The King is Dead, Long Live the Queen
“The Grimmoire Room is down this hall, right?” She questioned, half chewing on the sleeve of her sweater. She was itching to get to researching already. It was so hard to believe Henry was gone. Actually gone. That he wouldn’t just come back and hurt them all again. The others getting called away for Spyglass duties had not helped her anxiety level. With just her and Khloris left at the base, they were the ones who’d been charged with combing through the last of the old Grimmoires that had been found in the safe houses that had belonged to Henry. See if there was a loophole in any of them that could let him come back.
After a few moments she realized two things; Khloris hadn’t answered and the sound of her heels clacking along down the hall had stopped. Holly turned to look at her tilting her head to the side curiously. Khloris was scrutinizing her, those pale brown eyes glinting with something hard. “Khloris?” She asked, pulling her sleeve away from her face.
Her blood red lips curled back in a snarl. “Gods, you’re pathetic. All that power inside you. And yet…” she trailed off laughing harshly “You. Don’t. Use it.”
Holly jerked back at the insult. “I—I don’t—” she shook her head “I’m aware you don’t like me… but… Grimmoire room?”
Khloris laughed and the sound raced down her spine like a shiver. There was a scraping noise and Holly sucked in a sharp breath eyes darting around for the source. There were vines, thorny and rose covered slithering their way across the floor and the walls. Dripping down from the ceiling above Khloris’s head. Holly stopped breathing a moment as they inched forward, her feet taking her backwards before her mind could catch up to the movement. “Wh—what? What are you—”
“Come on Holly! Use your magic!” one of the vines on the ceiling darted out like a snake, petals peeling back to reveal venom dripping teeth.
She shrieked and stumbled back “Stop! Khloris please!”
Khloris made a low noise of disgust “Please? Please?” she stalked forward, her roses hissing and scraping along the walls “You, stupid little girl. You think please is going to save you?”
Holly backed away faster, her shoes catching on the rug “Khloris why are you—ple—” she swallowed the rest of the word. “Why are—are you doing this?”
“Oh, I’ve wanted to do this for so long. You are pathetic. And yet, somehow you have power.” She said the word reverently, like a hymn to a god worshipped by one. The vines shot forward like striking cobras. One wrapped its way around her ankle, the thorns digging into her flesh. She yelped and jerked back, but the vine tightened and yanked harshly. She hit the floor hard, gasping in pain.
Khloris had stalked forward to loom over her “You have power, and you don’t deserve it. You could be a goddesswith what you can do.” The vine dug into her leg and she cried out. Khloris’s eyes glinted with something verging on the fanatic. “And look at what you are instead.” Her lip peeled back “A scared little girl that can’t control her own magic because you’re afraid of it, just like you are of everything. You could bring worlds to heel. Instead you’re terrified of causing pain. I told you the first time we met.” She breathed in slowly as if tasting the air, eyes fluttering closed “Pain is power.”
She wanted to argue, to say she wasn’t afraid. But she was godsdamned terrified. Had been for years, saying what was inside her didn’t scare her was a blatant lie she couldn’t hope to tell. She felt her magic bubbling up into her skin in reaction to the fear and the pain. The half wild feel of it shook her to her core as it always had. It felt like being a ship without moor on a sea that led to the end of the world.
She shook off the words as best she could and reached for the vine cutting into her leg, the rose bloom sprouting off of it snapped its teeth at her fingers, keeping her from reaching it. Khloris practically growled “USE YOUR MAGIC!” she yelled furious.
Holly gasped, panic spiking in her chest as she realized Khloris wasn’t going to stop. The wild thing that lived under her skin sparked out of her hands and she let the rose bloom bite at her fingers as they crackled with light the color of something nameless. The rose made a noise like screaming on a violin and it was unmade. The petals, the teeth, the vine, disintegrating into sand that faded into nothing. She scrambled back, her breath fast and pitchy as she scrambled to her feet and limped back from Khloris.
Another rose shot towards her and she flung her hands desperately towards it, sparks of impossible light reducing it to nothing. More kept coming and she tried to run “Help!”
Khloris laughed “No one else is here!” She shot a bolt of magic towards her and Holly shrieked and jumped out of the way. “You’re alone! You were always meant to be alone!”
Holly turned a corner and ran, Khloris’s voice chasing her “No one is coming in time!” Holly desperately tried the first door in sight, a whine of terror escaping her when it didn’t open.
