Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. It really means a lot to me! I hope you enjoy this next chapter, too.
-x-
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Last Crusade
Katherine took one look at Tommy and, seeing how heartbroken and dejected he looked, knew she couldn't let this day end this way. As stealthily as possible, she crept around the camp and followed the trail Kimberly had left on the other side. With every step she took, she remembered Dulcea's warning: this place is dangerous. Do not stray far from camp, and go nowhere alone.
When she judged that they were far enough from the others, she called out, "Your Highness! Kimberly! Wait!"
She caught sight of the Queen up ahead, standing amid the forest shadows. She looked terrifying. Kat approached in spite of her trepidation.
"Go away," Kimberly said.
"Please, hear me out -"
"I said, go away!" Kimberly's voice was twisted with anguish. It broke Kat's heart just to hear it.
Kat fell silent, as her Queen had commanded, but she did not leave. She couldn't, not when Dulcea had said it was dangerous to be alone here. Even if Kimberly hated her now, she wouldn't abandon her. Who knew what might be lurking in these woods?
"I'm sorry, I can't," she said finally, just to break the horrible silence. "I -"
"I order you to go away." Her voice was calm, but Kimberly looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment.
Kat would have liked nothing better than to obey, to go back to camp and hide her own tears in her tent. Instead, she said, "It's not safe."
She did not need words to know that Kimberly did not care whether it was safe or not. The look in those eyes said it all.
"I'm not going anywhere," Kat said, with more resolve this time. "It isn't safe to be alone, so if you won't go back to camp or get Aisha or someone else to stay with you, then it's going to have to be me."
"Why did we even bring you with us?" Kimberly snapped. "You only wanted to come so you could get close to Tommy again, didn't you?"
Katherine was momentarily speechless. That had not been what motivated her to join the group at all. In fact, she would have happily stayed home... if she hadn't felt so guilty for nearly guiding Tommy astray when she - and he - was under Rita's spell. She had wanted to make things right, if she could, not steal him from his wife! If only she could make Kimberly see that. But all that would come out of her mouth was, "No!"
Kimberly clearly did not believe her.
"No," Kat went on. "I didn't come here for that. I would never!"
She liked Tommy; he was good looking and kind and brave to a fault, everything she felt a knight should be. But she knew better than to chase after a man who had pledged himself to another woman. If he had not been so clearly in love with Kimberly, then maybe things would have been different. Maybe she would have tried to win him herself. But those were just maybes, things that would never be.
She had always thought, if she was ever to be with a man in that way, it would be a man whose heart belonged only to her. Rita might be dead and gone, but she had destroyed that dream, just like she had laid a trap to destroy Kimberly and Tommy's marriage. Rita had succeeded in destroying Kat's dream. But she hadn't permanently destroyed what Kimberly and Tommy had. Not yet.
So Kat tried a new tactic, hoping that maybe if she took all the blame, Kimberly would forgive Tommy. That maybe this way, Rita wouldn't win. That maybe her colossal mistake, her idiotic attempt at reassuring Tommy about a potential problem he hadn't even bothered to think of, might not be the cause of a disaster. "Please, don't be angry with Tommy. What happened wasn't his fault. It was mine."
Kimberly's glare was hard and angry.
Kat tried to persevere. "Because of Rita's spell, he thought I was you. If I hadn't followed him... if he had known it was me and not you, it never would have happened! You have to believe me!"
But Kimberly did not look like she believed Kat at all.
"Please..."
"And why should I believe you? Either of you!"
"Because," Kat answered, with sudden certainty, "if he had thought something might ever come of what happened between him and me, Tommy would have told you. But he didn't, because there was never anything there, except Rita's spell."
Kimberly scoffed. "So tell me, what's going to keep that from happening again, since you both seem so prone to these 'magic spells'?"
