IN ANOTHER LIFE , josie saltzman ✔️

53. Light Calls To Dark

As I was scribbling notes in my notebook, Ruby sat behind me, her legs laying wide open on the floor as she sat herself behind me, so I could sit there, between her legs, resting my body against hers as I took notes. Yesterday we began traveling. Ruby never told me where we went but it was another safe house. I trusted her. But not enough apparently to let her into the plan of me fighting back against my mother. So, we sat there, me in her arms, her resting her head on my shoulder as I finally shut the book closed and tossed it to the side. Surely, one couldn't be disappointed about me fighting back, right? It probably was the killing-her-part, people would have a problem with. But I was done.
    I couldn't handle it anymore. Every two hours like a clockwork machine, she tried clawing her magic into my messed up mind and soul, or the magical remnants of it. While my soul was officially and magically gone, I was sure there was a way I was still somehow reachable this way. Her attack on me proved it. Or maybe those were phantom pains, like an amputee had. Well, if not my long gone soul, then definitely my mind because I was able to pin point at which point in my fragile mind mommie dearest wanted access to. It wasn't hard. She was easy to figure out after a while. Or maybe I just had training because she's been doing it for a very long time.
    „What are you thinking about?" Ruby whispered suddenly and I was just now realizing that she drew things on my shoulders.
    „My mother and how much I want to make her suffer as she made me suffer all my life." I told her grimly.
    „Okay," Ruby said and sighed, „Where do we start?" What? „I, um, what?" I stared at her, utterly confused. „If you want to do this for closure's sake, I will help you however I can. I just don't want you to do things you might regret." She said and I jumped on my feet.
Looking down at her, I told her, „I want to kill her for what she did to me. I want her to suffer. And I will certainly not drag you into this. This is my fight."
Ruby shook her head and got up, she looked down at me, with her being a few inches taller than myself. „This isn't a fight. You're talking about an assassination. Murder. Hell, matricide! You can't mean this." She said.
„I mean every word. My mother has used me and abused me all my life. She still tries to hex her way into my mind to control me! I can't live like this." I told her sternly.
She took hold of my hands and whispered, „And she deserves to suffer for everything she's done to you, but you cannot actually mean to kill her."
I pulled my hands away and scoffed. „As long as she has the power to control me, she will use it. She won't stop. And Sophia is painfully oblivious to the fact that she's still at it." I went upstairs to gather my jacket and shoes and put them on. „Amaya!" Ruby yelled after me. „Your powers may not be bound anymore, but first you don't have soul anymore and she is still queen! Her power far exceeds that of yours. You can't stop her."
My arms widened as a green glow hugged my fingers and magic spoke softly into existence and a portal opened infront of me. „Watch me!" I told her and jump through it before closing it behind me.
    The feeling of falling was freeing, but I had not anticipated how big the distance was. But finally I landed on the tower of the castle and found my way inside the fortified castle.
    My mother was in the throne room, standing hunched over the big wooden table to my left when I entered the massive room. The throne room always had such powerful magic in the air, it was as if it somehow preserved the magic of all the kings and queens before. But now there was nothing. Whether this was because of my mission or my mother's next words, I wouldn't quite know.
    „My magic is no more. Thought you should know. The circle now truly rules over all there is." she said and sounded defeated and tired. I was sure that the last days have taken their toll on her, but there was something else.
    „Ruby warned me," she added and finally looked up before she turned to look at me. „And I understand." she sighed.
    „But you should know I really thought I was protecting you." She said and I now really began to look at her. She had dark purple bags under her eyes, her heart was beating slower than usually and there was now a darker magic present. I was so certain that it came from me.
    „I hate you." I finally said. „I hate for you for continually messing with my magic. You knowingly added on my magic, knowing I was already having trouble containing it right because of my nature. Your adding on made me hurt and unleash it so, so many times. People died because of you. You left me in Dad's care until you shipped me off to Sophia because your duty was more important to you. You over and over again chose your duty and your crown over your family. You bound my life to Hope's! You- You made me think that I was crazy and that I was alone. Because of what you did, I had no other choice than to take away the one thing you should've protected with everything you got. My life. You didn't protect me. You made me hate this!" I put my hand to my chest and realized now I was crying. „And you didn't care. And yes I could've left at any time, but where was room for someone like me!? Earth certainly does not need more revilas and Alpha is more beautiful than I ever could have imagined, but here you are. And your presence causes me nothing but misery and nightmares. And I can't stand feeling like this. I hate hating you because you're my mother and I constantly try to give you the benefit of the doubt but you're always here!" I yelled and noticed out of the corner of my eye that the sky outside has turned crimson red.
