Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
ZOE
The effect of the gold dust is so much stronger than last time.
It feels like pure starlight has been injected into my veins, a warm, sparkling effervescence twinkling in the mitochondria of my every cell.
Gold washes over the room, giving every object in it a hum.
The dense oak table sings in baritone. The Ficus in the corner whistles a light, happy tune with an underlying crackle that tells me she’s ready to be watered.
No walls or ceiling remain here. Nothing to contain me.
I’m temporarily lost to the wonders of the Gold Room, until my eyes fall on Seb, and I gasp.
Like everything in this room, he’s frozen, watching me with unblinking green eyes.
But beside him is a massive dragon with scales the color of tree bark edged in gold.
His dragon’s bright gold eyes wink at me, and his tail flicks like a contented cat.
Seb is a dragon. He shifts into a dragon. It takes me a second to get my head around it, but I realize that the dragon, too, is Seb. The human-looking version of Seb is frozen on the earthly plane, but this inner dragon is here with me, on the celestial one.
The dragon chuffs and takes a step toward me but then stops, turning his face toward the box with the ring and growling. That’s right, the ring. I’m supposed to be analyzing it. I direct my attention to the contents of the box and notice two things immediately.
First, the water in the vial is singing the most transcendent aria, radiating pure gold. Warmth infuses me, all the way to my heart, and I feel happy, truly happy down to my soul, just to have gazed upon it.
And second, the ring threatens to swallow all that happiness, to flush it into a black void of darkness and pain.
Even on this plane, the ring makes no sound and puts off no light.
It is completely silent and dark, a black hole of energy that drains away the giddy sense of belonging I achieved from looking at the vial of water.
In all the years I used gold dust, I never once came across an object like this, like a hole in the fabric of this plane, like a vacuum, sucking all the energy out of the rest of the room.
Nothing else shares these qualities, and I instantly know that what I’m looking at is pure evil.
As I study it, the hair on my arms stands on end.
Fuck. What dark magic is this? I draw in a deep breath and exhale.
Concentrate, Zoe, I tell myself. You can do this.
Lifting my hands, I form two letter Ls with my thumbs and forefingers, then lift one elbow so that my fingers form a box, thumb to thumb.
Finger to finger. A magical X-ray machine.
I center the ring inside the perspective of this box, not touching it but trapping it within my focus and intention.
My magic locks on to it, testing its boundaries.
It feels cold and icky, but I get a clear idea of where the magic starts and ends.
“Show me the weave,” I request of the goddess.
I’m shocked when a voice responds—a triune of voices—like three women speaking in unison. “Defiled. Unclean. Forsaken.”
I turn my head, trying to find the source of the voices, but there’s nothing here but light. I gasp. “You speak? Are you the goddess?”
A warm breeze caresses my cheek. “I am many but of one voice.”
I have no idea what that means, but I don’t have time to interrogate my benefactor. “I need to see the magic that fuels this ring.”
The breeze that fluttered a moment ago against my cheek increases to a strong wind. “We shall end it. We shall dissolve it in pure light.” The gold around me flares like everything is lined with lit sparklers.
“Wait!” I raise my hands. Although I’ve ascended to the Gold Room plenty of times, I’ve never heard distinct words before.
Usually, I receive signs and messages, not words.
As far as I know, this is unheard of. “I must understand it so that I can create a spell to defend against it. People are dying.”
“It is death. It is destruction. It will corrupt you,” the voice says, now from across the room, opposite the windows, as if whoever is speaking to me is circling the table.
“I know,” I say. “I’ve sensed as much. But my friend’s kind is being butchered by these things. I’ve promised to help him. Tell me how I can understand this dark magic enough to create a shield against it.”
“Dragon,” the voice says, now from the direction Seb stands. His brown dragon purrs and circles something I cannot see, like a cat rubbing itself against someone’s leg. “This is your friend?”
“Yes. The rings are being used to kill his kind. I promised to help him.”
“An old war. Darkness. One even the light may struggle to vanquish.” A slight breeze comes from the direction of the vial.
“What is in the vial? Do you know?”
“A gift. An ancient one.”
“Can it be used against the darkness?”
“Light only exists to shine.”
