Light and Shadow

Chapter 15 - Magnus

Chained to the stone wall by his ankles and wrists, Magnus sank once again into his troubled dreamscape, haunted by memories.

There stood his Queen, dressed in robes of royal purple, her perfect locks cascading down her back like rivers of gold. The Teufelwalder sunset would approach soon, an ocean of red gleaming on her bronze skin.

"One last thing you must do before you can rule by my side," she whispered in his ear, her words like aloe vera on searing flesh. "You must kill the traitor."

"My Queen, I love and honor you above all others." Magnus turned to her, the warm volcanic breeze teasing his windswept raven locks. "But this I cannot do."

"Erik is like a father to you." She cast her eyes down, wrapping long, slender fingers tenderly around his neck, sliding them up into his raven locks. "Which makes his betrayal so much worse."

"I will find him. Arrest him. Bring him to the dungeon." Magnus shook his head and grasped her hands, preventing her from luring him further. "But I cannot kill him."

"Even if he has committed the worst crime of all?" she whispered, dragging the tip of her nose along his jawline. Magnus stiffened. "Even if he killed everyone you love?"

Magnus grasped her by the shoulders so firmly that the Queen sucked a sharp breath through her teeth. "Do not toy with me, woman! Erik would never dare, no matter how far he has turned to the Light. You will not speak of him that way, do you hear me? Do you?"

He spat the last words like poisonous venom.

"I will forgive your insolence this once." Though her words fell in a calm, gentle whisper, she gave him a vicious smile that could break glass. Her silver eyes glinted like polished steel, prepared to stab him through the heart. "I have undeniable proof of what he did."

Magnus' heart clenched as he drew her nearer, never once breaking eye contact. "Show me."

"Release me at once, and you shall see for yourself."

With slow, calculated movements the Queen retrieved an orb about the size of a marble and placed it in the middle of a stone altar. It projected light, sound, and smell.

"What is the meaning of this?" whispered Magnus in an incredulous tone as Erik donned his war mask and entered a house Magnus knew all too well: his childhood home.

"No, Father..." Magnus stumbled forward, holding himself upright by gripping the edge of the altar as Erik surrounded his family late at night while they slept.

"One of you morphs," shouted Erik, "and the children die."

No, please! His heart shriveled into a tight ball. You would not! You could not!

His guards rounded up his father, mother, sister, and her two children. "Tie them to the beams," Erik ordered.

"Even the children, Sir?" asked one of the guards tentatively.

Erik stood almost nose to nose with the questioning soldier and sneered, "Do I need to repeat myself?"

"N-no, Sir." He gulped. "As you wish, Sir."

When the younglings screamed and cried for their mother, Erik glared at them with a look that would melt steel. "Bind their mouths. I can't stand the screeching."

Magnus shook with rage, frost crystals spreading across the altar.

When one of his nieces tried to bite a guard to defend her younger sister, he smacked the young child with a vicious slap. "There'll be none of that." 

"You have one chance to save the children," said Erik in a terrifyingly calm voice that would melt steel as he paced. "Tell me where I can find Magnus."