Page 77 of Healing Elixirs & Wicked Crows

"You were always too weak," the queen continued, her voice now coming from the mouth of my younger self."Too broken to save anyone.Watch how she suffers because of your inadequacy."

The false Briar's eyes opened, but they were filled with accusation instead of love."Why didn't you save me?"she whispered."Why did you let me suffer for so long?I trusted you, and you failed me."

"That's not real," I said, but my voice shook with uncertainty.The guilt I'd carried for a century rose up to choke me.How many nights had I wondered if I could have done more, searched harder, been stronger?

"Isn't it?"The queen materialized beside the bed, her hand stroking the false Briar's hair with mock tenderness."You spent a hundred years fumbling in the dark while she lay trapped in endless sleep.A hundred years of failure stretched out like a road paved with good intentions."

The scene shifted again.Now I stood in the dungeon where she'd held me, but I wasn't alone.Elias hung from chains, his body broken and bloody, his eyes vacant with the kind of despair that spoke of hope finally extinguished.

"And this one," the queen said, circling his hanging form like a predator sizing up prey."You broke him too, didn't you?All those lies you told yourself about love, when really you were just another burden he couldn't escape."

"Stop," I whispered, but the word came out weak and breathless.

"Look at him," she commanded, grabbing my chin and forcing me to meet Elias's empty gaze."See what your love has cost him.He was free before you came back into his life.Free from hope, free from disappointment, free from the crushing weight of caring for someone who brings nothing but pain."

Elias spoke, his voice hollow and mechanical."I wish I'd never found you.I wish you were but only a memory.At least then I could have mourned you properly instead of watching you destroy everything you touched."

Each word hit like a physical blow, and something inside me begin to crack.These weren't just illusions, they were my deepest fears given form, the terrible voice that whispered in my darkest moments that everyone I loved would be better off without me.

I hadn’t escaped.I never would.Just as the queen had promised.

"Yes," the queen breathed, sensing my growing despair."Now you begin to understand.Love isn't strength; it’s a weakness that makes you vulnerable.Care for others, and you give your enemies the perfect weapon to destroy you."

But even as the words washed over me, something else stirred in the depths of my mind.A warmth that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with memory.Real memory, not the twisted versions she was forcing me to see.

I remembered Elias's face when he'd found me in that cell, the way his hands had shaken as he'd held me.There had been warmth beneath his rough palms.That had beenreal.I remembered Briar's fierce protectiveness, her willingness to fight the entire world to keep me safe.As I’d fallen into her arms, she’d felt just like home.I remembered Darius's gentle support, offering his strength when mine failed.He still looked at my sister the same way he had all those years ago when the fae had been in peace talks.All of that… it had to have beenreal.

"You're wrong," I said, my voice growing stronger."Love isn't what makes us vulnerable.Fear is.And you're so afraid of love that you've forgotten what it actually looks like."

The illusions began to waver around the edges.The queen's perfect control was cracking as I pushed back against her psychological assault.

"You think you know love?"she snarled, her beautiful facade beginning to slip."I loved someone once.Do you know what it got me?Betrayal.Pain.The complete destruction of everything I held dear."

"I know," I said, cutting off her rant."You told me about the Seelie lord.I understand the choice you made in your grief—but that pain doesn’t give you the right to cause more."

"My pain?"Her laughter was like breaking glass."My pain is nothing compared to what's coming.You think defeating me ends this war?I am not the source of the darkness, child.I am merely its most devoted servant.”

The queen's laughter died abruptly, and for a moment the throne room fell into a silence so complete I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.When she spoke again, her voice carried a different quality, something ancient and inhuman that made my skin crawl.

"You think you understand what you're facing," she said, rising from her throne with fluid grace that belonged more to a serpent than a woman."You think I'm simply a mad queen driven to extremes by grief and loss.How delightfully naive."

The shadows around her began to move independently of any light source, writhing and coiling like living things.Her beautiful face started to shift and blur, features rearranging themselves into something that hurt to look at directly.

"I am so much more than that," she continued, her voice now coming from multiple directions at once."I am every nightmare that has ever plagued a sleeping mind.I am every moment of despair that has driven someone to surrender hope.I am the voice that whispers in the dark hours before dawn, telling you that love is weakness and trust is folly."

The throne room itself began to change around us.The walls stretched impossibly high, disappearing into shadows that seemed to go on forever.The floor beneath our feet became transparent, revealing a churning abyss filled with the faces of everyone she had ever broken.

"You see," she said conversationally, as if discussing the weather rather than revealing her monstrous nature, "grief didn't make me this way.Grief simply showed me what I had always been capable of becoming.What anyone can become, given the right circumstances."

Her body began to stretch and expand, growing until she towered over me.Dark veins spread across her skin like cracks in ancient stone, and her eyes became voids that seemed to pull light itself into their depths.

"Behold what you're truly fighting," she said."Not a woman driven mad by grief, but a force of nature given form.I am the darkness between stars, the cold that follows every death, the silence that comes after every last word is spoken."

The arena around us began to shift again, but this time I was ready for it.I reached for my own magic, not the careful healing power I'd always relied on, but something deeper and more primal.The bond between Elias and me pulsed with sudden warmth, and through it, I felt his presence, his love, his absolute certainty that I was strong enough to face whatever came next.

He’s still here with me.

Dark magic slammed into me like a physical blow, lifting me from my feet and wrapping around my throat like a noose of pure malice.I clawed at the invisible bonds, my feet dangling helplessly above the blood-stained floor as she squeezed the air from my lungs.She had done this before, when I’d first fallen into her hands, when I’d screamed and thrashed and begged for breath.The memory surged with terrifying clarity, my body remembering the helplessness even as my mind fought to stay present.Through the roaring in my ears, I could hear Elias calling my name with desperate fury.