kaius is holding me so tight I feel like I might burst, and Rowan’s grip on my hand is as tight as he can manage. They speak to me, but I can’t make out any words. It feels like I’m still half in the Well, underwater and drowning in darkness.
They may be grounding me, but I don’t feel safe.
All I can do is stare into nothing and wonder how much of that was a dream, and how much was a prophecy? Was that really the Priestesses warning me, or just my imagination playing vile tricks on me?
I sit up and pull away from them both, wiping my messy hair away from my sweaty face. My hands tremble in my lap, with my blackened fingers feeling heavier than usual.
Kaius tenderly traces a finger up my cheekbone and holds my jaw in his hand. “What did you see?”
“The Well,” I say. “It’s calling to me.”
Kaius and Rowan exchange a glance. Their eyes examine me, two of them cautious, two of them curious.
“Yekaterina said I stole from them. This magic in me…they want it back. I have to go back.”
“No,” Kaius snaps. “You will not be going back there. I will not let you throw yourself into the Blackwood again because of a nightmare.”
