Magenta and Fox, you give me the courage to believe that you want me. I'm no more than a whipping boy, but you accept me as your knight and that’s a fine thing.
Please, want me...
What's a knight without his king? A king without his queen or a queen without her king?
Love me...
Do you ever cry in your sleep and wake more exhausted than the day before? Is that normal or just...?
I cradle this...weariness...to myself. I've been trapped in the Rebel Academy for half a century. I'm proud that as a whipping boy I get to serve. It's what I'm trained to do. But you treat me like you can't see the curse weeping from me, and now I pretend that I'm simply another vampire who one day will be released…free.
Except, my sentence has no end, see, and I'm not the same.
I'll worship you silently in these letters, but you must never read them.
I can’t let you know that you're the blood in my veins, my heartbeat, and my Soul.
I'll share my darkest secrets with nothing but cold paper.
Bleed me out...ask me to die for you...and I'd open my own veins with my fangs.
Let me bleed for you.
Yet you don't want my blood. I wouldn’t like for you to know how warm that makes me feel. Instead, you demand that I hold on for you.
I swore that I wouldn't die, however, and I won't break an oath. I never dreamed that someone would desire me to be theirs. You touch me, until my skin prickles and my wings are aflame, and you kiss me like I'm something precious, the same as your other Immortals.
Sometimes, I even allow myself to believe that.
Kiss me again.
I hunger for it, more even than your magical blood that calls to me. Your lips were the first to ever press to mine. At least, when I wasn’t dreaming.
It’d be a fine thing if you kissed me again.
Help me lose myself. I never want to be found again.
You haunt my every thought; I'm possessed by you. Bones and blood, don't wake me into reality's nightmare. These letters are my friends; they listen to my agony and joy. But they'll never tell.
Fantasy is safe.
In this fantasy, I kiss you each in turn and then whisper good night. I'm wrapped in your arms. You hold me between all of you Immortals in the warmth of your bed. We're in a nest of pillows, rather than cold and alone in my basket on the floor.
Tonight, I won't cry in my sleep.
You don't know that I love you, but that's all right, see. If all you need is my silent service, then you have it forever.
I love you. I love you. I love...
Please, love me.
Goodnight, my beloveds.
I have the honor to remain Your Royal Highness’ most humble, obedient, and faithful knight,
Chapter Two
MAGENTA
When my three delicious Immortals freed me from over a century trapped as a ghost in Hecate's Tree, resurrecting me, I'd believed that I'd been granted a second chance at life.
But even second chances required sacrifice.
My Wickedly Charmed magic created Rebel Academy from the cradle, but it was my grief at Robin, my first mage lover's, death that cursed it to perpetual winter.
Yet even though I was all wicked, I could bless, rather than curse. I'd save the Rebels because Rebel Academy had always been mine.
I was awfully possessive, even if I intended to tear it up by the roots.
The vast stone that crashed down and blocked the Immortals’ and my path outside the ruins, however, was ancient and dangerous.
A Gateway.
In throbbing, pulsing crimson, it didn't belong inside the academy. It'd been stolen from the angels, and it roared its fury at being tamed.
I gasped, clutching harder onto Sleipnir's aquamarine mane, which glittered as if with crushed gems.
Sleipnir had transformed into his giant eight-legged horse form to carry Bask, Fox, and me out across the snowy grounds of Rebel Academy to the Gateway for our mission. It'd been glorious to ride him through the churning snow, away from the dragon stables and the castle. My magenta magic had wound out of the floor and sky to form a tunnel, which was our connection through the veil of life, love, and death.
All of a sudden, a wave of dark magic blasted from the stone, and Sleipnir reared back. His ears flattened to his head. He squealed in alarm.
Just for a moment, the sun speared through the clouds, blinding me.
My fingers slipped.
No, no, no...
The stone's magic lashed against mine. Pink sparks exploded from me, and I screamed. The stone dragged out my magic in agonizing bursts.
I was losing control...
My magic faded, driving the breath from me.
Bind my body but don't take my magic. Snap my broomstick, even ban me from a decent cup of tea or forever pour in the milk first.
See how serious I was?
The Gateway didn't listen to my plea. Admittedly, I'd only voiced it inside my mind, but it also screamed through the last withering tendrils of my magic.
It was rather rude of the Gateway to mess with my magic but not understand its language. It was even ruder to threaten the students who it was meant to be transporting on an assassins’ mission.
Who’d have guessed that a Gateway through to other realms was actually alive?
Ah, the wonders of a magical academy.
Was it not deadly enough to send us Rebels to the Gold Court of the Dragons as unwilling kidnappers without testing us first with this killer rock?
Behind me, Fox's curls brushed my neck, as his arms tightened around my waist. His scent of wild raspberries washed over me. I couldn't lose him because he was my second chance: the mage who mustn't die.
The mage who I loved, as I'd once loved Robin. As I still loved Robin.
Sleipnir's breathing was loud and panicked; his flanks gleamed with sweat. The Gateway blasted a jolt of shocking magic, and Sleipnir reared again.
Bask hollered, tumbling off Sleipnir’s back. My breath caught. Then Fox and I were falling too, and I screamed.
My magic looped around my lovers to hold onto them, before they hit the ground.
Sweet Hecate, keep my Immortals safe.
Why could I never remember not to pray to goddesses? Perhaps, I should write a thousand lines of:
Praying to Hecate is the same as wishing that you’d transform into firewood.
When I tumbled from Sleipnir's back, my life didn't flash before my eyes. Instead, I was overwhelmed by the sight, touch, and taste of my lovers. Their blood was mine because they'd resurrected and awakened me. We were connected eternally, after death and beyond love. On the witching heavens, I’d never let them go.
I shook, battling the hold of the Gateway's magic.
My own magic twisted and turned, keeping Bask and Fox safe in the air, while I slowly sank lower.
Don't let them fall...
Sweat dripped down the back of my neck, as I landed face first with a thud in a snowbank. I spluttered on the freezing snow, spitting it out of my mouth and blinking, as it hung from my eyelashes.