Kat's hand went to the collar round her neck, almost of its own accord. Dulcea called it a necklace, or a charm, depending on her whim, but Kat had never seen it as anything but a collar. It was enormous and gaudy, encrusted with semi-precious jewels, and she hated the weight of it around her neck. "Do you see this necklace?" she asked, earning a scowl from Kimberly. "Dulcea gave it to me when she freed me from Rita's spell and set Tommy back on his quest. Do you know what it does?"
Kimberly did not answer, merely stared at her with angry eyes.
On the brink of breaking down in despair, Katherine said, "It protects me from magic control. No one is ever going to be able to use me the way Rita did, ever again. Not as long as I wear this." Tears sprouted up in her eyes in spite of her best efforts. "And yes, I care for Tommy... but it's because he was kind to me when he could have blamed me for everything, not because I'm in love with him! He could have hated me for what happened... but he didn't. He lied to everyone to protect me, so I wouldn't have to feel more ashamed than I already did. And so yes, I came here because of him. I'd go anywhere for him, I'd do anything he asked. Because I want to help him. I want to make amends. I want to be his friend - and nothing more - if I can."
"Oh, gods," Kimberly murmured, so quietly that Katherine wasn't sure she'd heard. She realized then that Kimberly was crying. "I want to believe you. I do believe you. But I... I can't stop it."
"Your Highness?"
Kimberly gasped sharply. "Stay back!"
Katherine wanted to do anything but that, realizing that Kimberly needed help, and took a step closer.
"I said stay back!" Kimberly snapped, frantic. Katherine stopped short in horror, as from out of nowhere flames rose up and engulfed Kimberly.
-x-
Adam watched, or rather listened to, the little scene between Kimberly and Tommy and suppressed a wince. As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd been hobbling around for the past few days thanks to his injury, which Dulcea's healing magic had helped but not fully healed, now the royal couple was in the midst of a spat and Aisha looked about ready to start murdering people. Specifically, Tommy. And he had a feeling he knew who was going to have to clean up the mess afterward.
"Great," he muttered, watching Kimberly stalk off into the forest. Alone. Just like Dulcea had told them not to do.
Rocky glanced over and gave him a knowing look.
While Aisha intercepted Tommy and lit into him furiously, Rocky made his way over to where Adam was sitting at the base of a tree. "Got any brilliant ideas?" Adam asked.
"Other than letting this just blow over?" Rocky shrugged. "In my experience, if a woman wants to be mad about something, she's going to be mad whether it makes sense or not."
"Yeah, but don't forget what Dulcea said before she left," Adam pointed out, taking care to sound as neutral as possible. "We're not supposed to go off on our own." He did not particularly want to take sides in the Kimberly-versus-Tommy fight. And, apparently, neither did Billy. As soon as Aisha started in on Tommy, the archivist crept over to where Adam and Rocky were talking.
"This is an ominous time for such an occurrence," he said quietly, nodding his head slightly in the direction of their companions.
Rocky and Adam chorused their agreement, and Adam had the sense that if they didn't mend things quickly between Kimberly and Tommy, the entire group would quickly fall apart. At the very least, it was going to take something major to appease Kimberly, and Aisha would defend her Queen to the death if need be. "It's going to be a long night," he noted.
"That's enough," Jason said suddenly. He did not speak loudly, but there was something in his tone that commanded attention. Everyone fell silent and looked to him; in the chaos after Kimberly's abrupt departure, they had all but forgotten he was there at all. "The last thing we need right now," he went on, fixing Aisha and Tommy with a glare, "is to be fighting among ourselves."
They had to admit he was right, but Adam could tell Aisha was still bristling. And Jason knew it, too.
"Aisha, you go with Rocky and look for Kimberly. Billy and Adam, see if you can find where Kat's gone off to."
Aisha gave him a sour look.
"And Tommy. We're going to have a few words."
Suddenly Adam wasn't sure which side Jason was on. Rocky snickered. "Well, he's in for it now."
"Who? Tommy or Jason?"
"On second thought, probably both of them," Rocky decided, then went to collect Aisha. "Come on, 'Sha, let's go find our errant Queen. We can worry about Jason and Tommy beating the stuffing out of each other when we get back."
