Page 51 of Malicent (Seven Devils #1)

Cage

FULL MOON TONIGHT.

I stare at the globe beyond my bedroom window, its light slicing through the dark like judgement. Dread anchors my limbs, and exhaustion gnaws at my bones. I’m not sure I’ll make it through the night, even after sleeping away most of the day.

Something’s wrong or getting worse.

Since Nora’s latest lesson, I’ve started to feel hollow. There’s a squirming sensation just beneath my skin, slithering inside me like a snake. It drove me so mad last week that I took a dagger to my own arm trying to dig the worms out.

Then came the voice. It speaks like me, but it isn’t. It whispers hunger, and it craves power, especially the kind that hums in others. It resembles those with magical blood or artifacts containing magic. No matter how much I eat, I can’t satisfy the bottomless ache clawing at my insides.

I sleep through the daylight most days. I’m awake only at night, pacing or enduring whatever punishment Nora has waiting.

Out in the courtyard, the bell chimes midnight.

Time for my lesson.

I walk toward the temple. There’s no point in hurrying to my own execution. My limbs move, but they are not mine. It’s routine at this point. I’m outside myself—detached—as the elders strip me beside the circular altar.

I let them, eventually dissociating and going somewhere far from here.

This is what saves people from me.

That’s what I tell myself. Over and over, I summon my mother’s face, her words, and her hope.

I don’t blame you, baby. You are so strong. Now I need you to be brave.

I forgive you. It’s not your fault. I should have gotten you help sooner.

I cling to the voice—hers—or the memory of it, as if it might keep me from splintering apart completely.

I lie on the cold stone altar, stripped bare beneath the painted ceiling. There is no measure of warmth remaining in my body.

The art on the temple ceiling depicts some type of war in the heavens. Angels and demons are locked in eternal violence. One weeping angel takes a spear through the chest. I stare at him. He’s the only one who looks like he wants to leave. Who could blame him? This place is far from heavenly.

My wrists and ankles are weighed down with silver chains, far too heavy for even me to snap.

Nora begins her ritual in a language I don’t understand. The others join her, hooded and silent, with antelope skulls on their heads.

They descend. Blades flash across my arms, legs, and chest. They carve me open in practiced strokes.

Nora stands over me, cutting matching runes into my chest, mirroring the ones she carved on my back. Even with healing, I can’t hide them anymore. The scars are permanent now, like she wants.

A belt is shoved between my teeth. The sour leather taste fills my mouth. I bite down hard, and my jaw cramps from the pressure.

I can’t scream anymore. My voice is shredded. My back arches off the stone as a wave of magic crashes through me.

“Hold,” Nora’s voice calls out sharply.

Hands grab me, and blades press down, forcing me flat again. My vision starts to darken, slipping into a never-ending black tunnel as life is drained from me.

“I said hold him!” Nora yells again, dragging me from the brink. The stone disappears beneath me.

I’m levitating. The chains scrape loud against the altar as they stretch, restraining me just above the surface. The chains whine, pulled taut as my body attempts to rise higher. Power thrums through me, each wave forcing me up.

Hands press down again, harder this time. Even the witches are straining now.

“Nora, we can’t hold him!”

Something in me is awakening, and it does not want to be chained.

The alien force causes every cell in my body to vibrate violently.

I can’t get enough air into my lungs as this overwhelming feeling of transformation consumes me, swelling through organs and tissues; the change occurs within my very soul.

Nora curses as she raises her blade, aiming for my heart.

I’m too injured and drained to even begin to fully grasp what’s happening. However, I can understand she means to kill me. Then panic hits. A new wave of adrenaline courses through me, mixing with festering fear like acid in my veins.

Then, suddenly, a gust of wind extinguishes every torch in the room.

Darkness.

From every shadowed corner, they arrive.

Beasts tear through the shadowed alcoves, no two alike. Their forms flicker and shift between cloud and flesh, fog and fang. Snarls erupt into screams as they pounce.

One passes my peripheral, a lion–bear hybrid, bones jutting from its back. Its unnatural roar splits the air. Behind it, a serpent-headed gator slithers past, jaws wide with hunger.

They slaughter the witches. Horrid cracks echo through the dark from the bones snapping like dry twigs.

Magic retaliates; inky tendrils lash across the floors, ensnaring the beasts and breaking their limbs. Black fire erupts, igniting the temple’s tapestries and blanketing the room in a thick smoke.

Then, amid the chaos, Nora's blade finds its target again.

It descends but never lands.

A burst of iridescent silver erupts from my chest, blasting Nora backwards. Immediately, the shadow of a massive wing rips out of my chest. Talons as long as my body follow. Her scales shimmer in the faint light, and then smoke pours from a newly opened maw.

The dragon emerges, materializing over me. Its stomach shields me. Its massive wings can split the temple walls, and its body turns solid above me, silvery and smoking.

My eyes track the silver glow running beneath her scales, from her under belly, up to her throat, and then to the curve of her jaw

Then her mouth opens.

Fire pours out as a wave of blinding heat that engulfs the entire side of the temple where Nora landed. Stone cracks, screams vanish, and ashes rise.

She turns her massive head and lowers it to me. She gently nudges my broken body with her nose, her warm breath encasing my body. I cry out, not in fear but from the pain of my injuries.

Hello, child.

