3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

“ M iss Emilia, how are you feeling?”

She cleared her throat. “I am well, thank you for asking. And how many times do I have to tell you to please call me Emilia,” she scolded gently.

I could barely listen to the two of them talk as I thought back on yesterday. Something didn’t sit well with me. I could feel something in the air, something foul. But I couldn’t place my finger on it.

I drummed my nails against the goblet of wine as Callum laughed. “I don’t think I could do that, Miss Emilia. It is customary to show respect to one’s elders.”

They were talking to each other from across the table, Callum to my right and Emilia to my left. I focused on the food that Emilia had prepared for us this morning. There was a platter of flaky chocolate croissants and blueberry brioche. Next to it was the fresh bread and butter plate. An assortment of smoked salmon, capers, onion, and hard-boiled eggs beside it. Emilia drank lemon and ginger tea while Callum preferred coffee. I always drank wine.

A meal fit for a queen as she would always tell me. A queen indeed.

Even though she knew that I would barely touch it. My body preferred to live on the hatred that coursed through my body every second of every day. My temper had yet to ease after everything from the day prior. Though I knew I hadn’t allowed their pain to last as long as it should have, the memory of the sounds of their screams put a smile on my face.

Emilia rolled her eyes. “I am only older than you by four years.” His only response was to shrug playfully while grabbing a piece of bread and biting into it.

Sometimes I envied their ability to be casual with each other; I could never relax enough to fully let go. Before them, life was easy but incredibly lonely. I carried on with little to fret about, and then they arrived, securing a place in my home—my life—and now I felt anxious daily. What if my powers got out of hand and I harmed them? What if I had to protect them from outsiders and ended up killing them?

“And what about you, your grace?” I heard Callum ask. “How was your hunt?”

He knew just how much I loved a good chase, but he had never seen me in action. I glanced at him over the top of my goblet from my peripheral and smiled triumphantly. “They suffered, but not nearly enough to satiate my appetite.” I took another sip of wine.

You simply can’t control yourself, can you?

I closed my eyes and tried to cast Circe’s voice from my mind when Callum asked, “What was their crime?”

“They murdered Mariam.”

His eyes widened from the shock as he went wholly still. “What?”

“They killed her for the gold that I had been giving to her over the years.” I squeezed the cup tightly. “They boasted about what they did to her, and I didn’t do her justice in making sure that they suffered more than she did. I suppose we’ll just add her to the list.”

“List?” Callum inquired.

I shook off my collective madness. “Nothing. Take a shovel and go to her home on the edge of the forest. Go down the path until you hit the river, and take a right. Follow it until you see her cottage. Give her a proper burial.”

How many more will die, Callie?

“Enough!” I said it loud enough for the wrath in their eyes to soften into pity and worry.

The sound was unbearable. I rolled my eyes and finished the rest of the wine. I had yet to touch my food, having completely lost the desire to eat.

Callum leaned forward—he always moved on whenever I answered that voice inside my head aloud—and said, “I am glad they are dead. They deserved nothing less.”

I held his stare, mutual understanding shown in his eyes.

My heart skipped a beat thinking of Mariam lying in a pool of her own filth, the blood having already dried on her wrinkled skin. I swiftly stood and ordered. “Go now, Callum.”

“I’ll leave right away. I will take care of everything,” he assured me.

I knew he would. I didn’t respond as he left.

“Are you going to let me take over?” Emilia asked. A hopeful look spread over her face.

“I am considering it,” I said.

“What is there to consider?”

My head began to pound. I wasn’t calm enough to have this conversation with her. “Many things.”

She stood in a rush, her knees knocking against the table, causing the china to shake. “You’ve been training me for this since I was a child. I know what to do, how to find them, how to care for them, which towns to take them to.”

She sounds so much like little Annabelle. Will you lie to her too? I used the palm of my hand and thrust it against my head to quiet the voice. Why was it getting so worse lately? And yet, how could I deny the truth in Circe’s words?

I folded my arms across my chest. “You know how to do everything Mariam did. I am not concerned with your ability to serve. I know you will do right by those children. I am more concerned with what you will ask them, or what they will say to you. I mention that town and you shiver, Emilia.”

She glanced down at her arms involuntarily where little bumps began to rise.

“You want to find the men that hurt you. You want revenge.”

“I have earned it.” This time, her eyes did all the talking for her. Dark, fox-like, seething with that rage I knew she lived with every day.

“But your revenge is not more important than those kids,” I said defiantly, and regretted it rather quickly.

Her eyes dropped, and she sank back onto her chair, fingers curling into the cloth of her dress.

“I need to know I can trust that you will not disappear on some hunt for them because I can’t protect you if you do, and if something happens to you, Emilia,” I paused, realizing my voice had grown weak, shaky. I cleared my throat and pulled back my shoulders. “Who will take Mariam’s place then?”

Her body slumped into the chair, and she began to eat quietly. I wanted to reach out and touch her and give her some kind of reassurance, but I couldn’t soften this moment any more than I already had.

“You will have your revenge,” I promised her, the same one I’d made since the day I found her. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d keep that promise.

I wrapped myself in my favorite black robe, not bothering with any other clothing as I watched Callum from the front steps of the castle leave with a shovel and other essentials in a bag slung over his shoulder.

Anger flooded as I watched Callum turn into a speck in the distance. The fact that I couldn’t follow him did nothing to help my already foul mood. Anything could happen in those woods. And if he—

I grunted, flew down the stairs, and walked around the castle until I spotted my greenhouse on the North side. I needed to calm my nerves and the only way to do that was to stick to my routine.

