The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

To lying on the cold ice floor of the throne room. Memories flood me until it seems as though I am in two places at once.

I am another little girl, unwanted and afraid.

Hag child, a woman’s voice says. You will take Clovis’s place in her bed tonight.

The feel of heavy blankets, embroidered with stags and forests. Warm and soft. And then waking to agony, to breathlessness. To my mother looming over me, bloody knife in her hand. To the joy, the relief I felt before the feeling of betrayal so vast it consumes me.

My real mother. My beautiful mother. Bogdana.

I hear her voice. But she is not speaking to me now; she is talking to someone else, a long time ago. I will make sure your heart beats in a new chest.

I am terrified. I feel the agony of her nails reaching into my chest.

I blink, and it is as though I am seeing double, still half in that memory, half in the snow at the edge of night.

Mellith’s heart is mine.

I ought to have known it since waking on the cold floor of the throne room. Since those dreams, which felt too real. Since the power sang through my veins, just waiting for me to reach for it.

I was afraid of magic from the first moment that Lady Nore and Lord Jarel stepped into my bedroom in the mortal world. And I couldn’t stop being afraid of myself. Afraid of the monster I saw when I glimpsed my reflection in still pools, in windows.

But all I am is magic. Unmagic.

I am not nothing. I am what is beyond nothing. Annihilation.

I am the unraveler. I can pull apart magic with a thought.

An object flies from nearby. I have a moment to tell that it is made of bronze with a cork in one end before it explodes.

Flames scorch the ground. The wicker soldiers are on fire. Lady Nore screams.

I fall again. The heat on my face is scorching. My skirts are ablaze.

Tiernan is running through the snow toward Oak.

I struggle to my feet. And as I do, I see that though some of the stick creatures burn, it doesn’t slow them. They fight on. A monstrous multilegged thing is ripping a troll apart, limb by limb, like a child taking apart a toy.

Hurclaw’s body lies in the snow. It has gone very still.

Oak wipes dirt off his mouth with one arm and looks toward me as he gets up. I feel as though I am staring at him from very far away. There’s a roaring in my ears. Now that the magic is loosed inside me, I do not think I can call it back.

And he knew. He knew. He’d known the whole time.

He used me like a coin in a trick. Used me so that he could say he brought Mellith’s heart north, because it wasn’t a lie.

I take a deep breath, pulling power toward me. The fire at the bottom of my dress goes out.

I close my eyes and focus my thoughts. When I open them, I let my power slice through enchantments. The stick things fall apart into a scattered field of blackened branches and twigs, forming a circle around me. The scent of smoke is still thick in the air.

“What have you done?” Lady Nore says, her voice coming out high.

The falcons and the trolls pause. Two run to their king and attempt to rouse him from where he lies.

Bogdana begins to cackle.

“Oak,” Tiernan says, having made it to his friend’s side. “What’s happening to Wren?”

They’re all watching me now.

Nix. Naught. Nothing. That’s what you are. Nix Naught Nothing.

“Do you want to tell them, or should I?” I ask the prince.

“When did you—” he begins, but I cut him off before he can get the question out.

“When Lady Nore and Lord Jarel wanted a child to help their schemes, Bogdana tricked them.” It is my turn to tell the fairy tale. “She made them a child of snow and sticks and droplets of blood, just as she told them she would. But she animated it with an ancient heart.”

I recall enough of the Thistlewitch’s story. I glance at Bogdana. “Mab cursed you. Is that right?”

The storm hag nods. “On my daughter’s blood, that I should never harm any of Mab’s line. Only Mellith could end my curse, but I could not give her new life without being asked to do so, nor could I speak of doing so without being questioned.”

“You couldn’t—this can’t—” Lady Nore cannot bring herself to admit how deceived she was.

“Yes,” I tell her. “I am what is left of Mellith. Me, whom you tortured and despised. Me, with more power than you’ve ever had. All of it at your fingertips. But you never bothered to look.”

“Mellith. Mother’s curse.” Lady Nore spits the words at me. “That ought to have been your name from your making.”

“Yes,” I say. “I rather think you’re right.”

Tiernan tugs at Oak’s shoulder, urging him to move. Madoc calls from across the snow. But the prince stands still, watching me.

Now I know the game he was playing, and who was the pawn. And flowing through me, I feel the endless power of nothingness, of negation.

“Will you trade Greenbriar blood for your own?” Lady Nore says. “You could have brought Elfhame to its knees. But I suppose it’s me you want on my knees.”

“I want you dead,” I roar, and with no more than the force of that desire, she is spread apart on the snow. Taken apart. Unmade as surely and easily as a stick man.

I look at the red stain. At the storm hag, whose black eyes are glittering with satisfaction.