PRESENT TIME
LARAN VALLEY, KADREA
"Onyx, you traitor!" I scream.
Onyx looks down his treacherous snout at me. Lily, kindly do not cause a scene. You are embarrassing yourself in front of royalty.
Tears stream down my face. "I trusted you. You've been in cahoots with him the whole time!"
Onyx humphs. I have been in "cahoots" with no one. Now for the love of Phaedra, please collect yourself. You are giving this planet a bad name.
I can't believe this is happening. Onyx, here, bowing before the fire demon. Onyx, betraying me.
"You're a demon," I sob.
Lily, this is not the time, Onyx says. I will explain later, but King Dionysus is not our enemy.
"Oh it's king now, is it?" I shout.
A kazza tree behind me disappears.
The fire demon turns towards me. Child, you must calm yourself. The dark power is leaking out of you.
Calm myself. I'll blithering calm myself when there aren't two evil demons standing in front of me.
Lily...Onyx starts.
"I hate to interrupt this touching reunion," comes a grating voice from behind us.
Scion, free from Onyx's bubble prison, stands with his feet apart, arms raised. Green fire blooms at his fingertips.
Onyx growls. I will take care of him.
The fire demon nods at me. Get behind me, child. I will shield you.
I laugh hysterically. "Get behind you!" I shriek. "As if I'm siding with a couple of accursed demons!"
I call for my ice sword. It shines a menacing blue in my right hand, and its hilt is now decorated with black butterflies. I squeeze it until ice magic seeps into my veins.
"Get out of the way, Onyx," I hiss. "Scion's mine."
I blame Scion for all this, and I don't care if it makes no sense. First he kills my mentor, then he turns my oldest friend against me. I am going to annihilate him.
Green fire shoots towards us. I smack it with my sword, and it swerves, hitting a kazza tree and pulverising it. Black butterflies rise from the tree's ashes.
Another lash of green fire whips towards us, and another, and another.
"Traitor!" Scion screams at the fire demon. "You would side with the Phaedreans?!"
I lunge in front of Onyx, intercepting Scion's attacks before he can.
Lily, you need to stand down!
I ignore him. Another kazza tree blasts apart.
Lily!
I swing the sword again. And again. And again.
Onyx appears in front of me and knocks the sword out of my hand.
"I'm going to kill you!" I yell.
Lily, look. Look at the valley.
With him blocking my path, I have nothing else to do but look. And I see it soon enough. Smoke is rising from the Laran Valley. The faint sound of screams rises with it.
"What...?"
When you batted away Scion's attacks, some were diverted in the direction of the valley. You must stop.
I breathe heavily. "Is anyone hurt?"
Not from the magic blasts, no.
What does he mean, not from the magic blasts?
To the right of me, Scion is busy attacking the fire demon, who in turn defends but does not attack. I turn my attention to the Laran Valley.
Shadows.
So many shadows.
Horror grips me. It's the skreevar. They're attacking the Laran villages en masse. The blasts I'd redirected...
Skreevar territory was hit, Onyx confirms, without me even having to ask.
The skreevar were mounting a counter-attack, but it was against the wrong people. They were slashing, biting, tearing.
And the people, I could feel them dying. Life energy was blinking out all over the valley.
We must help, Onyx says, bounding towards the valley with thunderous steps.
But I can't move. I did this. They're dying because of me. I jumped in front of Onyx and batted the attacks away with my sword when I knew that Onyx could easily absorb them.
Onyx, who had been lying to me about who he was. Onyx, who was my enemy.
A roar of rage builds within me. It powers my limbs, and I shoot towards the Laran Valley.
What meets me is chaos. People screaming, crying, running. And skreevar everywhere.
A small child wails as a skreevar closes in, hissing. I hit the skreevar with a barrage of ice shards, not caring if anyone sees. It collapses to the ground, riddled with ice. The child continues to wail.
Behind me, a Laran man wields a large branch, trying to fend off three skreevar who move forward with slow, measured steps, their claws clicking against the ground. There is hunger in their yellow reptilian eyes.
A flying slab of ice knocks all three out.
I go after more skreevar, slashing my sword wildly.
But there are too much of them. I can hear the screams of the people I couldn't save.
Onyx lands in front of me with a gigantic thud. Lily, he says. There are butterflies coming out of your sword.
I can't save them all. They'll die because of me. Everything I do is wrong.
Concern clouds Onyx's eyes.
His neverending demon eyes.
And something in me breaks.
I feel a rush of wings, and an explosion of pain in my back.
Butterflies paint the sky.
Then all is dark.
*
My eyes flutter open. All around me is a world of ash. Charred wood, singed cloth, the burnt remains of household items. And bones. A flurry of them, white and gleaming amongst the ruin.
I rub my head. How did I get here? I was battling Scion, and the skreevar were attacking, then I was suddenly here.
I scan my surroundings. I'm alone.
Pulling myself to my feet, I tread through the ash. It's still hot. A weight pulls at my spine. My hand goes to my back, only to meet with a shock of ice. A purple jewel pops out and falls to the ground.
I stumble to a broken window, looking for my reflection.
It takes me a moment to recognise myself.
