Justice (Urban Fantasy Flash Fiction)

This is this week's flash fiction! It was a warm up I got attached to and cleaned up a little. It's inspired by the idea that "love" fixes everything and how awful that is lol.

Hope you enjoy!

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“Please,” Rowan says. He’s crouched at her bedside, hands white-knuckled around the rails. It’s as dark as a hospital room can get, which means she can see every detail of his face as he says again, “Please, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Meria wants to run. She doesn’t want to be trapped in this hospital bed, bound by the breaks in her own bones, having to look him in the eyes as he begs for forgiveness. She can still feel the way his spell ripped at the magic in her blood, her marrow, her soul. He asked her for help. He asked her.

She wants to scream at him. She’d been hesitant to attempt the purification ritual on a non-witch. Purification is meant to return the subject’s magic to the same frequency of the earth, a last-ditch attempt to undo the corruption black magic causes. It’s…it’s a holy ritual to her, to her coven and her ancestors, and she hadn’t wanted to perform it on a witch-hunter of all people. But he’d asked, had begged for her to save his brother, so she’d told him she’d give it a try. She’d warned him that it might not be effective on someone who’d only been subjected to black magic and hadn’t cast it themselves. But she’d tried.

And he’d made sure she regretted every second of effort.

“What did you want to happen?” Meria asks at last. Her voice is hoarse from screaming. Rowan’d known that he couldn’t get to her magic if she wasn’t casting something big, something powerful. So he and his witch-hunter brother had created the circumstances needed to get her to cast the biggest spell she knew. It’d hurt when they yanked the magic from her control. It’d hurt more when they kept pulling.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” Rowan says. “We needed power, Meria. There was no other way.” He reaches for her hand and winces when she pulls it out of reach. “I promise you, I didn’t know it would hurt you like that.”

“You stole magic from me,” she says, brow furrowing. Rowan wasn’t born into magic like she was, but he was taught by those who were. He knows what it means to steal power from a witch. Enemies. Blood-feuds. Thieves. Her hurt has nothing to do with the pain that landed her here. “You used it to kill someone I swore to protect.”

“Justine was corrupted.” There’s a tinge of desperation in his words. He needs her to understand. “She was gathering power through human deaths. My brother received orders from his Council and permission from ours.”

Meria’s eyes flutter closed. Her throat works as she struggles to bite back all the words she wants to say. She wishes she’d seen Justine’s struggles sooner. She wishes that someone had told her that her Coven sister was being consumed by evil forces. She wishes so many things and not one of those wishes will ever be powerful enough to bring the bright young woman back.

The truth is that Meria doesn’t know if she could have saved Justine. But she wishes that she’d been given the option to try before Rowan and his witch-hunter decided it was impossible.

There’s a part of her that can’t blame Rowan for what he did. If given the chance, her oaths and her passion would have driven her to fight for Justine to the last breath, Council orders or no. She’d have fought and, as powerful as she is (was), that would have been a problem. That’s why they had to use her magic to take down Justine in the end—her power had been nearly as bountiful as Meria’s.

So Meria understands. She understands why they did what they did, but…

But there’s a bigger part of her that can never forgive him.

He used a part of her to kill her sister. Meria trusted him, believed his words of friendship, fell for his pleas for his brother’s sake. She let her world meld with his in an effort to be kind and this is where she ended up.

With a sister to bury and her body so drained of magic that her bones turned brittle and cracked on the spot.

“Please,” Rowan says into the silence. His eyes are wild and his hands are back to crushing the bed rails. “Please, say something.”

Meria breathes deeply and evenly. Words are power. “You don’t want me to say anything right now, Rowan. Go back to the Council and tell them you succeeded.”

“I love you,” Rowan blurts. He can’t contain himself any longer and lunges for her hands, gathering them between his own as if in prayer. His lips tremble. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. I knew I had no right to, not with what my brother and I needed to do, but I did. Everything you are is what I believe to be good in this universe. If you can’t believe another word I say ever again, I understand. But I need you to believe that my feelings for you are real.”

What is she supposed to say? The Council teaches them the spirit of forgiveness and how it can be found in every part of the earth. There are injustices out there, so many horrible things, and they’ve been taught that there must be equal kindness to counterbalance them. In the face of a lack of kind things, they themselves must be kind.

Justine’s death feels like an injustice. Must she really find the strength to be kind? What would kindness look like right now? Would it be accepting his love, finding it within herself to return those feelings? If the Council gave him permission, him and his witch-hunter brother, then did that make it justice? 

(In another world, she promises to move past this dark chapter with him. She confesses her own feelings with red cheeks and tearful eyes. She lets him gather her body to his and swears that she doesn’t blame him, could never blame him. In another world, she lets Justine die twice.)

She doesn’t feel happy that he claims to love her. She might have, once, but that was before she opened her heart and her magic to him. Now she feels the way his hands quiver around hers and wonders if he thinks his love can soothe the hurts he caused. Is that why he’s so earnestly professing his feelings now? Is this his attempt to be kind after hurting her?

The scales aren’t balanced. She can feel them tipping in her mind. She felt Justine’s soul get ripped from her body, the hook that did it crafted from Meria’s magic. Her bones are broken and so is her heart.

