Chapter 23
Lia. I remember that name. It’s the same woman who’s been coordinating the spell circles and forcibly binding witches.
A burst of magic hisses through the air. The moment it hits the ground, it explodes, throwing me off the witch and into a nearby tree trunk. I grunt as all my cursed wounds scream.
Another spell hits me, this one carving open my chest. I gasp as blood spills from me.
“Fuck you.” The witch who strides up to me is petite, with cropped, curly black hair.
“Yasmin?” I say softly.
Only last night, we’d been drinking and chatting together. I considered her a friend. And last I saw of her, she had made plans to hunt down the fae rider.
I can’t reconcile that woman with this one, who helped torture an animal.
“Help!” the half-buried witch calls out.
While I bleed out, Yasmin turns from me and pulls the other witch from the ground.
I begin to stand, my magic gathering. Yasmin glares at me as she helps the other witch to her feet, then lobs another curse at me. I don’t dodge quick enough, and the spell hits me in the forehead, knocking me out.
My queen. My queen, you must wake.
I rouse at the panic-laced notes of Memnon’s voice.
I blink, and Memnon’s dark form takes shape in front of me. I stare at him for a moment, searching his gaze. Pain muddles my thoughts. I’m cold. Tired.
His hands cup my cheeks, and his eyes glow.
I shiver. The chilly night feels like it’s burrowed itself in my bones.
Abruptly, the air around me warms, and I’m certain Memnon is responsible for it. Beneath his palms, magic seeps into me, drifting through my body and driving out the cold. As it moves through me, it stitches together torn flesh.
I look dazedly around.
Nero. Where’s Nero?
He’s alive, my queen,Memnon says. There is heartbreak in those burning eyes. But you are battle-battered. He says this lightly, using the same tone he takes with badly wounded soldiers.
I’m fine, I insist, trying to get up. Only now that adrenaline and outrage aren’t fueling me, my body has given out almost entirely.
Memnon’s thumb strokes my cheek from where he cups it. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Too much. You need to rest.
I can’t.My eyes move to the darkened forest where the witches fled. Where Yasmin?—
His gaze follows mine.
Memnon turns back to me. “Where are they?” His voice carries a dark, lethal note to it.
The witches, he means.
“They ran,” I say hoarsely.
“I’ll find them,” he says menacingly. I remember that menace in all its horrific glory. The fields of dead soldiers, the blood he sometimes wore like a second skin.
Memnon rises, the shadows catching on that scar of his. But it’s his eyes that are the most sinister. They still glow like dying embers, and though I know it’s only his magic that makes his irises smolder like that, the effect is downright villainous.
“Stay here,” he says. With that, he turns and disappears into the Everwoods.
For several seconds, all I hear are my own ragged breaths. My eyes scan the darkness until I see the slumped form of Nero.
I make a small sound, forcing myself up. Every muscle protests.
I told you not to move, Memnon chastises down our bond. He must’ve sensed my pain.
I’m the one who gets to be bossy, I say, dragging myself to my familiar.
I let out a shaky sob when I see the state he’s in. Despite my earlier magic, my panther’s wounds are still open and still sluggishly bleeding. I can sense oily magic churning inside him. Whatever curses they placed on him, they haven’t evaporated away yet.
Memnon!I all but cry out down our bond. Come back. I…I think I’m losing Nero.
“Bind the flesh. Mend what has been torn and broken. Heal the wounds within. Make Nero whole once more.” I incant the spell for the third time since I fell to my familiar’s side, pouring my heart and what’s left of my magic into it. The pale orange plumes of my power sink into his body just as they have the last two times.
His wounds heal for a few moments before my spell gets no further. I want to scream, but the sound keeps getting trapped beneath this knot of fear in my throat.
The forest has gone unnervingly quiet. It’s just me and my helpless grief. I’m losing my familiar, and there’s nothing I can do.
I pet Nero softly, my touch light. “Though the pain exists, you shall no longer feel it,” I whisper.
My panther nudges my hand, his body relaxing just a touch. I begin to sob then, bowing my head over him.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, Nero. I never meant for this to happen.” I should’ve been more cautious with him. It’s easy enough for me to be brave in the face of threats, but my familiar is another matter altogether. He’s a true weakness of mine, and the witches who attacked him know that.
Yasminknows that. I cry a little harder, even as my vision darkens at the edges and a shiver racks my body.