Wake up. Eat. Garden. Eat. Fuck Callum. Sleep.

This routine was the only thing that kept me sane enough to not harm the two souls whose lives I promised to watch over. To keep my powers at bay. I only used enough to purge any excess energy. Though it made my life incredibly monotonous and predictable, it was a necessary evil to ensure that I didn’t lose myself again.

I couldn’t get lost in my magic again.

Something that I hated more than showing my feelings was the loss of control over my life. Feelings were nothing more than a distraction; an unnecessary emotion that clouded all judgment. And that’s when mistakes were made, that’s when you put everything that you have ever held dear to you on the line…because of feelings .

And for that reason, I found them to be repulsive and insignificant—a weakness.

I wrenched open the doors to the expansive greenhouse that was about nine feet tall and twelve feet wide. The walls were made of a special glass that I created with my magic that would allow me to see the outside world, but kept anyone from seeing inside. I didn’t want anyone to be able to see me while I was off in my own little world.

I had built the greenhouse when I read books on herbology years ago after nearly destroying my home. It only started with a few plants, but as my knowledge grew, so did they. It looked like a jungle, things that I used to read about in books. At least, what I imagined a jungle to look like.

I had unintentionally created a place where the voices couldn’t reach me. That voice couldn’t penetrate the glass walls. I wasn’t sure why. Sometimes I wondered if she was showing me kindness, a small moment in the day where my madness couldn’t haunt me. After all, she was kind once.

I cleared my mind as I held up a piece of the euphorbia milii in my hand that had thorns all over the stem, and thoughts of last night invaded my mind again. The smug look on their faces as the miscreants boasted about exactly how they murdered Mariam.

Fuck.

How the look of surprise made them light up with glee at the fun they were going to have. The sound their blade made when they sliced her neck open. The pure blood lust for anyone whom they could overpower.

Just like that day…

I felt something wet running down my hand—blood. I was so focused on thinking about the couple that I didn’t realize the thorns had cut deep into my hands from squeezing so tightly. I didn’t move as I stared at my cut-up palm as the sting of the pain went away along with the closing of the wound. As if an expert healer had stitched me up good as new. Not a trace left.

I grabbed a cloth off the work table on the side of the greenhouse facing the back of the castle. I yelped when I found Emilia to be directly behind me, my own personal little ghost. My bloody hand dug into my chest as if I could reach into my chest and grip my beating heart.

Once my breathing had slowed, I said, “If I didn’t know any better, I would assume that you took at least a tiny bit of joy in scaring both of us with your antics.”

“You were lost in thought. I didn’t want to bother you.”

I glanced sideways at her and tilted my head. “Oh really? So, all those other times?”

She looked down as her cheeks reddened. I scoffed, knowing that I had caught her in a lie.

She was the only one that I allowed such informalities.

She bowed, walked to a large pot on the work table, and got busy tending to one of the plants. We worked in comfortable silence as the sun sped across the sky from behind the thick plume of fog. I could barely focus on the dirt beneath my fingernails as my foot couldn’t stop its incessant tapping.

Callum should have been back by now. Unless…something went wrong.

No. Now wasn’t the time. Worrying would do no good.

I could feel myself spiraling and I closed my eyes as I heard Emilia clear her throat. “I thought about what you said.” I slowly opened my eyes and looked at her. She was staring at her fingers. “You’re right.”

But I didn’t want to be right. I wanted to give her what she wanted, but not at the expense of the children. They did nothing. They were just names drawn from hysterics to be sacrificed to a forest to appease la bête .

She took another deep breath before saying, “Let me take over for Mariam, and I promise you, if I should find any information about the men that hurt me, I will bring it to you before doing anything brash.”

I waited, and let the words settle. I wanted to trust them… I did. I hesitated and she saw it.

“You promised me revenge.”

“I know I did, but—”

“They took everything away from me. That town. Those people. Not only was I left to die, but they… They…” She held her throat as she had that far-off look on her face as if she were reliving that moment all over again and signed, I will never forgive them .

Of all the things I thought she would say, this was not one of them. I swallowed, contemplating what she had just said and thinking about what that would mean. “Where is all of this coming from?”

She was trembling, and I could feel the fear and anger. Against my better judgment, I placed a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to bring her some sort of comfort. “I know. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened to you. We will get them, we just have to be wise about it.”

She nodded her head in quick, deliberate movements.

“You understand that you would need to live away from this castle in order to create relationships with the villages to save the children.”

She finally looked me in the eyes, “It would only be for a few months out of the year.”

“And you would need to speak to many humans.”

She set down the tools that were in her hands and walked over to me. I could see the resolve on her face as she said. “You saved me. You saved Mariam and Callum. Every single year you save the children from the horrors of the forest and send them away to live elsewhere. You are—”

“Don’t say it,” I said more sternly than I intended, but I didn’t need her telling me that I was a savior. I wasn’t.

She bowed her head and then looked away. “It is my turn to give back the gift you have given to me for all these years. A home. A place to heal.”

Awkward silence ensued. I didn’t know how to respond to her. I couldn’t imagine her out in the world. She had only known this castle and before that…

“Just like you said earlier, if not me, then who?” Emilia asked after another moment.

She was right. If not her, then who else would take over the role? I was cursed to roam these lands, unable to cross the invisible barrier.

“Callum could.” The moment I said it, I knew she would agree with my decree, but the hurt in her eyes made me reconsider. I sighed. “I will consider it. We still have time until the Reaping.”

She gave me a small smile and a bow before returning to filling another pot with fertilizer.