Magic's Memories

Chapter Fifty

When Feyla was a little girl, one too small to understand why her parents were yelling or why they no longer lived with her father and brother, her mother would wake her every morning by brushing her fingers down her tangled hair and whispering, "It's time to wake up, my treasure. Open your eyes, lovey." And Feyla would squint her too-large eyes shut, demanding a kiss and hug before moving further. It was a fond memory of a time when she had felt treasured, but not like a treasure.

To see its corruption play out struck at some secret place inside her soul.

"Lovey, wake up. Wake now for me, daughter."

Feyla's eyelids stuck closed. She pried them open slowly. Something hummed in her ears while a red light dug its way under her eyelids and into her skull. Her mother's face hovered above her, framed by a halo of red magic.

It all came back.

Feyla jerked away, but the chains on her wrist had been secured to one of the stone pillars surrounding the inner courtyard. Her breath escaped in shallow gasps that did nothing to calm her pounding heart. "Let me go!" she screamed. Where was Sedgewick? Was he safe? Had Arilla made him forget her again?

"Stop this!" Arilla snapped back. Then her sneer softened as she cradled Feyla's face between her hands. "Why must you fight me so?" Her mother's eyes swam with tears. One might have thought that Feyla had chained her up instead of the reverse. "Don't you see what he will do to you? What he already has? Lovey, I believe that you love him. I was in love once too, and I know—" Her mother's voice broke. "I know how it can consume you until everything else seems unimportant. But I'm not your villain. Don't I deserve your love too? Can't you trust me as you once did?"

Feyla was shaking now, tears of her own pouring down her face while the cold bite of the cuffs dug into her wrists. She shook her head in the smallest of no's.

Arilla's hands dropped. "I won't watch my daughter repeat my mistakes. He's blinded you. Making you forget him wouldn't be enough. But don't worry. Once Carrow's spell is cast, then you'll be fixed. You will see him as I see him."

Fear of a kind she had never known before grew throughout her chest like a vine, choking her breath and squeezing her insides. No. "Mother, please, you can't take him from me! I know you're scared. And you want to hang on and try to fix everything. But this doesn't need fixing. He's not like Father. He's good and smart and sweet and he respects me. You don't know him like I do!"

"I know all that I need to know. When you're a mother someday, you'll understand." Arilla walked further into the courtyard without another word.

Feyla went slack against the chains. Throaty, ugly sobs escaped her throat. She jerked at her bonds violently, ignoring the jarring pain it sent down her arms and screamed at her mother. Arilla ignored her, choosing to whisper a few words to Desden Carrow instead. The wizard stood beside the largest runs disc Feyla had ever seen. His hired men were scattered about the room, glancing nervously over their shoulders. Black magic tinged with Desden's natural red flowed into the disc from his fingertips. Sweat coalesced on his brow, but he didn't stop. Not even when he tilted his head toward her in a victorious smile. A reminder of the deal she hadn't taken.

"Yelling won't work," a male voice said from behind her. Feyla twisted around to find someone chained to the opposite side of the pillar.

"Reiden?" she asked, her throat raw from screaming.

"That's not my name," he shot back. His voice practically growled.

"Dormaeus," Feyla breathed.

"Healer."

"Not anymore."

Dormaeus remained quiet for a moment. "You should have let the crown kill me. I wanted them to kill me..."