Adam rolled his eyes and let Billy help him to his feet. "Let's get this over with," he said, glancing over to where Jason was standing next to Tommy. Neither of the two men were saying anything, so it was pretty clear that they were waiting for everyone else to clear out first. A pity, Adam thought. He was curious, but it seemed he wouldn't get a chance to satisfy that curiosity.
Instead, he did his best to follow along after Billy. They walked for quite a while through the trees, calling out occasionally in the hopes that Katherine would hear them and come find them on her own. Adam could not see any sign that she had run off into the forest after her altercation with Kimberly, but she had not returned to camp yet, so she had to still be out there somewhere. He only hoped she hadn't run into any sort of trouble.
They walked what seemed like forever, until his injured leg had begun to ache again, but saw no sign at all of Katherine.
"This is really weird," Adam said when they finally stopped in a small clearing to rest for a bit. "Where can she have gone?"
"Perhaps she has hidden somewhere and does not wish to be found at this juncture," Billy mused. "However, that would be uncharacteristic."
Adam had not known Katherine as long as Billy had, but it seemed odd that she would have run off, especially when Dulcea had been so clear about warning them not to be caught alone in this place. "Maybe she didn't come this far," he said, thinking aloud. "Maybe she circled around, or turned somewhere, or went back to camp on her own and we missed her."
Billy agreed, and with that in mind they changed direction, circling slowly back toward camp. As they went, they continued calling for Kat, even though by now both of them were fairly certain she had somehow managed to slip by them and return on her own.
A little further on, Billy slowed and then came to a stop, frowning. "This does not seem right. I can't explain it, but I suspect something is amiss here. Are we heading in the right direction?"
He was right; Adam felt uneasy, too. And a little bit lost. A mist had come up from somewhere, swirling ominously between the trees and around their feet. And it was growing quite dark under the trees, as the sun sank in the west.
"I think you're right," Adam agreed. "Something isn't right here. We should probably keep moving."
"Katherine!" Billy called again, one last time, just in case.
There was no answer.
For reasons he did not understand, a shiver went down Adam's spine. He followed closely behind Billy as they ventured a bit further.
It occurred to him that Katherine had not come this way, though he had no idea how he knew that. And, a little later, it occurred to him that something was indeed very, very wrong.
The mist had grown thicker and thicker with each step they took, and now it had enveloped them completely. He could barely see Billy only a few steps in front of him, and then he could not see Billy at all.
"Hey, Billy, slow down so I can keep up," he called. "I'm still hurt, remember?"
But there was no response.
"Billy?"
He thought he saw someone standing up ahead and hurried toward the figure, but it turned out to be only a trick of the mist. His heart raced as the figure evaporated into white mist and he thought he heard a voice whisper, "Fear not."
"Billy!"
Suddenly he felt as if something cold had tried to grasp at the back of his neck and bolted, or at least ran as best as he could on his still-healing leg. He no longer cared if he left Billy behind. He would come back for Billy later, when the mist was gone and the sense of wrongness had faded. At least, that was what he told himself.
Right up until he tripped and fell headlong into a small ravine filled with brambles and vines and other unpleasant plants. They broke his fall, but as he landed on his back he could feel thorns piercing his skin and he had the feeling that the vines were wrapping themselves around his arms and legs, holding him fast. He did not know for sure, because he could not seem to tear his gaze away from the edge of the ravine, where the mist had once again coalesced to form a human figure.
"Don't be afraid," a voice whispered in his ear, the same voice from before. "I will set you free."
Somehow, Adam knew it was lying.
-x-
Aisha was seething as Rocky all but dragged her out of camp. By the time they had made it far enough away that they could not hear what Jason and Tommy were saying behind them, he actually thought she might break free of his grip and go back. But she said nothing and eventually calmed enough that he let her go so she could walk beside him instead of being pulled along.
"Stop it, 'Sha," he said softly when he saw how irritated she looked. "You know Jason'll take care of Tommy. Kim's like a little sister to him." She glared and he almost laughed. "I know he won't do as thorough a job as you, but he'll take care of it."
