The Sacrifice

The guard shook the feathers from his skin. I lunged at him. “Sing a song of sixpence,” he sang. “A pocket full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.” He had me by the wrist. I struggled as he hissed in my ear. “When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing. Was that not a tasty dish to set before the king? Sorry princess. It seems you were fooled.” I was momentarily relieved that he had no idea who I was. Then I heard the cries of surprise from the members of our army. Some were closer than I’d expected, while others were alarmingly distant. Everywhere, our people were realizing who they were traveling with. My only thought was that we had to regroup. “Pity I have to kill someone so pretty.” The guard said. Suddenly my wrist was free, followed by the sound of something large hitting the ground. I looked up in time to see my rescuer, a Centaur, reload his bow before galloping off. On his back was Sweets-O, cheering and brandishing a ridiculously large kitchen knife. Around me people were fighting. A great many of them were dying too. More and more crows landed, revealing their true forms in an eruption of feathers. Some were taken down before they had the opportunity to transform. Sadly, a lot of them were not. As I was searching the crowd for Wolf, something bumped into me and my arm started to burn. I stared down as a thin red line formed on my skin. A noise caught my attention and I rolled to the side just as a blade cut the air where my head had been. I looked up at the approaching soldier. Sweat was dripping down around his ears as he swung at me wildly. Unarmed, I searched the ground for something to throw. Some five steps to my right was a body. It was too badly trampled for me to tell whose side the person had been on or even what kind of creature it had been. I made a silent apology and rushed for its sword. While lunging for the weapon, the guard struck out and nicked me a second time in the leg. Some guttural sound exploded in my ears and it took a moment for me to realize that it had come from my own mouth. I hoisted the heavy sword to shoulder level just as the guard was coming back around. I closed my eyes as the sword was violently jarred out of my hand, the hilt thrust backwards into my chest. I slid out from the weight of the dying guard as his body fell to the side, never to rise again. I expected to feel some kind of relief, but I didn’t. Instead, I slumped to the ground, full of grief and anger. “You didn’t have to die.” A memory came to me unexpectedly, one I hadn’t experienced before in person. I was standing in front of a casket. It was too small to fit an adult. I reached out to touch the glossy surface, adorned with wreaths of flowers. My sister was in there, locked up like Snow White. “We just have to break the spell,” I said. But it was too late. No one was listening. Someone was pulling me away from her. I tried to resist, but their grip was too strong. I started screaming. Suddenly, Wolf was there. I buried my face into his sticky fur. “I’m not strong enough for this, Wolf. I thought I was, but I’m not.” I could hear the sounds of the battle as it moved further down, a living, seething monster. “If you’re not strong enough for this, we’re going to fail.” “But people are dying!” “They’re dying for a cause. But if you don’t help them win, they’re going to die for nothing.” “It may be for nothing anyway. I don’t know how to stop her, Wolf.” Between us and our people was a sloping valley. I hadn’t noticed the break in the woods before. Perhaps Queen White’s power only followed her army. For the first time since entering the forest, my head felt clear. I tried to think of what to do next. I wasn’t much of a warrior and I hated to think of Wolf fighting and possibly dying. I looked up at the dotted night sky, focusing on a cluster of stars shaped like a Phoenix. I was sure it was a sign to motivate me. But motivate me to do what? The sound of battle suddenly escaladed. Wolf turned away from me to look at what was happening. “They’ve reached the dogwoods.” He said despairingly. It was then that I noticed the source of his sticky fur. “Oh Wolf!” I cried. “Your ear!” Someone had lopped his ear straight off his head. He pulled away as I tried to inspect the wound. My poor battered Wolf, tailless and now earless too. “It hardly matters,” He said, looking back. The battle monster was screaming now as the Dogwoods came to life. Having seen the carnivorous trees in action before, I knew our people were ill matched for such an enemy. I looked up again, trying to rid my mind of the horrible visions it was conjuring. The patch of stars was larger now. I felt dizzy. Had the ground swelled, or was the sky coming down to meet me? “Wolf?” I said shakily. He followed my stare. The closer the constellation got, the more the stars blazed. “It’s the Phoenix!” He said excitedly. “We’re saved, Fae!” “But, that’s impossible.” I jumped to my feet and ran to the point where the stars looked to intersect the ground. I wished to fly more than ever now. The wings of the starlit bird flattened against its body as it dove toward me, beak open. My eyes teared from the blinding light. Moments before it reached me, I saw. I saw what it really was. It wasn’t the Phoenix; it was a swarm of fairies. The fairy that had once been my twin was the eye of the great fake bird. The fairies lifted me up, chanting something over and over again. But it was faint and quickly lost in the wind. The faster they flapped their paper wings, the lighter I felt, until suddenly I felt like nothing at all. I could see their golden bodies now. We seemed to be moving in sync. “Only you can end it,” they said. “Only you can end it now.” I knew then, without having any way of knowing for sure, that they were repeating the very thing Kanchana had whispered to Evie before leaving. It broke my heart, for I also knew that they were preparing to make the ultimate sacrifice. They were closing the gap between what I had been and what I needed to become. They were granting me the power of the Phoenix.