Page 29 of Off with Her Head
The oldest among them, a grizzled man with a scar running down his left cheek, steps forward hesitantly. "My Queens," he begins, his voice rough from disuse, "we... remember everything. Every order we followed, every action we took, but we couldn't control ourselves. It was like being trapped in our own bodies, screaming silently while someone else moved our limbs."
Ravenna's face hardens, her anger at Mara flowing through our connection. "When did it begin?" she asks. "The control?"
"After Queen Mara arrived in Ironwood," another soldier answers, younger than the first, his face still bearing the rounded softness of youth. "She brought the crystals as 'gifts' for our legion. Said they would protect us from magical influence. But they did the opposite—they letherin."
"Describe the process," I request, keeping my voice calm despite the horror I feel from what they're describing.
The soldiers exchange glances, a shared trauma evident in their expressions. The older man speaks again, his words careful. "It began with dreams. Vivid dreams of a pool of black liquid, of a queen with a white streak in her hair directing us to drink from it. Then came the whispers when we were awake—suggestions at first, then commands we couldn't disobey."
"The crystals grew warm when she spoke through them," adds a third soldier, a woman with close-cropped blonde hair. "Eventually, we couldn't distinguish between her thoughts and our own. Our wills... They dissolved."
Ravenna paces slowly, her brow furrowed in concentration. "And King Edmund? What role does he play in all this?"
The soldiers' expressions darken further. "He's not himself," the older man says grimly. "He was the first to receive a crystal. Now he's a puppet king. The highest-ranking puppet, but a puppet nonetheless."
I glance at Ravenna, seeing her absorb this information with growing concern. "And the pool?" I ask, returning to the most significant detail. "Did you physically see it, or only in dreams?"
"Both," the young soldier replies. "After the dreams became constant, Queen Mara took our legion beneath the castle, to caverns we didn't know existed. The pool was there, larger than in our dreams. Darker.Alivesomehow."
"She made us drink from it," the female soldier adds, her voice breaking slightly. "Not all at once—a few soldiers each day.Those who drank changed. They became more receptive to the crystal's influence."
I feel sick at the description.
"Did she speak of her plans?" Ravenna continues questioning them. "Of what she intended to do with her legion?"
The older man nods slowly. "She spoke freely in front of us once we were fully under her control. We weren't people to her anymore, just bodies. She plans to corrupt the source of all magic—to remake the world according to her vision. She believes the separation of the three kingdoms was a mistake, that magic should be unified again."
"Under her sole control," I finish, understanding immediately.
"Yes," confirms the soldier. "She spoke of queens who had failed in their duty—who allowed magic to remain fractured when it should be whole."
Ravenna and I exchange glances, the irony not lost on either of us. Mara seeks the same unification we do, but through dominance.
"And her next move?" Ravenna presses.
"Underland," all four soldiers say in unison, confirming our fears.
"The attack here was a test," the older man explains. "To see how your combined magic would respond. We could sense that she seemed...pleasedwith the results, even as we were defeated."
A chill runs through me. "Pleased? Why?"
The female soldier looks directly at me, her expression grave. "Because the corruption affected you both during the battle. She said she could feel the changes in your magic. She called it... 'softening the ground for what comes next.'"
Ravenna goes very still, and through our connection, I feel her alarm. "The crystal that wounded me," she says to mequietly. "The black veins that spread from it—they were the beginning."
"But I healed you," I remind her. "Our combined magic purged the poison."
"Did it?" She turns to the soldiers. "In Mara's view, did she fail or succeed in today's attack?"
The older man’s answer chills me to the bone. "Succeed, My Queen. She said, 'The seed is planted. Now we merely wait for it to bloom.'"
The implications settle over us, heavy and dark. What if we were wrong? What if, in combining our magics, we merely accelerated Mara's plans rather than countered them?
"You're free to stay in Darkmore," Ravenna tells the soldiers, her decision apparently made. "If you return to Ironwood, we will not be able to protect you there, and we will assume you’ve chosen the opposing side in this war."
The soldiers bow, genuine gratitude in their expressions. Lysander signals guards to escort them out, leaving Ravenna and me alone with this troubling new information.
"We need to examine our magic more carefully," I say once the door closes. "If Mara believes she's already infected us with her corruption..."
