Against the Crown

Chapter Twenty

(Image from Pinterest. Mehn, I need to learn how to draw: couldn't get the image I wanted, so this looks more like how I see Malachi, minus the hair and eyes)

The power lashing out from her, attacking everyone and everything in sight, abruptly stilled. The throbbing in her head stopped and her body stopped. Her awareness increased until she could sense everyone in the palace.

She felt Malachi's hand on her shoulder.

Dhara dropped her arms, turning slowly till she faced him. She tilted her head as she took him in, gaze lingering on his sword.

Her eyes were still white.

Ours, the power seemed to whisper.

"Malachi Stone." It was her voice, and yet it wasn't, like several voices layered on and beneath hers.

"Dhara. The queen, she..."

"I know." She sounded more like herself now.

"So you know that killing her, killing the prince, killing any of these people, would drive you so mad with guilt that you would become a willing tool in her hands."

"She killed my mother."

"Forlorn took her before she stopped breathing."

"Don't give me false hope!" Dhara snarled, a bolt of pure energy manifesting in her hand. "Don't you dare try to reason me out of killing those wretches!"

"I am not doing that," Malachi said, sheathing his sword in the scabbard that appeared at his waist. He placed both hands on Dhara's shoulders, ignoring the bolt sizzling in her hand.

"You are a Life mage. You give life; you don't take it. Don't kill these people, Dhara. Let me do that for you."

The bolt vanished. Dhara's white eyes became brighter, an unreadable expression on her face.

Ours, the power whispered again. Now she understood.

"Fated," she breathed. Malachi smiled, nodding at her. "We are Fated by design. I can't kill, but the demands on this power are so much, that I may feel I have no choice. And that's where you come in. That means..."

"If I can't have one of you," Queen Edna growled, standing mere feet away from the power shield, "I will have both of you!"

Shadows poured out of her hands and coalesced into spears. She threw them at Dhara and Malachi, her aim true.

Malachi moved faster than thought: he pushed Dhara to the side, unsheathed his sword, and deflected both spears. Queen Edna kept throwing them; Malachi kept stopping them.

Dhara's eyes were dimmer: she was coming back.

"The shield should have stopped them. How..."

"Every power has its limits unless you are The Creator," Malachi said, barely out of breath. The queen yelled, and her shadow spears rose on their own, speeding towards them. Malachi turned his sideways in front of him and thrust: the spears bounced off the air in front of them and hurtled back to the queen, who cursed and hastily called up a shield.

"When you are distracted mentally or emotionally, your magic wanes," Malachi continued, sounding, for all the world, like a teacher.

"How did you know how to do that?" Dhara gestured at the invisible shield. Malachi's smile was cocky.

"I've been a warrior mage for a long time, love."

Queen Edna screamed in pain and outrage: one of the spears had hit her in the leg. Prince Lucius, who had lost consciousness from the like of air, was stirring. Everyone still in the hall was on their feet, in varying states of physical well-being, silently watching.

Queen Edna screamed again.

"I did not come this far just to lose now! Lucius, get up!"

Lucius struggled to his feet, as a faint shadow flitted towards him and sank into him. He had time to look surprised before disappeared.

"What is this?!" Queen Edna screamed. No one had ever seen her so out of control before. "Where is my son?"

"You mean the one you have been grooming to take over from all your evilness, Mother?"

Three ladies walked into the hall with pale gold circlets on their brows. It was the oldest of them that had spoken.

"Wherever that wraith took him, good riddance," the youngest said darkly. They came to a stop some feet away from the queen, not acknowledging Dhara, Malachi, or the shield. Dhara noted their disheveled appearance, and that they were reluctant to come closer to their mother.

"What are you doing here?" Queen Edna asked, a semblance of her cold, collected self returning.

"Good question, Mother, seeing as you instructed that toad to lock us up with the High Seer," the oldest snarled. "I know you like to bandy about gossip that only Lucius is your son, but we are your daughters! At least you have an excuse to be cruel to that one," she gestured dismissively in Dhara's direction, "but we are your blood! What is wrong with you?"

"None of you have what it takes to rule, to conquer, to put down those who would think to control you..."

"Oh come off it Mother. You favor Lucius because he is an Analyst, and a strong one at that, and possesses stronger magic than any of us and because he thinks just like you! I can't even blame you for corrupting an 8-year-old boy: he set out on that path all by himself!"

Queen Edna sighed, pursing her lips, her right hand twitching.

"Then you killed Father because he refused to use his power to give yours a boost for whatever nefarious plan you have brewing, and now you found his daughter, locked up your own daughters, and are trying to do what, rule the world To what end?"

"Because I deserve to!" The voice that roared out of the queen wasn't hers. Right before their eyes, she grew over twenty feet taller, and on her head appeared a crown of fire. Her eyes were black pits, and black veins streaked across her pale, almost blue skin.

"I deserve to rule this world! I deserve to be feared, to be worshipped, to be revered! The damned Creator and His Light and benevolence, where has it gotten anyone? You beings cower and scamper and breed, rats that you are; you live mediocre lives and die at the end, and for what? You fear war, deny me the bloodshed that I crave, all because of what? Love? Goodwill? To the hells what all of that! I will take this world and make it something worth living in. Yes, I will. That is my duty to this world. And it all begins with you," the queen turned to Dhara.

"You are Creator blessed, damn your brittle bones. The balance between Light and Darkness is a stranglehold on me: without Light, there can be no Darkness. Without Life, there can be no Death. A Death mage can only go so far, do so much; but with a Life mage on her side, amplifying her magic, the possibilities are endless. Then you," and the queen sneered at Malachi, "changed everything by going back to her."

"The prince took me to her," Malachi said.

"Ah, yes, the prince. The Creator is one clever bastard. He works on the principle that everyone is innocent, everyone is good, and should be given a chance at redemption. I don't know how he did it, but he got to that boy. And now you know that you are Fated, and my chances of winning this Life mage to my side are slim. Slim, but not completely gone."

A shadow lashed out from the queen, wrapped around Malachi, and dragged him to her.