Mostly Normal: Magic Cannot Cure Sickness

Chapter Sixteen: Spun Around

After a while of feeling sorry for herself, Bianca finally picked herself up from the floor, carefully avoiding shards of stained glass that were littered around her.

"Vladimir has betrayed me," she whispered to herself, and the words rang true. Saying them made them real, irreversible.

She had a sudden desire to abandon her palace and run after Jeremy and Amanda. She wanted to apologize, to earn Jeremy's trust back... maybe even his love.

When she got outside, the cold air hit her heated skin harshly. She shivered and pressed forward, determined to find them that night. She twisted, turning back into the form that she was most used to. Large wings flapped on her back as she flew, searching for where the other two had made camp for the night.

The clouds made her hair wet, which she was not too happy about. Small lights lay in the town below, she watched them fly by with a small smile, this was just like how she had first seen her Kingdom outside of maps.

She set down on the ground and the memory forced its way into her head.

She was much younger, and in a band of traveling, half-starved vampires. Everyone they had gone to for supplication had refused them, leaving them on the road, slowly dying from hunger.

Bianca was being carried by her older brother, Alaric. She was weak and sick, shivering in the cold, leaning against Alaric's warm chest. His arms tightened around her.

Her older sister Kathryx murmured, "Want me to take her? You've been carrying the poor girl for ages."

Alaric sighed. "She's not heavy, Kat," he said, "And I don't think she can stand to be moved right now. She's much too frail."

"I feel so bad about this," Kathryx said, her hair falling into her eyes.

"Don't blame this on yourself. How were you supposed to know that this was Kitsune land?" Alaric sighed, his sunken eyes looking down at the younger girl at his side.

"Dang foxes," Kathryx swore, coughing for a moment before looking over to her sister. "We're going to have to fly."

"But maybe not," said an old woman, her voice hushed, "Look."

Bianca managed to turn her little head. What she saw made her forget her hunger and gasp.

A beautiful, glittery palace spread out below the crest where the band of vampires stood. There was no explanation, no way to find out why the castle was there or who it belonged to. But Bianca felt a strange connection to that palace, a mysterious bond she could not understand fully as a small child.

"Go, go, go," her older siblings shouted at each other, rushing towards the large castle. They stumbled over rocks and random sticks that were nowhere near where they should have been. When they finally ended up in the higher light of the castle, they were all shivering with the anticipation of a shelter and a decent meal.

Kathryx was crying and Alaric was breathing hard. Bianca could do nothing but stare at the beauty of the palace, images flashing through her head of a glorious future for the vampires, led by a very special queen indeed...

Bianca gasped and pulled herself out of the memory. Her wings had shrank into her back again, and she was crouching on frost-encrusted grass.

She took a deep breath, clearing her head. She glanced around her, not seeing the sign of the town that she had been searching for. A scream escaped her mouth, echoing through the forest.