Davina's POV:
"We need to get her to release Kalli now before she goes too far. You think we can use our magic to do that?" Dana shouts her eyes on Kalli where the other girl struggles not to lose all control and cause the death or maiming of one of our friends. Well, another besides Livy who was still unconscious next to me where I was half turned towards her and half towards the three facing Kalli with determination.
"Only one way to find out," Kessal replies with a grim voice, looking between the three of them who were willing to step up and try to keep Kalli from going too far and risking all that we were trying to save. "You ready?" I nod and see Braeden do the same, flipping the switch and letting it overwhelm us, hoping that it manages to save Kalli before it's too late and we lose her to Amber's mind games. For good.
Refusing to move I see when the others let it out. Seeing how, as with Kalli before, the blue overshadows their eyes and outlines the three of them where they'd been standing side by side, hands linked. Standing against Amber's attempt to control Kalli until she destroyed us.
"LET HER GO! SHE BELONGS TO ME NOW!" The voice comes out of Kalli's lips but it isn't hers. I know that for sure since I'd only heard that voice a handful of times before but still enraged me every time I heard it. Amber's. "YOUR PARENTS MAKE HAVE SHIELDED HER FROM ME BEFORE BUT SHE'S MINE NOW. JUST AS HER WORTHLESS WHORE OF A MOTHER SHOULD HAVE BEEN WHEN THIS GAME WAS SUPPOSED TO END. BEFORE YOU WERE BORN! LET. HER. GO!" Amber's voice sounds mad but something about her words sticks with me, and in the worse way possible. Something she said about Rosalia before.
She's mine, just as her worthless whore of a mother should have been when this game was supposed to end. Before you were born. What did that mean? Were we not supposed to be playing this, should it have ended before so we would have been safe, me, Kalli and the others? Assuming I was right in making that assumption from Amber's words that are. Think later, we have to help her now. My mind reminds me and I nod, sharing a look with the other witches around me who could help if Kessal, Braeden and Dana's magic wasn't enough.
Turning to face the woman controlling one of my best friends I take a risk and stand up, moving out from behind where the other three had been standing to shield the rest of us from Amber's manipulative hold on Kalli, determined to save her before it went too far. Taking a deep breath I step forward, Dana catching me with her hand seconds later.
"Let me go, Dana, I'll be ok. She can't hurt me, not like she wants to since she's only a hologram and Kalli still has some control over her actions." My tone is calm but I know from looking into Dana's now moonstone blue eyes that she isn't convinced. "Dana please, I know you want to help but I do as well. We all need to."
"But what if you get hurt? I already know Kalli's going to hate herself for injuring Livy, I don't know if she'll be able to cope with hurting you too, not whilst she's still so fragile given what's happened recently."
I laugh then, but it's a sad sound. One tinged with regret, loss and worry. "You and I both know there's nothing fragile about your cousin Dana, whatever's happened in the past." Dana also smiles then but, like mine, her expression is one of sadness. "And I know you mean well but if we're to defeat Amber, at least temporarily, we need to stick together. Meaning you need all the help you can get. So I need you to let me pass. Ok?" Dana still looks unconvinced but I know I'm right in what I was saying to her before. We did all need to help.
"Ok, but please, please be careful. I don't think any of us can deal with losing someone else right now," Dana relents and I can hear the resignation in her tone, deciding then and there that I wouldn't tell her about how I couldn't wake Livy. Deciding not to add to the anxiety currently makes the room stifling and airless. But I forced that feeling back and stood on Dana's other side, noticing how Amber used Kalli to assess me from where she was controlling her.
Tilting her head Amber snorts with laughter. "And what do you think you can do to hurt me, little witch? You who isn't even of one of the more powerful families, unlike the girl I was forced to take out, Murdock's daughter." Her mention of what she made Kalli do to Livy enraged me but I don't act on that feeling, sure that's what she's after with how she's speaking to me. "What, cat got your tongue? Nothing to say? My, my and here I thought you were of the generation not afraid to stand up for what's wrong in the world. Guess I was wrong and my plan will be easier to enact than you think,"
"Get away from her, we aren't afraid of you, not anymore." Dana tries to sound confident but on the last word her tone falters and I see Amber's feral smile when she notices. "GIVE ME BACK MY SISTER! I NEED HER YOU SELFISH BITCH!" Screaming the words Dana lets loose a ball of controlled moonstone fire but it just bounces off Kalli - Amber - and the other figure gives a low laugh of mockery.