Memnon’s strong, warm hand falls to my shoulder. “Save your tears, little witch. You are not losing anyone tonight.”
I glance up at him, my heart giving a hopeful stutter, as the sorcerer scoops up an unconscious Nero and settles the big cat over his shoulder.
I’m about to stand when Memnon bends down and scoops me up in his other arm.
“If you think I’m going to let you walk in the state you’re in, you better start revisiting those old memories of ours,” he says, striding into the forest.
I lean my head tiredly on his shoulder, not bothering to fight him or revisit those old memories.
Thank you for coming, I say down our bond. Distantly I’m aware that I must be in bad shape to be, of all things, thanking Memnon.
Memnon’s mood darkens. I got here too late.
Maybe for the battle,I say, but not for me and Nero.
My gaze drifts to my panther’s dark form. At least I hope so.
Will he be okay?I ask. I’m holding my breath, terrified of Memnon’s answer.
The sorcerer glances down at me, his eyes no longer glowing. “Ferox didn’t survive the Roman arena and the many battles on the steppe only to be cut down by a few hasty curses. He has your magic running through his veins, sustaining him when his own body cannot. He will be okay, little witch. I swear it.”
The last of my tension leaves me.
I’m holding you to that, est xsaya, I whisper down our bond.
Memnon stiffens at the title, then tightens his hold on me.
It must be incredibly difficult to carry both me and Nero, but Memnon doesn’t complain and doesn’t slow as he moves through the woods.
I stare into the darkness, wondering about the witches who attacked my familiar. Surely the wards activated at curfew would’ve caught their identities.
For a few seconds, I’m hopeful that the coven might be able to deal with these threats all on its own. But then I remember the persecution tunnels running beneath the campus. I doubt they were warded, and it’s likely the witches who attacked Nero used those to get to the woods unnoticed.
In the distance, a forlorn howl goes up, and I remember all over again how the evening started.
The wolves never came. I thought after I heard those earlier howls that they might. Instead, I had to fend off Nero’s attackers on my own, mere hours after the wolves pledged their loyalty. I don’t know why that wounds me. It really shouldn’t. At the end of the day, I am not a shifter, I am a witch, and no amount of friendship changes that.
Memnon enters Last Rites, Henbane’s cemetery. It still bears a few remnants of our Samhain gathering—a melted candle here and there, a few scattered flowers lovingly left on tombstones, an empty potion vial someone left behind.
The sorcerer moves between the headstones, making his way to a particularly large crypt with the phases of the moon carved into its fa?ade.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
Memnon gives me a curious look. “I thought you would’ve remembered how we used to travel, est amage.”
“By horse?” I say, confounded.
He gives me a secretive smile. “By ley line.”
The dreaded ley line. I almost forgot.
Memnon steps up to the massive crypt and releases his power, forcing the stone doorway to open. The slab swings inward, scraping against the ground as it goes.
Of course the portal entrance onto a ley line couldn’t be out in the open. Of course we have to go inside a tomb to access it.
While ley lines stretch across the entire world, you can’t open these magical roads just anywhere. There are portals onto them, and almost all these portals are located in sacrosanct places like temples and churches, stone circles and cemeteries.
Memnon moves to enter the crypt.
“Wait,” I caution. “It might be warded.” Then again, it might be too late if Memnon already crossed it once to get here.
“There was a partially disintegrated ward when I arrived,” the sorcerer says, “but I broke what was left of it. There’s nothing else barring our way.”
With that, Memnon carries me and Nero inside. Once we enter, candles light, and they reveal a chamber bare of coffins and urns, bones and plaques. Aside from the candles themselves, there’s nothing in here at all except for a thin column of space that seems to bend the light a little differently. The ley line entrance.
“Have you traveled along one of these in this life?” Memnon asks.
I shake my head against him.
“Then hold on tight.”
I wrap my arms around Memnon’s neck, ignoring the way the movement tugs at my wounds.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I breathe.
With that, he steps through.
I nearly vomit as my surroundings smear together. The tunnel bends and warps the dark forest around us, the outside world rushing past as Memnon walks along the ley line. These magical roads are little wrinkles in reality, areas where space and time don’t follow normal rules. It means you can cross the world—you can even cross into other worlds—in seconds. Unfortunately, you can also get lost on these roads.
Fae are masters at crossing them, humans not so much. I never truly learned how to travel them as Roxilana. Instead, I bargained with the magic of these ley lines, giving it gifts in exchange for its assistance. Memnon, on the other hand, did learn. Eislyn taught him.