She sighed. "I wasn't going to kill him or anything."
"I didn't think you were." It was mostly true.
"I just wanted to give him a piece of my mind," Aisha went on. "I mean seriously. How could he do something so stupid?"
"You heard what he said -"
"Doesn't mean I believe it."
"Come on, Aisha. What reason would he have had to sleep with Katherine, when all he had to do was turn around and go back to the castle and Kimberly would probably have married him on the spot?"
"I don't know. You're the man, you tell me."
Rocky sighed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "It's not like he and Kim were married when it happened, anyway," he pointed out. "And if Rita put a spell on him and Kat, it wasn't really his fault or Kat's. It was Rita's."
"Kimberly isn't angry because of what happened," she responded tightly. "She's angry because he didn't tell her. He wasn't honest with her."
"Maybe he didn't tell her because he knew she'd completely flip out and not even try to understand," Rocky suggested, even though he knew Aisha would only take it as a jibe.
"Yeah, you would think that," Aisha muttered angrily, but she did not rise to the bait.
He was almost disappointed by that, and then stopped to wonder why in the world he wanted Aisha to fight with him. And why he wanted to fight now, of all times. They were supposed to be looking for Kimberly and helping try to mend the bad situation they'd found themselves in. They weren't supposed to be squabbling amongst themselves.
But he did want to fight. He wanted to scream at Aisha until she would give up and listen to him and stop being so damn stubborn... or lash out and fight back. When he thought about it, he realized that was what he wanted: for her to fight back. For her to hurt him, and to hurt her in turn. It was actually quite difficult not to keep pushing her, to see if he could make that happen.
It made no sense...
"Rocky?" Aisha asked, brows furrowing slightly. "Are you okay?"
"I'm not sure," he managed to say, surprised he hadn't bitten his lip bloody in his effort not to snap at her. "Something about this place doesn't feel right."
"So you feel it, too, huh?" she asked quietly, in that soothing tone of hers that always calmed him down. It did not work so well as normal, here, but it helped a little. "This place has a bad energy. Let's keep moving." They started walking again, and she went on, "I think Kimberly might be sensitive to it, too. She's not normally quite this jealous and possessive. Or this reckless."
"So how far do you think she's gone?" he asked. He was almost afraid to hear the answer, thinking they might spend all night chasing after her. Realizing that it was getting quite dark, he added, "We need to find her soon, or I don't think we're going to find her at all."
"I know," Aisha agreed. Her tone suggested that she was rapidly running out of patience.
They walked for a ways, before Rocky stopped and frowned. "It's almost like this stupid forest doesn't want us to find her. That tree looks too familiar. I think we passed it a while back." He paused. "Aisha, are you even..."
But Aisha did not seem to be paying attention to him at all. He glanced back, noting absently that a fog was rolling in with the dusk, but she was turned away from him. Her head was cocked to one side slightly, as if she was listening to something far away.
"Kim!" Aisha shouted, and to Rocky's utter disbelief she bolted off into the fog and left him behind without even looking back.
"Hey, Aisha," he called after her, annoyed. "We're not supposed to split up, remember?"
There was no answer. When she did not come back right away, he sighed and went after her. He realized with a chill that he had completely lost sight of her in the fog, which seemed to have grown even thicker since she disappeared. It almost seemed to be grasping at him...
Concerned, he called out again, "Aisha! Come back here!"
Nothing.
"Aisha!"
Nothing.
He tried a different approach: "Kimberly!"
The forest around him was completely silent. "Okay," he muttered, half to himself and half to his wayward friends, "this is probably why Dulcea told us not to go off alone."
He felt like something was watching him. "Kimberly! Aisha! Come on, I know you're out there. Can't we just go back to camp and play games later?"
He continued walking in the direction where Aisha had run off, and did not see the pit until it was nearly too late and he had almost fallen into it. He only just managed to grab onto a tree root that protruded from the lip of the pit, or he would have fallen all the way to the bottom. A quick glance down showed that the bottom was filled with wooden spikes.
