Chapter 10: Invoking Article 11
Her Majesty comes for the trio, putting everyone's life in danger. Will they survive? Go to war? You decide! You have one week to vote on what happens next.
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Welcome back to Plot Twist!
Things are really heating up in Wild Ivy for our trio! For the last few weeks, we introduced animals – alive and taxidermic – and this week you’re going to get to meet more of Her Majesty, as per a reader request!
Speaking of reader requests, how are you liking the every other week chapter dropped versus the weekly? It’s getting more votes on the polls, so that’s nice, but I kind of miss the fast pace of the weekly. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
Ready to find out what happens next? Me too!
Let’s dive in!
Chapter 10: Invoking Article 11
Just a warning before we start, this chapter talks about the possible death of a child and torture. So if you’re sensitive, please pass on this one.
Her Majesty knew that sending Selene back to Wild Ivy was a mistake from the minute the Coven Council advised her to do it. Getting her daughter to leave that woman and that town years ago had almost severed their bond irrevocably. With their family’s tenuous truce and Selene’s reluctance to produce an heir, Her Majesty couldn’t afford to let Selene be pulled back into that heathens lair of hippies who practiced pseudo-magic while high on their own self-righteousness.
She’d known about the child. Of course she had. She knew every magical being within her wards, felt each one as it came into and left this world, their names recorded into the coven’s ledger. She knew her parents too, and the complications that could arise in the future, if Selene ever found out. She’d monitored the child, almost as much as her own grandchildren, but she’d never been more than a minuscule bleep on her radar, definitely not powerful enough to cause a ward puncturing earthquake.
Yet, the eagle had warned her. Years ago. A warning it echoed back to her again today, risking her own life to fly to San Diego and sound the alarm. Her Majesty offered the beast food, water, and a place to rest before returning, but she knew the act of warning had most likely been the eagle’s last.
Which made the threat posed by this child all the more real.
Her Majesty gathered a select few of her most trustworthy guards and took off as soon as possible, not informing the Coven Council of her actions and expending significant personal power to hide the royal caravan from humdrums and wizards alike. As her team wove their way up the mountain at an impossible speed, Her Majesty sat in silence, fortifying herself for what came next.
The gaudy cabin was easy to find with the description the eagle had given her, and the humdrum security system was easily bypassed with a wave of her hand. She sighed, realizing Selene had been too lazy, trusting, or careless to put up her own defenses. Willem should have been on it himself, and Ashley on him until he did. But the trio proved once again too self-involved and immature to take care of matters.
Her Majesty walked in the door and into the living room where the group was gathered before anyone even felt her presence. Selene startled and stood, glaring at Ashley, who ducked her head, proving she’d played a part in sending the eagle her way. Good, someone in this room had some wits about them.
“Where is the child?” she asked as welcome.
“Hello to you too, mother,” Selene replied.
“Your Majesty,” Willem ducked his head as Ashley silently curtsied.
Her Majesty ignored Willem and Ashley, and the godawful decorations surrounding them, focusing solely on her daughter. “You know what must be done. And I know you’re not strong enough to do it.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Selene’s voice was sharp, her emotions palpable, her energy thrumming, all proving that Her Majesty had been right, she was way too emotionally involved already.
“I will do what I must for the safety of the coven,” Her Majesty replied.
“You cannot invoke Article 11 on a random child,” Selene declared.
“Article 11 was written precisely for random children,” Her Majesty pointed out.
“It’s a barbaric law that should be outlawed and you know it,” Selene shouted. “How dare you even bring that up!”
“The Coven Council will get there eventually,” Her Majesty said. “We should get there first. Make it humane.”
“I loathe to admit she has a point,” Ashley said.
“You can’t be seriously agreeing with her,” Selene fumed. “It’s Article 11! We’ve been fighting to overturn this my whole reign.”
“And we’ve gotten nowhere,” Ashley sighed. “If this kid is what I think she is, she’s putting all of us in danger just being near her.”
“What do you think she is?” Her Majesty asked.
“She’s a child!” Selene exclaimed. “That’s all that matters.”
“You said she felt like Gentian,” Ashley began, turning her attention from Selene to Her Majesty. “A quick search showed me there is no hospital nearby, but a plethora of hippy midwives, so I’m guessing she was born at home. More specifically, she was born surrounded by wards you’d put there to protect that home as a sanctuary and sacred space for you and your loved ones. A magical womb of sorts.”
“At birth, she was given the name Hortensia, which, from the look on both of your faces when she said it, was the sacred name you were given by the Goddess to bestow onto your first born daughter,” Ashley continued, “which I’m guessing you, against the rules, stupidly told the humdrum at some point in that house, maybe in a moment of passion that declared the sacred name as belonging to that sacred space. To pull it all together, she’s lived among your wards, under your loving protection, with your sacred name as hers for years, making her, against all odds, inherit some of your power.”
“You’re scary sometimes,” Willem said to Ashley as she caught her breath.
“Impossible,” Selene whispered, but her heart panicked at the realization that Ashley was probably right. Which meant the Coven Council would execute Sia immediately if they found out – and all of them as well if they didn’t notify the authorities soon.
Article 11 was one of the most controversial laws in Frontera, a practice outlawed in some international territories and vehemently defended in others. It stated that all wizards born out of a union sanctioned by the Coven Council were to be executed upon birth or discovery, whichever happened first.
