Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
Aiden yelled wordlessly and launched himself off the ledge, using his fire in a burst to slow his landing on the cavern ground far below. He ran toward the kitten and fell on his knees to pull her onto his lap.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the smudge of manducare on Grandfather’s tablet arrive at the center. “They’re here,” I muttered. Then I turned to Paige. “You need to change that spell. It’s supercharged already, all you have to do is drop the cage and let the lines loose. The manducare will take care of the rest.”
“Are you sure?” Professor Dunlop said, putting one hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sure. The manducare need the boost of energy from the ley lines to get through that barrier surrounding the giant. He’s had months to perfect it.”
“I have.” The giant grinned again, making me shudder. “There’s no way that little kitten will be able to absorb enough energy to breach it.”
A yowl echoed down the passageway, followed by a thrumming like a thousand drumbeats.
“Paige, now !” I shouted.
“Shields up, everyone!” Paige called, and suddenly the air was filled with crackling magic.
I could see sparks as the cage fell apart and the ley lines had nothing containing it.
I bit my lip nervously. What if it didn’t work?
An explosion of fur and feathers erupted from the mouth of the passage, an enormous manducare appearing. It unfurled its wings and leapt off the ledge, circling around the giant’s head.
“I think it can sense the barrier,” I said, awed.
Another manducare followed the first one, and another, and another, until I could barely see the roof of the cavern thanks to all the wings.
The passageway was still thundering, though, and I wondered what else had traveled with the manducare.
Some other type of magical creature, perhaps?
Instead, following behind the adults were handfuls of kittens, from barely fledglings to no bigger than Moonbeam. They lined up at the edge, their mouths open and snapping at the air.
“What are they doing?” Lilia asked.
“They’re eating,” Rhiannon replied. “Look at their throats working! They’re guzzling down the magic in the air.”
“And they’re growing,” Bruce observed.
Sure enough, the kittens were now nearing full size, their wings erupting from their shoulders as if they had just been tucked away for safety’s sake. They leapt after their adults, the air thick with them.
“I need to check on Moonbeam,” I said to Grandfather, once I had recovered from the unexpected display.
He nodded. “Be careful.”
“No kidding,” I muttered. I decided to stay close to the wall and use the wild power around me to build a staircase down to the ground. With a gradual slope, I only had to run a few feet to reach Aiden and Moonbeam.
“She’s not moving,” Aiden whispered to me, his cheeks streaked with tears. “Come on, baby. You can eat from me. Get some of your strength back.”
I crouched next to him and put one hand on her chest. A tiny electric shock jumped from my fingertips to her heart, trying to restart it.
Rhiannon joined me. “Her body needs to be healed first. It’s gone through a lot of trauma.”
I nodded. “I’m not sure how to do that.”
“Give me a moment,” Rhiannon said, sitting cross-legged on the ground. She closed her eyes and took deep, even breaths. “I’m going to need you to feed me some of the power around us. Just a little.”
“That, I can do.” I joined her on the dirt floor and focused on pulling a thin thread of power from the wild ley lines. My hair ruffled around my face from the maelstrom of wing-flapping going on behind me. I pulled it back and twisted it into a ponytail and then put my hand on Rhiannon’s knee, letting the power filter through my body into hers.
“Aiden, hold Moonbeam still. Let her suckle on your finger, if you’re all right with that. She can’t eat the raw power in the air right now,” Rhiannon said dreamily, almost as if she were in a trance. Her hands were moving fluidly through the air, weaving slowly back and forth like she was making an invisible blanket.
I cast the spell that let me see the inside of animals and watched the result of her weaving in Moonbeam’s muscles and bone. The bruises faded, the muscles rewove together, and the bones became whole again. It took a long time before the kitten twitched her tail and latched onto Aiden’s finger.
“She’s going to be okay!” I gasped.
Aiden gently stroked one finger over the top of Moonbeam’s head. “That’s it, baby. Take what you need.”
His fire burst from his skin in spurts, his magic going wild as it was drawn from his body. I didn’t stop him. He knew what he was doing and how much she could take.
