Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 3.15

I raise my hand again. Queen Irine lurches forward, still imprisoned by my ice magic. A small groan escapes her lips.

I march out of the tent, my prisoner floating in my wake, Addy and Onyx scrambling to keep up with us. I march through Ta-Mamau, stony faced and stone-hearted. People leap out of my way, horrified.

"She's a witch!"

"The witch has the queen!"

I see the fear in their faces. It's fat and sickly, and it wobbles in their eyes like a glocha in the rain. And it's not just fear. Even cowering from me, huddled in the shadows with their loved ones, their malice is clear. They want me dead. They want my fingers cold and my heart still.

I march right into the wilderness. Addy runs after me, shouting. "Where are you going? Lily, where are you taking her?"

She's scared I'll hurt her mother. And maybe I will.

I don't stop until I come to Rikamu's glade. The hearts shudder in the trees.

"She has brought...oh no, this is not right! Not right at all..." Rikamu's eyes are wide, taking the in the magic burning at the queen's skin, and the death that must be burning in my throat.

"Give her heart back," I demand.

Addy collapses next to me, Onyx panting at her side. "Please," she says. "I can't see you, Rikamu, but please, my mother needs her heart back. She'll...she'll die otherwise."

Rikamu blinks. "She asks for what belongs to Rikamu. But it is not wanted. I cannot give back what is not wanted."

Onyx turns to me. His face holds the blankness of a straw doll. If you do it now, before she wakes, she will feel little pain.

"Please, Lily," Addy turns her own tear-stained face to me. "Please don't hurt my mother."

I descend on Rikamu, my face contorted with rage. "Give her heart back," I hiss, "or I'll burn this entire forest to the ground, with you in it."

Rikamu moves back, further into the shadows. Her breath is like a whisper snaking through the dark. "She is the same. She is different, but she is the same. The shadow has survived..."

"DO IT!" I roar. "DO IT OR EVERYONE DIES!"

"Rikamu cannot give back what is not wanted..."

Addy's crying, but I barely hear it. Onyx is yelling at me, but I don't care. I've killed once. I've sullied my soul. What difference does it make if I kill another? And another, and another? What difference does it make?

"Rikamu, if you're here," Addy sobs. "If you can hear me...my mother would never want this. She loves us. She said her heart belongs to us..."

Rikamu twitches. Surprise etches itself into her wrinkled face. "Her heart is not her own? It belongs to the girl?" She frowns, her head tilted as if listening to the forest. "It is true. Yes. It was said long ago, but it was not taken back. The heart belongs to the girl. It was not to be given."

My rage, swollen into a roaring tidal wave, rears back. It waits, watching Rikamu without so much as a drip of movement.

Rikamu has taken a heart from the canopy. It throbs in her hand, dark and bloody. She closes her eyes and chants. "What was hers returns to her...what was broken is now whole."

The heart disappears in a wisp of ruby smoke. Queen Irine's body, still wrapped in ice-flames, jerks backwards. Her chest fills with a soft ruby glow.

"Ad...Adamantine?"

And my wave comes crashing down. All around me...anger, sorrow, fear, hopelessness. It swamps my body, leaking into the cracks between my bones, filling my organs with cold heavy water. I don't know if there's any sound coming out of my mouth, but I'm screaming, I must be screaming, and I'm sobbing.

The flames holding Queen Irine prisoner subside. Addy falls upon her mother, clutching her in an astonished hug.

Rilkamu turns back to me. "I cannot give your heart back," she says.

Through a film of tears, I spot green eyes watching me from the treeline. A wisp of auburn hair is swallowed by the dark.