Maleficent

Chapter Eighteen

MALEFICENT HEARD THE SCREAMS OF TERROR FROM THE SOLDIERS BELOW. SHE FELT THEIR FEAR AS SHE SENT WAVE AFTER WAVE OF MAGIC TO THE GROUND. SHE SMELLED THE FIRES THAT HAD BEGUN TO BURN THE GROUNDS OF CASTLE ULSTEAD. And it made her feel strong.

But there was another part of her, smaller and not as loud, that protested her reckless destruction. It sounded a lot like Conall, begging her to stop and think of what she was doing and who she was hurting.

She pushed that part down. It would do her no good when she finally found Ingrith. She needed rage to defeat the queen. Spotting a soldier out in the open, Maleficent dove and lifted him to her. As they hung in the air, the human’s legs flailing helplessly, she glared at him. “Where is she?” she snarled.

Shaking, the soldier pointed toward one of the two huge towers that dominated Castle Ulstead. The queen’s tower. Of course. Maleficent should have known the queen would be there, high above it all, watching everything unfold from where she thought she was safe.

But she wasn’t safe. Not any longer.

Dropping the soldier, Maleficent flew straight up the side of the tower. Fury burned in her eyes as she arrived at the top and spotted Queen Ingrith. The woman was standing in the center of the tower, arms at her sides, her face a mask of cold calm despite the chaos below. Soldiers guarded her, lining the edges, their weapons at the ready. Two huge catapults — armed with barrels of red dust — were aimed directly at Maleficent.

Maleficent wasn’t afraid of the red dust or the death it would bring — so long as she could get to Ingrith first. Hovering in the air, she stared down the vile queen. Wind whipped at her dress and her hair, which had come loose, giving her a wilder, more evil look. What had filled the woman with such hate? Maleficent wondered. It occurred to her, in a rather unappealing way, that she and the queen had that in common, at least. The hate. And the need for revenge. The only difference was Maleficent hadn’t started this war. Ingrith had.

Dropping down to the opposite side of the tower, Maleficent kept her gaze locked on the queen. Two soldiers stepped between them. But with a swipe of her finger, Maleficent blew them aside. Now it was just the two of them.

Maleficent had had plenty of time in the Nest to think about the dinner and all that had transpired since then. She knew that Ingrith had used Maleficent’s temper and reputation against her. The part that irked Maleficent was that she had let her vulnerability show. Her love for Aurora had weakened her. The thought made her anger stronger, and she lifted a hand, ready to strike Ingrith down with a wave of magic.

But the queen’s words stopped her. “Killing me would be so easy,” she said, gesturing to Maleficent’s raised arm. “A wave of your hand and you get your revenge. Your kind is more predictable than humans.”

In response, Maleficent’s fangs flashed and her hand rose up. But a voice stopped her.

“Maleficent! No!”

Turning, Maleficent saw Aurora race out onto the tower. Her face was covered in dirt, her dress torn, but her eyes were as strong — and kind — as ever. Watching the pair, Ingrith smiled cruelly. “Well, almost as predictable.”

Ignoring the cold woman, Aurora rushed over and put herself firmly between Maleficent and Ingrith. “I tried to make you be something you are not,” she said softly, her eyes locked on Maleficent’s.

Up close, Maleficent could now see pain in Aurora’s eyes, too, as she begged for forgiveness.

“I’m forever sorry for that. But I know who you are and I know there is another way,” Aurora said.

Maleficent raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. “You do not know me,” she said. You doubted me. You trusted her over me, she almost added. But she bit back the bitter words. Conall’s calm, kind voice echoed in her head, fighting with her own anger, weakening it. Hope, Conall had told her. She and Aurora had given him hope. He had believed in the power of Maleficent’s love for Aurora over all things and he had ultimately sacrificed himself so they could be reunited. Could she let him die in vain?

Aurora, seeing the hesitation in Maleficent’s eyes, slowly reached out her hand. “I do know you,” she said. “You’re my mother.”

Maleficent’s head snapped up. Her eyes locked on Aurora. Mother. The word echoed in her head, bouncing off moments and memories of Aurora as a baby, a young girl, and a young woman, happy and smiling. Aurora, reaching out and gently holding Maleficent’s horn in her chubby hand. And then the word shifted, transformed, bouncing off newer memories. Memories of seeing the young fey learning to fly. She had spent so long believing she was a monster that she had almost failed to understand why Conall had put his faith in her. She wasn’t the beast Ingrith said she was. She was a mother. A friend. A companion.

And, Maleficent thought, her mind made up, she was, and always would be, a protector.

Sensing the change in Maleficent, Ingrith reacted instantly. She lifted a huge crossbow in front of her. With her finger on the trigger, she smiled one more time, and then…she fired.

