Her father led the three of them down the hall and into a dreary chamber that was equipped with decaying fur seats and a lit fireplace. Along the way, Shawna picked up her sword and sheathed it, wondering if anyone would stop her, but neither Warwick nor Adhara even blinked. Adhara kept looking at her with such sorrow and love that Shawna made sure to keep her gaze fixated in the opposite direction. She wasn’t sure what had happened, or what was really going on. She didn’t know what to feel or think yet.
“Sit,” Warwick said, indicating to one of the dilapidated chairs near the roaring fire.
She hesitated for a second, wondering if some magic spell would bind her prisoner there, but then said to herself, trust him, and sat down. At least it was warm near the fire. Adhara stood next to him. Both stared at their daughter like she was a mirage of smoke from the fireplace. Shawna fidgeted, touching the sapphires.
“Ava,” her father began. She opened her mouth to correct her name, but saw his stern face and closed it again. “You’ve grown into such a beautiful and powerful young woman, a true sorceress.”
She felt the corners of her mouth twitch upwards. It’s not every day your long-lost parents tell you what a beautiful, powerful, sorceress you are.
“There is so much to tell you since—” He paused, and his eyes fell. “Since that day I had to send you away, to keep you safe.”
Shawna kept her hand clenched on her sword hilt, but her eyes never left her father’s.
“Your mother is not who you think she is. The woman that wanted to kill you—”
“Is extremely frustrated.”
Shawna leapt out of her chair while Warwick and Adhara threw themselves in front of her, light blossoming down their veins to their fingertips. A tall woman, neither young nor old, clothed in simple elegant garb stood facing them, glaring like her eyes were made of flame from under her razor-sharp lashes. Shawna nearly choked on a scream. She was looking at her mother, or at least the spitting image of her. Her eyes darted between her mother and this newcomer. A twin? The only difference she could see between them was the anger behind the other woman’s eyes. She saw a little glint beneath the woman’s throat. It was the stone. The same golden stone that glinted on Orin’s chest. The woman’s voice echoed in her ears from all those years ago.
By letting her live we’ll all perish!
“You,” Shawna whispered out loud.
“What’s that, sweetheart?” sneered her mother’s twin.
“It was you. You’re the one that tried to kill me? This whole time—”
The woman laughed. It sounded so arrogant, so spiteful, that Shawna found her hate and anger easily switched to this mysterious fair-haired enchantress. This was the woman who had tried to end her life all those years ago, and had been trying to ever since. She felt the protective presence of her parents, and despite the danger they were facing, she felt an inner warmth beginning to grow. She realized how relieved she was knowing that her deepest fears had not come true. Her father saved her life. Her mother did love her. She had been wrong the entire time.
Shawna felt like the fire behind her was actually burning inside her. She thought of Lula, Mira, Antares, Capella, and all the friends she had made on her journey, and felt herself engulfed with love towards them. She touched the iron hilt of her sword, carved and reinforced with the images of those who cared for her. This woman was nothing.
“Who are you?” Shawna said without a tremble in her voice.
The woman smiled and walked over to a chair, petting its fur-drapery.
“Who am I?” she mimicked in feigned innocence. “I’m the one who knew what you would really be, what it would mean if you were allowed to live.” Her eyes stabbed at Warwick then at Shawna. “But my sister and her idiot husband didn’t understand, didn’t even want to hear what I had discovered.”
Adhara was gazing at the woman, her eyes dancing with clashing emotions. “No, Lorna, please…you—”
“Quiet!” Lorna shouted, slicing her hand through the air and sealing Adhara’s lips shut.
Warwick tensed and blue light sparked from his hands.
“Strike and you’ll see who’s faster, old man!”
He continued to glare while his wife struggled to release the spell her sister had cast on her, but he didn’t move. Adhara gasped as she unsealed her lips and didn’t say another word. Shawna slowly looked over at her mother. Before she could say anything, Lorna spoke again.
“You are the end of this world, girl.” Lorna looked straight into her eyes, and Shawna unconsciously grabbed the sapphires around her neck.
She dropped her eyes to Shawna’s hand for a second then looked up. “If you open that last gateway, the fifth realm, our whole world will be destroyed, and so will everyone in it: your friends, your parents, that stupid boy, everyone!”