I hold on tightly to Memnon, breathing slowly so I don’t retch.
He only takes a handful of steps before exiting the ley line. Our blurred surroundings sharpen into more shadowy forest that looks identical to the Everwoods.
“Where are we?”
“Nearly home,” Memnon says, striding through the woods.
“You mean to your house,” I correct him tiredly.
He’s quiet, contemplative, at that, and I don’t know what to make of the mood. I’m so used to Memnon being pushy and conniving and angry with me, it’s unsettling to see this side of him. It’s the side I remember from long ago, but even then, it was always offset by his thirst for war.
We step out of the forest and onto a street, and Memnon leads us down it.
Up ahead, lampposts partially illuminate a massive house. There looks to be tarps on the roof, and whole segments of the house are nothing more than exposed wood or bare drywall. Despite its half-finished state, a warm, inviting glow comes from within.
“Is this the house I burned down?” I ask as we approach it. Between the darkness and the fire damage, I hardly recognize it.
“It is.” Amusement drips from his voice.
I pull away a little and take him in. “You sound proud of that fact.”
“I am.” Memnon glances at me. A tendril of his magic slips out then, the strand of it curling against my cheek. “Your ferocity is attractive, Empress, even when it’s focused on me.”
“You are unhinged,” I say, but my words lack bite.
Memnon lets out a self-assured laugh. “We make a particularly terrifying pair,” he admits, heading up the driveway of the house.
My stomach flutters at the idea of us as a unit before pushing the thought away. My gaze goes to Nero—wounded, agonized Nero. My panther’s eyes are shut, and his body is still limp. One glance into his mind and it’s clear he’s temporarily unconscious.
Memnon has been so reassuring that Nero will be okay that I’ve let down my guard. But now my guard is back up, and my earlier panic has returned.
The sorcerer’s magic unfurls ahead of us, and the front door swings open, and the lights inside flick on. Memnon strides straight into the house, heading toward the living room as the door swings shut behind us.
I peer curiously at his house. The walls bear no signs that they were incinerated not so long ago, but there’s still a faint scent of smoke that clings to the space, as though it’s soaked into the very bones of this structure. A couple of the walls are bare panels of drywall, and the ceiling above us is partially gone, exposing wood beams and some electrical wiring. All in all, however, it could be much worse.
“How did you fix this place so quickly?” I ask. I don’t even see scorch marks on the remaining walls or the floor.
“Magic and money,” Memnon admits. “It’s still very much a work in progress.”
A plush dog bed lies in the living room, next to a couch that looks new. Memnon sets me down on the couch, then carefully lays Nero out onto the dog bed.
My familiar doesn’t so much as stir.
It’s that lack of reaction that breaks whatever was keeping me together. I move off the couch and toward my familiar. Immediately, my eyesight darkens, and my legs fold.
I must black out, at least for a few moments, because when I blink my eyes, Memnon is holding me upright.
“No sudden movements, sweet mate,” he says. “You’re still badly injured.” Gently, he lowers me to the ground next to Nero, then squats in front of me. He gives me a stern look. “I will tend to Nero first, because I can sense your insistence, but you’re notgoing to move. When I’m done with him, you’re going to let me treat your wounds too. Deal?”
If he is capable of healing Nero, I’ll agree to just about anything.
“Deal,” I say softly.
Memnon nods, then pivots away from me and settles himself in front of Nero.
The night hid many of the big cat’s wounds from me, but under the bright lights of Memnon’s living room, it’s easy to see the extent of the damage. His belly and flank have been repeatedly sliced into, and the flesh around the cuts looks bubbled and mangled. Despite all my earlier spellcasting, the wounds still weep blood, along with a tar-black substance I recognize as dark magic. I can feel an echo of my familiar’s pain, and it seizes up my chest, making me draw in shallow breaths.
Memnon pets Nero as he looks him over, and the big cat licks what he can of the sorcerer’s arm. The sight has me biting back a sob.
“The curses he was struck with are still in him, preventing him from healing,” Memnon finally says.
Cursework is a complicated art. The Romans used to love them, but it was Memnon’s paternal side, the Moche people of South America, who were truly skilled at it. Particularly the royal family. Memnon’s father taught it to him, and now, when my soul mate closes his eyes and speaks low, the old Mochica language rolls over me like a lullaby, though I understand little of it.
