“It couldn’t be any worse than what you’re planning to unleash,” Kull muttered.
“No. You’re wrong! It would be far worse than anything you could imagine.” She spoke quietly, yet I heard the fear in her voice. She was truly terrified of goblins and of gray magic. But why? Had something happened to her to cause her to hate them—to fear them—so much?
“Olive, you will enter this cave. You will use your magics from both worlds to obtain the sword, and then you will bring it to me.” She walked close and stood in front of me. Murder shone in her eyes as she focused on me. “You will go into the cave and retrieve the sword of Dracon, or these people will die.” She thrust her finger at my parents.
I focused on my mom and dad. The last time I’d seen them, they’d been hiding in the elven kingdom, trying to protect the babies with gray magic. Now, they had been beaten and bound in ropes. They shivered in the cold air. Mom looked worse than Dad. A gash beneath her eye oozed blood and didn’t look as if it had stopped bleeding.
“Fine,” I answered, “but let me speak to them first.”
“No.”
“Yes!” My voice carried, echoing over the open plain. I was sick of her manipulating me. For once, I would get my way. “Let me speak to them, or I swear to you, I will never go into that cave. You will never have the sword.”
She worked her jaw back and forth. “Fine,” she spat. “Speak to them only, but should you try to heal them, I will take the lives of your companions. You will retrieve the sword, or I will slaughter both of your parents before your eyes.”
I swallowed my fear. She wasn’t bluffing. She’d already killed all the babies with gray magic. She would kill them without hesitation unless I did what she said. I hurried to where they sat and removed the gags from their mouths.
“Olive,” Mom said weakly.
“I’m here, Mom. You’re going to be okay. I’ve come to save you.”
“Yes, of course you will.” Her glassy-eyed gaze drifted as she muttered something, but I couldn’t understand her words. Her breathing grew ragged as she continued mumbling. “The olive branch… I always did… love you. The olive branch. It wasn’t my intention. Peace, it must mean peace—because it was the olive branch.”
I glanced at Dad. “What’s she talking about?”
He shook his head. “She hasn’t been making much sense for a few hours now. Her body temperature has dropped drastically, and she’s losing a lot of blood, Olive.”
He didn’t have to say the words, but I understood his meaning all the same. Mom was dying. I took her hand in mine, shocked at how cold her fingers felt. A hard knot formed in my throat. We’d never had a fair chance to bond with one another. I felt immeasurably cheated at never having really known my mother. She hadn’t raised me as a child, and when she finally had the chance during my teenage years, she’d had all her memories altered. The person I’d spent my time with was nothing like the woman she truly was. Now she was dying, and I would never get another chance to know her the way I should have all along.
I pushed the tears back as best as I could, then I removed my cloak. The cold came at me immediately, so frigid it made me gasp, but I ignored the discomfort as I wrapped the fur-lined mantle around her shoulders.
“I’m coming back, Mom. I’ll get you out of this place, okay?”
She smiled, though she stared only at the stars overhead. “It wasn’t my intention,” she mumbled.
“I’ll keep her safe,” Dad said to me. When he looked at me, tears shone in his eyes. “I love you, Olive. We both love you so very much.”
I only nodded. Speaking was getting harder to do with that knot in my throat. I reached for Dad and took his hand, feeling the steady strength in his grasp. We’d never had a perfect relationship either, so why was it now—at this very moment, looking into his eyes as he kept one arm wrapped protectively around Mom’s shoulder—that I realized he meant what he said. He loved me.
I’d never been able to believe he really loved me in the past, but now I realized he’d only ever wanted to protect me. Dad had asked the sky king to raise me because he knew the mountain was the only place I could be safe. He’d allowed Mom’s memories to be altered so she wouldn’t suffer and go insane the way other witches had in Faythander. Everything he’d done had been to protect the ones he loved.
And now it hit me, when he was in danger of dying, that he actually did love me.
“I love you, too, Dad,” I said aloud for perhaps the first time in my life.
He only nodded, maybe because he’d always known.
I started to stand when he grabbed my hand. The fear in his eyes gave me pause.
“Be careful in that place,” he said. “What you’ll find in that cave may not be what you think. The enemy you least expect waits for you.”
Least expect? “What do you mean?”
“Deathbringer,” he whispered, his voice haunted. “She waits for you.”
I wanted to question him further when rough hands grabbed my arms and yanked me upright. Stumbling, I glanced back at my parents as the elves shoved me toward the cave.
Behind me, Kull pushed forward through the crowd.
“I’m going with her,” he demanded. “She’s not going in that place alone.”
The queen blocked his path. “No,” she said. “Only she controls the magics of two worlds. No one else enters The Hollows but her.”
Kull flexed his fists,