    „I hate feeling like this, but I can't let this go. Not here, not on Earth. And I can't forgive you. And I don't wanna kill you." I said and my cheeks were flushed and wet with tears.
    „I don't want you dead, I don't want you gone. But I also can't leave you behind and start anew. And I want to. I want to get away and get to know my son and spend time with Ruby and be far away from all this."
    „So, what do you want?" she asked and looked into my eyes as she remained standing.
    „I want my mom to be my mom. I want to be happy. I want my life to be finally okay." I whispered and looked away.
Shaking my head, I turned toward the balcony and looked out to see the sky shining crimson with thunderstorms coming out far in the north.
„I want to be strong." I whispered and lifted my hand, stretching my fingers to the ground as I called out for the magic. A sudden rush filled me and I felt a twitch in my eyes. A hollowed feeling spread where I once felt magic blossom in my chest. Slithering black lines moved over from my fingertips upward and I couldn't help but feel powerful. I tilted my head and turned sideways around to my mother who slowly backed away. „You'll mourn me and you'll hate yourself if you do this." She almost pleaded. Her face was void of color and she began shaking. I smiled at her, a cold feeling creeping up inside me. It used to scare me. But she'd taken everything from me. And because of her, I was coming undone. She added to my magic. She deserted me. She didn't care for me unless it was beneficial for her. Because of her, I was unstable and suicidal and addicted to sapphire. Because she wasn't there. She cared about everything, but her own daughter, her own flesh and blood. Her heir.
I shook my head and let out a humorless laugh as I raised my arm in one swift motion, making the chandelier over us explode. Tiny crystals came crashing down. She raised her arms to shield her face as my magic built a cocoon around me to protect me from the glass shards.
Then I looked to the throne behind her and closed my hand to a fist. It crumbled into dust.
The door behind me sprang open, but I kept my eyes on my mother as I raised my hand and she floated into the air.
„Amaya!" It was Sophia.
My other arm and my neck were now covered in slithering, black lines, too.
„Please." said Sophia and my mother had closed her eyes now.
„She deserves to suffer as much as I have. Maybe even more." I whispered and kept my eyes trained on the woman floating in the air, almost completely limb. Her head fell back and I tilted mine to the side. She accepted death. Welcomed it, even.
„I know what you are." Sophia said to me as she stood in the doorway, pleading and crying. Her sobs hurt me. I didn't want her to suffer. She'd already been through so much.
But this wasn't about Sophia.
It was about my mother and I. About her wrongdoings.
„A Mikaelson?" I answered and Sophia let out a laugh. It wasn't cheerful, none of this was.
„A young woman, traumatized and abused. A daughter of two of the most powerful beings in history. You feel pain everyday. You want the world to be brighter and better. And your mother right there is the only person of your family you have here. You kill her and you'll be what you hate the most." She said and the magic cocoon around me burned her hand before she could've put it around my neck.
„And what is that?" I continued staring at my mother as Sophia breathed down my neck.
„Alone."
I closed my eyes and kept the spell on my mother before I threw Sophia into the wall.
I turned back to my mother and walked up to her, putting my hand around her arm as I siphoned away the remainder of her magic. Then I opened a portal and sent it away.
„I want you to feel as powerless as I have felt. I want you to be in the exact place as I have been." I whispered to her. „I don't want you to die. I want you to suffer." Then I let go of her and she fell down as she drew her last conscious breath.
„Amaya." Sophia called out to me while I looked at my arms, turning them over, over and over again. Examining the magic that painted these black lines. „This was mercy." She whispered, more to herself, as she looked down at her girlfriend, examining her. „Wake her up and Cassius will be the least of your problems." I told her and turned my back on them as she rushed to her.