Not a sinkhole, then. A trap.
"Aisha!" he shouted. "'Sha, I need some help here! I'm not kidding!"
Aisha did not answer, but he heard someone say, "Fear not."
"Hello?" he asked, suddenly frightened beyond all reason. He looked up and thought he saw someone, but it was only the fog. "Is someone up there?"
"Don't be afraid," the voice whispered sweetly. "I will set you free."
The fog-figure reached down and touched his hand, and Rocky stopped struggling.
-x-
Jason waited until the others were well out of earshot before he said anything more to Tommy at all. When it came down to it, the delay was more because he wasn't completely sure how to handle the situation than because he did not want the others to hear what he said. He had known that he had to find a way to break up the volatile mess that was Aisha and Kimberly versus Tommy, but beyond that, he didn't have a clue.
He was as shocked as anyone to find out that Tommy had been unfaithful to Kimberly, though the fact that it had been a result of another one of Rita's spells was anything but a surprise. And as much as he wanted to just smash Tommy's face for hurting Kimberly like that, he wanted answers more. He'd placed his trust in Tommy before, and Tommy had proved that trust to be well-placed. But now...
"Mind telling me what the hell you were thinking?" he asked finally.
Tommy looked distinctly unhappy. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess I just thought it would all somehow... go away. I mean... Kat was protected. Rita was dead. I was marrying Kim. It was never going to happen again, so it just seemed like... Why mess things up by telling her?" He held his head in his hands. "I really messed things up anyway, didn't I?"
"That's putting it mildly," Jason agreed. "The question now is how you're going to fix it."
"I don't know." Tommy looked at him then. Jason wasn't sure he'd ever seen such pain in another person's eyes, even back when Tommy had first broken free from Rita's spell. "You know Kimberly better than anyone. Do you think I even can fix this?"
"You don't have much of a choice," Jason pointed out.
"That's what I thought," Tommy groaned.
"Sooner or later, she's gonna calm down, and then you have to talk to her."
Tommy paced. "I don't have a clue what to say to her," he muttered. "I don't know how to explain what happened in a way that won't make her want to kill me."
Jason wanted to sympathize, but he also knew just how much this would have hurt Kimberly. He wasn't going to make this easy for Tommy just because that would have made life easier for him, too. He crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Tommy with a stony glare. "Maybe you should try explaining it to me."
"I thought it was her," Tommy said after a long silence. "I was just so... happy that she'd come after me, that she would be with me even if that journey was the end of me. I never even questioned it. I never thought, 'what if this isn't really her?' It didn't even occur to me that Rita might have done something." He groaned. "I'm the world's biggest fool."
"You never stopped to think that maybe this is why Rita did that?" Jason asked quietly. "She may be dead and gone, but she's still having her revenge."
"Damn it, why me? And why do I keep falling for it?"
"I don't know," Jason said, feeling profoundly glad that this had happened to Tommy and not to him. "But if you don't patch things up with Kim somehow, you're letting Rita win."
"It's the 'somehow' part that's getting me," Tommy grumbled.
"Try telling her what you just told me," Jason advised. Seeing Tommy's skeptical look, he added, "She might be a bit more understanding if she knew that the reason Rita's spell worked so well was that she was using your love for Kimberly against you."
Tommy blinked, confused. Apparently he had never considered that possibility, either.
"Look," Jason went on. "You have to know the story of Kimberly's parents. Everyone does. Well, when she found out you slept with Kat, she had a knee-jerk reaction and freaked out because she thought you were turning out just like her father. She thought she'd misjudged you. She thought she'd trusted you, and you'd broken that trust." Tommy winced. "Give her a bit to calm down. Think about what happened. And I mean actually think about it. Quit panicking because you screwed up, and think about what you did and why. And then tell her that."
"I don't know whether to be glad you're helping me, or scared," Tommy admitted.
