Page 13 of Crown of Chaos

“Is it?” She pushed the piece over my shoulder. “It’s like silk. Obviously, it didn’t prevent men from finding you . . . worthy of fucking.”

“Ouch.” I snorted, pulling away from her before wincing at the pain in my side. Esme groaned, forcing our attention to where she was shifting in discomfort. Nausea churned in my stomach again, and I carefully laid back and pressed one hand against my abdomen and the other hand over my lips.

“Try salty foods to relieve the sickness,” the hag muttered, moving to a large basket and withdrawing some dried meat. “They say it helps to ease the queasiness women endure in the first months of pregnancy.”

“I am not pregnant.” Even as I argued the truth, I heard the weak lie slipping from my lips. “I am in the middle of fighting a damn war.” I was also pretty certain that salty meat didn’t do crap other than churn my stomach further.

“Many mothers have fought wars while pregnant. Do you think the battles simply stop because your womb has been filled with babes? Let me clear that assumption for you. They don’t. My mother battled against the King of Alpha’s during one of her pregnancies,” she offered smoothly, handing me what appeared to be a fruit roll-up instead of meat.

“And what happened to the baby?” I asked, fighting the urge to vomit when I tasted the thinly sliced cured meat.

“Died on the battlefield as my mom pushed her into this world.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I never said it was smart or safe for the unborn. Only that war doesn’t stop because you chose to create life. My mother had other children, and my brother was conceived and born on the front line. Women rise above diversity while men wish to stand above us with their foot on our throats. You could permit them to do so, or you can fight against the boot holding you to the ground.”

“What is your name?” I asked, and her gaze widened.

“I am the hag,” she fumbled over the question with a confused expression.

“That is what you have become not your name,” I pressed.

“We do not have names. We are banished to hide in the shadows, where no one is forced to look upon our hideous forms.”

“You weren’t born a hag. I will have your name so that I know who I have to thank for saving my life and that of my friend.”

The hag opened her mouth, closing it before she expelled the air from her lungs. She looked uncomfortable as she fidgeted and pushed her hair back, but I wasn’t backing down. No one should be banished or unable to use their real name—no one.

“Avyanna was the name I was given at birth,” she admitted softly.

“That is a beautiful name.”

“I was once pretty as well, with a very feminine form. I was to marry a lord, but he used me and then took my beauty so no one else would look upon me with impure thoughts. Afterward, he brought me here to hide the evidence of his trespasses against me. He cut my eyes out and flayed the skin from my face. I’m unsure if it was to conceal his crimes or to ensure I was too disfigured and ashamed to ever return and force him to admit to his actions.” She rubbed her arms as if experiencing a chill from telling her tale out loud.

“What were you before you were left here and became a hag?” I pried, hoping it didn’t offend her.

Not only did I need the distraction from my predicament but also because Ember hadn’t been cheering or laughing that she’d accomplished her goal. I’d expected for her to at least admit that she was aware that we were pregnant. I was choosing to blame her, even though it had been my choice to open up for Knox in order to steal the library.

Ember should have been active and bragging. The fact that she’d gone silent mid-battle alarmed me. I’d felt her rising within me, intending to assert control, and then something had slammed her back, and since then, there’d been nothing from her. The magic had felt strangely familiar, like when Ilsa had used magic against Knox, preventing Lennox from rising. In fact, it was exactly like that.

“I was part witch, and part Cervitaur,” Avyanna confirmed after a few moments had passed. “Lord of Grayer Manor may have coveted me, but he never intended to marry a witch,” she whispered, swallowing thickly while she wiped at her unusual eyes. “He told me as much as he destroyed me, bragging about how naïve I was to think he would ever soil himself with one of our kind. Karion Grayer was a monster who preyed on young witches by convincing us he could love us past our genetic flaws.”

“We are not flawed,Avyanna.” I shifted, dropping my legs over the side of the mattress and sitting up to look at her. “He was wrong to do what he did to you. In the world I am from, people feared witches instead of the monsters disguised as men who burned the witches alive. They revered those torturers as godly men. I will not allow that to happen within this world, at least not if I can help it. I intend to show our enemies that we cannot be burned or driven into the shadows. They will fear our daughters because we will teach them that we will never burn or yield to tyranny. We will always rise and destroy those who wish to own or control us. We are the witches they seek to kill, but we’ll never bend or surrender. Our children will learn what true magic is, mastering and wielding it long after we’ve been returned to the earth.”

“Who are you?” she asked, passing me my cup again.

“I am Aria Hecate, High Queen of Nothing. I will set this world on fire and sleep on the corpses of our enemies before I allow them to harm more witches. My grandmother tried to control us through the darkness she unleashed, but she forgot one thing.”

“What is that?”

“Witches aren’t afraid of the dark because we are born of light. I was conceived of both, and I won’t bow to a mad queen who craves power that isn’t hers to take. I am the granddaughter she thought to murder in infancy, and now I’ll show her why she was right to fear me. I’ll take the throne of Vãkya and burn it to cinders so that no witch may ever again reign above another. Witches were never meant to rule, and that is not a mistake I mean to allow to happen again.”

“I might have used too much chamomile in the tea I gave you,” she muttered, snatching the cup from the table to peer into it.

“No,” Esme mumbled, laughing quietly from her spot on the cot next to me. “You are in the presence of the true high queen of the Nine Realms, Avyanna. Aria is also fantastic at giving speeches, even if she does it at the most random times. She thinks she rules nothing, but she’ll learn that she was meant to rule everything.”

“Glad to see you didn’t die.” I smiled at Esme, who grinned back.

“You’re pregnant, and that’s a fucking problem. It means we have to figure out how to keep you safe until you give birth.”

“No,” I said without hesitation, knowing that I couldn’t disregard the truth. “I won’t cower or shy away from this fight. If anything, I have even more of a reason to fight. They should be born into a world that doesn’t seek to destroy them when they are delivered. If the Nine Realms won’t stand with us and discontinue this path of genocide against witches, I will kill them all, and walk them to the gates of the otherworld myself. That is my vow to my unborn babes.”

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