“Time we leave,” Shisti called, exiting into the round central chamber. The others were already gathering there, supporting prisoners liberated from other cells. She was going to need more rooms at the rate she was acquiring rescuees. Hands landed on her back, arms, and legs. Her magic wrapped around the group and transported them to her quarters.
As the Nymphs and Nixies wrapped the new arrivals into blankets, settled them onto chairs, and offered them food and water, Shisti sorted through her supplies for things to create healing spells. Those sorts of items hadn’t been a huge part of her usual stock. Given the way things were going, she needed to adjust her shopping list.
Arms full of everything that wouldn’t outright kill someone, Shisti wracked her mind for healing spells. As she passed a window overlooking the garden, she couldn’t help peeking out. The sham wedding was still going on. Flamboyantly dressed courtiers performed the elaborate steps of a dance. Shisti scanned the crowd. No sign of Vilkos or his men.
She had to reinforce the protections around what she considered her territory. Vilkos would assume she had something to do with his prisoners escaping and his men drowning. Time for that later. For the next half hour, Shisti treated physical injuries and did her best to restore stolen energies. A foreign, warm sensation filled her, and her babies danced, eagerly sharing in the feeling. Was this happiness? Was this feeling why Azar was so nice to everyone? What would it be like to feel this every day?
No chance of that until she figured out how to get everyone past the wards of Inisfail. Magic in Shisti’s blood heated and raced through her, making her miss a step and catch her balance with her hands braced on a table.
The curse. It was active and buzzed through her magic.
With my blood, I curse yours to know only short lives filled with pain. Joy will turn bitter, and to know love means death.
Shisti looked out the window. The world was going crazy. Courtiers weren’t dancing and drinking anymore. Now they were screaming and running. Dark clouds swirled in the sky and lightning struck everything.
What was happening? For the curse to work, Azar must have felt genuine happiness, not the resigned acceptance she’d exhibited so far. Had the stupid girl actually fallen in love with Fechin? She’d been so determined not to! But…even at full strength the curse shouldn’t have done anything like what was going on outside. This was an all-out attack. Inisfail was being torn asunder. The protections shattered one by one. The whole realm would be revealed and vulnerable to attack.
Shisti’s heart leapt. This was an unexpected boon, and she wasn’t going to waste it. She could get out. Her babies would be safe. Her little family would be happy. There wasn’t much time. Everything except for her magic related possessions could be left behind to burn for all she cared. She rushed around her suite to gather her knife and bowl. The vials of Azar’s blood. Those were important. She raced toward the cabinet, a spell to unlock it on her lips.
The sight of Azar’s blood stopped Shisti. The idea of killing Azar, or leaving her to die, held no appeal. For the first time in decades, fear for someone other than herself made Shisti’s heart pound. Azar didn’t deserve death for being foolish. It was hardly the first time a woman had loved the wrong man. Shisti could get Azar out. She could get everyone out. But…
But the magic in a curse, once uttered, had to run its course. Or, the magic had to go somewhere else.
She’d created the curse. Maybe she could redirect it. Shisti closed her eyes to better visualize the tendrils of energy, and pulled as much of the curse back into herself as she could. For a time, her own happiness would turn bitter, but when was the last time she’d truly been happy?
A thousand spikes of agony stabbed into her, and her vision grayed. Splinters dug into the flesh under her fingernails as she clawed at the rough, wooden tabletop to remain on her feet. Her magic was too potent. She’d never be able to take the whole curse back without endangering her babies.
“What’s happening?”
‘Shisti, are you all right?”
“Fechin is falling out of the sky!”
Questions and chattering cut into Shisti’s concentration. She could only shake her head, afraid if she unclenched her jaw, a scream would emerge. Focus. She had to focus.
More lightning struck. Huge, heavy bolts that tore the protective fog apart. The wards around Inisfail shattered one by one from the outside. That wasn’t her magic! Hers should have only worked from the inside to let Azar out.
More of the curse returned, filling Shisti energy with a nauseating sludge as it pushed against her magic. She swallowed hard, attempting to slow the curse and not vomit.
A siphoning on her daughter shot pain through Shisti’s womb. Beira. The destruction was her mother’s magic. The Queen of Winter was using Shisti’s daughter to power the spell attacking Inisfail.
Shocked, Shisti let go of the table, clutching her stomach as she slid toward the floor. Hands caught her as her legs folded. She threw a shield around her babies, nearly draining herself as she put all her power into it. The Queen of Winter’s magic increased, turning icier in her fury at Shisti’s resistance. The curse’s toxicity built, eating away at her defenses like acid.
A war on two magical fronts was too much. With a mental apology to Azar, Shisti released her grip on the curse to reinforce the shield protecting her babies. It wasn’t enough. Her daughter wailed. Pain spiked into Shisti’s head and blackness tunneled her vision. She couldn’t help it. The scream she’d been holding in poured out.
She was failing. Her babies weren’t even born yet and she couldn’t protect them. Azar, her first friend, would be trapped here in a loveless marriage.
“Shisti, what’s happening? What can we do?” Cilisi’s voice came from far away.
Tears spilled down Shisti’s cheeks. From pain or the offer to help, she didn’t know. “Can’t…fight. Too… much… magic.”
“Take what you need from us.”
“Yes! Let us help.”
“We want to do something for you.”
More of her ragtag army approached. They had no idea what they were offering. The old Shisti wouldn’t have hesitated to put the polluted curse magic into the unsuspecting women so carelessly offering themselves to her. The old Shisti would never have taken her curse back into herself in the first place. The new Shisti, the one with friends, and a newly awakened conscience, couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Beira pulled on them again, drawing magic toward the forest. Portals ripped through the ruined protections of Inisfail.
