Pressure - A Wish Sequel

Her Sacrifice

Amaya wrung her hands together as she made her way along the hallway, towards a room she had rarely been inside since the day the castle was built. It had originally been Magnifico's sanctuary, the place where he kept his 'most precious things'. After his imprisonment, Amaya had entered the room to find hundreds of paintings of herself covering the walls, busts and statues of her scattered around the room. She'd asked him about it that evening.

"They were supposed to be beside the ones of me, dotted around Rosas like my own face. But you were mine. I didn't like the idea of other people staring at you, so I kept them all to myself."

He always did have a possessive edge, and she couldn't deny that she liked it.

Slipping inside the room, Amaya locked the door behind her. She didn't want to be disturbed, not with what she needed to do, and though she was certain that not a soul would dare step foot into this room, she was taking no risks. Her feet carried her towards the large windows that overlooked the royal gardens, and she briefly recalled the days when she'd be out among the flowers, basking in the warm Rosas sun, and glance up to see her beloved husband looking down at her from this very window, a smile upon his lips as he watched her. She hoped they would have days like that again.

With a gentle sigh, she pulled open the dusty curtains to allow the sunlight to stream into the room, coughing softly as the dust filled her throat. As her coughing eased, the Queen moved towards the glass of the window itself, taking a moment to warm herself in the light of the sun. Her eyes scanned the horizon beyond the castle gardens, trailing over the forests and hills of Rosas. Her Kingdom was beautiful, she could stare at it for hours, but it was also in danger and Amaya knew that she was just delaying her task.

Moving towards a large wooden chest, Amaya bent down to unlock it, pushing the heavy lid open and staring down into the darkness. Her eyes fell upon the item she had come for. The damned book that had ruined everything. She despised it, but she was certain that she needed it, and the way that the curled dragon on its cover seemed to stare at her led her to believe that the book knew that she needed it.

Slamming it down onto a table with a slight edge of anger, Amaya rubbed obsidian oil into the skin of her hands and began flicking through the pages looking for something, anything that could free her husband. The staff that had trapped him had come from these pages, the solution had to be in here too. Using forbidden magic wasn't something that she wanted to do, it never had been, but she loved her husband, and she loved her Kingdom and right now, Rosas needed Magnifico.

Amaya continued to read, barely taking anything in and yet intently scanning each page for a solution. The book had told them that there was no coming back from the use of Forbidden Magic, that using it even once would mean an eternity of paying for such a 'crime', but Amaya no longer believed that. She'd watched as the wishes that her husband had 'crushed' had been returned to their owners. She had watched as his control of Simon had ended. How was your soul a fair payment, if none of the things you did even remained done? Beyond that, the Queen had re-read enough magic books to awaken knowledge that she had forgotten, to re-learn that the true magic was in love, and she knew that the love she felt for her King was enough to break any curse.

As she reached the page featuring the dreaded staff, Amaya paused. She suddenly understood why Magnifico had turned to this book. The fear she felt now, the desperate need to protect everything they had built, the pressure of being the only one who could defend Rosas - it had been what he had felt when he'd given in to the power of the book. It had driven him onto a most corrupt path, and she hadn't understood it then. Now, she could honestly say that she'd make the same choices he did, but this time, the book offered nothing of value.

Amaya slammed the thing closed with a frustrated scream, throwing it across the room with a strength she didn't even realise she had. It hit a bookshelf, making it shake and knocking several tomes to the floor. The Queen's eyes narrowed and then widened. She'd never really acknowledged that bookshelf and the many books that had been crammed into it in an unorganised fashion. The way Magnifico stacked his books, she noted.