"You can't think that could hurt me when I'm inhabiting a body that also controls it do you?" The other three's power dims slightly in the face of what Amber had just said and I see a satisfied smirk across her face. "Oh dear, you did harbour the naive hope that you could banish me by turning the power back on me didn't you?" She scoffs a laugh but says nothing for a few seconds before she speaks again. "Shame you can't see the bigger picture. No matter, even if I didn't use your darling cousin it could be any one of you Bound into this. Meaning can you trust any of each other? Or am I using you all?"
She smiles again and I feel a stone sink in my chest but I breathe around it, despite that action feeling like I'm being suffocated from the inside out at her words. Could we ever know without a doubt that she wasn't using one of us? I want to say yes but this recent episode of possession only said otherwise. We hadn't known that she was using Kalli until Dana suggested it a few minutes prior and her angry rant came before that. So could we?
But I refuse to let Amber see that she'd intimidated us. "Stop with the games, Amber. We all know why you're using us to eliminate each other and it won't work since we see what you're doing." Around me the others nod but I can see that Amber's getting madder the longer we stall her from doing whatever she'd no doubt been intending to use Kalli to do. "You might as well give up for now and accept that we have you cornered. At least for now."
I hadn't meant to add the last bit in but I also couldn't hide that we may not walk out of this alive. Not when our friendship group was founded on the idea of putting honesty before almost anything else. And certainly not when so much was riding on us finishing what our parents started. Before it was too late.
Amber snarls at me, her power engulfing the room for a split second before she separates from Kalli, the other girl's eyes rolling back towards her head as she collapsed much as Livy had done before. Seconds after I see Kessal hesitate enough that Amber catches it, but a simple muttering under my breath saves him before she can strike.
"Little witch, I see you refuse to cease being an issue. Perhaps I should take you out as I did your little redheaded friend before." Amber's holographic form is the same as when we'd last seen her in real life, the time she trapped us at Disturbia, and didn't fail to strike in me a sliver of fear. "I see that makes you afraid, as it should since I could beat you easily. So why don't you just give up and let happen what will inevitably occur when the four deluded children with the power realise just how far out of their depth they are."
Dana laughs, but it's a dark sound. Much like when Kalli had held a similar tone before. "Why don't you come a little closer Amber? See just how far out of our depth the three of us still standing here and now are?" She glances between Amber, Kessal and Braeden all of them seemingly stuck until Amber sighs and focuses on the group as a whole. "Or are you too scared to lose?"
"Can you afford to?" Amber switches her attention to Dana in the next second and I see my friend's brow furrowed with confusion. Amber smirks and I see her look around the group, most of us similarly confused. "What I mean to ask your friend is can you afford to lose or is there something you're protecting you'd die for?" She looks at me then, not that I'm sure why, but I just return her look with a cold, blank, stare. "Can you afford to lose little witch?"
"Why does that concern, you Amber? Surely you'd rather torment us until we gave up so you'd win? Isn't that right?" Staring down at her I see the demoness' lip curl back in a sneer that looks more like she's trying to fool herself than those of us gathered here. "And why chose my friend? Was it just because of the power? If so why Kalli? Why not Dana, Breaden or Kessal?" Arching a brow in challenge I see Amber give me a weird look for a second before she recovers and the ice queen mask is back on. "Is it all just to gain what we know about the weapon and how to make it?"
"You mean how to use it?" Amber picks apart my jumbled train of thought easily and I curse myself for being so easy to read. "Oh, sweetheart, I already know that. All of it since I was the one who used the two as conduits to try and explain to their parents that they'd never win. Just as you won't now they're all dead."
Dana visibly bristled at Amber's words but managed to keep her anger under control other than that since we were all still on edge over what happened to Kalli. Though hoe that was possible I wasn't sure since her magic should have protected her from spiritual intrusions as Amber had done.
But that wasn't what we focused on now. No, getting her to release Kalli was more important. "Let her go, Amber, you've had your fun," My tone is firm and I know she's heard me when she gives a dismissive laugh. "Let her go. Don't make us force you."
As I speak the others drew around me with anger in the way we all regarded her where she still puppeteered Kalli. The wolves had all shifted and I could see that the russet brown, black and dark brown three that had replaced Kessal, Dana and Braeden were the angriest and had the least control. But they weren't the only ones. Those of the witches - besides Livy - had also come over to me and I could see Blaze and Keri as well.
But Amber seemed unaffected by what we did. "Oh little witch, when are you going to learn that you can't hope to defeat me and that it would be so much easier - not to mention less painful - if you just gave up?"