In a flash, a huge cloud of red dust hit Maleficent square in the chest. As the air exploded in red, Aurora screamed in anguish.

A moment later, the world in front of Maleficent vanished as she turned from fey to dust.

Aurora wept, her chest heaving as she watched the place where Maleficent had been. Now there was nothing but a cloud of dark dust that slowly began to dissipate in the wind.

Hearing the sound of footsteps above her, Aurora looked up. The simplest of movements was painful in light of what had just happened. Ingrith was peering down at her, a look of triumph on her face.

“Do you know what makes a great leader, Aurora?” Ingrith asked, unmoved by the tears that poured down Aurora’s cheeks and onto the stones. “The ability to instill fear in your subjects — and then use that fear against your enemies.” As she spoke, she waved her hand in the air, as though she could wave away the red dust that lingered. Aurora stared up at her, unable to find her voice or the strength to move.

Ingrith went on. “So, I told them the story about the evil witch, the princess she cursed, and how my son saved the beauty with True Love’s Kiss.”

Aurora’s eyes widened. The woman was madder than she had thought. That wasn’t the story. That was only part of the story. A twisted version that painted Maleficent a villain. Of course the people had hated the Dark Fey. They had trusted their queen to tell them the truth…and she had taken their trust and used it against them. She was, Aurora realized, pure evil. She was the witch, not Maleficent.

As if reading her thoughts, Ingrith nodded. “I know you think I’m a monster,” she continued. “But what I did to the king, to Maleficent, to my son…I did it for Ulstead.” As she spoke, she took a step closer. Now her toes were nearly on top of Aurora’s fingers. She stopped, inches away. “This,” she finished, gesturing to the dust that had once been Maleficent, and then out at the devastation wrought by her war, “is your doing. You are a traitor to your kind — and you will pay for it.”

Reaching down, Ingrith grabbed Aurora’s wrist and yanked her painfully to her feet. Ignoring Aurora’s protests, the queen dragged her closer to the edge of the tower. Aurora’s feet scrambled on the stone. For such a fragile-looking woman, the queen was remarkably strong. Hate fueled her strength and clouded her mind. What else could explain what she was about to do? It was clear that Ingrith planned to send Aurora hurtling to her death while soldiers, fey, and even Phillip (who Aurora spotted on a neighboring parapet) watched.

The wind began to pick up as Aurora was dragged closer to the edge. The dust that had scattered all over the tower’s stones lifted into the air and began to swirl. Ingrith didn’t notice. She was focused on the crowd that had gathered below.

“Maleficent is dead!” she shouted.

From the human soldiers came muffled shouts of joy while the remaining fey gasped. Ingrith reveled in both reactions, her smile growing broader. “We will never again have to live in fear.”

“Let go of me,” Aurora said. Ingrith’s words were making her sick. How could the woman be so happy in the face of such devastation? Aurora wrenched her arm back but Ingrith’s grip was iron tight.

“Ulstead is free at last,” Ingrith said triumphantly. But as her words drifted down and over the crowd, so, too, did more dust. It swirled in the air, shifting and transforming in front of her very eyes, slowly at first, then faster and faster as it grew and thickened.

“What’s happening?” Aurora heard Ingrith ask. But she didn’t look at the queen. Her eyes were glued to the dust.

Then the dust began to take shape. It wasn’t clear at first. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the way it shifted and moved. But as Aurora watched, the dust that had once been Maleficent began pulling together and stretching until at last it became a massive phoenix.

Aurora gasped.

Maleficent had been transformed. Her love and the power of her sacrifice had tapped into the ancient being within her, so, like the mythical being of her ancestry, she was reborn.

Letting out a ferocious roar, the phoenix spread her wings. The bird turned, locking her eyes on Ingrith. The queen took an anxious step backward as she saw the look of death in the bird’s eyes. Behind her, the soldiers dropped their weapons and scrambled away from the phoenix as green magic began to swell, casting the tower and the ground below in an eerie shadow.

Aurora looked at Maleficent — the phoenix — and a single tear trickled down her cheek. The bird was beautiful. She was wild and powerful, and despite the anger in her eyes, Aurora knew the bird represented everything good that had been in Maleficent’s soul.

And then, before anything could be done to stop her, Ingrith shoved Aurora over the ledge. With a cry, Aurora began to fall.

The wind rushed in her ears and whipped painfully at her cheeks. She saw the stones of the tower flashing by her as she plummeted toward the ground. Faster and faster she fell, her dress billowing around her as the clouds wafted teasingly at her from above. The ground rose, ready to meet her.

Then she heard it: over the wind, the cry of a bird and the flapping of powerful wings. A moment later, she felt the wings wrap around her, and then, with a thunderous crash, she — and Maleficent — slammed into the hard ground.

