Chapter 11 #3
In the center of the circle was a smooth, round stone, and Vergis put his left palm on it. The little corpses, the blood, the circle itself, they all lit up brightly.
The light had an ephemeral quality to it, and I felt heat radiate from it. It reminded me a lot of all my other experiences with magic, except for the ligua corpses.
Vergis, midnight dark and focused on what he was doing, looked pretty impressive in the scorching light that surrounded him, the dark center of a supernova.
When the magic ebbed, the circle’s light dimmed as well, and where the small corpses had been, only flurries of ash remained, ready to be swept away or carried off by a strong breeze from the moors, the ghosts calling to their new siblings.
“That’s two sections down, two more to go,” Vergis said.
When he stood and wiped his hands, there was only ash sticking to his fingers, all the blood turned to magic.
“Are you guys coming along? I’m headed to the library after.
Maybe they have a book on unusual magical properties in humans.
They’ll have proper testing devices for conduits too, or that’s what I’m hoping, at any rate. ”
Inkiri frowned. “You said he wasn’t a conduit.”
I swallowed. “And you… I mean, you gave me that bug jar.”
Vergis waved vaguely at me. “That wasn’t a proper test, just the best I could improvise.
And you can do some of the things an active conduit might be able to do.
The more I know about where you don’t match up with the expectations, the more I can zero in on what you are.
Or at least that’s the plan. Because, frankly, I’m kind of out of theories where you’re concerned, princess. ”
“I would still prefer he rest.” Inkiri, my absolute hero, looked at me with loving eyes. “He’s so fragile.”
I nodded. “I am.” Was the eyelash batting too much? “Didn’t you want to get me another scarf, Ink?”
The other bagu with the ligua cage cart clicked. Maybe I had found my ideal audience.
Vergis groaned. “Oh, come on, are you for real?”
Another click from Inkiri. “Hush, Vergis. Rory is right, and doubly right to tell me his wishes.”
Gran would’ve told Vergis that his eyeballs might pop out if he kept rolling them around in his skull like he was doing, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t have made him stop.
“You’re shameless, princess,” he said.
I’d never been spoken to like an understudy, because I’d never made it that far, but I’d heard the leads talk down to other understudies, so I tried to embody that.
I heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’ve had a long two years, that’s all.”
“Yeah, no kidding. And I’ve had a long few days since I met you. But fine. Be a tourist.” He looked at Inkiri. “If I need to borrow stuff from the archives, I can give them your name, right?”
“Yes, of course. Whatever you need from the Raiken.”
“Cool. I’ll try not to take advantage of that, but no promises.” Vergis sheathed his knife, and waved the other bagu along.
We watched them go. When they were almost out of sight, I took a step closer to the circle.
It had been carved into one giant stone piece, the hole in the center cut out, but the center stone fit so seamlessly that I almost wouldn’t have known it if its color hadn’t been darker than the rest. Whatever it took to get the magic going, the craftsmanship of this was impressive.
The cost of magic had to be something the city had been okay with from the outset. They’d planned for it like humans might plan for a parking lot or a garage. Back on Earth, I had been used to collect a cost in order to fuse the veils. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“Sadir…tell me; how you speak with Vergis, I’m not sure sometimes, if… Do you like him or dislike him?” Inkiri was looking at me, his gaze intense. “I can’t say for certain. It’s difficult for me to distinguish in English. There is less nuance.”
I snorted. “I’m not sure either.” I looked up at him, wondering whether I should tell him about Vergis’s crush. I had heard something about marriage being about trust and openness, and it was probably a good idea to test that theory out. “Can you keep something I tell you to yourself?”
Inkiri tilted his head. “Of course. But if you want to tell me about how Vergis might wish that I join him for some pleasure play, I know.”
“Oh. Okay. I didn’t know. That you knew that about him, I mean.”
Inkiri knelt next to me and brushed some ash off the perimeter of the circle with his finger.
“I guessed, more than anything. He was never as direct as another bagu might have been, but then we’ve known him for a long time now.
Also, he did grow up on Earth more than Aer.
I was the one to ask him to take us when I felt my mate call to you.
He’s good at hiding his emotions, but he wasn’t that day. ”
“Sorry. That must have been awkward.”
“That was the secret you wanted to share with me?”
I nodded. “But we had a chat last night—”
“Last night?” Inkiri stood. I was flat against his chest within moments, his arms banded tightly across my back. “Last night when?”