The voice isn’t mine, but I know it. I’ve always known it. New tears flood my eyes as my soul recognizes hers.

I am yours, just as you are mine. You are no longer alone.

Her silver eyes are like reflections of my own. They flick to the chains binding my limbs. Displeasure sickens my stomach, and a rumbling growl causes the stone beneath me to quake. She lowers her head again, delicate despite her size, and bites through the metal, one link at a time.

Once I’m free, she nudges me again, urging me to stand.

“I…I might pass out,” I warn, dragging my legs over the altar’s edge. The world sways, and my knees buckle.

Concern fills me, and the sweet taste of affection coats my tongue. They are her emotions, but they aren’t mine, I realize. Still, fresh tears fill my eyes after feeling such emotions bestowed upon me.

She cares for me.

Someone cares for me, someone will save me.

Before I can hit the ground, one of her leathery wings wrap around me. She lifts me, guiding my battered frame along the curve of her wing until I slide onto her spine.

Sit between my largest spikes.

With my strength leaving me, I crawl forward and slump between the ridges. I melt there. My fingers weakly grip two smaller spines. It’s all I can manage at this point.

Head down, eyes closed.

I am all too happy to listen.

Vyraxis crashes upward, her skull smashing through the temple roof. Rubble rains down over me. Dust coats my shoulder as I cling weakly to her spikes.

My heartbeat echoes in my ears as my vision blackens, flickers back, and then fades again.

Outside, the world burns and buildings collapse. Beasts run wild. Witches lie strewn across the ground like dolls in ash.

I did this .

But I don’t know how to undo it.

My throat tightens around the stench of scorched flesh. It hits my nose and then catches in my throat, dragging the bile with it.

The devastation…

They deserve it. They harmed what was not theirs. Her voice is final, lacking any sympathy for those here who have harmed me or turned an eye from it.

“How do I stop it?” I rasp, unsure if I’m even speaking aloud.

We do not. We leave. You are weak.

Her wings beat. Air lashes across my skin, stealing more warmth from me. My body trembles from blood loss, cold, and pain. I am naked, cut open in too many places to heal.

My vision clears just long enough to find her: Millicent.

Her eyes…I’ll never forget their bright-blue color, which I can only compare to a chilling winter’s breath and the color of crisp frozen dawns.

Millicent.

I try to call out and reach for her .

The girl stays here.

We are off the ground in an instant; the last thing I see is her, growing smaller and vanishing into the smoke.

The darkness takes me.

WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, Millicent is staring at me. The dagger still rests at my throat; she doesn’t remove it.

A tear slips down her cheek, and I do my best to not react. Acknowledging her vulnerability would only make her recoil.

“I hate Nora,” I say quietly. “And most of the witches at the coven. I thought you were just like her. Hell, you’re meant to replace her.” She lets me speak, a rare opportunity, so I choose my words wisely.

“I don’t know you,” I admit. “I knew you when you were a child. The person in front of me now…I’m trying to accept that you may not be Nora.”

“I am not Nora,” she snaps. “I am my own person.”

“I’m sorry about your mother.” The words feel foreign on my tongue. I rarely apologize for anything.

She yanks the blade back and hurls it into the desk beside me.

“I understand we can’t control magic when we’re young,” she says.

“But understand this : my heart died with her. I don’t need your apology or your excuses.

” Her arms wrap around her waist in a protective, guarded manner.

“If there’s anything left in me capable of love and forgiveness, I haven’t found it. ”

She steps back. Her message is clear.

“What’s done is done. And I will always hold you accountable. Don’t try to make amends with me until you make them with the dead.”

“Fair enough,” I say, shrugging. “Let’s just agree to work together without stabbing each other. Deal?”

“Fine. The sooner we finish this, the sooner I can return home.”

I scoff; that stings more than it should. “So eager to get back under the blade?”

She bristles. “Why must everyone speak like they know me?”

“Show me your back.”

“I’m not giving you my back. Don’t mistake cooperation for weakness.”

I strip off my shirt and turn around.

Silence.

Her breath catches. I know she sees the scars, the runes, and the proof. Her eyes are fixated on my back. Her gaze becomes a mix of shock and recognition. No snappy retort follows, just silence and the intense inspection of my back.

Thought so.

“Nora doesn’t help us,” I say. “She controls us, one way or another.”

“I am stronger because of her.”

“Did she teach you that? You sound like a well-trained pet.” I turn to face her once again, pulling my shirt back on.

Her eyes flash. “The truth is in my abilities. I was not born with two kinds of magic. I was made this way—"

“In her image, little witch.” I rub my hands over my face, trying to ground myself amidst the frustration. “Gods above.”

“Even if I am,” she hisses, “look at me. I’m perfect.”

I glance her over, slowly and deliberately. “You’re right, Millicent.” I step beside her, lowering my voice until it barely brushes the space between us. “When I look at you, I see something perfect. The kind of perfect only forged under pressure, like diamonds. Long, unrelenting pressure.”

Her brows furrow. She doesn’t believe me. Not yet.

“There’s something violently brutal in you,” I whisper. “Something fascinating. Stop kneeling to Nora. The only thing in that coven worthy of such worship...is you .”

I leave her there: blade in the desk, scars on my back, and too many words hanging between us.

Gods help us both. I need time to process what the hell I just relived.