“What is he planning to do? I thought when you all showed up there was a way to fix this.”
Alice’s jaw quivered, her molten brown eyes (so similar in shape to Lissa’s that Aeric momentarily forgot to breathe) were shaded with hopelessness. “No,” she shook her head, “there is no plan. We’d hoped you would fix her. But you have not. I saw her talk to you,” he could hear the shattering of her mother’s heart as she spoke, “I’d hoped the net had worked, I’d hoped that this wouldn’t be…” she hiccupped, “wouldn’t be… could be…” she sobbed, unable to form the words.
Hatter just rubbed her shoulder and glowered at Aeric. “Get away from my family. You’re useless to us now.”
His words resonated with the undercurrent of a threat and made Aeric’s hackles rise. But this wasn’t about him, or his distaste for Lissa’s father, he’d promised her he’d fix this, and by damn he’d fix this.
That one night, when they’d huddled under the stars for warmth and talked of their pasts and their futures Lissa had mentioned something then that’d triggered a strange sense of foreshadowing. He’d brushed it off as the crazy ramblings of someone half asleep, but what if it’d really been Chrysalis giving him the hint of what to do.
Jericho was next to the water now, the sky was pitch dark, his entire body glowed with moonlight, causing Chrysalis to smoke as the power of the moon consumed her. Kneeling down, Jericho began to undo the knot holding the rope together.
“Wait!” Aeric reached out his hand and without glancing at the three beside him, he ran to Jericho. “Wait.”
Jericho stalled him with a lifted hand. “Do not come any closer, Siria’s fire cannot consume me while night reigns, but she can kill anything else that comes too close.”
The ground where she’d been dragged was charred and black, the grass nothing but ash, and the dirt devoid of any water. Chrysalis herself (or at least her body) was drying out before his eyes, peeling and cracking, being consumed by an internal flame she could not control.
The woman he loved lived inside that shell and he’d be damned if he’d let her die because of a curse. He was cursed too.
A curse that Rumpelstiltskin said would work to his advantage the moment he figured out the riddle.
Licking his lips, Aeric hedged all his bets. “I’ve traveled all the worlds of Kingdom. And always there are constants. Water is purity, a blessing, water can heal.”
Chrysalis laughed from cracking, bleeding lips. “What do you know? You’re all so stupid, Jericho, I’ll never forgive you for this. I own this body, there is no way to rid yourselves of me. Drown me if you like, but what I’ve wrought cannot be undone.”
Aeric shook his head. “Always so sure of yourself are you, Siria? You know a few nights ago Lissa told me something, something that I don’t think you know anything about. Something that at the time made no sense to me.”
She smirked, brushing a large twig out of her hair as she ran her palm across the glowing moon pool as if in defiance of the very act Jericho had been set to commit. “You bore me, go ahead and drown me, Jericho. Do as you would. There is only one soul that will die and it won’t be mine. This body will live forever, to serve my bidding and my needs.”
Jericho’s glow was so powerful that Aeric made out the rapidly beating pulse in her neck. Siria was bluffing, there was something to the water. But it was more than just the water, because alone the water could not hurt her. She was right in that. But she knew that Aeric knew and he wanted to pump his fists with joy when he realized he was right.
“But you see, it wasn’t Lissa talking to me that night. It was why I felt the difference in her touch, her body. It was why I couldn’t focus on the words she’d said to me. You knew of Lissa, but you did not realize she and Chrysalis were one, that is how Chrysalis tricked you, that is how she told me the truth.”
She smirked, but now there was also terror lurking behind her steely-eyed gaze.
“Chrysalis was right, you can’t see everything she does. She discovered the truth of this curse, Chrysalis was right all along. There was a way to rid herself of you. It’s why she played double agent, it’s why she gave you just enough to make you think she was your puppet, but Chrysalis was smarter, stronger than even you knew. Because I know how to destroy you parasite.”
She hissed and screamed. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Her eyes rounded on Jericho as if pleading with him.
Jericho laughed. “Oh, Siria, you’ve ruined yourself, and all for nothing. I know where this is going. I know what you’ve done, and now the rest of the world will too.”
Danika rushed forward just then. “I don’t understand,” she said, “what’s going on, what’s happening?”