“Her death was righteous,” Meria murmurs. Her eyes are half-lidded as she watches Rowan’s face. “Her death was justice.” It doesn’t sound like a question, but it is. It doesn’t sound like a test, but it is.

Rowan only hears forgiveness.

Rowan’s head jerks up, disbelieving hope in his eyes. “yes,” he breathes. He leans further forward so he’s nearly hovering over her, unconscious of the way his grip on her hands turns crushing. “Yes, it was justice. I had to do it and I knew you wouldn’t be able to help with your oaths constricting you. It was just.”

The scales tip in her head. It was just for them to not inform her coven of Justine’s struggles. It was just for him to lie and to tug at her heartstrings, knowing that she would do anything for family. It was just to make her party to her own sister’s annihilation despite the blood oaths she made so many years ago.

So many just things. Too many.

“Then let me keep the balance,” she says. Her voice is very kind. He hears something wrong anyway and tension races all the way up and down his arms. He doesn’t let go. His mistake.

“Meria?” he asks uncertainly.

“You’ve forsaken magic and there’s a price you must pay,” she tells him. She extracts one of her hands from his suddenly lax grip to stroke his cheek. It’s cold beneath her hand. “Rowan, for your justice you will be Judged.”

The door bursts open, Rowan’s brother charging into the room just as Rowan jerks back from her bedside. The bigger man pulls the sorcerer behind him, teeth bared at Meria. “Stop!” His brand of power—nullification and stagnation—fills the room. It’s this power that makes him what he is. Witch-hunter. “You think I don’t recognize a curse, witch? Stop your tongue or I’ll stop it for you.”

“Meria?” Rowan asks. He sounds lost.

“I wouldn’t curse you for just action,” Meria tells Rowan. Her voice is still soft, demure, and kind. There is no warmth in it. She smiles gently. “Besides, I have no magic left in my body for another week at least. This isn’t a curse.”

“Oh yeah?” the witch-hunter growls. His hand rests on the gun at his hip. There are blessed bullets in his gun. She’s glad. Blessings are from the earth as well. It’s only right that they hear what she has to say. He jerks his chin at her. “Then what is it?” he demands.

“What do you mean ‘Judged?’” Rowan asks her. His breath hitches. “Meria, I thought you—you said you understood why we killed her. She was consumed. There was no other choice.”

“I mean that you will be judged,” Meria says. She turns her palms up to the ceiling. This is an invocation that needs no magic. “When you needed power, you did not turn to the Mother that gifted you with magic. Mortals will call what you did justice, but will she? Will she accept the roots you send into her body after she feels the way your nails dug into mine? Will she turn a sympathetic ear to your voice after you refused me the chance to speak? Will she soothe the wounds in your flesh once she sees the scars you left on me?”

“The Council ordered the witch’s execution,” the witch-hunter says. “If you dare touch my brother for this, I’ll make sure they order yours next.”

Before, Rowan might have shouted at his brother’s words. But now he is only listening to Meria. His eyes are only on Meria. “I—you’re twisting what happened. I didn’t turn from her. I didn’t.”

“You will be Judged,” Meria repeats. This isn’t satisfying. She wants to scream at him, to rip his hair from his scalp and his eyes from his face. But she is alone and magicless and her whole world has turned against her. There is only one being she can lean on now. “The Mother knows what you did, Rowan, better than even you do. Now please leave.”

“Great idea,” the witch-hunter barks. He starts trying to herd Rowan out the door. “You made a mistake, witch. My brother’s too good for you anyway.”

Rowan struggles against his brother’s pull. He doesn’t try very hard to stop. “I loved you,” he tells Meria as if she’s the one who hurt him. “I—you have a right to your anger. I know. But I love you.”

The witch-hunter drags him from the room before Meria can respond. She doesn’t have any poison-less words anyway.

“Please,” Meria whispers, eyes closing again. Her magic is gone, her bones broken, but she believes the Mother can hear her. The earth is deeper than her blood, her bones, her marrow. The earth is beneath. “Please, don’t let her die with one decision. They didn’t even let me try. Please, Mother, please—” she swallows her first wish. Words have power. “Please, be just.”

She is relieved when the earth hears her prayer and answers.

A man’s scream rents the air outside the hospital. At the same time, magic slams into Meria like a freight train. Her back arches off the bed, her mouth gaping open on a soundless scream or moan, eyes blazing with sudden power. 

This magic is so much more than Meria’s. It’s the warmth of Rowan’s smile and the strength of his determination. She gives those back to the Mother without thought, but the Mother understands her anyway. Meria wants no part of that man, just as the Mother didn’t want him to have any part of her. 

Then there is the soft feel of Justine’s hands in her own, the secret smiles she had just for her sisters, and a quiet whisper of thank you.

Meria chokes on the force of her sorrow. Justine.

You would have saved me, Justine says with the Mother’s voice. Outside, the man sobs as if the world has been taken from him. Meria knows the feeling. Justine caresses the pain from her heart and says, I know you would have saved me, Meria.

Meria doesn’t know if she would have saved Justine, but it’s enough to know Justine believes she would have tried. She whispers, I love you.

I’ll be with you, Justine says. It means the same thing.

By the time Rowan’s brother bursts back into the hospital, Meria is gone. There is only the smell of lightning and growing things left on her bedsheets, bloodied bandages smoldering on the floor.