Page 46 of Beneath the Flames
“Don’t be ridiculous.It’s too smart for that,” the Queen of Aeros replied.
“This is a world full of magic.There must be something we can use.It will destroy everything we hold dear unless something is done.It cannot be allowed to continue its destruction.”
The two of them were silent for a long moment as the dim candle fought to stay lit in the icy air, as I begged my immobile body tofight back.I needed to stop them from binding the beast, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t move.
The Queen of Siris stood up straighter.“If we cannot kill, perhaps we cantrap.”
This intrigued the other queen.“Trap?”
A fervent nod.“Yes.Lure it to us with promises of what it desires most.Then we strike with magic.”A finger tap, tap, tapped against her chin as she worked through the plan in her mind.“A curse of sorts—take away its power and force it to be something else so it can no longer unleash destruction upon Avalea.”
The Queen of Aeros blinked against the darkness.“Force it to bewhat?”
A long pause and then a sharp inhale.“One of us.”
“What?”
“Yes, that’s it.Curse the beast to live like us.It will bring it to its knees, bind its power in chains, and stop it from destroying any of the other kingdoms.”
“Do you really think it could work?”
“With both of our magic?Yes.”
Their excitement bubbled into the air, a tangible, suffocating thing that tangled with my rage at what they had done to my kingdom.
And yet the Queen of Siris hesitated, body trembling from the chill air.
“But…what if it breaks the curse?Then what?”
The Queen of Aeros shook her head.
“Though every curse requires a cursebreaker,we’ll make it impossible.Have it be dependent on something he—”
“It.Not he.It’s a monster, not a person.”
Something thrashed inside me, but it was leashed by the shackles of the nightmare.
“Of course.My mistake.A slip of the tongue.”A throat cleared.“Make the cursebreaker be a task thatitcould never complete alone.”A wicked smile spread in the shadows.
“And while it’s trapped, perhaps a lifetime trapped in another body will force it to forget what it used to be.Perhaps it’ll even learn how to love.”
A humorless laugh filled the room, and I wished my magic would cooperate to burn this entire chamber to the ground, the queens included.
“Not when it values power and destruction over anything else.”
“It’snot capable of love.”
The queens laughed, the sound a desperate, ugly thing.
They nodded fervently in unison, agreeing to this plan.
The Queen of Aeros extinguished the flame between them, plunging the hidden room into darkness once more.
“Yes, a curse must have a way to be broken, but a creature bent on destruction will never learn to depend on anyone else.It will never be released from its new body.Never in its true form again.”The glee was evident in the Queen of Aeros’s voice.
The sound of hands clasping in the dark sounded before blue and white light burst through the dark.Suddenly, I was no longer in the shadows but standing right next to them.Two sets of eyes—one blue-ringed and the other white-ringed—snapped toward me as though they could see me, and unleashed the fullness of their magic.
Burning filled my chest.
