Chapter 28 #2
“I’m a dark witch, aren’t I? Evil, horrible, all of that, yes?” I tapped my nails against my glass, anxious as I got closer and closer to the last brick of the path of answers, not sure I was ready for what I’d find at the end of it.
Riot lifted a shoulder and took a long sip. “Such mortal constructs and ideas. Good and evil. You’re connected to the dark, Rumor, that doesn’t make you bad.” He gestured at me, up and down. “All the rest of you is what makes you bad.”
I whacked his arm. “What I’m getting at is I’m capable of dark, even forbidden, magic, aren’t I?”
Spade inclined his chin again in a silent affirmation.
“What are the Vipers?” Just then, three books floated to the table, landing gently in front of me.
I picked up the first, titled, To The Underworld and Back Again.
The second in the stack was Time and Other Oddities.
The third, which I pulled to my lap, was The Cursed and The Damned: A Collection of Demon Knowledge.
“Also,” I added, as I flipped through the first couple of beige pages, “why would my mother, with some of her last will and resources, leave me a letter urging my sister and me to wed Vipers?”
Riot scoffed. “That asshole still thinks he’s marrying you? Not until I stop breathing. Even then, I’d come back, haunt him into madness, and he’d be too busy fighting my ghost to make it to your wedding rite.”
“Lovely, Riot, you’re so helpful.”
“I do what I can. It is hard fitting all this intelligence into such a stunning and handsome form.”
“Spade? You know what they are, right?”
“Actually,” he answered, “I do not. Not fully, at least. They are protected magically. Even the strongest being, like myself, cannot penetrate the walls of their ether. When my magic searches for them, it cannot find them.”
I took a small sip of my drink, letting the alcohol burn my tongue as my mind raced, attempting to put together a large, complicated, mismatched puzzle. “So, the Vipers are like shields?”
“I suppose that’s a fair comparison. Their abilities could stop there, or there could be more I cannot see or sense.”
“I used magic against them successfully with what I did to Birch, turning him into a horse.”
Riot interrupted, “Where is this going? I am so confused.”
“Why did you guys bury me?”
Silence stretched, with only the crackle of the fire interrupting the dense, thought-heavy air.
Riot answered, staring into his glass, “We learned you were being put underground on our property long before we met you. It was peculiar, so we studied the magic behind it, sourced what triggers the spell that’s fixed to you.”
“There’s a spell fixed to me?”
“Yes. Perhaps it’s the source of your spider attacks, perhaps not. When you’re compelled to do grand magic, magic that could call Asunder’s gaze, or you stray too far outside the wards of Willowspire—you are sent underground. It is a holding place for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Riot continued, “It keeps you, our property, our castle, safe. It is like the Vipers; what did you call them? A shield.”
“When you enacted magic against the withers, we were there as daimons, which alone could have protected you from the rapture, but we wanted to be sure.”
“So, you buried me? In a pigpen?”
Riot winced. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. If Asunder came snooping here on our estate, we didn’t want you found.”
Spade spoke lowly. “Asunder did come looking.”
I froze, my breath lodging in my throat. “What… what happened?”
“We handled it.” Spade answered plainly. “But back to your affliction, curse, whatever you want to call it. It is a powerful magic and it has protected you for a long time.”
“Is Prism likewise protected? Goddess, I hope so.”
“She is,” Spade said.
“Wait, no, she couldn’t be. If she were protected as I am from evil, the wither wouldn’t have taken her, couldn’t have.” I shook my head. “Unless… unless he wasn’t a threat to her. Or moreso… what if he were a greater force of protection for her?”
Spade angled his head, leveling me with his dark stare. “Have you grown soft for the monsters, as well?”
“I don’t know. I know they weren’t what I thought they were. It’s possible that I’ve… been wrong about a lot of things.” I took another sip of alcohol to push the emotions down.
Silence stretched for another long moment, and as irritating as the Blackthornes usually were, they didn’t rush me or jump to fill the quiet. I was thankful for that.
My mind drifted to my mother’s letter to the Vipers. “My mother must have known the Vipers would further shield my sister and me… My mothers put a protection ward on us, didn’t they?”
“That was my thought,” Riot answered. “However, the magic, it is…”
“It’s what?”
“Of the darker variety.”
I shook my head. “My mother was a common hedge witch, and my matri was a sea witch far from the ocean. They weren’t dark in the slightest. My matri wouldn’t even bespell our hunting traps for fear of attracting undue attention from Asunder.”
Riot shrugged. “I’m just telling you what we’ve found, what we’ve sensed as daimons. Dark recognizes dark.”
I thumbed through the pages of the book in my lap. Archdemons. Flipping pages, I stopped on a drawing, an outline of an enormous wither—I mean—archdemon, next to an outline of a man. The size difference was daunting. My eyes scanned the text as my magic prickled under my fingers.
I hadn’t felt that feeling in a while.
It had been almost dormant since I’d last crawled from my grave.
Or maybe after what I’d done, I was afraid to use it.
Part of me felt ashamed that my gifts were so dark.
My magic was far from that of a hedge witch, sea witch, or any other witch for that matter.
My spells didn’t exist within love and light.
My magic thrived in the dark. It pulled from the anger churning within my chest. I glanced up at Spade, meeting his gaze as he watched me read.
It was as if he sensed it, sensed my magic stirring, felt the familiar turning of my rage within me.
Rage I knew he recognized because he felt the same within himself. I’d felt it when I spent only a few moments inside his psyche. Spade was a lot like me. Maybe if I were a lot older, and a daimon, I might very well have been exactly like Spade Blackthorne.
Angry, jaded, skeptical, and resigned.
I pulled my eyes away and back to the pages in my lap. There was a strong feeling within me, something that could have only come to my mind through my magic, through the darkness of all I possessed.
Man and Monster in Harmony, the title of the chapter read.
The drawings were gruesome and horrifying.
These creatures were indeed the deadliest in the realm.
Such power and might, not even the Underworld could full contain them, as evidenced by Vore connecting with me through the scrying stone.
His mortal body still searching for his soul…
the wither’s soul still searching for my sister… I’d torn them apart.
But now, I would make it right.
I would fix this.