From my back sprouts a pair of black butterfly wings. They soar above my shoulders, brittle like ice and accentuated with glittering amethysts. Black vines twist through my lilac hair, which crowns my head in a swirling, heart-shaped pompadour. My hands and feet are gloved in darkness.
A soft chuckle permeates the air. "Do you like your new form, little one? I must say, it is quite attractive. The amethysts are a nice touch."
I freeze. "Who said that?"
That chuckle again, but this time it's more of a snigger. "Come now, little one," the voice croons. "Do not tell me you have forgotten me already."
I know this voice. It's the voice of the First Witch, the first me.
"What happened? Where am I?" I demand.
The First Witch sighs. "You are where you always have been, and where you always will be."
I tease through her riddle. "I'm in my mind."
The Dark Witch spoke to me like this once. I'd blacked out that time too.
"Yes," the First Witch confirms. "And I am here, just as I have always been."
"I buried you with the bracelet."
"No one ever buried me, little one. There was nothing left to bury."
A breeze ruffles the ash. The heat stirs, lifting a little to warm my wings.
"Do you not recognise this village?" the First Witch prods.
I do, actually. Even charred and in ruin, I recognise a few things. The sign from the apothecary. The remains of a doll the girl next door played with. The way the sky shone eggshell blue.
This is the human village where the First Witch lived with Arti and his wife. This is the village where she'd been betrayed, and twisted into what she is now. The humans found out she was a witch and burned her at the stake. Even her stepfather Arti, who she'd loved and trusted, was in on it. Before her death, in a rage, she'd burned the village down.
That's why there was so much ash. And that's why the bones felt too quiet. They'd belonged to people I knew, people whose voices I still heard in my nightmares.
"Take me back," I demand.
The First Witch sounds amused. "Back to Onyx, who betrayed you?"
"Shut up about Onyx," I snap.
"Oh dear." I hear the smile in her voice. "It looks like things did not turn out the way you expected. Your friends betrayed you, just as I told you they would. "
Her words dig a hole in my stomach. She's right. Onyx betrayed me. I never knew the real him. I never thought that his secret could be so terrible.
"A demon right under your nose," the First Witch mocks. "It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Onyx is the spy. He is the one who has been helping your enemies."
I want to deny it. Every fibre in my body wants to scream against it. But of course it was true. He had an orb because he was a demon. He was Phaedrean and not Phaedrean because he was a demon. And he buddied up with my enemies the first chance he got because he was a demon.
But I don't trust the First Witch. What if she's behind this somehow? What if Onyx isn't a demon or a traitor?
He never attacked me, after all. And even the fire demon tried to protect me from Scion. I could have everything back-to-front. I could...
No, Lily, Stop clinging to hope. The truth is the truth. You can't go on a denial spree. It's pathetic.
Sitll, I have a problem in front of me now, and it isn't Onyx. I can't let the First Witch manipulate me.
"Fine," I concede. "My friends betrayed me. You got what you want. Why are you still here?"
"I am here to help you."
I laugh. "Help me become you? No thanks. No matter how many friends betray me, I'll never turn into you."
"That's what they all say," the First Witch says.
"Well I'm saying it and I'm meaning it. I'm not any of those other reincarnations. I'm Lily. I don't need Onyx, and I don't need you."
"There are things that you have forgotten. Wouldn't you like to remember? Wouldn't you like to know why Phaedra was destroyed? Don't you want to know who the other Phaedrean on this planet is?"
I hesitate. Yes, I want to know. But I couldn't believe anything that came out of her mouth.
"You do not trust me," the First Witch says, making me wonder if she can read my mind, and to what extent. "Lily, you have no choice. You will die for good if you do not let me take over." An edge of desperation has crept into her voice. "Let me take over, Lily, and we will live on."
Now I have the upper hand. "You seem scared," I say.
The First Witch is silent for a moment. "Lily, something is coming for us. I know you have sensed it. It has searched for us for a thousand years, and it has finally found us. It will not let us live."
I frown."This 'Mother'," I say, remembering what Bethany had called her. "Who is she?"
"She is something we thought we left behind on Phaedra. We need to move before she arrives, but you would never leave the humans. You do not have the strength to. You must let me take over."
Suddenly, this all strikes me as hilarious. "You're actually pleading with me, aren't you? Despite the eternal darkness and this weird butterfly thing I've become, you can't actually take control. You're not strong enough."
"You cannot defend the humans," the First Witch insists. "They do not deserve saving. They deserve the fate Mother has prepared for them."
"Maybe if you tell me more about this Mother," I say, "I'll help you."
There's a prickly silence. "You seek to manipulate me," the First Witch says, quietly. "I can kill everyone you love."
"You can't." I smile. "Or you would have done it already."
"Perhaps you'll change your mind after you see what you have done."
I try not to let fear rear up within me. After what I have done...what have I done?
"The humans will turn against you, just as Onyx has," she continues. "Even if you continue to be stubborn, the portals will open soon. A very special time is coming."
"What portals?" I demand.
The air gleams with her unseen smile. "The barrier between this world and the next will weaken soon. I will not need permission to merge with you then."
"Barrier? World?"
She laughs. "Goodbye, little Lily. Return to your friends. The consequences of your actions await you."