Savage Beauty(18)

Ember was eating something in a bowl in the back corner of the room, pausing occasionally to watch me. I lifted one of the bottles to read the hand-scrawled label: Tongue of Lizard. Twisting the bottle around, I saw small slivers of dried flesh filling half the bottle. An emptier one had small eyeballs in it. The label read: Eye of Fish.

There were wings of bats, tails of rats, legs of frogs, centipedes, roaches, the largest spiders I’d ever seen in my life—alive and well inside the corked bottles. With no air. Or food. Or water...

A coiled yellow viper sat in a large one in the back, its slitted eyes assessing me. It raised its head, tongue flicking as I eased a bottle of scorpion stingers back down onto the table.

Then there were the ingredients of the human variety... hair, fingernails, peeled skin, dried ears, toes, and fingers.

And those of the fae: ground faery wings, faery dust, and nightmare powder.

There were bottles of claws and talons, beaks and brains. A large container of animal skulls sat in the back.

There were poisons: belladonna, nightshade, rosary pea, oleander, and something called moon seed.

On top of a shelf, next to a human skull, was the stuffed body of a raven, its wings spread for flight. Below it was a collection of dried mushrooms, and rows upon rows of books whose spines were ragged and falling apart. Spell books, I realized, easing one out after another.

At the far end of the room, to the left of Ember, was a table with an opened book. Is this what she used for the healing spell? Flipping through the pages, I realized this wasn’t just another spell book. It was Luna’s journal.

I took it to the chair by the hearth and began to read from the middle of the book.

I am the only one safe from her insanity. Since William’s death, Aura has come unhinged. Tonight, she killed the woman who looked on us as her children. She’d raised us since birth, yet Aura ended her life without a second thought. The worst part is, it was all my fault.

Completely out of my mind with grief, I told Uma what happened. Then, she sat me and Aura down and told us about our true parentage, warning us about the dark gifts we might possess and urging us to control our tempers and guard our hearts.

We were sired by a dark fae King.

A King who passed a sliver of his evil power on to us.

A King who took our mother without her consent, and who forced this curse of sleep upon us as well.

Aura demanded to know how Uma had such knowledge. Our mother died during childbirth, after all.

Uma said that after we were taken to the castle, the midwife who helped us into the world came to her. She said she could smell the magic while we were being born, and how Mother mumbled incoherently during childbirth, eventually divulging everything that had happened to her.

A few moments after Uma took her leave, Aura left my bedroom.

I watched from the window as Uma walked out into the garden. It was nearly dusk and Aura was weakening. Her body was preparing for sleep while mine was waking from it. But even in her tired state, she found Uma and from behind, stabbed her with a pair of shears, forcing them through her back and into her heart. I could hear the squelching sound even from above, the sigh as her spirit left her body, and the resonance of my own scream.

Aura merely laughed in response. She let Uma’s body sink to the ground, and then with her hands, willed the earth to cover her up, the beginnings of a rose bush sprouting over where she lay.

I looked over the land that was being taken over by tangled bushes full of red roses. The color of my sister’s lips. And blood. I realized William wasn’t the first, and Uma wouldn’t be the last person she buried in her garden.

I flipped back toward the beginning, when another page caught my eye.

Today, I made fire by my own hand, not with a fire striker and steel. My fingers burned and tingled. On a whim, I pointed at the logs in the hearth and a humming burn began to thrum through my chest and arms. It filtered into my fingers and suddenly forked fire appeared in the fireplace, a fierce and hungry inferno that consumed the wood almost instantly.

Aura can control earth and water, and like the perfect opposites we are, I can control fire and, my next guess is, air. I just have to figure out how to wield it. Especially against her.

Was that how she flew? By manipulating the wind beneath her?

I flipped to the page she’d left off on.

Last day of spring...

Malex had promised to help me as soon as I woke. It was the only hope I could cling to throughout my slumber. If I could end her by killing myself, I would. Moon knows, I’ve tried. However, her life force brings me back from the shadows instead of dragging her into them with me.

The thought hit me full force in the chest. Luna would sacrifice herself to stop Aura? She’d already tried to kill herself to rid the world of her sister, and it didn’t work.

Luna was desperate.

But if our life forces were separated, I could kill my sister and remain living, and I would roast the bird she uses for eyes. Goddess, I hate Pieces. Always snooping. Always perched on my sills. Leaving the palace behind was the best move I’ve ever made, but most days it doesn’t feel like I left at all, with my sister invading my dreams and that damned bird always hovering and squawking about.

As soon as I wake, I’ll see Malex again. He warned that his price for helping me would be steep. I just hope I can afford his price.

Malex. That was who she’d flown off to see. What type of price would he demand? The infinite possibilities made my stomach clench and my fingers tightened on the journal. Feeling guilty, I marched across the room and put it back on the table, stopping to stare at it. I knew I could keep reading and learn what happened to my brother, but I wanted to hear about William from her lips, not her pen.