The indigo magic that leaves Memnon’s hands and enters Nero is luminous. I watch it disappear beneath Nero’s matted fur, then wait.
Within seconds, oily magic starts to pour out of Nero’s festering wounds as Memnon’s magic purges it from my familiar’s body. As it leaves, it begins to sizzle away. The process takes minutes, but it feels like a small eternity.
Once the last of the dark magic leaves Nero’s body, Memnon spends minutes more healing the big panther. The sliced muscle and sinew reform, the bubbled flesh smooths out, and the skin seals itself up until Nero is whole again.
I slip into the panther’s mind, just briefly, and I can sense his renewed vitality. His body is still sore, and he’s very weak, but he’ll be all right.
I retreat back into my own head, shuddering out a breath.
“You did it,” I say to Memnon. “You saved him.” Disbelief coats my words.
I knew my mate could do it, yet there had been a time earlier tonight when I was certain I was about to lose my familiar.
Memnon turns to me, his eyes dropping to my cheeks. He reaches out and wipes away a couple spare tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed. “You would’ve figured it out too, est amage,” he says quietly.
I catch his wrist and brush a kiss against his knuckles, then press his hand to my cheek. “Thank you,” I say sincerely.
Memnon’s gaze flitters all over my face before he inclines his head. “Nero’s lost a lot of blood, so don’t be worried if he sleeps longer than usual or he’s a bit tired for another day or so. I will set out a flank of lamb and some water for him in a little bit so he’ll have something to eat when he wakes.
Memnon turns to me. “Now,” he says, and his tone changes. “Let me see your wounds.”
I glance down at my shredded shirt. Beneath the torn material, I can make out lines of scabs. It’s a strange sight, almost as though I have tiger stripes, only these were made by spells, then cauterized when I offered my blood to the entity beneath the earth. There’s a deeper cut on my belly, and I know my back must be a mess; it took the brunt of the hits. I can feel more dried blood on my face and hairline from the final curse Yasmin threw at me.
Memnon runs his fingers lightly over my skin. Again I hear him murmur in Mochica.
His magic moves like a lover across my flesh, and the way it ripples right now looks like the surface of the ocean. It sinks into my body, and every injury it touches heats. To my shock and horror, beads of black, oily magic push through my wounds.
I hadn’t realized some of the curses that struck me earlier were still lingering inside me.
I watch the oily magic burn away into vapor, then nothing at all.
“I used dark magic,” I admit softly. I chew the inside of my cheek. It’s not the first time I’ve done so either. I used it when I fought Memnon the night of the dance, and I used it the night of the spell circle. I hadn’t realized it, and I definitely hadn’t meant to, but it’s become a habit.
Fuck, it’s been a habit since before this life.
Memnon glances up from my skin. “You used your gods-given power to retaliate against those who harmed your familiar. It was justified.”
It did seem justified, but it doesn’t make me feel better about using it.
The sorcerer must sense my lingering unease because he adds, “We have both used such magic many, many times. It is…tainted, but powerful.”
I peer at Memnon, my eyes lingering on his scar. “What do you think it’s tainted with?” I ask, fearing the answer. I’ve heard all the stories about dark magic, the most famous of which is the Law of Three—using it will curse you three times as badly as the original act. But mostly, supernaturals don’t speak of dark magic. And now that I’ve used it a few times, I’m starting to worry.
Memnon shakes his head, his eyes dropping to the last of the curse as it dissolves away. “I don’t know.”
After a pause, I admit, “I heard a voice.”
Memnon’s sharp gaze flicks to mine. “What sort of voice?”
I open my mouth, but then I shake my head, at a loss for words. “I don’t know. It might have been many voices, but it spoke to me.” I don’t mention that this likely was the same entity that granted my final spell as Roxilana, nor do I mention that it lent me power tonight. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
The sorcerer looks concerned as his eyes search mine. He turns back to my arm, watching his magic as it sinks into my skin.
“Have you ever heard of anything like it?” I ask.
After a moment, Memnon nods. “My father called them the Hungering Ones. He told me they were malevolent but formidable deities. They have a taste for power and enjoy nothing more than blood-soaked earth. I’ve always ignored the voices when they’ve called out to me. If you hear them again, est amage, you should too.” He holds my gaze, his eyes steady. “There are things even kings and queens should not meddle with.”
Unfortunately, I think it’s too late for that.