Chapter 12

Elaine threw a book across the campsite. 

"I can't do this!" she yelled. "It's too hard!" She wrapped her arms around her legs. 

"Do I need to bite your ankles?" said Renard. "What is the matter?"

Elaine pointed with her chin at the book. "The language is too hard to learn. I feel like I'm a tiny insect, crawling around, never making any progress anyway, so what's the point in studying?"

The language was so difficult to learn. There were so many complicated rules to the language of magic, so many foreign and exotic sounds, and her tongue did not know how to make them. Each time, she could hear how awful she sounded, how badly she mispronounced the words. She wondered whether she really needed to learn the language of magic. She had gotten along just fine with practicing magic before. Perhaps she did not need to learn this horrible, complex puzzle that seemed to have no end. It had been months now, and Elaine could only remember a few basic phrases. 

Renard sighed. "Yes, you would know about being an insect, now wouldn't you?"

"Renard, hush," said Margaret. 

"Yeah, Renard, shut up," said Elaine. 

Renard stuck out his tongue at her. Being a fox, it had more of a comical effect, and Elaine giggled. He padded over to her to be petted. Margaret walked over. "Don't give up; I know it's hard, but you can do it."

"Have you ever wanted to give up?" It was an innocent-enough question, but Margaret looked off into the distance, seeing many things that were not there. 

"Yes, many times," she said quietly. "I suppose it's time to tell you. I want you to know that what I am about to say...I'm not proud of it. You will learn why I am the worst person in the world, why I am responsible for you being out here in these woods. Let me say from the beginning that I am sorry for the things that I have done."

Renard climbed into Elaine's lap, and she was grateful for the warmth of his body. She began to pet his silky fur. Elaine took a deep breath, and she reached for the mirror.

"No," said Margaret. "This time, I do not need the mirror to tell you my story. It is vivid enough without such aids."

They looked into the fire, and Margaret began to weave her tale, her voice rising and falling in the brisk night air.

*

I once had magic, just like you. Now, it has been taken away, ripped from me, but I cannot say that I did not deserve it. I was young like you once too, and I remember all the impatience of youth, of trying something once and wanting to give up if I did not succeed the first time. But I'm here to tell you that the entire kingdom needs you; I'm sorry to give you the mistakes I made; it is a pitiful inheritance indeed, but it is all I have. 

I once was one of the most powerful witches in the world.Me... and my sister. We held powers that made the gods seem like infants. We played with each other, sending lightning back and forth to each other as children toss a ball, or we rode on the clouds, just to feel the icy wind in our hair. We transformed water into gold and swam with mermaids deep in the ocean without fear of suffocation. They were marvelous times. I thought they would never end. 

Learning the magic took years; it did not come easily or naturally. We both had to study for hours upon hours, days upon days, until it felt like our brains would fall out through our ears if we studied one more second. But we did it; we learned. 

Let me say that I love my sister; I love my sister more than my own life, more than I draw breath. She was always my protector, always got me out of scrapes with dragons, or when I provoked ghouls too much. She rescued me from the mouth of the Living Swamp, and she always made sure that monsters did not enter my room at night when I was a child. My sister was everything to me. She was my mother, my friend, my confidant. I still love her; I know that the little girl she once was is still in her, still inside, buried deep down. 

It did not happen overnight; but I became greedy. I became vain and conceited. I grew in my powers until I thought I could rule the world, or at least my own little world. 

My sister had a suitor, but I was in love with him. How can so much tragedy come from something so silly as unrequited love? You have to understand, I was young, and I thought that love was all that mattered. I did not realize that you need more than love to make a relationship work. I loved my sister, but I failed her and destroyed our relationship. 

So, one night, I decided to take him away from her. I brewed the most powerful love potion that anyone had ever seen. I slipped it into his wine one night. He sipped and fell in love, and I fell into wickedness.

After that, he had eyes only for me. He completely abandoned my sister. She and he no longer took long horse rides through the forest, no longer went for a swim down by the ocean, and no longer strolled arm in arm through the marketplaces. That was us.

She knew; of course, she knew. How could she not, if a man who was interested suddenly stops? Yet she said nothing, for a time.

And I... I could not stop. I am ashamed of myself, even today. It was not enough for me that I had him. I wanted everything. I became vain, and I bragged to everyone that I was the most powerful witch in the kingdom, possibly the world. I performed miracles for great courts across the ocean and I healed every single babe brought to me by desperate mothers. Each time I walked the streets, dozens of people came up to greet me or beg some trinket of magic. 

Help heal my leg.

Help my crops to grow.

Please, grant me a son.

I did them all a favor. I relished being in the spotlight, loved the glow that being adored gave me. I was worshiped by so many that it made me blind to the hate of the one person who mattered most to me. 

I had the arm of the man who would one day be the king. I had the attention and love of the entire kingdom. I had everything. 

I had no idea that my sister hated me so. I should have been more aware. She had grown quiet in recent days, but I did not realize that she wanted me dead. 

She challenged me to a magical duel.

"Just for fun," she said. "Let's see who is really the most powerful witch of them all."