“Almost done,” Rhiannon said. Her forehead was dripping with sweat.
I created a strip of cloth and magically wrapped it around her head, stitching it together to create a headband with the tiny stitches that Una had taught me.
“Nicely done,” Una said, and I half-twisted to look behind me, where our friends were standing, a barrier of power between us and the tornado of manducare surrounding the giant.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Bruce grimaced over his shoulder. “You three were too close to the storm. Your granda’ sent us down here to protect you.”
“What is he doing?” I asked with a frown. “Where are the professors?”
“They’re doing something to try to tame the manducare,” Clarissa said. “Something about getting them to stop.”
I snorted. “That’s not going to happen. These are wild manducare. They’ve never been trained.”
“Tell that to them.” Hazel pointed back up at the ledge where we had come in.
The three men were standing, arms outstretched. I could see the power they were trying to use to get the manducare to stop. It was getting sucked into the tornado and dissipating.
“That’s really not going to work,” I repeated. “Where’s Paige?”
“Here,” she said from my other side. “What’s your idea?”
“How do you know I have an idea?” I asked.
“You always do.”
“You need to try to use the diamond to amplify the professor’s power,” I began. “Wait, no, that’s not going to work.” I looked down at the amethyst and diamond ring I was wearing, the one that had been attuned to my family for generations, the one that was related to the manducare breeding program two thousand years ago. “ I need to do it,” I said softly.
“Sorry, couldn’t hear that over the wings,” Paige said.
I held up my free hand. “Hang on.” I turned to Rhiannon. “How much longer?”
“Almost.” Her voice sounded strained.
“Do you still need the extra magic?”
“No.”
“Okay.” I held my hand, the one with the Doyle ring, out over Moonbeam, and felt for its inner power. It throbbed in my grasp. “Stop eating Aiden’s magic, please,” I ordered the kitten.
She blinked slowly and turned her head to look at me, letting his finger pop out of her mouth.
“Good girl,” I praised. “I need you to stop your family from draining the giant to death.”
Moonbeam yowled, and Rhiannon glared at me.
“How is she supposed to do that?” she demanded. “She’s still not fully healed.”
“She’s strong enough now that she’s capable of eating the raw ambient magic,” I retorted. “Look at her!”
With every breath, Moonbeam was growing. She was bigger than Aiden’s lap now, spilling out over his legs onto the ground. She climbed to her feet, her large paws now bigger than my hands.
Rhiannon quickly tied off her spell and let it go.
Moonbeam gently butted her forehead against mine for a moment, holding my gaze with her swirling purple one, and then leaped over my head. Her wings, which I hadn’t noticed, erupted from her shoulders and swept her up to the top of the cavern. She yowled again, and the manducare encircling the giant stopped flying to stare at her.
I got to my feet and ran closer. I wasn’t sure what to do, but on instinct, I raised my hand with the ring in the air. “Don’t kill him!” I shouted.
Now every eye in the cavern was fixed on me.
It was unnerving.
I swallowed hard. “You were not made to be killers. My ancestor helped you become who you are, to help us put the giant to sleep. We did not ask you to kill him.”
One of the largest manducare I had ever seen landed in front of me, the dirt exploding upward from the force of the landing. Each step forward, puffs of dirt burst up around the paws. I trembled under the intense gaze of the creature, a single eye nearly the size of me.
“Siobhan, get out of there!” Grandfather yelled.
The manducare rumbled deep in its chest.
I was trembling, but I stood my ground. “Thank you for coming to our aid once more,” I said, my voice shaking.
The manducare ducked its head, pressing its nose to my hand. It was cold and wet, just like a cat’s.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
There was a sudden flurry of wings again, loud thumping as the manducare all landed, and then silence.
“Where’s Gràineileachd?” Aiden asked. He was right behind me, in full beast form.
Surprised, I realized that there was no giant in the cave.
“Did he escape?” I asked anxiously. “He can shrink. Maybe he snuck out?”