“It’s not true, Ava,” said her father. “We don’t believe it and neither should you. Your power and fate are not bound by the words of a dragon.”
“Not true?!” said Lorna. “She’s been under everyone’s power but her own since the day she left your arms, Warwick.” He and Adhara pushed Shawna back towards the fire place while Lorna pointed a finger at her. “She has no will of her own. I’ve seen it. She follows blindly like a lost wolf-pup and let’s others decide her fate, our fate!”—She swept her elegant hands at them, then turned them upon herself, her eyes wide and manic—“I sent the molochs to try and stop her before she could even reach this world. I found our hope for salvation.”
She brandished the golden orb around her neck.
“But even with this,” she hissed, “I still could not touch her, not as long as she had those shards with her.”
Shawna dropped her hand from the sapphires, and raised her chin while Lorna let go of the golden orb around her own neck and stood tall.
“Unless you gave them willingly to me,” Lorna spat in anger, “which was not likely. I had to find someone who could.”
Shawna took a deep breath. Orin.
“And,” Lorna went on, “I wanted to make sure my sister,”—She shot Adhara a look of disdain—“would be out of my way. I made sure Shawna believed it was you, Adhara, who was the one that wanted to kill her. I imprisoned you and Warwick here, and made your own daughter hate you and vow revenge.”
“You did this?” Warwick whispered.
Lorna raised an eyebrow at him. His arms were trembling with barely suppressed rage, his fingers digging into his palms.
“You cast this spell?” His voice shook. “Making our own castle a prison? Concealing Adhara and I from one another? From Ava? Why?”
“Why do you think?” She sounded bored. “I would have killed your wife, and Capella if I could, but because of the unicorn’s powers we were all too powerful, too equal. It would nearly kill me to kill either of my ‘beloved’ sisters.”
“So you imprisoned us instead,” said Adhara in a low voice. “Hoping our very own daughter would do the deed for you. You’re sick!”
Lorna looked at her like she was a piece of talking furniture.
“With this fragment.” She tapped the golden orb with a long fingernail. “I at least had the power to do that.”
Adhara’s face was crawling with utter disgust. “You found one? You killed it? How could you?”
“One of the last,” said Lorna with a smug smile. “They’re even more powerful than you could imagine. Unfortunately, the boy I found from a powerful and ancient line, Orin, proved to be weak.”
She threw a murderous look at Shawna, who was trying desperately to understand this exchange as her father slowly inched towards Lorna’s periphery. She realized Adhara was keeping her sister distracted, and Shawna thought of a hundred actions to take when the time was right.
Lorna continued boasting to Adhara, oblivious to Warwick. “Your precious daughter would have never found you, or broken the enchantment unless she truly, with all of her heart and being…wanted you dead.” Her eyes fell on Shawna. “What
would be more fitting than for your own daughter to destroy you; you who believed she could save us.”
Her grin made Shawna’s insides feel like a mass of maggoty eels. Shawna looked over at her mother and shook her head. Adhara just stared, unblinking, and slowly raised a hand to her chest.
“No,” Shawna said, still shaking her head. “No I—” Her lips were so dry. “It’s not like she says. I mean, I thought you were her. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have—” She couldn’t speak anymore.
It felt like she was suffocating as she watched one single tear fall down her mother’s face.
“I know,” Adhara said so quietly that Shawna could barely hear her, then she smiled at her, and Shawna understood everything in that smile.
She understood that when she had raised her sword, ready to kill her, Adhara wouldn’t have stopped her. Her head whirled, and she felt nauseated at the thought, for she knew she wouldn’t have stopped herself.
“Unfortunatelyyy,” drawled Lorna, flicking her eyes between mother and daughter. “It-did-not-seem-to-work-out-as-I-hoped.” She swept her eyes down and up at Shawna. “Even after sending that handsome lying little heart-breaker, Orin. That moron who has fed you lies and betrayed you as he’s done me.”
Shawna was shocked to see, not anger, nor determination, but deep pain writhe across Lorna’s face.
“He hasn’t,” said Shawna, taking a step forward. “He didn’t betray me. He’s betrayed you because he found out the truth.”