Aurora groaned. Her eyes, shut tightly, suddenly sprang open. There was precisely one thing on her mind: Maleficent!

Whipping her head around, Aurora saw that she was lying on the ground, cradled in the wings of the phoenix. As the majestic creature’s wings opened, Aurora scrambled to her feet and moved a few steps away. Her eyes never left the phoenix. But the bird now lay motionless. The colorful wings did not move again. The eyes were closed.

Then, as she watched, the phoenix’s eyes opened and she, too, rose. For a moment, the creature hovered in the air, an image from legend brought to beautiful life. Nearby, the Dark Fey who had survived bowed their heads in respect. And then, once more, the phoenix transformed. The wings became arms. The feathers turned black. And standing there, once again whole, was Maleficent. She was the same, yet different. Her eyes were filled with new wisdom and peace. And where she had once only had wings, now she had a tail, too — like the phoenix from which she had gained such strength.

With a cry of joy, Aurora raced to her mother. She flung her arms around Maleficent and clung to her, holding her like she would never let go. Maleficent hugged her right back. And then slowly, gently, Maleficent began to stroke Aurora’s hair. “Beastie,” she said softly.

Aurora let herself weep. For everything she’d almost lost. For all that Phillip had lost. For the darkness Ingrith had caused. But as the tears fell, they became tears of joy. She had gotten Maleficent back. Maleficent had come back for her. For love. Her mother might make light of it someday, but Aurora knew now, more than ever, that love was the most powerful magic of all.

Hearing footsteps, Aurora reluctantly pulled free. Phillip stepped forward, and this time it was his arms she fell into. As the Moor folk and the humans watched, they hugged. “What now?” Phillip asked, stepping out of the embrace.

Aurora looked from Phillip to Maleficent, and then out over the gathered crowd. They had seen such horror. What could possibly be done to fix the terror Ingrith’s reign had brought upon them all? Then a smile began to spread over her face.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped toward the crowd. “Our two worlds will be united — right here, right now!” she declared.

Moving to stand beside her, Phillip nodded, a smile on his face. Aurora didn’t need to say more. He knew what she was thinking, and with a strong voice, he added his support to her idea. “Let fear no longer divide us,” he announced. “Today marks a new way forward — together!”

As faeries and humans began to cheer, Aurora looked over her shoulder at Maleficent. To her surprise, she saw Lickspittle coming up behind the Dark Fey. In his hands, he held the spindle. Aurora cocked her head, unsure of what was happening. Lickspittle had been Ingrith’s pawn for so long. Was he there to hurt Maleficent — or help them in their new path forward?

“I believe this belongs to you,” the pixie said, answering Aurora’s unspoken question.

Reaching out, Maleficent took the object. In the light of day, it looked so harmless. The item had brought such sadness, yet in its own way, it had forged the path that had led them all here. This simple piece of wood had brought Aurora and Maleficent together; it had brought Aurora and Phillip together; and in a way, it would soon bring their kingdoms together.

“Curses never end,” Lickspittle added as Maleficent stared down at the spindle. “They break.”

Maleficent nodded. With a flick of her finger, she lifted the object into the air, where it hovered.

Below, Aurora addressed the crowd. “Today, there will be a wedding,” she said. “It is not a union of two people, but a union of two kingdoms. All are invited. All are safe. All are welcome!”

As loud cheers filled the air, Maleficent let out a stream of green magic. It hit the spindle, shattering it into a thousand pieces. As it did, a shock wave of magic washed over the grounds of the castle. Flowers in the garden burst into bloom and butterflies swooped through the air as nature returned to Ulstead. In the middle of a gravel path, a huge willow tree shot up into the sky, its long, weeping branches drooping to the ground. The curse that had hung over so many for so long had finally ended.

Well, for most.

Hearing a shriek, Aurora turned and saw Ingrith being dragged out of the castle by the Dark Fey. The queen flailed and screamed, but her protests were in vain. Her clothes were ripped, her cheeks stained with dirt. Her usual composure was gone and panic was in its place. But no one stepped forward to save her.

“You cowards,” she screeched. “We cannot live among monsters like these—”

Ingrith didn’t get to say another word. Maleficent’s fingers twitched and a ray of green magic blasted toward the queen. It faded with a puff of smoke and, standing where Ingrith once stood, was a goat. The animal let out a plaintive “baaa” and then sneezed.

Aurora stifled a laugh. There could be no worse punishment for the queen who hated nature than to spend the rest of her days trapped as a goat.

“Someone should really cover her horns,” Maleficent said, meeting Aurora’s gaze. Then she flashed a smile — fangs and all. Aurora laughed and the sound broke any remaining tension between them. The curse was truly broken. It was time for a celebration.