4. The Queen's Exile

Bryan

We had flown back to New Orleans only 2 weeks after I had agreed to marry and mate the Queen of the Witches. Apparently she had agreed to the marriage as well, yet something still wasn't sitting right with me. I wanted to meet her, so that we both knew and understood what this pairing meant for our people, but the Queen Regent insisted that I meet with her at our hotel for lunch, before meeting the Queen at a dinner she would host later in the evening.

She knocked on our suite door just minutes after 12. She was early which only set me more on edge about why she was choosing to meet us here. Our last encounter she had ensured was on her home turf, and though this was still her city, we had the top three floors outfitted with our guard detail. My father opened the door to her and a red head witch that looked old enough to be her mother, and let them both into the suite.

I noticed they were both dressed casually, the red head witch was wearing a a bright red romper that boasted long flowing sleeves with a deep V-neck cut, while the Queen Regent wore the very same romper, only in black. They both had their hair down, flowing past their shoulders. I couldn't help but notice how similar the red head woman looked to the three women that wore the red and white cloaks, and I knew that she had to be their mother.

"Queen Regent, welcome." My father said politely as he bowed slightly before shutting the door behind them.

"Nonsense Henry, the formalities aren't necessary. Please just call me Sophia, afterall, we will be family by this time next week. Oh, and this is my sister-in-law, Princess Kara." She giggled to my father before introducing the red head.

I looked from her to my father, shocked by her words. I knew he felt the same as he looked between her and her sister-in-law curiously.

"Family? So you and Her Majesty are related then?" My father asked her as he gestured for the two of them to sit at the dining room table in the living quarters of our suite.

"Yes, she is my youngest daughter, which is why I'm here. I thought it was only right that I explained to Bryan exactly what he was getting himself into." She smiled kindly at me from across the table, but the fact that she felt the need to come here to talk made me suddenly begin to question my decision.

"And what is that, well, besides obviously marrying a child. How old is she exactly, if she's your youngest child?" I asked her as Andu startled grumbling in mind about having another child bride.

"Oh no, she's not a child. I can certainly understand why you would think so, though. My daughter will be 28 in just a few weeks, actually. But that's why I'm here. If you remember correctly, I told you that she would have to agree to this arrangement if she wanted to restore her power and title. Well, I wanted to tell you why the ancestors decided to strip her of her power, bind her connection to the elements, and take her memories so she wouldn't remember who she was. Up until yesterday morning she believed that she was just a normal human girl, that is until we restored her memories and told her of the ancestors' offer." As she began there was a knock on the door interrupting her, so she paused.

My father allowed room service to enter, and set up the lunch buffet we had ordered before tipping them and shutting the door behind them. We all got up to make ourselves a plate before she resumed.

"Please continue Sophia. Tell me why the ancestors chose to remove your daughter from her throne so I know exactly what I'm dealing with here." I told her once we were all seated again.

My mom squeezed my hand under the table knowing that I was beginning to stress over my decision. I gave her a bright smile back to let her know that it was going to be fine, but I honestly wasn't sure about that myself.

"Ofcourse. Let me just start by saying that my Josie really isn't an awful person. She can be slightly cold hearted, but when she loves, she does it wholly and completely. That's actually how she ended up getting dethroned. She loved her mama so much that she went to extremes to protect her. You see, this isn't actually my body. If I were still in my own body, I would be about Kara's age.

My Josie is the most powerful supernatural being I have ever met, and I've been on this earth for a couple centuries now. Because she is so powerful, she can do an incredibly rare magic that is only spoken of in legends, soul magic. So, when I come to the end of a lifetime, she finds herself a powerful male witch, gets knocked up, then just before the child is to be born, she pulls my soul from my old, decrepit body and puts it into the body of the child she specifically created in her womb for it. She usually only lives for about a decade after that, then she dies. Two or three decades later I rebirth her into the world, then I die a few decades later. This has been our cycle for the past two centuries.

Well, the last time she birthed me, she died during my birth. The city siezed her house, and everything inside. I was able to sue the city for possession of our family home when I turned 18, but they wouldn't give our family's jewels, all of our grimiores and all of the tools we had made or the dangerous items we had seized from other witches back. So, we just had the house, which was OK.

Then I had Josie, again. As she was growing up, there was alot of gang activity in the city, so when she was about 12 she decided to do something about it. So many of our men had defected into gangs, and those that didn't had to leave the city to keep from ending up dead. Our coven members were getting strung out on drugs that the gangs were pushing and the city was a mess. So, she gathered her 4 cousins, the witch princesses, and the 5 of them began taking down the gangs, one by one using mind control and chaos magic. There was no denying that she was the Queen of the Witches, and this was her city. Well, as it went, they had taken down all but one gang in less than 2 years.

By that time she had started remembering her past lives, so she had started searching for our family's stolen items. She found them all in the city's occult museum, and decided that she was going to take down the last gang by putting them all in prison for robbery. She and her cousins used mind control magic to make the gang rob the museum of our family's belongings. Not even 60 seconds after the last item was loaded into the truck the museum's alarms went off and it was surrounded by police, but only after the truck had taken off.

Her plan was flawless, except for the fact that one of the gang members was a coven defector, whose sister was still a practicing member. She had made him a protection charm that had protected him when the other gang members were given lengthy sentences. Only the girl, who was actually a cousin of Josie's from this lifetime's father's side, hadn't realized that Josie would find out. But, my dear Josie is incredibly powerful, and with that power comes all sorts of gifts that present themselves randomly. It has always been that way in each of her lifetimes.

Josie had a vision of her cousin giving her brother the charm, and then her brother breaking into our house to retrieve the heart of the city diamond, our family's ancestral power diamond, that they had stolen from the museum after he was released on time served. In her vision he killed me and Kara's mom when I couldn't tell him where the diamond was, then his sister was able to talk him down and take the gun, along with the protection charm from him.

So, knowing all that she does about magic, Josie knew there was no way to stop the vision from happening, so instead she planned for it. She and her cousin Ellie took both me, and the sister by surprise and knocked us out with a sleeping powder they created. They then proceeded to take us to an abandoned warehouse where they created an impassable circle, and Josie pulled both of our souls from our bodies and switched them. This body I'm in, it belongs to the young man's sister that killed my body that his sister's soul was in, and Kara's mother before I was able to take the gun and protection charm off of him, and put him away for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, Josie's actions were frowned upon by the ancestors and the witch community, not to mention the fact that Shae, the original owner of this body, demanded that Josie be stopped. So, I had no choice but to carry out the ancestors wishes and dethrone her. She'll never forgive me for it, I knew it by the way she looked at me back then, and she's made it more than clear since her memories have been returned.

My point in telling you this is that Josie is not only powerful, she's incredibly intelligent and strategic. You will have to be careful with her, which is why the ancestral council decided that this was the only way she could be restored to her throne. Your mark will connect you to her so you will be able to keep an eye on her. Which is another thing you should know. When you do the knot tying, it's a blood pact. We will soak the rope in yours and Josie's blood, and as the two of you tie the knot, it will tie your souls together.

Once your soul is tied to Josie's, the ancestors will be able to channel your soul to make your venom the key to unbinding Josie's connection to the elements, and the delivery system to restore her power. So only you will be able to give her power back to her." She explained her daughter to us as she ate.

I wasn't sure what to think about what she had told us. With a story like that it's hard to figure out which party is the extremist. She was only protecting her mother, right? But she sacrificed that girl to die at her own brother's hands. I couldn't help but wonder how much power it took to pull someone's soul from their body. I knew I would never be able to understand the extent of her power until I marked her, but I couldn't help but wonder how powerful she actually was.