“None of your little guard dogs are coming to save you.”
She flinched at the phrase Henry used to use for her family as she tried another locked door.
“Use your fucking magic you insolent little brat.” Another vine snapped at her like a whip, slicing lines down her shoulder.
She screamed and Khloris laughed. “Fight back!”
It was all too much and the lightning under her skin wanted out. She threw a bolt of light at Khloris, desperate for her to stop please. It crackled into her shoulder, and she gasped. Perfect blood red lips forming a surprised oh. It ate into her skin, fractured fractals of light sparking like firecrackers as it gnawed away at her flesh, into muscle, and bone, unmaking as it went. Holly felt nauseous, felt horrified, maybe she’d misunderstood maybe she’d—
Khloris laughed. Loud and high and with an edge of mania that felt like the scrape of metal on bone in her ears. Pain is power. Roses bloomed bright and bloody from her ruined shoulder. Bone and muscle and skin knitting and reforming around thorns and blood bright petals. She rolled her shoulders and tipped her head back exposing the long line of her throat as she laughed. Her gaze turned back to Holly as the roses bolted closer sending her stumbling back into yet another door. “Your magic tastes like oblivion.”
The rose vines launched towards Holly as she fumbled for the door handle behind her. She cried out a sound of fear that wanted to be the word ‘no!’, sending her hand out towards the wall of roses. A blast of oblivion left her palm and devoured them. The handle turned and hope lodged in her throat as she stumbled her way through the door and she slammed it closed behind her. She backed into the far wall, only stopping as the desk pressed against dug into her spine.
She gasped for breath, the terror and the destructive aspect of her magic was draining. She fumbled for her phone to call for help, cursing when it showed no signal. There was a rattling at the door, and she whimpered at the noise looking desperate for a way out. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the charcoal lines drawn on the floor. Warding lines.
The door blew open. A tidal wave of thorny rose vines spilling through. Khloris stepped forth from them without a hair out of place. Holly pressed back against the desk shaky hands clawing at the air trying to open a door, she gasped as her magic rebounded. She didn’t have enough left to blast through the warding.
Khloris gave her a mock pout and then broke into a wide grin. She gestured to the charcoal lines on the floor “Warding lines made special just for you.”
Her heart sunk like a stone as she realized Khloris had planned this. Chased her to this room, taunted her into wasting magic. She couldn’t stop her hands shaking as she watched Khloris pace the warding boundary like a shark.
Khloris tapped one stiletto nail against her chin thoughtfully “that means you can’t get out… but I can get in…” The roses surged forward then. She shrieked and scrambled back and up onto the desk pressing as far against the wall as she could. She desperately threw magic at the onslaught of roses, at Khloris, but no matter how many were unmade how much of Khloris was disintegrated, there was always more roses, always more laughter. It was delaying the inevitable as her last frantic wild burst of magic left her palm, she gasped for air as stars danced through her vision. “Stop! Just—just stop please!” The vines twisted around her legs tearing into her skin creeping around her waist. Tears spilled down her face as she cried out from the pain. “Please! What do you—you want?”
Khloris smiled at her as she walked closer “Why my dear. I want your power. I want your magic.”
Holly gasped as the vines tangled around her arms, a scream pulling from her lips at the ragged tears in her skin from the thorns “You—you can’t you—you’re not a—a rift blood. It—it’ll hurt you.”
Khloris beamed like the Cheshire cat “Haven’t you been listening?” The vines tightened and she screamed again “Pain is power.”
Holly shook her head “It’ll—it’ll unmake you. For—for real this time.”
“I’m not immortal for nothing.” She twisted her fingers and the vines wrapped around Holly’s throat. She gasped for breath as they constricted and fresh blood stained the collar of her sweater. “I’m going to take you far away. Somewhere you’ll be lost and never found.” Holly could feel her heartbeat in her ears panic and lack of oxygen mixing to make her vision blur into a kaleidoscope of blood and roses. The vines yanked her down from the desk and slammed her into the ground harshly. She wheezed out a noise of pain as the impact sent white hot agony through her body. “I’m going to find a way to rip your magic out.” Khloris leaned down and grabbed her chin, forcing her barely conscious gaze to focus on her “And if you’re very lucky that’s what will kill you.”
