My watery prison burst as Blanc grabbed the trident and focused all her powers on Dorthea. “Finish her!” Blanc ordered her new ally.
Morte tsked derisively. “Your centuries locked away have not improved your temperament. Just as in the time of Lancelot and Arthur, your actions are ruled by emotion. And that will be your downfall. Behold, the Girl of Emerald.”
Dorthea’s flames shot into the air, filling the sky like green, thunderous clouds—all while she was still unconscious. The other villains who had been watching the fight from the hill scattered and searched for cover.
“Without your full powers, defeating her at the height of her madness is dangerous and near impossible. Let us go and watch from a safe distance as the child destroys herself and all she loves. Surely that will satisfy your thirst for revenge.” Morte swept his tail under Blanc and placed her on his back, ignoring her protests. “I will see you again, little hero. You are not free of me yet,” he said to me before flying away with his empress.
Dorthea bolted upright. She opened her eyes, her stare blank and green.
We need power to take him back.
It was the curse chorus, but this time it came out of Dorthea’s mouth. She shoved her hands into the dirt. For a moment, nothing happened. Then lines of fire surged along the ground, like a forest python weaving back and forth, hunting for prey. Everywhere the fire touched turned brown and lifeless. Everything it touched was sucked dry. Everyone it touched…
The first to feel Dorthea’s fire were the troll brothers climbing under the bridge for cover. The power reached for a nearby tree but found a tastier snack. The trolls brayed as they burned. As their shrieks died down, their voices joined the chorus.
More. More like that.
Other villains I’d met at the institute panicked and ran in every direction. But the Emerald curse hunted them down. Some of Blanc’s creatures remained, fighting and picking off the weakened.
“Stop!” Verte called, jamming her staff into the ground. Dorthea’s flames dimmed and flickered. “You must control the curse, not the other way around. I will not allow you to destroy yourself and the world along with you.”
Dorthea tilted her head, like she was listening. The flames momentarily stopped pursuing the fleeing villains.
“Feed us,” Dorthea said in the curse’s chorus. As she twisted her hands, every tendril of flame aimed for Verte.
“No!” I cried, warning Verte.
She looked at me and nodded. Her emerald belt winked as the flames covered it.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch.
Now, the chorus said. My eyes snapped open at the sound. A new voice had taken the lead. Verte’s.
Dorthea stood rigid, her arms flung wide, creating an arc of fire that left me untouched. Her face was lined with bulging veins of green, but her eyes—they were normal. And they stared at me, wide with a look that wrenched at my heart and spoke volumes of horror and agony through our bond. Her mouth said only one thing: “Kill me.”
I shook, my body rejecting the request. There was no way. As tight as the connection was now, we were practically the same person. Stopping Dorthea would mean sacrificing myself too. And Kato would have died for nothing. And there would be no one left to stop Blanc and Morte.
The brief respite in Dorthea’s storm passed as her eyes shifted green again and the arc of power ensnared me. The curse again tore away at my life and my sanity. This is how it ends, I despaired. Not with a scream but with the whispering of a thousand voices. Calling for me to join them.
All is one and one is all.
Join us. Feed us.
Bring us more.
There is no hope. No savior. No end.
“No time to waste!” Verte’s voice shouted, taking the dominant position in the chorus. “You must free her. Break the curse.”
“How?” I struggled to answer. “I have no magic, no sword. I am not hero. I am just me.”
“How do you know you aren’t enough?” Verte said, her voice blowing through me and waning like the tail end of a forest breeze. Then her presence was gone.
Mordred charged at Dorthea but was knocked back by a flaming shield Dorthea crafted twisting just her fingers.
“That will not work, fool,” Oz chided, wrapping his arms around Dorthea from behind. He was unaffected by the curse but struggled to hold her in place. “Only the grail can save her now. The ink is thicker than blood, as the pen is mightier than the sword.”
“It is hopeless,” Mordred moaned, holding a melted ax in one hand and the grail in the other. “I cannot…”
Girl of Emerald, no man can tame, the curse taunted.
Well, I was not a man. And I had an idea.
“Be true to your word,” I called to Mordred and held my hand out for the grail. He hesitated only the barest of seconds, which was good because Oz could only keep the curse’s attention off me for so long.
The ink needed to get inside Dorthea’s bloodstream to break the curse. But I doubted she was just gonna let me run up and pour it in a cut.
After pulling the pen out of my pocket, I sucked the ink up inside it and looked around for something to fire my makeshift arrow with. I only had me. And me would have to be enough. With my left wrist burning with Blanc’s mark, I called for the water. With my right hand, I pulled some of the green flame. I focused my mind and willed the elements together, like I’d seen both Blanc and Dorthea do. I molded them into the shape of a crossbow. Though I longed for the golden crossbow because my aim sucked, the borrowed magic was the best I could do.
I closed my eyes to block out the people screaming and fighting one another, settling old scores or perhaps taking sides with Blanc—who knew. Ignoring the chaos around me, I heard Verte’s parting words from the clearing. “Be yourself. Ink is thicker than blood. Aim true.” Opening my eyes again, I let the pen fly loose toward its target. Dorthea.
The pen cut through the distance between us in less time than it takes for a grain of sand to fall. Like a bull’s-eye, the sharpened tip pierced through the opal resting on Dorthea’s chest. The air thickened, and time seemed to slow as the green in the opal receded, leaving the gemstone dark and empty.
A shockwave threw me to the ground, and time seemed to stop. There was not a sound in all the world. My life had been held inside that stone for long, and I broke it. I waited to die. Yet I felt more alive than ever—felt more myself. I felt for the bond. It wasn’t there. All my memories of the Emerald Palace were through my eyes, not that of a princess. I had a sudden disdain for all footwear. When I thought of Kato, I still loved him, yet not with the same breathless abandon. His loss no longer destroyed me, just maimed—and made me determined to kick Morte out and bring Kato back.
The fight with the curse was over. We had won.
With a loud gasp and frenzy of sound, time resumed its pace. I could move again.