For Eternity

Chapter 17: The Void

And the palace guards dragged me away to the cellar below the palace as she lay there, the cold rain kissing her cheeks and her white wedding dress covered in mud and her gold wings no longer shining.

***

As I closed my eyes into the darkness, I opened them to a familiar voice. 

"Honey? Katy?" Said the soft voice and the embodiment of my mother came into existence. We were floating underwater in some purplish pool. Was I in the ever after? 

"Mom?" I said softly as I hugged her tight. 

"Honey, we don't have time you need to listen to me carefully, okay?" She said and I nodded once.

"It isn't your time yet you have to go back and you can go back. The void gives every void a chance to go back, the side effects are that you won't have your gold wings but they will turn black and you will now have a snake tattoo as your mark of identification, you won't glow purple but green. You will have the same powers but they will come from a deeper source, the dark void. Okay?" She says

"Yes, mom," I say smiling 

"Do your duty and know that I'm always proud of you. Setting you up with Leonidas was wrong but I always thought that you would like him. Once you go back you have a fresh start live your life as you want to after you have restored the balance and made the traitors pay. And honey I know you will overthink this later but I didn't come back because I would have come back to dementia and you know how I died was not my best way." She says with her soft wrinkles curling up at the corner conveying how glad, happy and proud she felt while seeing me. 

I held her hand, "I love you, mom." I say with a tear rolling down and everything blackens out again.

***

The rain had stopped a while ago as they did the funeral rites that I was not to attend. As the thunder clapped loudly and it felt like a tree burst open. My head quickly turned to the door as it was busted open. A familiar shape came into existence and my breath hitched as I registered who it was. Katherine.

Something about her was different, her wings were black and her grey eyes were also black beneath her sheen and dirty gown I could see another tattoo vaguely on her hip and thigh joint area. I looked up at her as her eyes glowed a scary green. 

"Don't waste my time and tell your story." She said in a cold voice. I knew all the powers I had left were my previous wind ones and I felt the air around me grow cold with the nervousness filling me. 

"I was recruited by Sergio at 3, my parents served him and helped him accesses safe trade routes. My mission was to keep an eye on you and what was going around here. My parents went rogue and instead set me up to marry you but since I was trained at such a young age he brainwashed me and I could only do the mission. Soon I was a teen and since I hadn't met Sergio his grip on me kept loosening and I allowed myself to fall for you. Then everything happened and I stopped contacting Sergio with the news. Soon after your mother died I knew I had only a few months to ensure that I would stay here with the woman I loved or she would be stolen from me. And then you got pregnant and everything was going according to plan until he actually showed up. When he looked at me I could feel the brainwash coming right back, like I was his puppet again. Before coronation, as I stepped out to actually use the bathroom he completed the final steps for his mind control. I knew he was connected to the twins' life but I could do nothing. I knew that it would kill me to kill you but I had to. My body under his command worked under his accord even after he was dead even though my mind screamed internally. The mission was to hand you over to Leonidas after keeping you safe and since that failed the new plan was that he would duel you into submission to leave me and marry Leonidas but if he failed you will also lose everything as he did. He was so affected by your mother's death it made him crazy." I explained it all.

"Good then even if your mission isn't done, you are untrustworthy and so are your parents." she says, "Here on our countries' alliance ends, you will be shipped home at sundown." She completed and signed a paper brought by a servant. 

"But I am your husband. You cannot mate with anyone else." I say 

"As you can notice, I died and you lost your powers. And if I'm right you married me in my past life, not this one. You are no longer my husband or mate." she said turning around and leaving me in the cold insides of the cellar.