“I just had to pee, and then I went out on the porch, and he was already there. We chatted.”
Inkiri sighed. “I should’ve woken at the noise you made. At every turn, it seems I fail you.”
“I was quiet, and you were tired from…you know. Taking a bath with me. Anyway, me and Vergis sort of made up? He’s still very murderous by default, but I’m relatively certain he won’t randomly stick me with his knife in the future.”
Inkiri ran his fingers through my hair. “And you? Anything you might want to stick anywhere? Or want him to stick anywhere?”
“Anything I want…?” Realization dawned, and I pinched Inkiri’s chest. It would’ve been more satisfying if he’d had nipples. “You’re jealous of Vergis?”
His arms tensed. “He called you princess. You let him.”
I groaned. “Well, that’s not a pet name, I can tell you that. But seriously, I think we had a heart-to-heart, he reminded me that he would murder me if I ever hurt you, and then we enjoyed manly silence together.”
Inkiri clicked. “He threatened you?”
Oh, the brain’s quality control system was taking time off again, and no one had told me.
“He didn’t mean it like that.” Well, he had.
“Can you not tell him I told you? I don’t want to embarrass him.
” I looked up and practiced my eyelash batting.
I really wished someone had told me that would be a useful survival skill; much more useful than setting up a tent or anything ridiculous like that.
I’d have skipped all the AP math and worked on developing my facial expressions instead. “Please, Ink?”
Inkiri sighed. “Of course I won’t.” He blew out a breath. “Sadir, you didn’t answer. Do you want Vergis after all? I know it would be easy with you both having grown up on Earth, and of course he’s hangu and a mage—”
I pinched him again. It didn’t do much. “Oh, stop! I don’t have a thing for him. He’s so not my type, and I’m pretty damn sure I’m not his. Not in a million years.”
He nodded. “Then it’s an Earth thing that you allow him to call you princess?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t allowed Vergis anything, but I wasn’t sure how to explain that. “Yeah. Old Earth custom.”
He smiled. “I see. I don’t—”
Inkiri shoved me against the wall, hard. All the air was driven out of my lungs so I couldn’t scream. I was stunned, my eyes wide, and I saw the flash of a brown sleeve right where Inkiri’s head had been a second ago.
Inkiri was moving. I couldn’t make sense of the jumble of limbs at first. Everything was happening so fast, and there were sounds like someone punching the air out of bread dough.
I had the silly, errant thought that it was a dance, but then one of the people who’d jumped Inkiri flashed a knife. This was no dance.
“Ink!”
He wasn’t looking. He couldn’t. He was moving.
Inkiri didn’t have his swords. They were still in our room, next to our bed. Still, he was punching and levering, kicking at his attackers. There were two that I could see, and he was handling both, his attention and counterstrikes easily going back and forth between them.
I couldn’t follow the fight. One of Inkiri’s punches landed, and a bagu went down, leaving the second attacker, the one with the knife. The attacker moved.
I screamed. It looked like Inkiri had gotten cut on the hand, but then he spun his attacker and ran him headfirst into the wall. He finished that by hammering his elbow down on the bagu’s back, and I knew the sound would give me nightmares later on.
And…that was it. The first attacker was still conscious, staring with wide eyes and speaking. The second was down. He wasn’t moving. Inkiri picked that one’s knife up in one swift movement, then stepped back so he had both of them in view.
“What in the ever-living fuck!” Vergis shouted. He was running toward us.
“Rory!” I snapped to attention when I heard Inkiri shout my name, voice harsher than I’d ever heard it before. “Are you fine?” We looked at one another. He had the knife in one hand and was keeping a tight hold on the attacker with the other. The only blood I saw was on the first attacker’s face.
“I… Sure. I… Sorry.”
Vergis came to a stop, the ligua minder running toward us too, his contraption rattling behind him. That was actually funny, seeing the guy running with the ligua making a ruckus. I giggled.
“Oh, not this again.” Vergis pulled me to my feet. “Did you pee yourself?”
“What? Seriously, what’s your thing about humans who pee themselves?”
“Just you. Any pain?”
I was a bit sore, and maybe bruised from where I’d hit the wall. Too bruised and too sore for my taste. I shook my head though. None of it was anything I couldn’t handle, at least until I was sure Inkiri was okay.
Vergis called something over to the guy with the cage, who stopped like he’d been slapped, said something back, and ran in the direction of the town, this time without the cage.