Chapter 32
Zane walked with Veyyr, Sorrow, and I to the next bridge that led to the final island and the final trial. Veyyr was quiet, but not more so than usual. I wondered if he’d seen me in the scrying pool.
I could still feel the wolf at my left side, and my mare on the other. Funny how knowing that they were what embodied my own truth had somehow made me stronger. A glance at Veyyr made me wonder how his own truth, seeing it and having it sink into him had made him feel.
Stronger?
Or full of shame like that whisper his emotions had given me?
His truth hadn’t been ugly…just…fractured as Zane had pointed out. A choice made, a truth broken, a new way of seeing the world that had forced him to protect himself…I shook my head.
“Overwhelmed?” Zane asked. “That is not a trial meant for someone not a witch.”
“Not overwhelmed exactly,” I could still feel where his hand had lain over my heart, almost like a light burn. “Steadier. Full of questions.”
Veyyr grunted. “Like a Novix. If you’ve initiated some underlying magic in her, Zane, that could be a problem.”
He laughed and then the laughter died. “It’s possible, should I check?” He picked up a lock of my hair as if he’d peer inside my ear.
They laughed; I rolled my eyes and swatted him away. “You two are children.”
“Oh, now she’s throwing rocks.” Zane flicked his fingers at me, picking me up. “Immunity is still not kicking back in. This could be fun.”
“Then we should wait,” Veyyr said. “It’s caught several of the other coven members off guard.”
Zane sobered instantly. “You will not catch Nemain off guard—I guarantee she’s been watching all these trials with the exception of my own. She cannot see my island.”
The shadow of his home, then the way light moved strangely made even more sense. It wasn’t just his cloak, or the stones, it was his magic woven in to block the other witches from seeing what he was doing.
We were at the bridge, this one made of ropes that swung just high enough over the water that we’d have to go one at a time or risk sinking into the waves. As we’d learned, we had to take the bridge, or risk somehow not fully completing this full journey.
The witch’s name didn’t send a shiver down my spine. “What can you tell us of her?”
“She’s old and re-emerged from the Rift like a great deal of other monsters. Her mother—according to her, is Morrigan,” Zane said.
Veyyr put a hand on my arm, stopping me from taking the first step onto the bridge and looked to his friend. “Morrigan?”
I turned with him to Zane. His face was grim. “Exactly, Veyyr. She is closer to Thorn than I would like to admit when it comes to power. The two battling it out…I would not like to see that. Well, maybe I would, but at a distance. And with Mallory’s immunity wrapped around me.”
Keeping my thoughts to myself about seeing Thorn having her ass handed to her, I let the two men discuss and just listened.
“Any idea of what she might ask of us?” Veyyr was frowning and I suspected that this Nemain had not been on his list of known coven members.
“She likes to break people, she will do something that will take you right to the brink of sanity, and then push you over. But how she will do it, I do not know. She is not a natural witch, there is…something else inside of her. Not like you, or even your mother. Elemental blood is a known and Nemain is…something else.”
Veyyr looked at the bridge, then to me, and then back to Zane. “Demon.”
“Likely.”
Likely. A rush of something rolled through me, fear and anticipation, and a strange certainty.
In my mind’s eye a dark figure rose above me, not male or female, fire in the eyes, fingertips full of disease and a long whip made of entrails that screamed as it was flung toward me, screamed as I cut through it.
A memory.
One I wasn’t sure I wanted. Shuddering, I spoke before truly thinking. “I’ve faced a demon before.” Not a question but they treated it as one.
Veyyr answered. “Yes. You have.”
The image of the demon in my head deepened, the colors sharpening even while the fear demanded I pay attention. Survival was not a guarantee with this kind of monster. “This could be very bad.”
In tandem they answered. “Yes.”
Not like we could sit here with Zane and plan out the path clearly—not with Thorn behind us, and my mare in front, waiting on me.
Danger behind.
Hope in front.
There was no going slow now.
I drew in a breath and stared across to the next island. It looked completely normal, flowers bloomed in the early morning light, there were no lava pits or massive monsters flinging themselves toward us. No whips made of entrails circling out to yank us across the rope bridge.
All the more reason that it would be deadly—how many had gone in over the years believing after facing all the trials…that this one didn’t look so bad?
“Very few actually come this far,” Veyyr said, maybe picking up on the question through the bond. “Most come to a specific member of the coven for help. Or…to try and take their place.”
“Like Ammi?”
“Yes,” Veyyr said.
My mind flipped over the possibilities. “And to take her spot, you challenge her, correct?” This question was directed at Zane.
“A number of witches have tried over the years,” His voice was careful, neutral. “None have survived.”
An idea began to rumble around in my head, a way to get past her, a way to make sure no one died in the process.
A crazy idea. Maybe crazier than riding a dragon to come to the islands.
Zane squinted one eye at me. “What are you cooking up in that head of yours?”
“I mean, if there aren’t rules against it…I say we double team her.”
“I cannot be a part of your journey,” Zane said. “You must face her challenge on your own—”
I held up a finger. “But, are there rules about when you can challenge her? Could your challenge and our arrival overlap? It would keep her distracted, and that could play in both your favor and ours.”
“You’re assuming he wants the position,” Veyyr said. “That he wants to lead a coven full of,” he made a sweeping gesture behind us, encompassing all the witches we’d passed so far. And to be fair he wasn’t wrong. There were none that I would have wanted to be friendly with.
“I would dismantle the coven,” Zane said, his voice thoughtful. “Free them all.”
Free them. As if they were captive which would mean…I put a hand on his arm. “Are you trapped here?”
His smile was immediate as he put his hand over mine. “Not like the others.”
My jaw ticked hard as the flush of anger rolled up and through me. I squeezed his arm and then let go.
“Veyyr?”
“We go in first,” His voice hardened. “Take the challenge, face her down, weaken her. You come in right after.”
I felt the truth under his words, or maybe it was the bond. Not just weaken her.
Kill her.
She’d trapped Zane here, and whatever past I didn’t remember, he was there somewhere in my bones, the same way Veyyr was—an integral part of me becoming the woman I needed to be. Like Stheno had said.
Zane looked at Veyyr. “What do you think? Does her idea have teeth?”
He snorted. “Does she ever not have teeth?”
Zane laughed and the sound was real, solid, and…
I saw that he lived his truth too, even trapped as he was.
For just a split second I saw his creature—a shadow of something at his side that slowly emerged from nowhere, peeking out at me.
And I couldn’t seem to stop myself from reaching out, the scaled snout ghosting across my fingertips sending sparks of heat shooting through my palm.
The dragon curled toward me, its body colored as if by the sands of a desert, but it had Zane’s blue-green eyes and a mouth that curled upward, smirking at me as if there were secrets only he and I knew.
That heat flared along my arm and went straight to Zane’s palm mark over my chest. I bit back the gasp that hit the back of my throat.
A wink, and the dragon was gone, and I was left with two men staring at me. “What are you doing?” Zane’s eyes were narrowed on me, as if he might have an inkling just what I’d been reaching for.
Veyyr frowned as if he might know too, his eyes going from Zane to me and back again. “Tracker, do you need more time?”
I held up both hands in mock surrender, trying to swallow back the sensation that had flared. “I’m fine.”
Only I wasn’t entirely fine, that heat collided in my chest in a way that I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand.
It felt…intimate and my finger found the ring on my left hand. A ring gifted to me and then used to bind me to a spell. Stheno had said the ring would embody something that I would never give up willingly.
Which was why the spell would always hold me.
But what if…it was someone that I would never give up willingly.
What if that someone was…Zane?