Chapter 2 #3
“Okay.” I carefully dipped my spoon into something gel-like that came in a half shell of some lime-sized, dark orange fruit.
“You used that magic. Two days ago at the Stone, you used that magic, and I’d be willing to bet that’s what happened two years ago as well,” Vergis went on.
“Okay.”
I tried the gel, more careful this time than I had been with the massacre bun, but this stuff was actually nice. It reminded me of lavender with a spicy aftertaste. I took a bigger spoonful, scooping out the contents of the small green shell, and Inkiri put another on my plate.
Vergis tapped his finger against the cup in his hand. “Mages need living sacrifices to do magic, and you did magic by taking magic from something inanimate that pulls even more magic from some inanimate source I cannot begin to guess at. And your response to that is ‘okay’?”
I shrugged. “I guess? What should it be? I told you I didn’t want to go to the Stone, but you insisted we had to.
For reasons. Then you dragged me through some super creepy portal fantasy with spiders that I need to forget about.
Before all of that, you said I’d been used by someone else to kill people two years ago when I first touched that stupid Stone.
I don’t know how you want me to react to any of that, to be honest.”
Vergis narrowed his eyes. “The magic that lingered there felt like you stopped a spell instead of merely facilitating it. I mean, you opened the door to getting the spell started two years ago, yes, but then you broke it off. At least that’s what it felt like to me.
Not that I had time to do a proper analysis. ”
I stopped eating, and Inkiri started his low clicking. “Say what?” I asked.
Vergis poured himself another cup of that cold tea or juice stuff.
“This is all a theory mostly formed by my educated guesses, so I might be wrong here and there. But I think that another party assumed the Stone of Destiny was a conduit, just like my knife. I think they considered it a locked conduit, also like my knife, meaning only specific people can use it. It’s like a fingerprint sensor on your phone, basically.
That other party, for some reason, believed you would be able to use the Stone, so they tricked you into doing that.
I think it worked in the beginning because your wish was somewhat non-specific and thus allowed them access to sacrifices to power their spell.
“But here’s the issue with all of that: I don’t know what that particular spell was.
I only sensed the remainder of a fractured spell back at the Stone.
That means that what we’re seeing back on Earth—the veil parted in specific locations and open between three worlds that we know of—is a spell half-finished.
You cut them off before they could complete whatever it was they wanted to do. ”
I’d frozen. My eyes were wide, and there was a tense, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach that hadn’t come from the massacre bun.
“But…I don’t remember doing anything.”
“You cannot tell him all this when he’s still recovering from his sickness,” Inkiri said between clicks before he hugged me close and licked my neck.
Yeah, that was nice. Him holding me stirred in me the memory of the bone-deep knowing I’d experienced after the events at the Stone. Inkiri was my mate. And Lissir, Nokim, Fellisse, and Vergis—yes, even Vergis—were my guys.
I leaned into Inkiri’s touch, feeling stronger just having him next to me. “I wasn’t sick.” I sounded firmer than I’d meant to.
“You didn’t speak and would barely take water,” Fellisse said. “It sounded a lot like the sunstroke sickness you told us about before. It was worrying.” He shook his head, looking pained. “I don’t know enough about humans and how to help them when they’re sick.”
Vergis groaned. “I told you, I didn’t leave the human out in the sun, damn it.”
Things connected, at least in part. Fellisse had clearly suspected Vergis was partially responsible for me being unresponsive, or Inkiri had, and Inkiri had latched on to the idea and didn’t like it, hence his animosity toward Vergis.
I pulled back, but in the end, I had to reach for Inkiri’s right horn to get him to stop licking my throat.
I glared at Vergis. He was an ass, but he didn’t deserve this.
“Vergis didn’t leave me. He came back to get me from the beasts’ world, actually.
He made me wash in a river before we came to meet up with you—and washing in a river is not something I ever want to do again, by the way, just making my boundaries clear here—and there were those blood worm things in the water, and those made him giggle—”
“I don’t giggle,” Vergis said.
“He giggled when one of those things latched on to my neck—”
“If anything, you screaming like a baby was amusing,” Vergis said.
“Latched on to my neck. But then Vergis killed it with magic, and that was the worst, apart from the huddling…” At which point my brain’s quality control system came back online and alerted me to the fact that huddling need not be discussed, ever.
“Well, he didn’t leave me out in the sun, at any rate.
What I actually meant to say was that the magic hurt me, not Vergis. ”
Vergis tilted his head. “Way to bury the lede. How d’you know the magic did that?”
“My question also.” Fellisse leaned forward on the table, tilting his head and narrowing his striking blue eyes on me.
I crossed my arms. “That was the weird thing. When I touched the Stone, I heard a voice, and then the Stone said it would make sure you all were okay. And when you got us out of there, Vergis, I just…knew stuff. Can’t explain how.
” I looked up at Inkiri. “It’s how I know that you’re mine, and I’m yours.
That you guys are my guys. It was the magic that hurt me, and I needed to heal from that. That’s why I was like that.”
“You just…knew?” For the first time ever, Vergis didn’t sound cocky or mean. It was a nice change of pace.
“Well, at least you both feel the mate call now, which is good.” Lissir looked excited. “Very good.”
“Something to be celebrated!” Nokim chimed in.
“I’ve never heard of magic hurting a mage.” Fellisse tilted his head this way and that. He didn’t seem as excited as Nokim and Lissir.
Next to me, Inkiri leaned in until his warm breath washed over my cheek and I turned to look into his indigo eyes. “Sweet thing. My Rory.” He kissed me on the mouth. “You cannot begin to understand how happy you make me.”
“Saccharine,” Vergis mumbled.
Inkiri put an arm around me and turned to Vergis. “I thank you for saving my mate’s life, Vergis. I’ll never forget that.”
Which made Vergis look…self-conscious? Did he do self-consciousness? “Couldn’t let humanity’s greatest twink get eaten by a monster, could I?”
Fellisse put a hand flat on the table. “I would still like to understand about how magic hurt him. It’s not supposed to do that to koa.”
I frowned at Vergis. “I’m not anyone’s greatest twink.”
“How he does magic, if he even actually does anything, is what I want to know,” Vergis said to Fellisse. “He sure is a special twink.”
Lissir clicked his tongue like a human would. “Those are not questions we need answered while we are here. We’re healed. We’re healthy. We can enjoy food and breath and friendship, and we must savor these things.”
Inkiri clicked. “Agreed. While we are here where it’s safe, we can enjoy the fact that we are all together.
” He looked at Nokim. “And unhurt.” He used his hand to tilt up my chin for another kiss, then paused.
“What did you mean when you said the huddling was bad?” he asked, and Vergis, the complete and utter jerk, giggled again while he stuffed one of those disgusting massacre buns into his mouth.
Here I was, the human among monsters, back to being embarrassed by my own handiwork and loose lips and possibly forced to have to explain huddling to my monster boyfriend. So much for leaving my baggage behind when I left the planet.