Fear snakes through me, fast and choking, and only gets worse when I remember Livy lying unconscious on the floor behind us. But I refuse to let that win, lest we lose the fight to Amber - and then lose Kalli as well. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the power around me from the others and draw on it to make me stronger. Strong enough to fight Amber, at least for now.
"When you learn that it's easier for you not to go after someone who's on the right side of this battle, so has enough power on her side to put you in your place, if not destroy you. For good." My words are clipped, but it's not all from anger. Part of it is because I'm scared. Scared because all through training we were told that when someone was compromised as Kalli had become the others around her only had so much time before she was lost for good and the other person could take control of them. Permanently. "Just give up and get out Amber, before we find you and end this before you have a chance to give us a fair fight."
"Oh but sweetheart I already have." She coos, her eyes fixed on mine where they had begun to glow the orange of a lit flame. Dancing and seductive. "Just look in the two's memories and you'll find all the clues I can offer to make it 'fair' as you call it since I haven't started looking yet either. Just waiting to see if you'll catch on first."
Confused I try to process Amber's words but it's almost impossible since it sounds like she's speaking riddles to me. What knowledge did we have on our side? And in who's heads? Dana's and Kalli's like we thought before? Or someone else? And was she telling the truth when she said she hadn't started looking yet? Part of me wanted to believe that but I also know better than to trust a creature like her who was so tied into the darkness I could see nothing else when I looked at her. Nothing but blackness.
"Assuming for a second I believe you, what's to stop you from starting now before we've had a chance to figure out what you meant with what you said to me?" I ask, seeing how the others gathered around me where I'd unconsciously taken a step towards Amber's holographic form where it had almost completely separated from Kalli. "What's on the table that could convince any of us you're after giving us a fair fight?"
Amber frowns then, pouting ever so slightly, as she tries to come up with an answer to my question. I can see the dark malevolence in her eyes but don't challenge her, afraid that if I pushed too far she'd do something that would put us at an even greater disadvantage than we were already at with her. So she'd win too easily.
"I guess you'll just have to trust me when I give my word," She eventually replies, her body glowing where it had almost entirely separated from Kalli, the slightest connection still between my best friend and the woman who took everything from us. "I give you my word that I won't start looking until you do, and I'll leave your friend alone." With her words, Amber completely disconnected herself from Kalli and I see my friend collapse, her eyes rolling back towards her head as she faints. Kessal whines ever so slightly when she hits the floor but doesn't do a lot else since Dana stops him moving, much to his confusion.
Don't, it could be a trap Kess, her easy adoption of the nickname that Kalli used for him caused Kessal's eyes to shadow over with pain for a few seconds but I know he saw the logic in her words since Amber was notorious for giving her word only to go back on it seconds later. I know you want to help her - trust me we all do- but until Amber's gone I can't be sure she won't try the same shit with the rest of us, and we're already too far behind her to let that happen.
Ok, but that doesn't mean I trust her, or her word. No matter what she says she will or won't do. Kessal sounds obstinate, but I don't blame him since I know people like Amber and they can't be trusted. No matter what they say, they can always go back on what they said, and on a whim. I - we - need Kalli too much to risk blindly believing the words of someone sworn to kill her. Just as she'd do the rest of us if we let her. He sounds sure of what he's saying and I don't blame him.
But for now, we had to play it diplomatically and I know Kessal sees this since he's not outright refusing to play by Amber's rules, even if we later broke them by not waiting for her, or telling her when we'd figured out whatever it was she assumed we were supposed to find. What do we do? Dana asks me, clearly showing that she had no idea what to use as a solution to our problem. How do we fix this Vina? Can you help?
I can try, but I'm not sure it would work, just let me do the talking and we'll try to get her to leave so we can figure out both what she thinks we already know, and how she was able to attack Livy and Kalli like she did. I responded, only now seeing the similarities between how Livy dropped to the floor and how Kalli did, once Amber had released her.
Locking eyes with the dark black wolf opposite me it nods its snout towards the floor and I sigh, nodding to her before facing Amber again. "Ok," Opposite me on the left - sideways from Dana - Amber looks confused and that causes a small, internal, smile of victory from me. "Ok Amber, we'll choose to trust you on this, on your word, but don't think for a second that means we trust you. Because it doesn't."
A slow, sly, smile shows at my words but nothing else for a second before Amber visibly composes herself and nods, her eyes locked away and revealing very little. "I wouldn't have it any other way little witch, I wish you well and good luck." And with that she vanished, leaving us all reeling from her words and dramatic exit since she'd exploded in a shower of magic that we all instinctively avoided since we had no idea if she'd trapped a spell in the magic as it drifted innocently like dark snowflakes towards the floor of the room we'd been in when she'd appeared. Following her dramatic departure, we all stand still for a second before Kessal breaks ranks and runs over to where Kalli was lying like a broken doll, her limbs splayed like she'd been manipulated to roughly one too many times.
