Chapter 5
Vergis sneaked, well walked, out of the house and onto the patio, a ginormous mug of steaming coffee in hand.
Donna, with Wilson in her arms, followed behind him as if she thought Vergis made for a good shield.
He probably did, at that, considering how he had handled himself during the attack on Esaka.
“Got your head in the magical mind space, sugarplum?” Kinnek asked with a beaming smile as he sauntered back.
“Can we please just get this over with?” I hated that I sounded like a petulant three-year-old who wanted a marshmallow, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted this over, and I definitely would’ve taken a marshmallow on top of that.
Kinnek batted his eyes at me, slowly, in just the way I’d recently discovered was an excellent survival strategy for the apocalypse, at least when you were dealing with your fated bagu mate and his buddies. No, his sentenmen. His family.
“You saved my only child from a fate far worse than a clean death. The least I can do is help you understand what power lies within you, and do it properly.”
Kinnek said that so earnestly that I couldn’t help but blush. Vergis was rolling his eyes and hiding it behind his mug.
I nodded. “Okay, right. Sorry.”
Kinnek tilted his head, and his smile brightened. “Ancestors, you’re easy to wrap around one’s finger.” He stepped aside and pointed to the center of the circle as I frowned. “Sit down there.”
Inkiri growl-purred behind Kinnek. “You cannot mean for him to sit on the bare ground, Kinnek.”
Kinnek clicked. “I think that’ll actually make it easier for him to use his magic, just like he healed faster when you two were camping outside. It’s about proximity to the land, you see.”
I sat down cross-legged while Inkiri frowned. He reluctantly took two steps back from the circle when Kinnek waved him off.
“Okey dokey.” Kinnek clapped his hands. “Muffin, come here and watch.”
“Oy, ruining my spot,” Donna said, sidling up behind Inkiri instead when Vergis walked closer to the ko circle.
Wilson looked at me like she was wondering what I, a human with access to all the cabinets food was kept in, was doing on the floor. I had to agree with the chicken. She was wise.
“I’ve seen it. I helped you draw it.” Vergis, despite his grumbling, stood next to Kinnek and looked at the circle.
“Well, snickerdoodle, it’s not just about the design of the thing. You need to watch and feel and talk the user through it. Potential user, typically, but our red-headed Loathly Lady here is a doozy.”
Vergis rolled his eyes and gulped down some more coffee.
Kinnek grinned. “Well, Rory, you magical candy bar, you. How about you go ahead and close your eyes? Good. The goal is going to be to connect with that voice you’ve been hearing, and what we want it to do is simple.
It just needs to pour some power into the magic circle around you, to start with.
See if you can call it and get it to do that. ”
I knew I could absolutely call it, mostly because that presence seemed to be around most of the time since we’d come back to Earth—to Ireland, in particular. Of course, since my eyes were closed, I could feel that presence stir the moment Kinnek said he wanted me to call it.
Still, maybe nothing would happen. Maybe they were wrong and it had all been a mistake and I was just some weird type of human conduit with a medical condition that made me hear voices in my head.
Then again, Inkiri would be so disappointed if that was true, and I didn’t want that.
Darn it, but life was so much easier without magic in it.
Hello? I thought. Into the echo chamber of my head. I felt stupid.
But that presence was all for it. In fact, it was right there, or rather, approached rapidly. I got the sense of rustling leaves, but this time, there was a wariness there as if the presence had to step over or around a barrier.
Hello, Rory.
“Oy, why’s my patio glowing?” Donna said.
“Don’t mind that. It’s just a touch of magic,” Kinnek told her. “Rory, can you tell me if you feel anything happening around you?”
The presence showed some mild interest in Kinnek, then told me, He’s like your knight. Strong, like the one the Lady saved for you, but more experienced. He was at the Singing Stone not long ago and felt the tattered human magic there.
I remembered that from last night, right before I’d fallen asleep. Is that why you showed me that? Him and Vergis at the Stone? I asked that thing in my head.
I got the sense that it shrugged, which was weird. How on Earth did I get a mental image of a voice in my head shrugging? You were worried about your own and sought them out. I did nothing. Do you wish me to do something now?
“Rory?” Kinnek said.
Right. He’d asked me something.
I opened my mouth to tell him the presence was already settled in my head, but that was as far as I got.
The moment I decided I wanted to say words out loud, I got hit with…
not vertigo exactly, but a sense of not really knowing where I was in the world.
My body seemed too small, and I couldn’t even imagine how I’d ever made it move to get me from one place to another.
