Chapter 7
Bonded Spirit /b?nd?d-spir?t/ noun
A soul which a caster allows into their caster shield.
One half of a two-piece power system.
A ghost who belongs to a vesseled human, capable of communicating through frequencies of the mind.
—Definition from The Zo Lexicon
If my hands weren’t still trembling from the spirit who just left my bathing chamber, I’d be annoyed that my bath is now ice cold. I stand up, sloshing the icy water over the black rim and pull a robe over my dripping wet body as I step out of the large, round tub. The air is still cold too, even though Liha chased that spirit off minutes ago.
I shiver, tightening the fluffy, red robe around my waist, each stiff movement a blaring reminder of my training with Sorren. Thank the realms for Preysee and her therapeutic oils.
“What kind of spirit was that?” I ask Liha. I could make out its outline, shaped into a ball of swirling air.
His voice was so loud and clear, not like other passing spirits. And his power . . . I shiver again.
“The kind that’s gone, now.” Liha sniffs.
“Could you sense his desires?”
“It’s not easy to read desires you know,” she says. “Some are more compatible for me to hear. While some take time and effort to translate, and some—like yours—are skilled at hiding when they want to.”
I absorb the rare information Liha’s willing to give on the subject. “I thought you could hear strong desires?” I probe.
The sound of her ghostly eyes rolling is audible in her voice, “Only the most intense desires. Those usually come through for me.” I’m about to ask more questions when she squeals, “Oooooh, dresses!”
Preysee passes by, loading my expansive closet with countless new gowns and suits to try on for the Winter Rave. Liha darts off to evaluate each possible cut and color, no doubt narrowing down my choices of what I will be wearing. After Preysee empties her last arm-full of flashy fabrics, she gathers the medicinal oils used in my bath water.
Preysee dips her arm in the tub and unplugs the stopper, yanking her hand back and shaking the water off. “I’ll never understand how you can stand it. If I took baths as hot as yours, I’d have no skin left,” she clucks, and I’m left with chills crawling up my neck because she can’t feel the spirit’s lingering ice like I can.
Preysee tucks a stray tendril of dark hair behind her ear. It’s the same shade as my mother’s, but Preysee’s face—even with the silver scar snagging the corner of her mouth—has always been warmer, and I think that’s why I liked her from the moment we moved into the Zarr castle.
Preysee plucks a scented lotion from my inlaid shelf and pops some into her palm to massage into my skin before bed.
“Oooh, this reminds me,” Liha says, slinking back into my shield. “There’s an enchanted oil on the dark market that makes the wearer irresistible. Tell Preysee to fetch it for us. It’s sold in the golden district. Raven’s Elixirs. Tell her.”
“I’m not—”
“Tell her!”
I fold my arms. “So, I’m not allowed to stay in the book coves past midnight, even though I’m a grown ass adult, but an enchanted oil—that’s against the law—is okay?”
She sniffs, “It’s called priorities. And the whole book thing is about beauty sleep. Your eyes look devilish when they’re tired.” She nudges my cheek. “Which is often, lately.”
I bat my hand through her airy presence. “My eyes always look devilish. And why bother with an enchanted oil when our Mark does nearly the same thing?”
“Our Mark is subtle. This oil is NOT subtle.” She sniffs again.
I peel the top of my robe back while Preysee rubs the scented lotion on my neck and shoulders. Having worked around casters before, she’s used to my frequent, unexplained snuffs, eyerolls, and random giggling, even if she doesn’t have a vessel herself.
If I don’t tell Preysee to fetch the oil, Liha will pester me about it until I do. So, I ask Preysee, and she promises to pick it up on her next trip into Zarr city. She sits me down at my black marble vanity with metal roses climbing the edges of the mirror and begins gathering my wet hair.
“Oooh. Let me.” Liha pools her power into my palm.
Her popping energy fills my veins, like a wave of soft, slow electricity. I practice holding it inside, denying it. It’s so hard to deny the addictive quality of this kind of power, but I refuse to become like Father.
“Stop that, or you’ll blow us both up.”
I release the pent-up power. One puff of our pink smoke removes every orb of water and sends each drop back to the bathing tub, turning my hair to silk in Preysee’s fingers.
“Would it really blow us up?” I feel dumb for not knowing the answer and angry—again—at my father for hiding it.
Liha sighs, “No, but it’s quite intense.”
Preysee braids my hair down to the center of my back, and Liha summons our unique Mark, as she often likes to do whenever I’m in front of a mirror. The filter falls into place, making me more desirable to the person who looks through it. It seems so laughable compared to my father’s. His Mark is control over flesh, forcing his victims to move about like lucid puppets.
My Mark even works against my own eyes. In the reflection, my muscles are more defined than they really are, and the air about me is confident and calm. There’s one other difference, but I don’t mention it to Liha.
“You look like Afrina,” Liha says. The Heshena goddess of lust.
I glare in her direction and wipe our Mark away with another wave of smoke, “You say that every time.”
“I do not.”
Preysee, unfazed by this nightly ritual, knows it’s Liha who’s the vain one. She shakes her head with a smile. “You always look younger when you do that, like when I became your handmaid.”
After she finishes my hair, Preysee excuses herself to her own chambers for the night.
I strap my dagger to my thigh beneath my nightgown—I don’t trust my guards—and take one of my many books from the shelves lining the sitting area inside my room. I pull my legs up on the armchair, but for once, the words on the page aren’t enough to drown out my thoughts.
“Do you think my father will announce my betrothed soon?”
My hand moves to my thigh, brushing the concealed dagger hidden beneath my nightgown. “Why do you think he’s forced me into celibacy? No one else waits for marriage.”
“I’m sure you’ll find out soon.” She brushes near my shoulder like a draft of warm air. “I just hope your betrothed is scandalously hot.”