afflicted

45

    "You," Maeve hissed in disdain. Maeve reached out her hand, fingers digging into the sides of her face, gripping Vera's jaw in her palm. Vera sneered, her eyes blazing. Maeve looked her over like a specimen in a glass jar.

    "Don't touch me, bitch," Vera snarled, yanking her face away and smacking Maeve's arm aside. Maeve looked to her hand like she was shocked she'd been hit. No, like she was shocked Vera was real.

    "Just like her," Maeve mused, blinking and stalking back a few steps. "How did... Who... Who are you? How are you here, in this place?" Vera glared holes through Maeve, and if looks could kill, the Valg Queen would have died before she was even conceived with the way Vera looked at her now.

    "Rhys," Callie hissed to him, trying to get him to wake up while Maeve was distracted, but he didn't move. Growling in frustration, Callie assessed her surroundings and attempted to form a plan.

    "How could a Queen of Ash and Flame have spread across dimensions? Was she not plague enough in one lifetime?" Maeve raged, knocking her teacup into the floor and shattering it. "Now here her descendant has reared her head in the world where I'd nearly accomplished what I set out to do?"

    Callie's mind was whirling- a hundred spinning threads finally starting to show the pattern. She recounted the story she'd read when she'd discovered the Elentiya stone. The bright young queen, with the help of a healer, had banished a dark force from their realm. The blonde queen with bright turquoise eyes, a yellow circle around the pupil... Eyes she'd recognized in a sleep-deprived haze and snorted to herself, thinking how weird it was that the Queen resembled Vera. Throughout their entire childhood, Callie had written stories and had dreams of far away places. Her favorite one had always been the story of Vera as a fire-wielding Queen. So much clicked into place alongside a million more questions.

    "What the hell are you talking about?" Eris barked out, and Vera held out her hand, a small movement most wouldn't detect, but Eris immediately backed off. He was very in tune with Vera's body language, Callie noted.

    "What is wrong with him?" Callie demanded, pointing to a still unconscious Rhysand.

    Maeve chuckled.

    "He's currently living his worst fears," she grinned.

    Azriel and Eris stiffened.

    "Why is he not waking up like we did?" Azriel yelled.

    "Because I am the one in control of him," she shrugged. "You two didn't require such efforts. My Bogge twins were enough to keep you occupied." Azriel and Eris looked at one another assessingly.

    "What do you want?" Nesta said with a sneer.

    "Simple," Maeve said. "I want you all dead."

    "Why?" She hissed.

    "Because for every one of you that I kill, I soak up every morsel of power in your bones and take it for myself. But this one- the High Lord? I could feed off that power for ages. Perhaps I may have to keep him around." Maeve said, gesturing to where Rhys lay like a corpse drained of blood. "Oh, imagine the fun I'd have keeping him trapped in his own mental purgatory of fear and self-loathing. Quite broody, this one."

    Eris's hands began to spark, and Maeve gave a lofty laugh.

    "Ah, yes, I've seen that before. A mere morsel of the powers who have once tried to destroy me. No, you are not kissed by Mala Fire-Bringer, are you? No, that would be your mate," she said with a condescending tilt of her head, turning to Vera. Callie's mouth dried out.