Lorna laughed maniacally then abruptly stopped. “Truth? Truth is only made from the lies you feed yourself and twist into belief.”
She pushed the chair away from her, and strode over to Shawna, but stopped a few feet away as if just remembering that they weren’t alone.
“You want the truth, girl?” she said, her lip curling in disgust. “Ask that boy. Ask that soleon. Ask that unicorn.” She grinned then simpered, “Oh, how sweet, you think Orin loves you. You thought that kiss was genuine? His promises, you think he meant them? Oh, yes, I know everything,” she answered to Shawna’s tightening lips and glistening eyes.
“You never wondered why he followed you into the woods that night, and why he never kissed you again; why, if he wanted to kill you so badly, he never did. Why he said what he did in order to gain your complete trust? He has never wanted your desperate lips against his.”
Shawna covered the necklace with her hand.
“He may have betrayed me,” said Lorna, “but he betrayed you most of all. He doesn’t want to help you, or me. He wants the power all to himself, and he will say anything to get it.” She held up her hand. “He’s quite the clever little devil.”
She flourished her hand like a magician presenting a trick, and a giant Agonian bear, holding a struggling form crushed in its arms, materialized into being near the doorway. The bear roared, shaking dust and cobwebs from the ceiling above. Shawna raised her hand to her mouth. She stared at the bear, and the image of a young Orin watching his family murdered flashed before her wide eyes. Then, in her mind’s eye, the bear morphed into a hawk, a wolf, and a man pointing an arrow at her heart.
She quickly inhaled and watched helplessly as the adult Orin was being crushed by the beast’s strength. Jaw clenched, lips pulled back in a grimace, he writhed and yelled out in pain. Blood stained one side of his head, his chest, and trickled down his arm onto the stones below. His eyes caught hers for a moment. She tried to stare past the amber-brown of his irises, past the fear and the pain making them glisten. She wanted to see the truth. He shut his eyes and yelled again as the bear threw him across the floor. He crumpled and tried to raise himself, but Lorna flicked her wrist and white chains of light wrapped his entire body.
“Shawna,” he coughed, spitting blood and struggling against his bonds. “Remember what I said.” His eyes were so pleading it almost brought tears to hers. “I meant it. I meant it, Shawna.”
Lorna scoffed. Shawna felt like the chains had wrapped around her instead. Her mother and father were stealing glances at one another, and then they both shot quick glances at her. Their faces seemed blank, but she saw a flicker of her father’s eyebrow, a pursing of her mother’s lips, and she gave a slight nod. Lorna noticed nothing. Just as she was raising a hand at them to perhaps cast the same spell, or worse, Warwick and Adhara whirled their arms and a tornado of liquefied light shot forth and encased her in a swirling web. The bear roared and reared to its full height of salivating fury.
Shawna barely noticed what was happening around her. All she saw was Orin. She ran to his side as her parents threw their attack on the bear.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Get out of here before she breaks free. What are you doing?!”
She wasn’t listening to him, instead she was standing over him with the crystal sword in hand. A flurry of emotions flew across her face as she steadied the sword in both hands.
“Lies,” she whispered. “I’ve heard so many lies.”
He knitted his brow. A rivulet of blood trickled between his eyes and dripped down his cheek to the stone floor.
“What isn’t a lie?” Her tone was calm, and she saw that it unnerved him.
Her parents had forced Gavan down the hallway. Only tremendous roars and flashes of light erupted from beyond the doorway.
She could see Orin’s pulse pounding in his neck. He’s afraid of me. This thought both emboldened and saddened her.
“What do you want from me?” she said, lowering the sword’s edge towards the throb in his throat.
His eyes widened, and she could almost hear the thudding of his heart over the distant sounds of fighting. Her hands were starting to shake, but she took a deep breath and steadied them. Orin stared, speechless. Sounds of fighting echoed like thunderclaps. Lorna was still wrapped in the blinding web, though dark rips were starting to appear.
“Look at me and tell me!”
He jerked at her shout, and she kneeled over him, pressing the blade’s edge under his jaw. He made a gurgling sound and craned his neck back, his eyes widening even more.
