The Games Begin

I stood, impatient in the witch’s ring, awaiting my brothers and sisters. The trees grew crooked, and shaggy, holding the darkness of a thousand spells. I remembered perfectly the first time I had been pulled to the ring. I had just lost my kingdom to my brat of a brother, Orion. I felt myself slipping, falling back to the past.

Father had been weak, dying, when he had called Orion and I to him. I had gotten there first, kneeling by my father’s bed, taking his hand while we waited on my brother. Father had coughed, and blood bubbled from his lips.

Orion walked in, fifteen minutes before Father had died. I had been with him for hours at that point. But when the golden son walked in, Father no longer had eyes for me. He saw naught but the son of his second wife. Forget the fact that I had been the one giving him water for the last three hours, forget the fact that I had been the only one that had sought him out on his deathbed. Forget that I had been the one that had come when he called.

Everything was gone when Father saw his magyckless child. The child that hadn’t been born to a witch. But Father had started speaking, and I knew even then that he hadn’t much time left.

“My son.” He didn’t look at me, leaving me out of the conversation, even by name. “You will be the inheritor. You will be King Orion the Third.” He coughed, finally looking at me, a blackness in his eyes.

“You are nothing better than a witch’s bastard child.” He spat. Internally, I cringed, but I didn’t break my hard expression. He couldn’t know he was getting to me.

I didn’t respond, just stood there taking his abuses, just like I had, time after time. Year after year. Day after day. “Nothing more than a curse to me. The gods only know why she felt she had to abandon you here. She could have left you anywhere.”

 I turned, leaving the room. “I could have taken you calling me a bastard, but the moment you started desecrating my mother’s name, I lost all respect for you.”

I turned the crystal doorknob. “I’ve been holding you here for hours, so you could say goodbye to your favorite son. He needs to be quick if he wants to say anything in return. He has five minutes to say anything before I lose control of the magic, and you leave.”

I turn the knob, ready to leave the room, when something hits me in the gut. It wasn’t a physical touch, more of a tug from the magic. “Mother was more than you ever deserved, and this death has been far kinder than you deserve.” I left the room, closing the door gently behind me.

I couldn’t stay, I had to go somewhere my mother would be willing to appear.

           

I jolted back to the present. Someone was near. I inhaled deeply. “Yrsa, Thane, Kazamir, Ginevra.” Blood, fur and sea filled my nose, telling me who was near. Magyck floated on the air, making it spicy. “Brothers, sisters. Closer than blood every could be.”

“Daegal.” A silky voice crawled across my skin. A tall woman with thick red hair glided into the circle, standing on the northernmost point. Spirit. I stood to her right, to the easternmost point, air.

To my right, Kazamir exited the woods, he stood on the fire point, the southeasternmost point. Fire crackled in his eyes, and I knew. He had been in the middle of a deal. And I regretted calling him. I did. But as the High Priest to Lyralith, the goddess of magyck, he had to be there. He was the strongest of us, with the strongest connection. “What is this about Daegal?”

He hadn’t even waited for Thane to fill the southwestern point, earth. Or Ginevra to fill the westernmost point, water. But there they stood, all five of us filling in the points of the pentacle, each of us with magyck swirling in us, as the last of the 13 filled in the gaps, creating the circle. Two stood between Yrsa and I, two between Kazamir and I, one between he and Thane, two between Thane and Ginevra, and two between Ginevra and Yrsa.

I looked to our High Priest. “The girls are getting too strong. I needed help to make my curse more powerful. They are starting to be able to resist the call to come dance every third night. I have to make them weaker, my sons are getting antsy.”

Kazamir nodded. “So the princesses that have caused such a noise about the kingdoms are your nieces. You are getting weak, Daegal if you can’t control twelve little girls.”

I nodded. It had been far too long between visits to the witch’s ring, for me. Years had passed between now and the last time I had journeyed to be with my brothers and sisters. Magyck was released, and I could smell it. Kazamir’s magyck had a stronger tang than it had. Blood, sea, fur, death, fire, poison. The clearing reeked of them all. The smells grew strong as my brothers and sisters chanted.

“In a Macabre Waltz they twist and twine,

Chains of despair in a haunting design.

In the silent waltz of the night’s embrace,

Whispering doom, each step a chilling trance.

In the waltz of echoes, memories splinter,

Souls shatter, lost in the void’s sinister winter.

In the palace halls, where secrets steep,

The eldest princess’ curse, her word to keep”

I made eye contact with my brothers and sisters. “You have my debt. Call me if you need anything, and I will come.” Family may have failed me, but my found family, my coven, they have always been there if I need them. Who needs birth or money when you have magyck? And who would give any power up for people who would turn on you, when you can keep your power, and keep your family all the closer with each spell you cast?