"You get one chance," Jason said, smiling coldly. "Mess it up again and I'll fix it, and you're not going to like it if I do."
"Well, thanks," Tommy said, and Jason could tell he meant it. "You have no idea how much it means to me that you keep giving me chances when no one else will."
"Thank me by proving me right."
"You know I'll try." He clearly did not hold out much hope of reconciling with Kimberly, even with Jason's advice, not that Jason could blame him. He'd screwed up in a big way. Fixing it wasn't going to be easy, but Jason did think it was possible. Kimberly wasn't entirely unreasonable, and she loved Tommy with all her heart. That was why his perceived infidelity had hurt her so much, but it was also the key to setting everything right.
With that matter settled, at least for now, Jason began to wonder what had happened to their companions. It shouldn't have taken that long for them to track down Kimberly and Katherine. In fact, he'd expected to catch glimpses of them lurking around the edges of camp, trying to hear what he was saying to Tommy. But there was no sign of anyone. Either they were better at hiding than he thought, or something was amiss.
"Hey, Tommy. I think something's up."
Tommy looked confused at first, then it dawned on him. "They should be back by now. Unless Kim's being extra stubborn..."
Jason nodded. They both fell silent and listened, but the forest was silent around them.
"Think we should check it out?" Tommy asked.
Jason wasn't sure that was a good idea. In fact, he suddenly had a very bad feeling about the whole affair. Splitting everyone up may not have been the great idea he'd thought it was.
As if in response to his thoughts, white fog started to seep from between the trees, oozing into the campsite. A shadow seemed to fall over everything, though the sun had not suddenly dropped farther than it should have in the sky.
Tommy did not even have time to get out of the way before it was upon him, and then he seemed transfixed. He stared blankly into the whiteness.
Jason skirted around the closest tendrils to grab his sword from where it lay strapped to his pack by the fire. "Yo, Tommy, snap out of it," he said, but Tommy gave no sign of having heard. Suddenly he knew without a doubt that this was what had befallen their missing friends, and this was why Dulcea had warned them to stick together. She had known this was out there, and had sent them right into it anyway.
But he knew that being angry with Dulcea would not save him, or his friends. So he turned his anger instead on the strange fog.
It billowed around him in every direction; he was trapped, but he would be damned if he would go down without a fight. He grabbed the hilt of his sword and tried to draw it, but the moment he touched it, he felt suddenly frozen and could not move.
"Don't be afraid," a voice whispered sweetly. He looked, but could not see anyone in the fog. "I will set you free."
There was something about that voice he just couldn't trust. Something slimy and slithery and sneaky; he was absolutely certain it was lying, if only because it sounded so very tempting. And the harder he fought against its persuasion, the more solid the speaker seemed to become.
He managed to take a step backward.
"Don't be afraid," the voice repeated. "Just give me all your trust, and I will set you free."
"No." He tried to take another step backward, but it felt as if a great weight was pressing down on him. He could not move.
The speaker moved toward him. He could see now that it was a human figure made out of the fog itself, white and misty and transparent, but clearly human and dressed in ancient armor. It had no legs, but seemed to float above the ground so that it was the same height as a man would have been. A sword hung at its belt, but its hands were empty.
"What the -"
"Get ready," it murmured, grasping his face in those ghostly hands, its sweetly seductive voice cracking through the last remnants of his resolve, "to join the Last Crusade."
-x-
From the moment Kimberly had heard what Katherine said to Tommy, she had felt anger flare white-hot in her heart. And everything had gone downhill from there. She had tried to stop it, but in her betrayal the angry, hateful words just kept pouring out.
First she'd driven Tommy away, then she'd stormed off. And then Katherine had had the nerve to follow her and refuse to leave.
And even though eventually she had begun to see what Katherine was saying and to understand, a little, what had happened, it was too late. Her anger was out of control. And she did not know how to stop it.
"I can't stop it," she'd managed to say, but Katherine had no idea what she was talking about. Katherine had no idea the danger she was in.
But she could feel it.