“Why did you swear to help us,” she said quietly. “Why did you promise to protect me? I need to know the truth. I’m tired of secrets, of lies. Can I trust you…or not?” She choked on the last word.
Orin’s eyes did not stray from hers. “Is that what she told you? Yes, at first it was for my own gain. You’re right. I wanted the power those sapphires held. It was what I had been raised to do.”
She bit back a sob.
“But,” he said, still trying to arch his neck away from her sword. “But after Mira broke into my memories, after those days in the village, I could finally see again. My mind wasn’t clouded by her anymore, or by the…stone.”
His eyes glanced down at his chest, and she also glanced at the gold stone that matched Lorna’s.
“I could see how wrong I was,” he said, his voice growing stronger. “I could see what really mattered. I don’t care about any of that anymore, because I care about—”
She gave him a warning don’t-play-games-with-me look.
His adam’s apple made the blade shift as he swallowed, then said, “I never thought I could want anything as much as wanting to help you.”
He had tried to raise himself and accidently nicked his skin against the sharp blade. He gasped and lay still. When Shawna remained just as still and silent, her face unfathomable, he continued.
“Please, Shawna, believe me, not her. I believe in you. I believe you are here to help us, not destroy us.”
She wasn’t sure if she believed him, or even if she should. Her arms were trembling, not with fear, but with a rush of anticipation. A small voice within her, the same voice that had whispered in her ear when she first saw her mother, was whispering to her now, kill him. Kill him before he kills you.
Orin must have seen the change in her eyes, for he quickly said, “I can only tell you what I believe. I can’t make you believe wh
at you don’t want to believe.” His eyes never flinched from hers as he said softly, “I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Her nostrils flared, her eyes stung, and she raised her sword. “I don’t believe you.”
His forehead creased in alarm, the dried blood cracking. A long tear ripped down half the cocoon around Lorna. In one fluid motion, Shawna sliced her sword across his chest. The glowing chains dissolved from the blade’s touch.
She stepped back. “But I won’t watch you die.”
Orin exhaled and pushed himself up. The grin beginning to spread across his handsome face slowly disappeared as his eyes gazed into hers. She looked away before he could see any more of the thoughts surfacing in her eyes. He couldn’t know what Sirrush had told her to do. Not because she feared hurting him, but because she feared him hurting her. But there she had been, so close to becoming the one to commit murder. A wave of shock almost brought her to her knees. My God. I almost wanted to kill him, like Sirrush said.
She gathered herself, turned, and her gaze snapped up to find him an arm’s length away. The blood from his wounds was crusting to a dark red. He took a step closer, his eyes never leaving hers. She had sudden conflicting desires to kiss him and knee him in the groin. He looked like he was wondering whether she would kiss him or knee him. Before she could decide, he grabbed her and pressed his lips against hers. Her mind fought her heart until her mind found the will to finally pull away.
“Don’t,” she said, putting her hand on his chest.
The expression on his face pained her. Unconsciously, she leaned towards him again. He suddenly shoved her into a chair that shattered from her fall. At first she didn’t understand. Her head throbbed and her shoulder ached as she stumbled to her feet and picked up her sword again. Then she saw Orin, suspended on his back in mid air, his whole body contorted in pain as he screamed. Lorna’s smile was savage with hysteria. Shawna didn’t know what to do. He had thrown himself in front Lorna’s spell, but Shawna was held just as captive as he was. She wasn’t going to leave him. When Lorna realized this, she lowered her other hand, and grinned.
“Aren’t you going to run, little girl? Or do you want to save this wretch who’s conned you every step? Don’t tell me you believe him?”
His clothing and hair were starting to smoke. She was burning him like he was immersed in flame. His screams tore through Shawna like shards of glass, and tears were beginning to stream down her face.
“St…stop,” she stuttered. Orin was being mercilessly tortured, and all she could do now was cry?
“Then give me the necklace! His useless life for the stones!”
