Page 38 of Tanglewood Magic (The Three Sisters 2)
Circe exchanged glances with her sisters. It was clear they’d seen what she had seen. There was only one scenario that ended in Eleanor’s death. The space they were in plunged into darkness.
Circe woke with a start. She was back in her room in the temple. Still in the tub. Only, the water was cold, and her fingers had wrinkled from the long soak.
Water splashed on the floor as she shot up and dried off quickly. The clothing she’d been given was too large for her, but she wasn’t going to complain. She cinched the belt and rolled the sleeves. Then she went in search of her sisters. She didn’t have to go far. Both of them were in the hallway looking for her.
“Did you—”
“Yes—”
“You too?”
Medea grabbed her hand, and Isis took her other one. They closed the circle, holding on to one another until the buzz of magic built between them. “That wasn’t a dream. It was a vision,” Isis said.
Medea’s face reddened with anger. “No. We don’t know that. It could have been a dream.”
“We know,” Circe said. “When have we ever all dreamed the same thing? The meaning was clear. If we try to kill Eleanor now, we will fail, and at least one of us will die. Only our descendants, the three sisters who are to come, will be able to kill her.”
Isis made a sound deep in her throat. “Do you think it was a vision or a prophecy?”
“Sister?” Circe wasn’t sure she understood the difference. Wasn’t a vision of the future the same as a prophecy?
“A vision shows us what might be. It’s a possibility. A prophecy is a promise. It shows us what will be, if we allow the future to unfold as the Fates intend it.”
The fury rolling off Medea sent a shock up Circe’s arm. She yelped and tried to yank her hand away.
“I want to kill her. I want to kill her now!” Medea’s hands balled into fists and pressed into the sides of her head. Flushed red, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Pain like Circe had never felt before poured into her, coming off her sister in waves. They’d always had a connection. As triplets, she couldn’t remember a time they didn’t finish one another’s thoughts. But this felt as if Medea had turned the trickle between them into a gushing geyser. Emotion jetted into her and stole her breath. She clutched at her chest.
Protective shadows gathered around Isis, and her eyes shifted red. “Stop, Medea. Stop! It’s too much!”
“Too much,” she spat. “What I’m feeling is too much for you? It’s only a fraction of the grief burning in my soul. Tavyss is dead. Phineas is dead. I never even got to hold him in my arms! Either of them!” She pulled Tavyss’s heart from her satchel. “This is all I have left of the man who was my world, my life, my very soul!” Her voice cracked, and tears streamed down her face.
“I’m so sorry, Medea.” Circe reached for her.
“Don’t be sorry. Be angry! Eleanor is immortal. I will die and never get to see her punished.”
Isis frowned. “You did see it. Just now, in the future. We need to make sure that future happens. We need to preserve the book for the future sisters, for the ones who will come after us. They’ll need it to destroy her.”
Medea groaned and started to weep. Tentatively, Circe gathered her into her arms. A cold, dark feeling came over her as she held her sister, and she narrowed her eyes on Isis. “There is one person who should pay, someone who wasn’t in our vision.”
Medea pressed her hands into her stomach and said the name through her teeth. “Zelaria.”
“She is as culpable in all of this as Eleanor.”
Isis’s shadows swirled with her mounting anger. “We can’t go back to Darnuith. By now, she’s smeared all our names and has royal guards hunting for us.”
The door at the end of the hall opened, and the female scribe they’d met before charged in. “You must come quickly. There’s been news.”
ChapterNineteen
Rhys would have ripped off his own skin to save Circe the pain and horror of what she was about to hear. He could barely believe the brazenness of it. Part of him was surprised the evil that had been in their midst had fit within the body of Zelaria. He hated her. Hated her with everything he had in him.
“A friend of the temple sent a falcon this morning with a copy of theDaily Dragon, Paragon’s most circulated newspaper. I think you need to hear this.” Daluk unrolled the scroll and began to read. “Tragedy in the Palace. It is with heavy hearts that we report that last night, the entire Council of Elders, including Queen Eleanor and King Brynhoff’s parents, Villania and Falkon, were massacred by the former witch queen of Darnuith, Medea Tanglewood. Medea used her sorcery to capture and enslave Tavyss in her enthrall. She used him to mount an attack upon Paragon, slaughtering dozens of innocent dragons.
“Thanks to the brave and selfless response of King Brynhoff, the dragon responsible was beheaded. Without her enthralled dragon to protect her, the witch queen likewise fell swiftly under Brynhoff’s sword. But that was not the end of the horror.
“A monster tore from the witch’s womb, half witch, half dragon. Brynhoff attacked, but the beast was impervious to his blade. It killed a number of guards before succumbing to its injuries. An autopsy by the palace magician confirmed that had the beast been carried to term, it would have been invincible, capable of leveling the mountain.
