Benetta reached for the baby and held it to her breast. The midwife offered words of congratulations for the strong baby girl. Tears shimmered in Benetta’s eyes as she stared down at her baby for the first time.
“I shall let Henrik know,” the midwife said. “He will be pleased.”
“He’d better be pleased after that,” Benetta muttered.
She stoked her finger down the tiny face and played with all the little fingers. Staring down at her daughter like she was a little miracle.
“What will you call her?”
Benetta sighed in pleasure. “Selma.”
“It’s perfect.”
The minute Benetta was left alone, the candles extinguished, and the room was cast into darkness. Benetta didn’t cry out as a figure materialized out of thin air into the room.
“Hello, sister,” Benetta said. “Did you come to offer your congratulations?”
Malysa glowed the bright gold of the Domara people. Her self-portaling clearly, perfectly intact at the time. Her face was set in a look of disgust. “This has gone on long enough, Benny. Having a dalliance with a human is one thing. Becoming his prize breeding mare is quite another.”
“I know it is hard for you to believe, Lysa, but this is what I want. I love Henrik. I love our daughter. This is nothing like home. We are not bound to live out our lives like we did back in Domara.”
“We are meant to rule,” Malysa hissed. “Not create these abominations. Have you considered what happens if you breed magic into the line?”
Benetta smiled and kissed her daughter’s head. “Then, we start the academy we were always denied.”
Malysa looked at her, horrified. “I thought you were my sister.”
“I am, Lysa. Why can’t you accept that this is a good thing?”
“How can you not see that this is beneath you?”
“I don’t want to rule. You rule. I will have my family.”
“So, that’s it?” Malysa asked, straightening. “You’re turning your back on your only family.”
“I’m turning my back on nothing but your all-consuming control. You are no better than Father if you try to force your way of living on me.”
Malysa took a step back in shock and horror. Then, she disappeared in a clap of blackness.
“I didn’t see her for many years after that,” Vera whispered. “I should have worried more. But I was busy with a new family and a new life. I didn’t see what she was becoming. How she was gaining her title—the goddess of destruction.”
3
The Destroyer
“Benetta, come quick,” Henrik cried, rushing into their home.
She was on her feet before he even reached her. She admired the shot of gray through his hair while she still looked as if she were in the blush of youth. “What is it, my love?”
“Your sister.”
The words clearly froze her in place. “Where is she?”
“The woods. Out by the old cabin.”
“What will I find when I get there?”
“Something I wish that I could shield you from,” Henrik said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “But you are the only one who can stop her.”
“Take care of the children and send word to Selma immediately.”
Henrik grimaced. “Do you think it will be necessary to warn our daughter?”
“Selma might be our firstborn, but she is also the strongest in my gifts. I trained her the best I could. She is training others now. It would be best for her to be ready…”
She didn’t say anything else, but Cyrene could see that she was trying to prepare her husband for the worst.
“I won’t be long,” Benetta promised. It sounded like a lie.
Benetta reached in her pocket and withdrew a gold coin. The same gold coin that Cyrene held with the face of a woman and a raised motto rimming the outside. The coin that Malysa had given to Cyrene while she was in the midst of her blood-magic fever dream. The very same one that Malysa had used to try to recruit Cyrene.
Cyrene’s eyes were wide as she turned them on Vera, who just nodded. Benetta flipped the coin, and a portal opened.
“You knew the whole time,” Cyrene hissed at her.
Vera winced. “I am sorry, Cyrene. You had to discover it on your own.”
“You told me a coin had never been used as a talisman before,” she accused.
“Matilde said that,” Vera whispered. “And, to her knowledge…one never had.”
“You lied to her, too? She’s your…”
“Twin?” Vera finished on a sigh. “Let’s just continue the story.”
Cyrene shook her head and then watched as Benetta stepped through the portal and onto a snow-covered path covered in bright red blood. The scene was beyond gruesome. A horrifying display of cruelty. Men lay scattered across the path in no discernible pattern. Just pure slaughter. Throats slit, guts gouged from the navels up, bodies hacked to pieces. She had never seen anything like it, and though it had happened more than two millennia ago, she still gagged at the sight.
Snow crunched under Benetta’s boots as she walked through the carnage toward the cabin at the top of the hill. A woman stood before it, a shining goddess in mourning white. The gown was splattered with the blood of the dying men. And Cyrene could taste it then. Blood magic.
Her body sizzled at the feel. She was thankful it was a vision and that she couldn’t taste the sweet, tempting elixir for herself. Blood magic was the most addictive substance on the earth. She had used the blood magic from her parents’ deaths to save King Edric, and as far as she knew, she was the only person to ever survive it. Still, it tempted her. And she could feel it in the air here.
Cyrene looked toward Vera. But she was staring at her sister and the scene unfolding.
“Lysa,” Benetta said softly. “Lysa…are you okay?”
Malysa turned then and faced her sister. The dark pupils were completely blasted out until it appeared her entire eyes were black with power. With madness.
“Now you come, sister,” Malysa snapped, her voice a whip.
“What has happened? What…what happened here?”
“I killed them,” she said dismissively.
“Yes. But why? They were innocent men. They didn’t deserve this death.”
“They were not innocent. They were nothing,” she growled.
“Tell me,” Benetta begged. “Tell me what happened. How to help you.”
Malysa looked away then, off to the mountains beyond. Her voice was even, but her hands trembled. “I met a man. I thought…I thought, if you could be happy with these mongrels, then I could find that same happiness. He was a young lord, wealthy, with all the right words. Words of flattery. But it was a joke, a lie.”
Benetta tensed.
Vera went rigid, as if anticipating the blow. Cyrene bit her lip and waited.
“He made a mistake. He thought me a fool. He thought I was not what I’d said I was—a goddess in truth. He invited his friends here.” Malysa’s mad gaze met her. “They thought that a woman could not defend herself. That a woman was nothing more than a vessel. A worthless piece of flesh for their organs to violate.”