Nudging her limp body with his snout I can see my friend's worry where he keeps moving her in the hopes that she'd wake up and speak to him, reassure him that she's ok. But Kalli doesn't move, just remains lying limp on the floor. Seeing that this isn't working Kessal shifts back and takes her into his arms, his eyes frantic as he shakes her gently, muttering into her hair in a lost tone.
"Why isn't she waking up?" I hear him ask at the same time I see Russel bent over Livy where she also hadn't moved after being hit with Amber's magic. "Is it something the bitch did to her before they separated?" Kessal's eyes find mine at the same time Russel's do and I feel trapped. Trapped because I had no way to help them since I had no more of an idea as to what to do than they did.
"Possibly," I muttered half under my breath the second I see Braeden and Dana transform back along with the other wolves, their tension eased slightly since Amber had gone, but not entirely since Kalli was still in danger. "I'm just hoping that the two separated before Amber could get a permanent hold on Kalli," Looking over at the other witches in the room I see all their eyes flash with panic, Kessal's especially, before the matter at hand comes back to the forefront of my mind. "But I still don't get how they were affected by her power? Kalli especially since I would have thought the moonstone power inside her would have protected her from magic like that,"
"Magic like what?" Dana asks where she's sat near Kalli with Kessal and Braeden, her eyes half on me and half on Kalli where she hadn't moved yet. "Magic like what Vina? And what does that have to do with what happened?"
Sighing I push my hair back behind my shoulders and lock eyes with Dana, her stormy eyes slightly frightening. "Magic with necromantic properties. Hence why she was able to compromise Kalli the way she did. My question is how and why? Why her and how could she since Kalli was stronger, even with her being upset over what happened to her parents." As I talk through what I had in my head Dana flinches - possibly at the reminder of what happened - and I feel bad for a second before she shrugs and moves on.
"Revenants and regents," Russel speaks up where he was holding Livy in a similar way to how Kessal was Kalli, the words causing us all to look in his direction. "By definition, we're all revenants by nature - at least those of us who died and transformed to become as we are. So vampires, demons and other 'dark' spirits. Witches who are Elementals - like Livy and Kalli - also fall under that category. And in old witch folklore, it's said that certain members of each species with the most power were named as regents of death. The keepers of the balance and order."
"Which would explain possibly how Amber managed to do what she did," Dana muses aloud, our attention half turning towards her. Seeing that she sighs and explains. "If Russ is right about that - and I don't doubt that you are - then being the most powerful being ever to exist then Kalli would be an obvious target. Making her a prime choice for Amber to use as a vassal to attack us where we wouldn't see, perceiving it as a lash out from grief and anger."
"But what about Livy? She wasn't like that - none of the rest of us is, besides maybe you three since you share the prophecy - so why choose her?" Russel asks, his eyes now on Dana who think for a second before she responds in an even tone, her words chosen carefully.
"In a way she is though," Frowning I look over at Dana, not sure what she's saying, but she just sighs and shakes her head when she notices my reaction. "Think about it, Vina. she's the daughter of Eris Murdock and Phoenix Lumen. Two of the most powerful witches underneath Kalli's grandparents and the High Council of Elders. No wonder Amber wanted her removed, she's one of the most powerful players after the four of us. She and the others of us in high status who hold more power than the average of our kind." Her eyes linger on the Cassidy triplets then, as well as Keri, Blaze and the others who came from high-status backgrounds. Kessal, Braeden, Chloe, Willow, Autumn. "We're all targets like that, but some more than others."
"Like the four of you, if the knowledge in the books about Regents of Death is to be believed," I hear Keri say where she stands slightly awkwardly between Livy and Kalli, not sure who to help first. "Because if what you and Russ are saying is true Dana then the four of you are the ultimate Regents. The true keepers of the balance if the prophecy you share is to be believed to be true."
Dana, Kessal and Braeden pale then, their eyes finding each other's easily before dropping to Kalli's seconds before I hear Dana speak, her tone so low, so soft, I can barely hear her over the soft crackle and pop of the flames. But loud enough to make me afraid, for all of us. "Yea, meaning she'd come after us first, trapping us as she did mine and Kalli's parents and making sure the prophecy we shared recently came true. Ensuring the end of the world once we're out of the picture and the balance is disrupted beyond repair. Forever."