The presence just observed, unconcerned and unbothered by my mental flailing.
“It’s…here,” I managed in the end, but I felt dizzy. I pressed my eyes shut tighter, sure I’d find the world spinning the moment I opened them.
Kinnek frowned—which I wasn’t seeing with my eyes.
Like back in Esaka, I knew my surroundings, but just like then, my vantage point wasn’t me and my physical body.
Instead, I was just wherever I focused on in that moment.
Vergis was looking at the circle with wide eyes and his mouth half-open in surprise.
A red band like a piece of string wound around his right wrist drew my attention.
The Lady’s mark, the presence told me. You need not worry. It doesn’t hurt your knight, and it fits snugly. He seems to have been receptive to her demands, and the Lady is kind wherever she can be.
Well, that was…unsettling? All of a sudden, everything felt very big. The farm, the trees beyond, the animals going about their day, and the abandoned village about a mile away…
“See if you can make it pour magic into the circle,” Kinnek said, and his words made me focus on the ko circle again.
This time around, I noticed Inkiri looking at me, and he was smiling as if he was proud. That helped me settle and stay where I was rather than drifting away again. I wanted to do things he could be proud of. I didn’t love that it was magic, but maybe down the line, there’d be more.
Maybe, in the not-too-distant future, I’d cook him breakfast in some little place in Esaka or elsewhere on Aer, and he’d be proud of me for settling so easily there.
I pulled my attention away from that fantasy and “looked” at the ko circle.
Can you do that? What Kinnek asked?
Of course, it responded, and I felt it do something. The impression I got was that the amount of effort it took the presence was akin to flicking a piece of lint off its sleeve, but the others all gasped.
“Well, fuck me sideways,” Vergis mumbled. “I’m guessing this isn’t exactly standard.”
“Not as such.” Kinnek looked around and pointed to the sleeping dog and calico cat, who was now licking her little paws on the dog’s back. “Donna, are those sunflowers you planted over there?”
“Yes, for the birds. And for Wilson, of course.”
“Rory, ask the voice to make the sunflowers across the lawn bloom,” Kinnek said.
I got the sense that the presence found Kinnek amusing. I do, it confirmed. Interesting as well. The magic of your mate’s people is strange, but our worlds are bound now. With our worlds bound, magic must be bound as well, and it will be done through blood, one way or another.
I knew my jaw dropped, even if my body felt far away. No, we are definitely not doing any bloodletting! Can I wish for you to not do that?
You cannot. Any bloodletting was never in my power to begin with, Rory.
Consider that not all bonds forged through blood are violent ones.
The presence seemed as amused by me as it had been by Kinnek.
Your mate’s life and yours are one, the two of you bound in blood and breath, close as our two worlds and our two magics.
I did that when you were finally anointed.
Do you want me to make those flowers think that summer has already given them the strength to bloom, like he says?
Yes. I wanted to ask the presence what it meant by anointed, but the notion that Inkiri and I had been some powerful entity’s random choice made me reel.
Not random, the presence said. A chosen one must always be worthy, and he is.
It didn’t need to tell me that. I already knew what type of guy Inkiri was, and he hadn’t needed to be chosen to be worthy.
He was a prince, after all. Also kind. And so damn patient.
Sometimes, he wanted to carry me places, and that was something I had to get used to, but I was determined to enjoy it.
As I was thinking about Inkiri, I could tell the presence was getting the flowers to bloom. The dog and kitty looked up, bewildered, but not bewildered enough to stop their cuddle time. The way the presence worked, I knew this didn’t take it much effort.
While its flower magic was all nice and well, I didn’t know what to think of what it had said about Inkiri. I didn’t need it in my mind while I figured that out.
Can you leave me alone for a while? I asked, and the presence acquiesced silently. With the same sensation of rustling of leaves it had made itself known with, it vanished to wherever it had come from.
As it left my mind, I could tell my attention was getting pulled back to, well, me. It felt like a rubber band snapping back into shape, only I hadn’t even noticed it had been pulled. All of that was scary.
I opened my eyes.
“Now what? The light show is over, and I have early sunflowers?” Donna asked.
I turned around to look at Inkiri, and when our eyes met, he didn’t need me to say anything. Without waiting for Kinnek’s okay, Inkiri closed the distance between us and pulled me up off the ground and straight into his arms.
“Yugano en enki, my light in darkness,” he said, even as he felt me over. Checking whether I was cold, I realized when he brushed my cheek and forehead with his fingers. “My precious Rory.”
Even if I had been—even if I ever got cold again—I knew he’d hold me and keep the cold away.