Loki had cut her hand off.
“I told you not to leave me!” Shew yelled at her and bent over to pull her up on the unicorn.
As stubborn as Cerené was, she pulled away from Shew and ran toward Loki again, stretching out her other arm, and screaming, "Moutza, you Queen’s Bastard!”
Loki let out a small demeaning laugh, and waited until the little ashen girl approached him.
“This first one was for thinking you could kill me,” Loki said. “This is for being stupid,” he simply chopped her other hand off, and rode away again.
“You little piece of shit!” Shew screamed at Loki and ran toward Cerené, trying to pull her up. This time Cerené wasn’t stubborn. She had that heartbreaking look in her eyes as if questioning how this could possibly be her fate. Shew pulled her up before she fainted.
All she could think of now was saving Cerené. Looking to the left, she noticed they were near the Wall of Thorns. She remembered when Cerené told her that each sleeping beauty in the Field of Dreams was a girl who had been killed. In order to live again, they had to dream and provide sand and tears for a hundred years, and then they could come back to life revitalized.
Shew didn’t know how to resurrect people through the blowpipe, nor did she know about the power of True Names. The Field of Dreams was her only choice to save Cerené. Cerené was dying in her hands.
To go to the Field of Dreams, Shew had to pass through the Wall of Thorns. Shew rode toward it, not giving a damn about the thorn bush. If she rode fast enough, she should be able to pierce through it. Even if she didn’t, she’d give in to the thorn bush and allow the unicorn to take Cerené to the Field of Dreams.
As she rode, she noticed Loki following her again, but she intended to be faster. Once she entered the thorn bush, a couple of thorn vines crawled around Cerené and the unicorn, sniffing them. They slashed slightly at them, and sniffed their blood. Finally, they let them go.
I’m so close. I can make it to the Field of Dreams.
When the vines sniffed Shew, it took them some time before they slashed at her, tasting her blood.
Instantly they went crazy.
“Can’t you understand that I’m not the enemy,” Shew shouted. “Stupid thorns!”
Shew had come to a point where shedding blood had become really insignificant. She felt the thorns cut at her arms, her legs, and her face. It didn’t matter as long as there was the slightest hope to save Cerené.
If only she could ignore Mozart’s Magic Flute playing in her ears.
Somehow, she did this time.
Being seduced by music was only meant for the weak, not Chosen Ones when they’d learned their powers. The thorns had to do more than cut her skin to stop her.
Finally, Shew crossed to the other side into the Field of Dreams. Her dress was soaked with blood from every pore in her body
She stopped near one of the sleeping beauties, and eased Cerené down off the unicorn. She was hardly speaking. Shew located a free puddle of water and laid Cerené in it. She went back, undressed one of the girls in red, and dressed Cerené. She placed a glass urn to her right and one to her left, wondering if she’d done it the right way.
“Did I make fire?” Cerené muttered.
“Don’t talk now,” She urged her.
Cerené was already fainting. She had no more words to say, disappointed she didn’t live long enough to make fire. She held tighter, not knowing what else to do. She was waiting for a sign. Maybe she’d see Cerené crying sand and tears like all the other sleeping beauties, which would mean Cerené was saved.
“Tay,” Cerené tried to talk gain, her eyes white, not staring at Shew.
“Say nothing,” Shew held her face, trying not to think about the fountain of blood spurting out her arms. She suddenly remembered reading a gruesome fairy tale called the Girl Without Hands in the Schloss when she was imprisoned.
Who are you, Cerené? Who are you, really? Cinderella, the Phoenix, the Girl Without Hands, or my mentor?
“Tay,” Cerené’s tongue twisted. “Take,” she pointed at her glass urn tied to her stomach under her dress.
Shew took it, not knowing what Cerené wanted her to do with it. It looked like the other urns to her left and right. Cerené wasn’t talking anymore. She only pointed at the Wall of Thorns then fell back completely.
“Piggy, Piggy!” Loki shouted from behind the wall, his voice void of sarcasm.
Even if it was going to delay saving Cerené, she had to get rid of him.
Kill him, damn it. Kill him!
Shew took the glass urn and rode her unicorn back to the edge of the wall. She wasn’t going to run through it again. She’d been bleeding for some time, and she was getting weaker.
Loki was already in the middle of the Wall of Thorns, crossing it slowly on his unicorn. Shew felt maddened by the fact that Wall of Thorns considered him a friend and let him pass. She rode close to the edge of the thorns, looking Loki in the eyes.
“This is for Cerené,” she said, and threw her sword like a spear, right into his heart, wiping the nasty smirk off his face. “And this sword has a piece of her in it.
Loki fell back instantly and his unicorn ran away. Shew couldn’t see what happened to him from behind the thicket of thorns, but she was worried. She’d stabbed him in the stomach before and he didn’t die. There was no assurance he’d die when a sword plunged right through his heart.
A moment had passed without him even cursing or talking. Could it be that he was dead? It looked like it.
She turned around, back to Cerené.
“Peek-a-boo,” Loki’s voice called her from behind, sarcastic and full of himself again. She turned around and saw his head from above the thorns. The Fleece reddened it. Loki had been saved by the power of the Queen again. “I see you,” he said, pointing two fingers at her and back to his eyes.
She wasn’t sure if he had pulled the sword out or not. It was hard to see his chest from behind the thorns, and there was no way she was going to enter the Wall of Thorns again.
“It’s been a rough day,” he said, wiping Cerené’s blood from his mouth. “And you owe me a heart and liver, princess,” he was walking toward her, about to cross the Wall of Thorns.
Shew stood swordless, without ideas, and almost void of any strength left. Ironically, it was at this very moment when she’d decided that killing him was the right thing. The Loki she had loved and always known was gone, just like any other relationship gone to hell, one of the two lovers had simply died. Foolishly, it had taken her the whole dream to figure it out. Nevertheless, the heart had reason the mind didn’t know of.
At this moment, Shew’s heart was on Cerené’s side and she had to kill that beast standing in front of her.
While Loki was approaching, Shew stood with nothing but Cerené’s glass urn in her hands. What was she going to do with it, throw it at him? If she only knew what Cerené wanted her to do with it?
“Isn’t it ironic that the so called Chosen One herself can’t pass through the Wall of Thorns without being cut everywhere,” Loki said, approaching slowly. Of course, he was having the time of his life. He must have known there was no way out of the Field of Dreams, and she had decided she wasn’t in the mood to take more slashes from the Wall of Thorns.
“Stupid Wall of Thorns,” Shew said. A couple of insulted vines tried to reach out for her. “It doesn’t understand that you’re the enemy here, Loki Van Helsing.”
“Stupidity,” Loki considered, now extremely close. “What a beautiful thing. If the Wall of Thorns wasn’t stupid, we wouldn’t be in this situation now, where I’m going to rip your heart out with my own hands.”