Chapter 21 Impossible Choice
ARIA'S POV
"Thirty seconds, Aria," the First Curse sang. "Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight."
I stared at Elena floating in that dark bubble, blood dripping from her nose. My best friend. The girl who'd held my hand when we were taken. Who'd made me laugh even when we were facing death.
"Don't do it!" Morgana shouted. "If you channel your power into their spell, you'll make the transformation permanent! There'll be no way to reverse it!"
"But if I don't, Elena dies!" I shouted back.
"Elena dies either way!" Morgana grabbed my shoulders. "Can't you see? They're using her as bait. The moment you connect to their spell, they'll kill her anyway and trap you in the magic circle. You'll be their battery for the next thousand years!"
"Fifteen seconds," Celeste called. Elena's bubble was turning darker. She was suffocating.
Sebastian pulled me close. Through our bond, I felt his anguish. "Whatever you choose, I'm with you."
"There has to be another way," I whispered.
"There isn't," he said. "Sometimes there are only terrible choices."
"Ten seconds!" The First Curse's smile was cruel.
My hands blazed brighter. The power inside me was screaming to be used, to save Elena, to stop the pain. But Morgana was right—using it would doom everyone.
"Five! Four!"
I looked at Elena's unconscious face and felt tears streaming down my cheeks. "I'm so sorry."
"Three! Two!"
I closed my eyes and made my choice.
I grabbed Sebastian's hand and poured my power not into the First Curse's spell but into him. Into our bond. Golden light exploded between us, so bright everyone screamed.
"What are you doing?" the First Curse shrieked.
"Something you forgot," I gasped as power flooded through our connection. "Sanguine bonds work both ways. I can give power, but I can also take it!"
Through our bond, I reached for Sebastian's vampire nature—his speed, his strength, his eight hundred years of fighting. And I pulled it into myself.
My body transformed. Fangs erupted in my mouth. My senses sharpened until I could hear heartbeats a mile away. Power surged through my muscles.
Sebastian collapsed, suddenly mortal. "Aria, what did you—"
"I switched us," I said, my voice strange in my own ears. "Temporarily. Just long enough."
Then I moved with vampire speed—faster than anyone could react. I ripped through the frozen crowd, smashed through the First Curse's barrier, and caught Elena as her bubble dissolved.
"No!" Celeste screamed, lunging for me.
But I was already gone, racing through the palace with Elena in my arms. Behind me, chaos erupted as the First Curse's spell destabilized without my power to anchor it.
I burst into Sebastian's chambers and laid Elena down. She was barely breathing, her skin gray.
"Please work," I whispered, placing my hands on her chest. Golden light mixed with vampire power flowed into her. "Please, please work."
Elena gasped, her eyes flying open. "Aria? What—" She stopped, staring at my face. "Your eyes. They're red."
"I'm temporarily a vampire," I said. "Long story. Can you walk?"
"I think so." She stood shakily. "What's happening?"
"The First Curse started the transformation. We have to stop it before—"
The floor shook. Through the window, I saw people in the courtyard below collapsing. Vampires clutching their throats as they choked on suddenly vital air. Humans screaming as bloodlust overwhelmed them.
"It's accelerating," Morgana said, appearing in the doorway with Sebastian and Kieran. "The spell is unstable without you. It's going to explode and kill everyone in the next ten minutes."
Sebastian looked human—really human. Mortal and vulnerable and terrified. "Aria, you have to reverse what you did. I need my power back to fight them."
"If I reverse it, I'll be human again," I said. "Too weak to stop this."
"Then we're trapped," Kieran said grimly.
"No." A new voice spoke from the shadows. "There's one more option."
A young vampire girl stepped into the light—actually Roslyn this time, not a memory. She looked sixteen and absolutely terrified.
"I died as a baby," she said. "But my soul has been trapped in the realm between life and death for eight hundred years. Watching. Waiting. Learning." She held up her hands, and they glowed with silver light. "I've had eight centuries to study magic. To understand how the transformation works. And I know how to stop it."
"How?" I demanded.
"We need three Sanguine healers working together," Roslyn explained. "One human, one vampire, one in between. Aria, you're temporarily vampire. Morgana is trapped between states. We need one pure human healer."
"There aren't any left," Sebastian said. "They were all executed."
"Not all of them." Roslyn looked at Elena. "She's been marked for the Winter Feast. She's been through the purification ritual. And she survived where others died. That means she has the gift too, dormant but present."
Elena's eyes went wide. "I'm not special. I'm just a farmer's daughter."
"You're Sanguine-blessed," Roslyn said. "Probably have been your whole life. You just never knew."
"But I don't know how to use it!"
"You don't have to." Roslyn created a circle of light on the floor. "The three of you stand here. I'll channel the spell. You just have to trust each other and hold hands."
It sounded too simple. Too easy.
"What's the catch?" I asked.
Roslyn's face fell. "The spell requires a sacrifice. One of the three healers has to give up their power permanently to break the First Curse's transformation. They'll become completely ordinary. No gift, no magic, no connection to the Sanguine bloodline ever again."
"I'll do it," all three of us said at once.
Before anyone could argue, the palace shook again. Through the window, I saw people dying in the courtyard. The transformation was tearing them apart.
"We're out of time," Kieran said. "Choose. Now."
Morgana, Elena, and I stared at each other. One of us had to give up everything. One of us had to become powerless.
"Me," Morgana said firmly. "I've lived three hundred years with this curse. I'm ready to be free."
"No, me," Elena argued. "I just discovered I had a gift. I won't even miss it."
"Neither of you understand," I said quietly. "If I lose my power, Sebastian and I lose our bond. We'll just be strangers. Everything we feel for each other—it'll disappear."
Through our temporary reversed bond, I felt Sebastian's heart break.
"Then it has to be me or Elena," Morgana said.
"Decide!" Roslyn screamed as the ceiling started cracking.
The three of us stepped into the circle and joined hands. Power connected us—gold and silver and dark energy swirling together.
"On three," Roslyn said. "One... two..."
The door exploded inward.
The First Curse stood there, her power blazing. "Nice try. But you forgot something important."
She smiled and pointed at Roslyn.
"She's not really alive. She's just a ghost I've been keeping around. Which means—"
Roslyn's body started dissolving into silver mist.
"No!" I screamed.
"The spell won't work without a conductor," the First Curse said. "So here's your real choice, Aria. Let Roslyn die and doom everyone. Or surrender to me and at least save some lives."
Roslyn was fading fast, her terrified eyes locked on Sebastian. "Uncle, I'm sorry. I thought I could help. I thought—"
She disappeared completely.
The spell circle went dark.
And through the window, I watched as the transformation reached critical mass. In exactly sixty seconds, billions of people were going to die.
"Well?" the First Curse asked. "What's it going to be?"