Unlike other more conservative covens, Frontera was open to intermarrying with humdrums, homosexual relationships, and trans and genderqueer affirming care and support, but Article 11 effectively forbid those people from having kids, biological or adopted. Worse than that, it legally required any kids they may have to be executed, along with any parents, friends, or family members who tried to hide the kid’s existence. It rarely happened, couples usually moved to another coven or abstained from parenting all together, but when Article 11 was enforced, it was a brutal and public display of power by the Coven Council.
Advocates for the bill, including Her Majesty, argued that intermingling caused diluted bloodlines and weakened the power of the coven as a whole. They cited it as one of the only ways to keep the wards strong. Objectors, like Selene, argued that the law was barbaric, cruel, and that varying bloodlines enhanced the power of their magic, especially as blood diseases like the one that killed Iris were on the rise in Frontera.
Luckily, there hadn’t been an Article 11 violation during Selene’s reign, at least one they’d known about. Sia was proof kids could fly under the radar for years. But puberty always gave them away, and now Selene was faced with the horrible reality that she would have to choose between being Arielle’s child’s executioner or dying herself.
“Article 11 is a barbaric law and I refuse to let it be enforced on my watch,” Selene said.
“Article 11 or not, the minute someone realizes this child has inherited your power, she will be hunted down, tortured, and killed,” Her Majesty said.
“No one has to find out,” Selene replied.
“She’s already a level nine,” Ashley said.
“I understand your hesitation. I truly do. But sooner or later, whether the Coven Council or the Witch Hunters, someone will figure it out,” Her Majesty said. “And when they do, they will kill her. Or worse, pull her magic apart bit by bit to find out how it happened.”
“I shutter to think what my aunt would do to her in the interrogation chamber,” Willem said. As kids, Selene and he were made to sit through an unsanctioned child’s execution. It wasn’t an experience either of them wanted to repeat. “At least this way we can make sure she goes quickly and painlessly. An aneurysm. A stroke of horrible luck.”
“I can’t believe you’re on her side about this!” Selene replied.
“I hate Article 11 as much as you do,” Willem insisted, “But it’s a hell of a lot more humane to have us do the job than the Coven Council.”
Selene couldn’t listen to them anymore. She couldn’t believe what they were saying. Her two closest friends, the people she trusted the most in the world, were sitting here openly talking about helping her mother murder an innocent child. “You may not like it, but you’ll be complicit in enacting it?”
“You have to choose your battles.” Her mother’s gentle voice made Selene furious, like she was talking to an emotional child, not a grown human who was unwilling to murder for the sake of some outdated law.
Selene felt caged in, as stuck as the stuffed deer head above the wall. “I need to think.”
“It’s a big decision,” Her Majesty said, patting her hand. “Take the time you need.”
Selene grabbed the oversized jean jacket with fleece lining that was hanging on a hook in the hallway and threw it around her shoulders. “I’m going for a walk. Clear my head.”
Willem stood. “It’s getting dark, I’ll go with you.”
“I know these woods better than I know the Royal Palace,” Selene said. “I’ll be fine.”
Her Majesty put up a hand, and Selene’s bodyguard nodded his head and sat back down. “Take your phone, just in case.”
Selene grabbed her phone and shoved it in the pocket of the stranger’s coat and walked out the door, gulping in large breaths of the fresh mountain air to fight off the rising panic.
She walked and walked, not caring that the sun had set and the world was getting dark around her. Her feet knew the way, and soon she found herself in the familiar woods behind Arielle’s house, the warm glow of their home a beacon that called her towards it.
She heard footsteps and felt Willem’s magic creep up behind her. “I knew I should have thrown my phone into Strawberry Creek.”
“What are you doing here?” He asked.
“Wondering how I got from there to here,” Selene said.
“I hate it as much as you do,” he replied. “But we have no other choice. If not for the coven, then for Arielle. Save her from having to see her child tortured. Save her from being tortured herself.”
“You’ve seen Aurora,” Selene said. “Losing a child is torture. You’re not saving her from anything but finding out witches are the horrible creatures fairy tales make them out to be after all.”
“Our hands are tied,” Willem said as Ashley loudly stomped through the forest, catching up with them. “It’s our only option.”
Selene stared at the smoke rising out of the home and found herself longing to be a part of the family she could see curled up on the sofa inside. That had been her once, cozy, happy, and safe, no coven to rule, no heir to produce, no wards to protect.
She’d sworn off having a child of her own after that first Article 11 execution she’d seen as a kid, but sitting in Arielle’s arms on that sofa years ago, she had let herself imagine a world in which they could raise a family together. She’d been drunk the night she admitted that to Arielle, confessed she would name her Hortensia after they made love. It was one of the last night’s they’d been together. Weeks before she’d gotten the call and disappeared.
She never should have hurt Arielle like that. She couldn’t imagine harming her again, especially not in such a horrific and permanent way. Selene had brought the coven to Arielle’s doorstep; she would never forgive herself if they made it into her home.
Without a warning, Selene started running, her feet clumsy from the cold, her body unsure of its footing. She knew Willem was much faster than she was, but she hoped the surprise of it all would give her the head start she desperately needed.
The forest seemed to welcome her, to push her on. She felt Willem gaining behind her, heard Ashley call her name. Just a few more feet and she’d be there, just a few more feet and Sia would be safe.
Willem’s hand reached out and Selene’s feet left the ground as she flew forward, propelled by a magic she didn’t know possible. Selene heard Willem crash into the wards as she fell face down into a pile of pointy pine needles.
Immediately flipping around, she threw up her hands, reinforcing the wards, shoving all the magic she had into them, draining herself completely before passing out into a dead cold sleep.
Now it’s your turn!
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