A Necessary Evil (Book 1)

Chapter 6

“If you are coming with me, we have to go now,” he stated, his voice devoid of any emotion besides urgency. He must have sensed my confusion, because he added, “People will start to wake up soon. I doubt your parents would be happy to see you’ve escaped.”

I just stood, motionless and mute, still trying to take in my rapidly changing circumstances. The greatest obstacle was imaging myself escaping with the most notorious sorcerer in the kingdom… or, rather, imagining what he might do to me once we were alone. Those images of dread kept me rooted where I was almost as surely as the metal bars had just a few moments ago.

Andreas sighed and closed his eyes. “You do not have many options right now, little witch. You either take your chances with me, or you take your chances with them. Which one gives you more hope?”

Almost to my surprise, a rivulet of impudent anger wormed its way through my paralysis and sprung out like a leak in a dam. I spoke weakly, but with more force than even I expected at that moment.  “My name is Lana, not little witch,” I said, fixing my eyes on him in a glare.

Andreas seemed both surprised and amused at this new voice from me.  “I am sorry, Lana,” he said, with a play at a formal bow. “Lana, make your choice.”

When he had pulled those bars away and freed me from the terrible cage, I had thought that the decision to leave with him would be easy.  Almost any fate would be better than what awaited me at the palace.  But Andreas Grigoli was not covered by that “almost.”  Everything about him – his reputation, his powers, and even his manner in person – practically screamed danger. But Andreas, fiend though he may be, was, in his own way, right about one thing.  There was something he could offer that no one else in my present circumstance could: uncertainty. In every important way, all of my life to this point had been prescribed, and proceeded according to that plan.  I had known what I would do and who I would be from the time I had learned to speak.  I had never known any other way.  I could even say that I had come to like it, as one comes to like familiar things.  Stability was a comfort, and effectively knowing what to expect from each day brought the most basic kind of stability.  But now the prescribed boundaries of my life were rapidly collapsing, to a point I could see and feel, and that brought a dread certainty that was as far from a comfort as could be imagined.  My thoughts returned to the metal bars that had so recently surrounded me.  And I could see that I had actually been in a cage much longer than I knew.

“I don’t have much patience. Choose now, or I will choose for you.”

Andreas’ sharp tone snapped my attention to him again.  I had no idea what would happen if I went with him.  Perhaps he was as vicious as the rumors told, capable of delivering on all the actions that had recently paralyzed my imagination.  Perhaps he encouraged those stories only because he wanted to keep people at arms’ length, wanted fear more than adoration or love.  Perhaps he was altogether different once you got to know him.  There was no way to know.  Maybe if I went with him, my worst fears would come true.  But there was one thing I knew for sure right then, one thing that broke my paralysis and propelled me forward onto an uncertain path:  at this moment, “maybe” was the most important word in my life.

“I’ll go with you.” My voice was barely above a whisper, uncertainty etched into my words still.

“Are you sure?” He quickly recovered a grave tone. “Once you make that decision there is no going back. I cannot promise not to hurt you. I cannot promise to protect you. All I can promise is, for now, you will live.”

His flinty words tried to reignite a small flame of doubt in my mind, but I did not let the sparks land. His promise was a lot more appealing than the stake.