Shisti screamed. Every second the gateways remained open drained her magic. What was her mother doing? Her daughter was fading. All of Shisti’s determination to protect her children was for naught. She felt herself fading too, blackness creeping in at the edges of her mind.
Love burst from her son in a bright, starburst explosion, along with innate magic, retrieving Shisti and her daughter from the brink. Shisti grasped the lifeline. Like the sunrise, love and energy poured through the link to her son. Shisti sent her love in return as her pain vanished. With the excess magic, Shisti threw Beira back and fixed a protective shield around her babies with the power of three. With love and magic given, accepted, and returned, energy and life rejuvenated. Her son had saved them all. Her magic began to build from nearly empty levels.
Taking the Fae women up on their offer, Shisti reached for their energy and took in as much as each of them could live without. The women gasped and dropped to their knees. Bolstered, Shisti shoved her mother away and leveled out the sludge-ish curse magic.
Absorbing her own curse left her weakened, but with the wards broken, there was still hope of escape. Shisti used the connection Beira had forced open to let her magic ride the drifting currents of her mother’s, briefly touching each of the rips into Inisfail.
One led to yawning darkness. Another somewhere icy. The third to a forest full of the ancient magic of a wrathful goddess. There. A portal to a desert of pale, golden sands with hot winds. Shisti sent a fragment of magic through and recognized the familiar taste of Djinn energy.
Arabi.
Shisti seized control of the portal and dragged it through Inisfail to Azar. Fechin was there, diminished but still interfering. What was left of his magic blocked hers. The portal couldn’t get to Azar. There was no time to waste. Inisfail wasn’t going to be safe for anyone anymore. Too many doors had been opened. In his battered and drained condition Fechin couldn’t even protect himself.
Growling, Shisti wrapped Azar in as much of a cushion as she could, and shoved her backward, into the gateway, safely outside the broken shelter of Inisfail. Azar was gone. She’d been a warm presence. Her sudden absence left a cold emptiness Shisti didn’t like.
The portal tried to snap closed, but Shisti didn’t let it go. It was fragile. Caution was needed. She coaxed and guided the door to freedom toward her rooms. With the target of the curse no longer nearby, the potency of the magic Shisti had to reabsorb slackened, and she sagged in grateful relief. She propped her back against the wall as she coaxed the portal to hover outside her window.
Where could she go? Not her father’s court. The Queen of Winter wouldn’t be welcoming after the magical fight they’d just had. The Queen of Winter could hold a grudge. Arabi? No. Shisti couldn’t go to Azar because of the curse, but the Fae could all go with Azar.
“Shisti, I don’t know what you’re doing, but Vilkos is staring at your window. Now he’s running. I can’t see him anymore!”
The voice came from far away, but the threat the words held was immediate. Portal magic couldn’t be hurried though. It was fragile and splintered easily. Anyone caught in it would also splinter. Messily.
“Open the balcony doors,” Shisti gritted the words out through her clenched jaw.
“Done!” Cilisi called.
The portal floated through Shisti’s balcony door — a glimmering little more than the size of her fist. With patience in contrast to the thundering of her heart and a sense of foreboding presaging doom, Shisti teased the portal bigger, an inch at a time. It felt too delicate and wanted to close. It wouldn’t be stable for much longer.
“Go,” Shisti ordered her companions. “None of us will be safe here after today. All of you into the portal. Hurry.”
“Come with us.” A Nixie crouched beside her. “We don’t want to go without you.”
Shisti shook her head. “I can’t. The curse magic won’t let Azar and I be in the same place. Find Azar on the other side. I’ll come to you when I can break the curse.”
It should be possible, but she needed time.
Cilisi kissed Shisti’s cheek and hugged her. “Thank you for saving us. We’ll never forget the debt we owe you.” She stood. “Come on, everyone. Into the portal. Quick.”
They rushed through the portal before Shisti could argue they’d already repaid their imagined debt.
She shoved magic at the gateway to redirect the destination as far away from Arabi as she could make it. The view remained full of sand. Despair filled her. Maybe she lacked the energy to go very far. She couldn’t remain in such close proximity to Azar or the curse would never relent.
She’d have to stay in Inisfail. Her head felt too heavy to lift anymore. Her body sagged, forehead pressing against the floor.A breeze chilled her skin. Shisti jerked her head up and peered closer. This sand was more white than gold. A jungle of green vegetation and trees loomed. Waves surged onto the beach.
Shisti sent tendrils of magic through. Everything felt unfamiliar. This was nowhere near Arabi. Relief and happiness filled her. No one would look for her here. Wherever here was.
The portal was already closing and almost too small for her to get through. Leaving everything behind, Shisti crawled forward, reaching for her freedom. One hand landed on warm, soft sand. Sunlight warmed her fingers. The magic flickered. Shisti moved faster. Her second hand and one knee passed through the portal. Her heart leapt. The magic constricted, nearly shoving her flat on her belly, but she was almost through!
A giant, rough hand closed around her ankle and dragged her backward into Inisfail. “Going somewhere?” Vilkos’ voice sent a shudder through her. “I don’t think so, mate.”
“No!” She kicked, desperate to escape the iron grip. “Release me!” Her concentration ruined, the spell broke, and the portal closed with a pop.
Shisti let her forehead fall to the floor, holding her breath to keep a sob inside.
Joy turned bitter.