Orange Shadow Magic: Heir to The Throne. Book 2

Chapter 9: Hopeless

"Coral. Coral. CORAL!" Gala mumbled, sitting upright in her bed. "Coral?" Gala whispered, her feeble voice traveling throughout the small cabin as she cried out her younger sister's name.

"What?" Mally rasped, her eyes squinting into the darkness. She hated these constant dreams, where Gala woke up delusional, and either crying for Avery or Coral.

"Coral! Where is she?" Gala demanded, her pale brown eyes taking a ghostly look as she looked around worriedly for Coral.

"She's dead, remember?" Mally sighed as if she could care less about Coral and more about her own pathetic sleep.

"Dead?" Gala repeated, her eyes scanning all of the sleeping bags around her. This couldn't be happening. Not again. The same dream for the last year: Coral was dead. Coral couldn't be dead. Coral was in Coranne. She had been for the last week.

"Yes, Gala. Coral is dead. Remember? She died because of my wicked step-father Expella," Mally yawned, impatient for her sister's ramblings to end.

"Impossible." Gala exclaimed, looking in the mirror next to her cot for a single sign that she was imagining things. Coral couldn't be dead. She would remember, right? But all that met her gaze was her own wild eyes, irises slowly transforming into round pours of liquid fire.

"Are you okay?" Mally said, looking annoyed and irritated once more. She didn't want to talk to Gala. Something just didn't add up. Honestly, Mally didn't know where Gala's loyalties stood anymore.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Gala muttered, shoving a stray strand of hair back into her tree-trunk tresses. Laying back down, and listening to the eerie cricket chirps around her, she mustered the courage to fall back into her dream-less sleep. However, Mally lay dumbfounded in her own cot. It was time to find out who's side Gala truly was on.

What Lily heard stopped Lily dead in her tracks. Her heart pounded so fast, she thought it would explode. Although her knees yearned to be free of the solid tile floor, she knew she had to listen. It was Gala and Mally. And they were arguing.

"Gala admit it."

"Admit what," Gala said cockily. She was probably chewing her gum with that smug smile of hers at that exact moment.

"I know that you're with someone else. I know you're no longer on our side. I know your loyalties have swapped. You're not the same anymore. You're not even on our side anymore."

"No duh. Of course I'm not the same." Gala remarked, crossing her arms over her chest in a nonchalant act. Leaning against the chains that held her, her gum made a large popping sound. Lily could tell Mally was getting irritated.

"Gala, please, you have to stop! Coral is gone! She's never coming back!" Mally yelled, frustrated.

"STOP!" Gala screamed, her head shaking back and forth. "Coral's not gone. She was never gone. She's here! She will always be here!" Mally stepped back, stunned. Gala's sudden histrionics caught Mally off guard.

"That's not what I meant," Mally whispered angrily. "You're with him," Mally scolded.

"Am I?" Gala warned dangerously. Lily already knew what was going to happen before it happened. After all, Gala was always predictable.

Yet, Mally already knew what Gala had planned. Mally smirked and launched into the air, random sword in hand. A complex amount of maneuvers awaited her as she launched her sword forward, hoping to hit flesh. To her surprise, she heard Gala groan in agony, and for a split second, felt a jolt of regret. But as soon as it had come, the moment passed, and Mally ground her hand in Gala's flesh again and again. Blood splattered the concrete floor, coating Mally, and Lily as well, who stood in the corner covering her eyes. Somehow Lily had made her way into Gala and Mally's private quarters, again.

"My warriors, rise and assist me!" Mally spoke to the corpses of her dead ancestors and friends, calling them forth from the graves to give her the support she needed to win this battle.

"Wait!" called Lily, her timid voice immediately gaining Mally's attention. "You can't kill her. She loves you, you love her. How could you live with yourself if you killed yet another, and that person being your sister? Her vision is just clouded, that's all. She's gone through the most out of all of us, can't you see?" Lily begged, tears pouring down her cheeks, and her eyes reddening with the amount of pure sadness radiating off of her. "If you do this, it'll be like I never even knew you. Because the girl I knew would never willingly harm another."

Mally's gaze flickered back and forth between Gala, and Lily. Even as she hated to admit it, Lily was right. She was always right. "I can't do this without you," Mally choked out, struggling to pull the sword out of Gala's seemingly lifeless body. All around the room, translucent ghosts floated around the room, swords faltering in their hands as they laid them back into their scabbards. They were pale, lifeless, and intimidating as they stood over Gala's body, as if wishing for her to join them in the confines of infinite death.

"Do what you wish, Mally Johnson," they echoed as one.

An edge creeped into Mally's voice as she whispered tonelessly, "lock her up, do whatever you must so that she cannot escape me."

"Us," Lily uttered, as a yawning Mattzew strolled into the room, singing "Frosty the Snowman" and cracking his knuckles violently.

"Oh Lord!" Mattzew yelped, yellow streaks of lighting flooding out of his body, and roasting a piece of paper nearby.

"Yes Mattzew, we're locking Gala up," said an annoyed Mally, glancing once more at the trusty jail cell her army of dead had built for her. Gala was lying on her side, her eyes closed and her breathing ragged.

"Let's go," Mally chastised, "we can interrogate her in the morning." As Mally urged her friends out the door, Gala's blood red eyes stared at the silvery reflection of herself in the jail bar, and cackled gleefully as she realized the fate that beheld her sister. Activating her speed powers, Gala's body started vibrating, and she felt the bars pass through her body as she moved out of her prison.

"See you never, Mally," Gala whispered cunningly. As she stepped into a shadow, she heard Mally's shocked voice, and disappeared into the darkness that was her home.

As Mally saw Gala escape through the confines of darkness, Mally let out a roar of frustration. As Mally's eyes started to flood with tears, she stood up and wiped the tears off of her face. Mally knew Parker would not have wanted this for her. Parker would have wanted her to live her life. With or without him. The excruciating pain of his loss had broken her heart apart, however Mally knew she had to move on. No matter what happened, Parker would be with her. And she would do this for him. It was his dying wish, and she would fulfill it.