Help me, Bryndis! she thought desperately, but there was no answer from her ancestor's spirit. There was only the anger... and her magic. The magic she had been struggling with for so long now seemed unleashed and untamable. She could feel it roaring around her, though obviously Katherine could not. She could feel it spiraling... faster and faster and faster and faster, until it plunged into the earth beneath her feet.
And then Bryndis was there, but it was too late. Kimberly no longer controlled the magic within her. It brushed Bryndis aside as easily as it had Kimberly and sought deeper. Deeper, deeper, beyond any depth of power Kimberly had ever reached before. Down to the deep, hot depths of the earth it went, dragging her spirit with it, and there it, she, found... something. Something with unbelievable power, all the power she could ever need and more. Heedless of her ancestor's shouted warning and the terror in her own heart, Kimberly grabbed hold of it...
...and screamed.
Power like fire coursed through her veins, hurling her forward, searing every inch of her. She screamed again and again, her fingers curling uselessly against the pain as she found herself suddenly in her body again, and then finally, somewhere the pain began to subside. Her body adjusted to the invasion, and she could open her eyes and see again. But it was as if she looked through the eyes of another.
She could see, now.
She had been betrayed. She was hurting. She was furious, and she had the power to...
She doubled over in pain as another rush of power flowed into her from somewhere deep below. Power, and rage.
She was angry, so angry, and she had the power to destroy that which was breaking her heart.
Kimberly pulled herself upright and nocked an arrow to her bow, which had been slung over her shoulder from the day's journey, and then turned and fired it directly at Katherine's heart.
Kat shrieked and hurled herself to the ground as soon as she saw Kimberly turning toward her; the arrow missed its intended victim by less than an inch. "Kimberly! What are you doing?" she cried.
Kimberly ignored her and nocked another arrow. Kat took off running into the forest, heading back toward camp. Kimberly followed slowly, firing arrows whenever she got a chance. But Katherine had a cat's luck, or at least a few lives, and escaped the arrows unharmed.
And then she stopped short at a strange wall of fog that seemed to surround the camp site. Kimberly hardly noticed that. She only knew that her prey was now within her grasp.
This time Kat did not even bother to try to escape. She just stared in horror as Kimberly took aim. "You are the reason this happened," Kimberly said in a voice that was not her own, a voice that she could not silence. "I will end your miserable existence."
There were tears in Kat's eyes, but she made no attempt to deny it.
Some small part of Kimberly's conscience knew that Kat was not to blame for what had happened, and that tiny part made her hesitate. Kat wasn't to blame for what had happened, or for Tommy's failure to inform her. The person responsible for the deception was Rita Repulsa, and she was dead. The person responsible for not telling her what had happened was Tommy. And that still wasn't Kat's fault.
Yes it is! the angry power inside of her screamed.
"No, it's not," Kimberly said aloud, suddenly aware that she was ablaze. Shaking, stunned to find herself unburned, she lowered her bow and let her arrow fall to the ground.
She was suddenly afraid of this power, whatever it was. She had come dangerously close to killing Katherine when its fury had overcome her, and she had no idea if she would be able to regain control if she lost it again.
Tears slid down her cheeks, and she realized suddenly that her body was still in agony. "What have I done?" she murmured. "Kat, you have to get away from me. I don't know how long I can control this..."
You have summoned a power you may not be able to control, Bryndis's voice tartly informed her. Kimberly felt a pang of shame at hearing that; the First Queen had never openly disapproved of her actions before.
"What can I do?" she asked.
You must fight, Bryndis answered. Her voice was horribly faint, as if a great distance separated them. Or maybe it was just the roaring of flames in Kimberly's ears. Your friends are in great danger - and so are you.
For the first time, Kimberly truly noticed the white fog that had walled off the camp. Her eyes went wide and fear for her friends threatened to overwhelm her. The fiery anger subsided, and with it the pain and flames... but she could still feel that molten presence in her heart, and wondered what it was that she had dredged up from the depths of the earth, and if she would ever be free of it again.
