I came to on a regal bed, surrounded by Joy, Mum, Egan, King Evan VI, King Evan VII, Mrs. Evan, and a kind looking elderly lady that I guessed was a nurse. My head felt like a thick slab of dull lead, pounding painfully. I groaned pitiably.
“My dear child, I hope you are quite alright,” King Evan VI declared courteously.
“Aigneis, you’re alive!” Mum shrieked.
“You didn’t become a Sting? They say that’s impossible!” Egan exclaimed.
“You killed Damon! With your mind!!!” said the newly crowned queen in awe.
“You okay kid?” Joy asked.
“Everyone, everyone, give her room to breathe! You’ll make her headache worsen!” commanded the nurse. She was right, because now my throbbing head felt like a drill was taken to it.
“What . . . . . appened?” I croaked.
“You killed Damon, you somehow resisted becoming a Sting, and to top it off, you lived through it!” King Evan VII spectacled.
“No, what happened . . . while I . . . was knocked out?”
“These female Stings fled!” Evan said in awe.
“Why were people shouting about the old queen?”
The old king looked down to his fine boots, “Alas, dear child, the greatest mistake I hath ever made, my wife, Maud. She hath become a Sting, and hath run away from my palace, only to return today, and moreover, killing two of my most noble guards at my door.”
There was a pause. “Where’s Absalom?”
Silence greeted these words, for a minute at least.
“I wish you blessings of health, child, recover. Good days be to all,” he said, and swiftly left, as did King Evan VII and his wife.
“Egan must be to work soon, sister. Good-bye!” said Joy, who strode out with her husband.
“Where’s Absalom, Mother?”
“I’m to get herbs for your hurts, child,” the nurse said over her shoulder as she hurried out.
Mother whispered, “He’s gone, Aigneis. When Damon started to look you in the eye, he tried to save you, and this woman Sting, she...well, they took him as their new leader…”
“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
“She turned him into a Sting. Oh, honey,” Mother cried, “I’m so sorry,” she stroked my forehead as tears ran down her face. The nurse ran in and rubbed ground leaves on my chest and told me to eat some other leaves whole. I forced them down, and was shut off again to the intoxicating scent of medicine herbs.
*
The next day, they buried Damon. I watched them do it, the strong men who dug the trench, then tossed in the corpse and threw the dirt in over him. There wasn’t a ceremony; no one would have come to mourn. All that showed that a carcass was there under the dirt was a large, rough stone on freshly over-turned earth.
When the men left, I walked over to the stone. Engraved on it was:
Hated Sting lies here.
Creator of MTGYA
First Sting to be defeated by the person that they had
Attempted to destroy.
Now that those words were sitting in front of my eyes, I realized that they were true. No one else had ever escaped a Sting’s mind once they’d been in it. It didn’t feel right. All of those people whose memories were lost. All of those people who were either made senseless or Stings; it was depressing. And my father had been one of them, and so had Absalom. The weight of it all made me sob.
I don’t know how or when, but Mom found me and wrapped me in her thin arms. I realized for the first time how frail she was. “Sweetie, are you sure you’re okay?”
Sniffle. “What was Dad like before … before …?”
“Come on, honey,” she said, turning me toward home, “I’ll show you.”
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