Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

frustration prick my eyes and my hand start to shake. He had caged me, hunted me, and made my life hell, even as I had fought to shove down his throat that he was immoral and deserved punishment.
    But my breath came out in a sob as I realized I didn’t believe that anymore.
    I remembered his agonized expression in the ever-after basilica when he begged me to see his people to health, his anger when he pulled Nick off me, his willing sacrifice to endure death and the end of everything he had worked his entire life for—to save one child.
    “Rachel,” Al whispered, but the tinkle of wild magic plinked through my soul as one whirling eye of a thousand turned and focused on me. Others were drawn, and my courage faltered as they laughed at me for thinking I had any power but the power of choice.
    And at that, my conviction grew. Choice. Damn it, I trusted Trent. Damn it all to hell, I trusted him down to my soul—not because I had to, but because I chose to.
    Tears rolled down my face, and I shook at the realization. I trusted him, even with my soul. And he isn’t meant for me.
    The wild magic laughed, and it was as if the eyes marked me with the blackness of the night, making me theirs. I am yours, I agreed miserably, but it was true, and more important, it was my choice. It always had been.
    I shook as the entire rainbow skated over my skin, flashing to a blinding white that sank inside itself to an impenetrable blackness. With an echoing ping, the rings reinvoked.
    Gasping, I opened my eyes wide to see the rings glowing like glory itself. With a sudden implosion of thought, the making of the rings imprinted on my mind. The degradation that the rings in my shaking hand had once caused echoed through me, the cruelty of the master, the anguish of the slave, the petty bitterness and the savage backlash that ended both lives and broke the rings. It was all there, in the tinkling laughter of wild magic, savagely honest in its cruelty. Lives had been ruined beyond belief with the power contained here, and now it was mine in two tiny bands of hard metal.
    “Rachel.”
    I couldn’t look away from the rings. I could feel tears on my cheeks and sense Al—a dark bear of a shadow—hovering before me, his hands outstretched, afraid to touch me.
    “Rachel?” It was questioning this time, and I blinked, curving my fingers around the warm metal. They were alive. All I wanted to do was destroy them.
    “These are evil,” I said, choking back a sob as my aura thickened, pinpricks of energy welling up through me in protection—protection against stuff such as what I had made. And I would trust Trent with this? “These are evil!” I said louder, seeing them through my tears.
    My arms hurt, and I jumped as a blanket smelling of Al and burnt amber landed around my shoulders. “You did it,” Al said in wonder, and I looked up, shaking. “You trust him?”
    “I wish I hadn’t.” Sniffing, I wiped a hand under my nose. “No wonder you hate elves.”
    I went to hide them, and Al caught my wrist. Slowly my fingers opened, and he took them, his expression solemn as he held the rings up to the firelight. His glasses were gone, and he held them close, squinting. “How sure are you of his commitment?” he asked, his tone guarded and soft.
    I wiped my eyes and held my shaking hand out. The memories of the rings still echoed in me, still coloring my thoughts as I tried to readjust my world. I’d known elves were savage, fighting for their existence under the boot of the demons. I had guessed that the demons were seeking revenge for the elves cursing them into a slow spiral of extinction. But I hadn’t realized how deep it went, how convoluted it was, how old.
    Shaking the feeling off, I took the rings from him and jammed them away in a pocket, hiding them. I’d use them, and then when done, I’d destroy them. They were tools, and I wouldn’t let fear rule me. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, answering him. “It’s the choice I make.”
    Al sighed and looked into the flames, through them, maybe, at nothing and everything. “Perhaps you should concentrate on saving yourself,” he whispered. “Let us all die. We’re broken beyond repair.”
    I thought of Al in his dream, looking nothing like this, more like an elegant bat. Broken? Perhaps, but I had put his butterfly back together with my blood. “I never liked the movie Titanic, ” I said, and he grunted, his gaze sharpening on me. “They both could have gotten on