A large manducare leaped over several others, bounding to a halt in front of Aiden and butting its head against Aiden’s chest.
“Moonbeam?” he asked incredulously.
The manducare chirped and stamped her feet.
“She’s so big now,” I marveled.
“Not as big as her mama,” Aiden said, running his hand behind her ears the way she’d loved as a small kitten.
Moonbeam nudged him again and then pranced away, looking back at us expectantly.
“I think she wants us to follow her,” I whispered.
We started walking through the pod of manducare, their furry sides brushing against us as we passed them.
“Siobhan!” Grandfather shouted from above. “Get away from there! The giant’s there!”
“We’re safe with Moonbeam,” I called back.
“Are you sure about that?” Aiden asked in a quiet whisper.
“You should have more faith,” I replied, nudging him in the ribs. “You’re her mama, after all.”
“She’s just… so much bigger than she was,” he said.
“She’s the same kitten that you gave your magic to,” I retorted. “Trust her.”
“I trust you ,” he said. “And if you trust her, then I will, too.”
“Good enough.”
At the approximate center of the cavern, based on how little I could see the walls, the manducare had created a circle around a naked man lying on his side, facing away from us.
I paused hesitantly, not wanting to leave the protection of the warm bodies around me.
Moonbeam chirped and nudged the man’s arm with her nose. It flopped and he rolled onto his back with a groan.
“Not sure how I feel about you seeing another man’s junk,” Aiden grumbled.
I created a blanket with a flick of my fingers and draped it over the man on the ground. “Better?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow up at my mate.
“Be careful. He could be faking.”
“Moonbeam wouldn’t get close if he was.”
“How would she know? She’s a baby!”
I sighed heavily and changed the spell on my vision. First, I used the one to see inside his body. His heart was beating, but it was very slow. His chest was rising and falling with each breath. “He’s alive,” I announced. After removing that spell, I cast the spell to see magic, doing the calculations to avoid the ley lines, because I didn’t want to be blinded.
The manducare around me blazed with power, which I had expected. Aiden was also showing bright levels of magic, which made me sigh with relief. Moonbeam hadn’t taken too much. Finally, I looked at the not-so-giant.
There was no magical power within him at all.
My jaw dropped. “What did you do ?” I gasped. My interest in the magical abilities of the manducare pushed me to walk closer to the giant, examining him from the other side. “Did you drain him completely? Will he regenerate his magical potential, or is it gone forever?”
I didn’t get an answer, which didn’t surprise me.
The professors and Grandfather landed beside me, having used hovering charms to join us in the center. I told them what I had discovered.
“You can’t be serious!” Professor Dunlop said, giving the manducare a wide berth.
Professor Akhtar knelt next to the giant and examined him with several spells that I didn’t quite follow. Grandfather performed his own examinations on the other side.
“He’s alive, unconscious, and completely mortal,” Professor Akhtar said at last.
“He won’t sleep for longer than a few hours,” Grandfather added.
“What do we do with him?” Aiden asked. “We can’t just leave him here!”
“Professor,” I said tentatively. “We should probably keep an eye on him.”
“There are prisons under magical supervision,” Professor Dunlop began.
“Not what I meant,” I said with a wince. “I was thinking that maybe we could bring him back to the academy.”
“We don’t have the infrastructure to contain him,” Professor Akhtar said mildly.
“I mean as a janitor, or something,” I finished weakly. “Maybe even as an ancient history professor. Or ethics?”
“Are you serious?” Paige, who had joined their group, asked in a hiss. “You know what he’s capable of! What he planned to do!”
“I also know that he’s now mortal but with the knowledge of an ancient scholar,” I retorted. “If he wants to make a difference, which is what it seemed like was his intent, what better place than at a school? At the very least, he should be given a choice.”
Grandfather beamed with pride.
“Very well,” Professor Dunlop said slowly. “We will bring Gràineileachd back to the school with us under sedation. He shall have to undergo a trial, but since it seems like he didn’t do any harm in this millennia, he should be able to live as a free man.”