So I accepted. In my arrogance and vanity, I accepted her challenge, never knowing that it was a lure to trap me. I fully expected to win, but my sister had been studying much harder than I had. She studied the dark arts; how to call up the dead. How to kill with just a single spoken word. How to twist someone and break them with pain. 

We met on a broad plain, the clouds building behind us, like the animosity between us. The sky grew dark, and the lightning flashed. When we began throwing spells, I thought it was a game. I did not know that she had meant to hurt me. 

Until the lightning flashed on the ground before me. 

The goal was to subdue the other, but my sister wanted more than that. She wanted my pain; she wanted to break me. 

In the middle of the duel, I realized that it was not a game to her. 

"Sister, stop!" I cried. "Why are you doing this?" 

The beams of magic flowing down her hands would not relent. 

"You stole him from me!" she cried. I tried to dodge her magic that seared the ground before me. "You already had everything! You could have had anyone you wanted; why did you take him from me?"

It was true; I could have had the love of anyone in the kingdom, man or woman, and yet I decided upon the man my sister loved. 

Who can say which would have been better? Perhaps that is not the question to ask. If I had won, if he who is now the king had stayed with me, perhaps it would have been different. 

But, perhaps not. Power has a way of corrupting us. Perhaps things would have been exactly as they are now, only instead of my sister, it would have been me. No one can say for certain. 

All I knew at the time was that I loved him. Or at least, I thought I did. One of the hardest lessons in this world, Elaine, is to know when you really and truly love someone, or you simply think you do. I thought I loved him, and I thought that he might love me too, if given the chance. 

I was jealous of my sister. I admit it now, although I could not then. She, as the elder, always had everything given to her first from our parents. She always had the first toy, the first dress, and it was always the better quality. For once, I wanted something that she had, wanted to take it from her grasp. I didn't love him. I only wanted to control the man who would one day be the king. I wanted to know what that power felt like. 

It felt good. Gods above me, it felt good to be wicked. 

Until everything came crashing down that day. 

My sister had studied the darkest of arts, and she used it to take my power away. We fought fiercely, magic splaying everywhere, the lightning flashing in the sky, thunder cracking the ground. She released a spell that broke me, broke my power. My sister, who I loved dearly, betrayed me, only because I betrayed her first. 

I could feel the magic leave me. It leeched out of my body, and it felt as though I had a limb cut off. I could no longer feel the current, the river of life flowing beneath the surface of all things. I knew all the words, all the incantations, but they fell flat on my tongue. I could not even summon a small flame. 

We left the field, and I fled that day. Once my power broke, the spell that held the king broke too. He no longer looked at me with love in his eyes. I returned to the castle, only to grab the most important books. I went deep into the forest. 

My sister changed that day; perhaps it was the other days that she had changed. But when my power broke, something broke inside her too. The barrier she had kept between herself and the world broke. She no longer cared about what was good or just. All she wanted was power. 

She now had the king's ear. And so, for the last thirty years, she has been whispering into it, poisoning his thoughts, bending him to her will. The master behind the curtain has not been the king; it has been my sister. The one desperate for power, well, I suppose it is both. I have been showing you the evils of the king; I should have been showing you what my sister has done. 

Please, if you can find it in your heart, forgive me.

*

Elaine was silent for a long time after Margaret's story. She sat, stroking Renard's silky fur, absorbed in all that she had heard. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, just barely above a whisper.

"So that's why you know all about magic, but cannot do it yourself," she said.

Margaret nodded. "That day, my power was broken for good. I've never been able to perform magic on my own. Sometimes, I have different potions, but none that were made by me."

Elaine looked deep into the flames. "So it's not just the king," she murmured. "It is also your sister. What is her name?"

"Malthea," Margaret replied. "Her name is Malthea."

"It's not your fault, you know," said Elaine. "There is nothing to forgive, because it's not your fault."

Tears slipped down Margaret's face. "Oh child, of course it is. If I had not acted so foolishly in my youth...if I had not bragged so much, nor had been so haughty as to think that I could steal my sister's love...then things would be so much different."

"But maybe not," said Elaine, standing up. She walked around to Margaret, and took her hand. 

"When I looked into the mirror, I did not see you wielding the sword that killed that monk. I did not see you lighting the torch that burned down that village. That was the king. He was and is responsible for his own actions. No one else. Your sister could have chosen the path of light and goodness. Instead, she chose to be evil and corrupt. No one forced her to do that. She did that all on her own."

Margaret reached up and stroked Elaine's hair. "Well, well, well," she said. "It seems as though the pupil has become the teacher on this night. That is a very wise insight. Very wise indeed."

Elaine blushed. "And it's the truth. We will defeat this king, but you need to forgive yourself," she said with certainty.

"Oh child," said Margaret. "You will learn that that is one of the hardest things to do."

That night, Elaine slept deeply, more securely than she ever had before. She knew that magic was a long road now. She understood that some things could not take one night, or even a thousand nights to learn. The process would be slow, but she would learn. And hopefully, she would not make as many mistakes as her predecessors had. Even though it sometimes seemed like she learned nothing that day, she knew just a little more than the day before. And the day before that. And the day before that. She would be powerful one day. All it took was one more day of studying and practice. And one more. And one more.

Elaine fell asleep saying to herself, "One more, one more, one more..."