Briar
WHEN I SPILLED THE FLOUR OVER THE COUNTERTOP, I CRIED.
Then I burnt my fingertips on the stove and laughed as tears streamed down my cheeks.
With no one to bear witness to it, I let the storm take me.
My emotions seemed to swing violently back and forth between hope and sorrow, shock and grief.
I hadn’t requested that horse. I hadn’t left despite my fears.
This strange determination was growing in me that maybe if I remained stalwart, Maez would find her way back to me.
So far that glimmer of hope hadn’t killed me as Maez promised, even if it festered.
I would be of no help to Calla as a crying mess on the castle floor.
I wasn’t a war strategist nor a soldier.
But if I could put a crack in this sorceress’s armor, that would be the most good I could do for my court.
So I busied myself in the kitchen, crying over spilled flour and laughing at the ridiculousness of my runaway fate.
The castle kitchens were enormous, rooms upon rooms, nothing like the cozy one we’d made for ourselves at our cottage in Olmdere.
I had to rifle through three different pantries to fetch the salt and return it to the stove, but still, it gave me something to do.
Cooking had always been a surefire way to Maez’s heart . . . well, that and something else, but I wasn’t about to sleep with this newfound person—someone who didn’t even see the point in having a mate.
I swept the flour off the table and into my cupped hand, placing it back in the bowl.
The kitchens were incredibly well-stocked for a holiday home that was frequently empty, and I wondered if Maez had magicked the food there just for me.
When I found a punnet of fresh blueberries in the second pantry, I swiftly snapped them up, knowing that I would make Maez’s favorite blueberry muffins with brown sugar crumble on top.
It felt strange to have seasonal berries on hand with the frozen winds lashing the windows.
I wondered if they’d even go bad—if Maez’s magic would hold them frozen in time until we were ready to eat them.
Could she do that for us, too? Frozen in this liminal space between enemies and mates, stalling until we could decide which we would be to each other.
There was so much I still didn’t understand about this dark magic.
Dark magic . . . that felt like a bit of a misnomer.
Conjuring blueberries in the winter didn’t seem like dark magic, but then again, maybe she was just trying to lure me into submission, maybe this wasn’t a kindness but rather a game.
I’d always known exactly what Maez was thinking, and even if I didn’t, if I asked, she’d have told me.
This new person—this stranger—was opaque to me, just as hard to see through as the frost-covered glass surrounding me.
I tried, I strained, but I couldn’t see beyond it, and yet I knew it was there just beyond my grasp.
I toiled away with my thoughts hanging over me like an ominous storm. I needed the work, something to do with my hands. It kept my mind from completely spiraling out. When I finished the muffins, I put them on a ceramic serving platter and went in search of Maez.
The castle was an absolute labyrinth of gray and white stone.
I knew it would take me a lifetime to memorize the layout.
Door after door, floor after floor, I searched for the sorceress, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Had she left? Was she magicking herself to new corners of the realm for new misdeeds? Did her power compel her to?
I resigned myself to go sit by the already lit fireplace in the sitting room on the third floor.
In some ways, this magic felt strangely familiar.
I’d grown up with faery magic. Vellia had made our meals appear with the flick of her fingers.
We never had to wait for a bath to be drawn or a fire to be lit.
But unlike Maez, Vellia had loved us; this .
. . this felt more like being a magician’s pet.
I was about to sit on the armchair by the window and stuff my face full of muffins when the door behind me creaked. I turned and found Maez leaning against the doorjamb, watching me with sharp hawklike eyes.
My mouth went dry at her intense stare. When her eyes dropped to the tray in my hands, my cheeks flamed.
I’d been a silly heartsick fool to think a tray of muffins would do anything to the sorceress standing before me.
The way she carried herself, the stillness with which she moved was entirely new.
My Maez had been playful and boisterous and heroic; this sorceress seemed cold, aloof, reptilian, more of a beast than even the most feral of Wolves.
“Hi.” I felt incredibly pathetic the moment the word squeaked out of me.
Maez raised an amused brow. This wasn’t me.
I was supposed to be poised and regal, not a helpless puppy.
I cleared my throat, rolling my shoulders back and lifting my chin, trying to mold my body into the picture of the queen I was trained to be.
“I have decided I will extend my stay until the storm has passed,” I announced.
If Maez was surprised by this statement, she didn’t show it.
“I would like to send a letter to Calla, though, at your nearest convenience.”
“At my nearest convenience?” Maez asked, a slight curve to her lips. She jutted her chin to the side, and I looked to see a stack of paper upon the low table along with a quill and inkwell.
