She stopped speaking when she saw Agnes galloping toward them on her horse.
Liam turned and they both watched as Agnes reined in when she was close before she swung off.
She wasted nary a second leading her steed to her queen.
“We’ve received a bird,” Agnes declared. “The Rising launched another attack. They somehow infiltrated the temple during Prince True’s wedding.” She cast a filthy glance at Liam before she finished, “Queen Mercy was slain.”
Ophelia took a step back, such was the blow.
“One of True’s guard was severely injured,” Agnes carried on. “Two others took arrows, but they will be fine. Farah also took an arrow. A flesh wound. She, too, will recover.”
Without hesitation, Ophelia launched in at Liam.
“We regularly beat back those who wish to bring down The Enchantments. But that,” she stabbed a finger in the direction of Notting Thicket, “that will not be abided. There will be no understanding thus no acceptance that these are not the actions of,” she spiked her finger at Liam, “your people. All of you. If True does not wrest control, your temples will be overrun. Your priests will be in danger. You must communicate immediately with this level of priests you speak of who discuss these things and urge them strongly to renounce this Rising. If you do not, your home, your followers, your teachers and physicians, your entire faith will be in jeopardy.”
He was shaken, she could tell by the paleness of his skin and his whisper of, “I did not know they had this planned.”
“That doesn’t matter. Now you do,” Ophelia snapped. “Get thee to a goddess-damned bird.”
He nodded, turned and did not dally.
He took off running.
Agnes’s voice was much changed when she said, “My queen, we have also located the maimed one.”
Ophelia’s head turned to her lieutenant.
“The one who perpetrated this atrocity, has he been identified?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And he is alive?”
“Yes.”
Ophelia nodded. “Let us see to this matter without delay.”
“Yes, my queen,” Agnes murmured.
Ophelia moved to her horse.
Agnes mounted hers.
And they rode.
The stallion’s mare was overly protective of him.
This was unsurprising.
She whinnied her warning angrily, butting under his neck to get in front of him and approaching hostilely as the once-proud stallion, shorn of his horn, apprehensively retreated.
Ophelia’s blood boiled.
“Bring him to me,” she bit, dismounting.
Her own mare shifted back as Ophelia stood where she dropped, not daring to approach either animal.
Enough had been done to them at human hands. They’d never trust another.
They would know they were avenged.
But they would never trust another.
She wondered briefly why they left The Enchantments at all.
She then made note to speak to her witches who spoke to the animals.
They needed to be warned about further wanderings.
When her sisters brought him, she saw he was as she’d ordered him to be.
The priest of The Rising who had perpetrated this atrocity was paralyzed by Nadirii magic, all but his voice, which was muted in its pleas and curses by a gag.
He was thus tossed like a doll to the ground before Ophelia, landing on his back.
At this, the mare nickered, and both creatures braced as if to bolt.
But Ophelia spoke soothingly.
“If I could heal you, I would. If I could give you back your sacred horn, your magic, I would perish from the earth myself to offer these returned to you. But I cannot.”
The unicorns watched her cautiously.
“I can only avenge you, and after, use your magic for good.”
The creatures continued to stare at her.
Ophelia did not delay.
She turned to Julia, who handed her the sacred piece, the magnificent horn that had been taken from the stallion.
It had, as she’d ordered, been cleansed of Melisse’s blood.
Ophelia then took her position, standing over the villain, one foot to each side.
She looked down at him.
He stared up at her with wide, terror-filled eyes, his lips moving around the gag.
“You have achieved your aim. You lie upon the soil of The Enchantments,” she shared with him. “And you die knowing you made your way onto that soil, but you did not make The Enchantments burn. You also die knowing the fullness of the depths of your failure. For you lived to bow others to your beliefs, and your death will serve only to strengthen the protections of a sisterhood.”
She wished to give him time to consider that.
But she did not take that time.
For the unicorns, this must be done.
And she herself had things to do.
Thus, Ophelia lifted the horn up high above her head and felt the twirl of magic coil up her spine.
“Nadirii,” she intoned, “means ‘oppressed’ in the old tongue. Nadirii,” she continued, “means ‘sisterhood’ in the ancient tongue. You die by the hand of a Nadirii and this means you die by the hands of all the sisterhood. And you die tonight due to your treachery against what we hold hallowed. Nature. Magic. Both in one. Both in the majestic unicorn.”
She then brought the horn down, embedding it where he had done the same in Melisse.
However, she did not miss his trachea.
His eyes grew ever wider as they filled with pain, and behind the gag he screamed with the last of the breath he had in what was left of his throat.
She took no joy from that.
Or comfort.
Ophelia simply stepped away and stood with her sisters as he whimpered behind his gag for several moment before his body started to disintegrate.
When it did, it did with coral particles starting from where the horn stuck from his chest.
Up they drifted.
Up.
More of them.
More.
Until all of him was naught but sparkling dust.
It spread high above and was absorbed by the magical shield that protected Nadirii land.
There was nothing left of him. No soul to raise or lower.
His essence would forever protect the Nadirii.
Until it was unneeded.
Then it would just…
Cease.
Ophelia looked to the unicorns.
“It is done,” she whispered.
The mare dipped her jaw.
Then the stallion whinnied.
And they both turned and galloped away.
85
The Family Inside A Family
Princess Elena
Hall Outside the Bramble Reception Suite, Birchlire Castle, Notting Thicket
WODELL
I was lost.
I’d heard from a castle servant the men had returned from Crittich Keep.
But I was avoiding Farah, Ha-Lah and Silence who were talking with my sister about all she’d been doing since Firenze (I did this because I regularly avoided my sister—it wasn’t that I didn’t want to know, it was that I knew they’d tell me later) and I was trying to find my way back to Cassius and my room.
But this bloody castle was humongous.
So, I was lost.
I was moving down the hall toward yet another set of stairs that led up to yet another turret when I noted movement to my right and looked that way.