Blinding Light: A Sleeping Beauty and Snow Queen Remix

Bonus: Chapter 25

A/N: This is Lilliana's POV for chapter 24. Originally it was going to be a bonus only, but I decided to put it in place of chapter 25 so the timing makes sense. Enjoy!

Also, Latsyr is on the left, Thrys is on the right.^^^^ My lovely death twins. (I didn't make the image)

Fair warning: It's long.

Lilliana Nighle made sure the door was shut before she moved the chairs to the wall, even the table.

            She could put her sister's parlor room back together later.

When the floor was cleared, she set her old-fashioned stereo on one of the chairs and turned the volume dial up.

Her single song imprinted CD spun in the player, and the opening notes of Oceania Remembered's original acoustic version of Only for You burst through the speaker with force, but not enough force to rattle the windows.

She would rather not have Ashton burst into the room at such an unearthly hour.

On second thought, the music should be quieter. Never underestimate the hearing capabilities of others. Besides, I really don't want to be busted again.

Blasting music at midnight when she was supposed to be sleeping was a sure way for her older sister to tattle to their parents.

Lilliana wasn't sure she'd be able to get out of another grounding situation.

She dialed back the sound and kicked off her slippers. They would slow her down.

Taking a deep breath, she shut her eyes and allowed her magic to be channeled into her movements. She'd figured out at age seven, that the best way for her to perform complicated spells was to channel her magic through dance.

And this spell was very complicated.

She had been planning this for weeks, particularly after analyzing Isabelle's curse and realizing that it was backed by Thrys, as well as a witch named Glinda.

No matter how powerful Viviana was, she would not be able to pull the curse apart. Thrys was not a god per se, but he was still immortal, and quite powerful. Plus, if Lilliana's sources were correct, Glinda was dead. Removing a spell cast by a dead person was hard enough, but removing a spell partially cast by a dead person and backed by an immortal? That was impossible, particularly for a certain maroon witch.

But Lilliana could do it.

Her eyes were still closed as she executed an arabesque followed by a battement. She pictured the death curse in her mind's eye until it did not waver.

It was shaped like a great black and twisty snake, complete with glittery white eyes and long celestial fangs that were sunk into Isabelle's neck. But as Lilliana looked closely, she could see it was actually a series of names, written over and over. Maldeena, Glinda, and Thrys. Lilliana ignored the head of the snake and searched for the tail instead. That was where Thrys would have put a stamp of some sort to seal the curse in magical armor.

If she could remove the stamp, she could find a weakness in the curse and mostly unravel it like a cat's cradle string.

She pivoted the holographic image of Isabelle in her head, while pirouetting in reality. She found the stamp just where she thought she would.

On Isabelle's left hip.

But it wasn't even a typical stamp. It was ridiculously long, a chain of Thrys' name extending from Isabelle's hip to the heel of her left foot.

It was too long to just cut free from the rest of the curse. Thrys had intentionally made this as hard as possible.

A frown appeared on Lilliana's face as she mustered her concentration and turned the ghostly X-ray version of Isabelle in her head again, so she could see the stamp from the top down. Then she moved into a relevé pirouette and imagined her toes as a drill, drilling a hole straight through the center of the cylindrical stamp.