She put tremulous fingers to the sapphires around her neck. They were still cool to the touch. She didn’t wonder why, at this crucial moment, they didn’t flare and come to life. All she could think about were Orin’s wracking screams and the acrid smell of hair beginning to burn. She tried to lift the necklace from her neck. Her arms froze in place, her hands stuck to the leather strap. The necklace wouldn’t let her remove it. Panic overwhelmed her. Lorna’s face melted from excitement to anger. In that moment, Shawna suddenly understood the power she held over Lorna. Lorna couldn’t touch her or the stones as long as Shawna defied her. Orin’s clothes caught fire and his screams were mad with pain.
Her eyes clamped onto Lorna’s like steel-traps. She was the daughter of two powerful sorcerers. She had come all this way, faced so many things, faced dangers and fears she never thought she could survive. Despite everything, she had reached three of the five realms, fought creatures of nightmares, and gained far more than just a crystal sword and a necklace. Never before had she felt such confidence in what she was about to do. She squared herself to look directly at Lorna. Orin had passed out and hung grotesquely suspended in the air. The smell of burning flesh was sickening.
“What are you doing?” said Lorna. “He’s almost dead as it is. Give me the necklace!”
Shawna reached up, grabbed it, and without resistance flung it over her head. Lorna jumped like Shawna had thrown a grenade at her, then stared wide-eyed as the beautiful dark sapphires with their flaming centers landed in front of her. She released Orin, and he crashed to the floor. His skin was charred like his clothes, and all his hair had burned away. He didn’t move. Though she wanted to help him, Shawna dared not move as Lorna reached for the necklace.
She picked it up like it was made of spun-glass. Her eyes reflected the sparkling gems. Warwick and Adhara ran into the room then froze, staring between Shawna and Lorna. Adhara’s side was stained with blood, but Shawna didn’t know if it was her mother’s or the bear’s. Lorna seemed to have forgotten everything around her. She was completely transfixed on the sapphires slowly burning brighter and brighter in her palm. Adhara and Warwick strode over to their daughter, not taking their eyes off Lorna, but she paid them no heed. Orin moaned and, not caring what Lorna did, Shawna rushed over to him. She tried not to retch from the smell. His skin was nearly black in places, his eyes burned shut, and his scalp bright red. Tears sprang to her eyes again, but she didn’t let them fall, now was not the time. He needed her help.
“Orin?” she said, her hand hovering over him.
He made no sound other than his labored breathing. He was dying. She thought about what he had done to keep her safe despite his past, despite his lies. She thought about the true passion she had felt in that last kiss. Her parents were at her side, kneeling with her over Orin. Lorna was utterly mesmerized by the slowly brightening stones like she was under some strange spell. Warwick and Adhara kept glancing at her, but held their hands over Orin.
“I don’t know if we can save him,” Adhara said. “But we’ll try.”
Shawna nodded, and her parents closed their eyes. His breaths were further and further apart. While they focused on Orin, Shawna took a deep breath and placed both her hands inches above his trembling body with theirs. Warmth spread from her chest, down her arms, and out her fingertips. She kept her eyes closed, imagining him healed, imagining him—she gasped as someone’s hand grabbed her wrist.
Her eyes opened, expecting to see Lorna, but instead found Orin looking up at her. It was like he had never been hurt, even the bruises and deep cuts had vanished. Only his charred clothes and dried blood were reminders of where his wounds had been. Her parents broke their power, looked at their daughter, then at one another. Shawna never saw the look of amazement pass between them.
“About time you saved my life.” He grinned.
“Mira wasn’t going to do it anymore,” she said. “Someone had to save your careless hide. Here.” She held up the scorched remains of the protective cloth Faolon had given him.
Orin took it gently, running his thumb over it as pieces fell away, then he tied what was left of it to his leather belt again.
“Guess this thing works. Thank you,” he whispered.
“Ava,” Warwick said to Shawna, looking past her.
They all turned their heads to see Lorna, or what they could see of her. Everyone threw their arms over their faces to shield themselves. Lorna screamed with triumphant joy that quickly morphed into absolute terror as all the sapphires burst into pure light, disintegrating Lorna’s whole hand into ash. Shawna threw herself over Orin, Adhara over her, and Warwick over all of them. Lorna’s screams flashed out of existence in a flurry of bone and ash as the sapphire’s flared to life. They had heeded her intentions; her intentions to destroy them.