“And a pigeon to deliver it?”
Maez’s smile stretched. “Or with a flick of my wrist it could appear in their palace, hmm?”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. Yes. That please.” My words were choppy and slow.
This new person put me on unsteady footing.
I never knew what to expect from her. She was both kind and cold in equal measure, surprising me with offerings and then taking them away just as swiftly.
“Calla will be worrying sick about me, probably hatching some half-cocked plan to spring me out of the palace of Highwick.” Maez nodded but didn’t comment.
“Thank you for the paper.” I was rambling now, desperate to keep her here, to figure this thing out.
“I still don’t understand how your magic works. ”
“Nor I.” I was surprised Maez offered me that much.
She seemed so closed off to sharing any of her inner thoughts.
“It is not the bottomless well it seems. There are lesser and greater feats; some like transporting myself across the realm require a lot of power. Afterward, I’m left feeling depleted. ”
I inclined my head. It was a surprising act of vulnerability to share that with me. I wondered if she trusted me to keep that secret or if she simply didn’t care who knew.
“And how do you refill that well of power?” I asked. Faeries’ magic was fueled through dying wishes, Wolves’ power came from the moon, and the Songkeepers’ magic was fueled by song. What did sorcerers need to keep their massive amounts of power?
Maez looked up at me from under heavy brows, her eyes telling me I should already know the answer. “Death,” she said, as if it was as simple as listing an ingredient in a recipe.
Death.
That was what fueled her magic. How many people would she have to kill to conjure quill and paper and fresh blueberries?
How many lives would need to be taken? How long until her lust for killing became an addiction like it had for every sorcerer past?
And the worst question of all, the one that plagued me from the moment I heard Nero tell of Maez’s fate: Would I be strong enough to stop her?
Or would I stay even as she contorted herself into darkness just to cling to the shadow of who she once was?
We stood there for so long, my mind spinning with heartbreak and fear. I thought I had been trained for everything, but nothing could prepare me for this. Maez’s eyes dipped back to the serving tray in my hands, and I realized I was still holding the platter like a fool.
“You made muffins,” Maez said, her tone so steely, I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me or amused or bored.
“I did.” My voice was more breathless than I’d intended.
Come on, Briar. I was trained to deal with all manner of people.
But I was never trained for this—for opening my heart up completely to someone and then forcing myself to close it again.
“Would you like one?” I asked, holding the tray higher.
When Maez didn’t move, I lowered it back down, deflated. “Do you even need to eat?”
Maez’s shoulders rose and fell in a small huff. “Do I need to eat?” she asked, pursing her lips. “I suppose I do not. I don’t think I need anything at all anymore.” Her smile stretched wider as mine fell.
She took a step forward and then another, and it took everything in me not to back away this time.
Power radiated off her like a living thing and my Wolf senses wanted to shift to protect myself.
Maez’s eyes flickered at the way my shoulders bunched at her proximity, like a raising of my hackles.
It was such a small look in her eyes that anyone but her mate wouldn’t see it, but I knew that flicker of mischief, knew it so well that the slightest widening of her pupils told me multitudes.
Maez reached out and took a muffin from the tray.
“I thought you didn’t need to eat?” I asked.
She tilted her head. “I still have desires, Briar,” she said. “Even if I don’t need to satisfy them.”
My eyes were transfixed on her lips as she opened her mouth and took a bite.
Her eyes closed for a second as if relishing the taste and my throat bobbed as she licked the crumbs from her lips. We’d been parted for so long before I was taken, before she became a sorceress. If I had thought the last time we made love would truly be the last . . .
When Maez’s eyes opened again, they flickered in emerald, her stare finding mine instantly. “I’d ask what you’re thinking about, Princess,” she murmured. “But I think we both know the answer to that.”
I swallowed thickly, ears tingling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No?” Maez taunted. “Shame. I think you and I would both enjoy seeing where that line of thinking took us.”
My legs trembled at the rumble in her voice, my body yearning for her touch. But the magic that swirled around her zapped the air. The arm’s length with which she held me . . . no, I couldn’t be with this version of her. I needed the old Maez. I needed my mate back.
Maez seemed to notice the transformation of my lust to sorrow, but she didn’t comfort me like she used to do.
Instead, she grabbed a second muffin off the tray, turned, and left without so much as a parting word, leaving me with a strange mixture of confusion and longing.
An unwelcome question tumbled through my mind:
What would it be like to be with a sorceress?