Chapter 3
Blue
Picking up traces of ash left from the other me, I sprinkled it liberally inside his bassinet. We were twins, those ashes would be a near enough match to mine to make no one question their authenticity.
I did not look back as I snuck out the nursery. I had to return back to the time in the future when I’d left, last time I’d done it I’d made the journey alone. Killing Erene then had allowed my transport back, this time killing my past version would allow it. But now I had Erene, which meant another soul debt must be paid.
I glanced down at the sleeping bundle in my arms, feeling both unsure and oddly sentimental. I’d charted a course to which there was no going back, my only objective in this life was to guard him.
Erene and I being twins meant that I was also a babe in this timeline. Last time I’d left that old me alive because I’d needed her to live for the elder me to survive. But she was no longer needed.
Maybe, just as I’d killed the older version of me, killing the infant me wouldn’t end this me now either. Or maybe it would.
But it wouldn’t matter to me either way since I’d never intended to live past father’s murder of me anyway. And what could father do if I died? Nothing. Perhaps just saving Erene was the whole point of this rebirth and I wasn’t truly needed after all. But, if I was, then only the gods knew why, and who was I to question them?
I was the only magick user I knew adept at this level of dark magick, if I managed to make it back to my time with Erene no one would know what I’d done this night. In short, I’d crafted the perfect crime. But I didn’t have much time left to me. Father’s spies would be awaiting my return and report back to him sooner rather than later.
There was only one place I knew to send him to keep him safe and off the radar of both the upper and lower realms. Looking around the nursery, I searched for anything that I could write on and was rewarded when I spied a nursery book. Ripping out the dedication page I used a black marker to ink out detailed instructions. I would be sending Erene into the waiting arms of a dark fae no one should ever trust, least of all me.
If, for some reason, killing my infant self also resulted in my death Erene’s fate was in the gods’ hands, I’d done all I could. Using a diaper pin, I fastened the note to Erene’s blanket, then I laid him down.
He started to cry then. I ignored the pangs of guilt I felt and the fear that I was sending him to his death, yet again.
Ripping open my wrist with my blunt teeth, I used my blood once again to draw out the runes, then uttering the words I sent my baby brother through time. My heart pounded when I stared at the charred space he’d just occupied.
Already the bloody runes were gone, the spell had consumed my offering and the price of the soul had been paid when I’d stabbed the other me to death. Standing, I flashed myself over to the next room. There I was, in a small crib. Unattended by anyone, just as Erene had been. My room wasn’t full of finery as his had been. In fact, it was white and sterile. My crib was little more than a wooden box. My body reeked of urine and waste.
The priestesses of light had never cared for me, my soul had been weighed at birth and found to be dark. They’d tolerated me only for the sake of my mother’s blood that’d run through me.
A moment of clarity came over me then, had I always been neglected? I’d not thought so as a little girl since mother had treated Erene and I no differently, and yet the differences between our rooms were stark.
Light blue eyes were opened and staring innocently up at me. Just as the other me had looked upon me with resignation and understanding I felt this infant version of me also had that same insight.
Picking my infant self up, I cradled her to my breast. She didn’t even utter a sound.
“We should never have been, Blue, do you understand that? But your sacrifice is for the greater good, we will save our brother this time and the entire world. And if we die in the process, then we’ve at least atoned for the countless sins we committed.”
She simply stared with that deep and impenetrable gaze I’d become so well known for. I nodded.
Lifting my wrist, I gently ripped off the scab forming on my wrist with my teeth, once again I bled freely. I painted the runes upon the floor, same as before. Only once the spell was ready, did I lay her down in the center.
My heart ached.
This was me. I was killing myself. For the second time tonight. Each death made me feel as though a portion of my soul was dying along with it, but it had to be. I had to atone, I had to make all of this right.
Killing children was an abominable act, didn’t matter that I was literally killing myself, I felt like the monster I knew I truly was when I plucked the knife from my thigh holster. Tears formed in my eyes, heat slid up the back of my throat.
If we died it was okay. Something like me didn’t deserve to live anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to myself, and then I plunged the blade through my heart. An instant death. A merciful kill.
The flash of fire that ripped through my own chest was instant and excruciating. I screamed even as fire erupted from my tiny body. Through the pulsating waves of agony, I whispered the spell.
And I’m not sure how, or why, but I still lived.
When I blinked next, I was in a small, dilapidated structure in the heart of Hong Kong. My brother was on the ground, swaddled still and sucking his thumb. A small cry, like a wounded kitten, fell from my lips as I ran to him, only now realizing how happy I was to know he’d not died as he’d traveled dimensions. Tears ran unchecked down my cheeks as I lifted him to me and nuzzled his sweet skin, aching for the countless deaths I’d committed. My chest still ached and a part of me wondered if it always would.
I wasn’t even grateful that I was alive, living was a burden that I must now bear and try to do it with honor. I wasn’t sure if that was even possible for something like me, but I would try.
“Mailina,” I called with a voice that sounded rough and scratchy to my own ears.
She appeared in a smoky haze. Skin pale as milk in the moonlight with long, lustrous hair of silver and eyes that were as black as her soul. I handed over my brother to a tiny woman who’d been banished from Demonia many years ago. She was a half-breed just like me. Half brownie, half spirit. Her crime had been that she’d dared to denounce Prince Damian—my father—as the heir to the throne.
She’d been forced to survive on her own in the middle lands. Stripped of her shape-shifting magic, it was clear she was no human with her fanged teeth and open sores that oozed a constant stream of pus and blood. In the dark lands, she’d been a feared figure, known not as Mailina but as ‘The Bloody Hag.’ Show now endured a hand-to-mouth existence. She’d become a beggar woman with no home, no money, and no allies. I handed her a bag of silver.
She licked thin cracked lips, avarice gleamed in her dark eyes.
“Guard the child with your life, Mailina,” I said with a heavy growl in my voice that was neither male nor feminine, letting the ice in my eyes pierce through to her soul. She shivered, but nodded, clutching the bag of coins in one hand and my brother in the other.
“If so much as one hair on his body is harmed, I will banish your soul to eternal torment.”
She moved the blanket off his face a bit, studying him with her cold, flat eyes. “Who is he?” Her voice sounded like it came up from the bowels of the lowest pits.
I shook my head. “That is not for you to know.”
She trembled. I was wrapped in shadows; any citizen of Demonia would know to fear this version of me. My face had never been seen, but my deeds were known far and wide.
“Yes…yes, master of whispers and shadows.”
I grinned, then I punched my hand through her chest, wrapping my fingers around her soul orb. She gasped and jerked violently as I yanked out her soul. It was bright rust and ringed with white. Showing both her brownie and spirit heritage.
She trembled, clutching at the now smooth area in her chest where my hand had just been.
“Just to ensure you have no intention of betraying us, you see,” I said with a menacing smile. I was still no saint. I doubted I ever would be. But I would use anything at my disposal, even my own twisted darkness, to protect Erene.
I shoved her soul orb into my chest. It felt like the fires of torment ripping through me. I bit down on my front teeth as I fought through the pain of absorbing her soul. Her soul was dark and twisted, I saw all the lives she’d taken, all the bodies she’d left in her wake. Mailina was not a good person, but she was the right person for this job. And that was all that mattered to me.
I’d not consumed her soul, I’d merely inhaled it. Inhaling souls was partly how my power had grown. I was so powerful because of all the souls living within me. I touched my fist to my chest.
It was time to return to the dark realm.
To the double life, I would now be forced to lead.
I would fix this and then I would finally be free…
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