Cryptic much? I wait for an explanation, but none comes. “But is there a way, a spell or enchantment, to use the water in this vial to protect against the ring?”
“Water nourishes.”
Water nourishes? What the hell does that mean? I swallow, and the intensity of the gold in the room fades. The songs of the objects grow softer. I don’t have much time.
“Show me the weave,” I plead again. “I understand the danger, but I want to help.”
“So be it.” The voice seems to echo in the room as symbols erupt inside the frame of my fingers. Foreign words, symbols, and sounds churn in the space around the ring. I latch on to the magic and pull my hands apart to enlarge the spell, my forearms straining with the effort.
I’ve underestimated this job. It’s the most complicated work of magic I’ve ever seen.
This ring contains layers of curses. No fewer than five separate spells by five separate witches are braided together.
Each spell is attached to the others with what looks like needles or scaffolding.
Booby traps. If I break one curse, the entire braid collapses, and I’m guessing this thing self-destructs.
This ring is built to be a killing machine. A poison without an antidote.
It’s meant to scare me away. But I grit my teeth and look closer.
A charm is embedded in the steel itself, ribbons of darkness woven into steel.
This must be what allows the ring to morph into the weapon of the user’s choice.
The way it’s sewn into the physical design, it could easily break the ring apart and form it again into a sword or dagger.
Revolving above it is the shimmer of an incantation, a chant that I can no longer hear but whose cadence strikes me as something even older than Latin. I catch a random phrase of it before it sinks into the background, replaced by the acrid stench of the remains of a foul potion.
This ring was soaked in a fluid concocted of bitter herbs, soured fruit, and blood. No dragon’s blood. I’m not sure how I know, but I sense it. The blood is the catalyst. The ring uses the dragon’s own blood as fuel. Goddess, the reek of it slaps my senses.
I open my mouth to breathe through it, hoping to save my nostrils from the reeking evil, only to taste the next spell in the braid. It coats the back of my tongue as if I’ve inhaled a handful of sand.
By the time I cough to clear my throat, the most dreadful spell rises to the surface. Dark whispers wrapped in cackling laughter circle me. The golden room grows darker, the sounds taking shape as dark flapping runes that grow large enough to block out the light.
Someone has opened hell itself to finish this ring.
“Ah!” My arms grow weak, and I close my magical window slightly to give them a break. My heart pounds. My breath comes in pants. That last curse binds the other four together, and it is the deadliest.
I watch as the voices fade again into the ring, a black ribbon looping and diving.
Now, I see it. Although the aura around the ring is consistently dark, I’d mistaken it for true black before.
Each of the curses on this ring has its own distinct color.
Yes, the voices are black, but as the metal charm bubbles to the surface again, I notice it’s the color of tarnished silver.
The incantation shimmers navy blue. The potion, with its bloody stench, is hunter green.
And that gritty spell I’d tasted on my tongue, it’s the deepest burgundy red.
I observe the strands rising and falling, again and again, each one blending into the next until the pattern repeats. All of them together are a nasty, angry tangle of magic that sounds like the scratch of claws across stone.
Braided magic, fashioned in the shape of a ring, no end and no beginning.
Five distinct brands of magic. Five distinct spells.
To break this entanglement, I’ll need the antidote to each individual curse ready.
I’ll need to slip them into the braid without tripping the trap, and I’ll need to execute the spells at exactly the same time to keep the ring from destroying itself and taking me and anyone around me with it.
The muscles of my neck strain as I desperately try to memorize every aspect.
I never expected to find something so complicated, and I have no way to take notes because I need my hands to hold the window open to see the spell.
However, I can’t help but hypothesize about the origin of this magic.
I don’t think a witch made this. I don’t think five witches could have made this.
There’s something far darker going on here.
Something far more powerful lending its voice to the chorus.
“This was made by the destroyer, wasn’t it?” I ask, praying the voices in the room haven’t abandoned me.
“We do not speak of it,” the voices hiss in unison.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” My head throbs.
My arms ache. The Gold Room flashes in and out of existence.
I can’t hold it. My hands clap together over the box, and I list to the side, falling out of my chair as everything gold turns black.
The last thing I see is Sebastian’s worried face as he catches me in his arms.