At Raed’s voice, I sat up and swallowed back more tears, preparing for the same argument we’d had months ago, after the last miscarriage.
“We have to stop this, Raed. We have a beautiful daughter already. Daisy.” I wrapped my arms around myself and took another breath. Each one was a struggle. “Why can’t we just make love like we used to? Why do we have to keep trying for another baby? We know the dwarves’ curse worked. I can no longer deliver a pregnancy to term. We know this.”
Speaking the words echoed the pain of losing the child all over again. Losing another precious baby who could grow up to be just as gorgeous as the one I had now. It was unbearable. Like knives cutting into my useless womb. With every lost child, the knives stabbed deeper.
Raed looked at me, the stress and worry on his face showing in the creases around his eyes. “The town council is convinced the power that allowed me to turn back into a human and to defeat the dwarf flows through our veins, and that we should produce as many heirs as possible who will allow the power to continue. Myri—” He walked over and cupped my face in his hands. “They believe in us. They want us to protect them. If we have the power, shouldn’t we try? I mean, this power could be heaven-blessed.”
I recoiled at the word “blessed.” I’d heard they had begun to build a chapel in the village to offer me prayers, as if I were a living god. The thought repulsed me. I was just a girl. A new mother. Nothing more.
“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. Please.” I leaned in to him, yearning for a kiss that would assure me he still loved me, believed in our love, believed in the power of us together.
He turned his head. “I’m sorry, Myriana.”
The scene shifted again, Raed and the bed filled with the blood of a child who would never be, dissipating like smoke from a candle. The colors swirled, and I was briefly allowed my own mind and my own memories again. This was Myriana’s memory. Her real life. Not history transcribed from a Royal archive book or a tale around a Romantica bonfire, but the truth. Her truth.
The revolving colors solidified into a door. I was shocked at the detail of this door. At the knots and grooves of the wood. The door would be forever ingrained in my—Myriana’s—mind.
I threw open the door and saw what I knew I was going to see. Then slammed it shut and started to run.
As I ran, I struggled to become Ivy again, to separate from this horrible, heart-shattering memory.
A strong hand grabbed my wrist. I turned and looked at my husband in disgust. He hadn’t even had the decency to get fully dressed. He was bare-chested and wore only trousers.
“Myri,” he breathed.
“So, this is your solution? To put an heir into my sister?” My voice was taut with emotion. “My sister?”
Raed’s face turned to steel. “It’s the solution the town is looking for. Saevalla has your blood. We can continue to rule if we produce heirs with our power. Myri, this is for—”
“I don’t want to rule,” I screamed, wrenching away from him. “I want to be with only you. I want to raise our daughter. I want to forget what I just saw.”
The memory dripped with shadows. Raed’s face and voice faded, and I curled into a ball on the floor.
Saevalla. My beautiful, tender sister. How could she do this to me? We shared everything. Even our love for Raed, but this…this…no.
No, I am not Myriana. I am Ivy.
I fought to keep my sanity as memories flew by, attacking my soul and heart and eating away at everything good inside me. Saevalla giving birth…Saevalla giving birth a second time…watching them grow.
Then one scene grew into such sharp focus that it felt like needles were pricking every inch of me.
I drew my black cloak around me and stood in a huge cave, purple fire sconces lining the rounded wall. A stone altar stood before me, wet with the blood of animals the dwarves had sacrificed.
“I want you to cut it out.”
The dwarf’s smile stretched. “So you’ve told us, Your Majesty. And you don’t care what we do with it afterward?”
“What concern is it of mine? Just make it stop.”
“Then please.” The dwarf gestured to the altar, and I climbed on top of it and lay down, staring up at the domed ceiling.
The chanting began. Haunting and wild. Dark and twisted. Echoing and terrible.
The dwarven clan surrounded me, and the one I’d made the deal with loomed above me, holding the beautiful dagger that Raed had given me as a wedding gift. Its blade was engulfed in black flames.
He plunged the flaming dagger into my chest.
I screamed, screamed, screamed. The pain was too much. I’d never live. I’d never survive. But that was okay. I wouldn’t have to live with the jealousy and hatred anymore for my own sister and my beloved who betrayed me. It would all stop.
With this last thought, the world was ripped from under my feet. It was like I was floating away. I saw my body—no, Queen Myriana’s body—on the altar.
Again, the memories became amber shades spinning and distorting into a similar scene. Dwarves still circled the stone altar coated in dried blood, chanting, but instead of Myriana, a new girl lay on the table. She was young and beautiful—raven black hair and snowy white skin, just like Myriana—but with different facial features.
My—no, the girl’s—eyes snapped open.
They were the color of a dark amethyst—violet and haunting. And familiar.
The dwarves’ chanting reached a powerful crescendo as they each raised an arm holding a gleaming dagger. Then they drew them across their necks. One by one, the dwarves fell, each one’s blood flowing in steady rivulets to the altar where I—the girl—lay. The blood traveled up the altar, seeping into my clothes, my hair. Their blood was hot, steaming against my skin.
I knew what to do with this blood.
I lifted my hands, and a ball of crackling purple energy formed at my fingertips, convulsing and pulsing with power. Purple flames rolled over my arm. I held out my hand and studied the burn.
It was a mark. My mark. The Mark of Myriana.
I smiled.
This. This would be my legacy. My Hydra Curse.
“Ivy!” A voice was screaming. Screaming a name. My name?
I wrenched my eyes open, although my lids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds, and found myself leaning against the mirror as if I’d never left it.
In reality, I knew I hadn’t. Like entering the amulet’s enchantment, time was irrelevant in the world of the mirror. I may have been encased in the amber glow of the mirror for mere seconds while I could experience an entire lifetime in the glass.
But time was now moving again and so was Millennia, her hands closing around my throat and thrusting me against the mirror so hard the glass cracked behind my back, shattering and spider-webbing.
Zach screamed my name, but a wall of purple flames erupted behind Millennia and me, preventing Zach and Brom from getting close.
Her hands squeezed my throat, nails digging into my skin. Gasping for breath, I stared into the familiar deep-violet eyes.
I rasped one word. One name. “Myriana.”
Chapter
Thirty-Two
The Queen’s Heart
It was as if I’d uttered a sacred spell. At the mention of the Holy Queen’s name, Millennia ripped her hands from my throat.
“You…you saw. You know.” She stared at me, her violet eyes wide with horror.
I rubbed at my throat. Zach screamed for me through the wall of purple flames. I wanted to yell at him to run, to leave me. Because I knew that who was standing before me would never let any of us walk away alive.
“You’re Myriana,” I whispered. “You’re the Evil Queen.”
Even though I’d seen it—no, experienced it—I couldn’t believe my own words. It couldn’t be true. The Holy Queen, my beautiful, powerful ancestor, couldn’t be the Evil Queen. It would mean everything, everything was a lie. The Royal’s history was wrong. It hadn’t been the first heir. The Romantica’s tale was wrong, too. It hadn’t been Saevalla, either.
The Evil Queen had been Myriana Holly all along.