Chapter 18
I take a deep breath as Roiven strips his ragged prisoner’s shirt off over his head, exposing his back to me. I remember the shape of the enchantment. The obedience I need to remove is centered low on his spine.
In the dark, I can’t see the details. Just the broad span of his naked shoulders, pale under the moon, divided by a slice of black—his hair.
I clear my throat and reach tentatively forward to push his hair aside. My fingers brush against Roiven’s warm skin and he flinches at the contact. The witch reaches behind his neck, fists his hair, and drags it forward over his muscular shoulder.
“I’ll have to touch you,” I warn.
“If you must.”
My living hand settles flat against his flesh and I feel a shiver work through him at my touch.
His back is warm, a fire that steals my breath, centering me on him instead of on the chaos tearing my mind apart.
Roiven is like the eye of a storm, the moment of calm that dragged me back to the here and now.
But the calm can be dangerous, I remind myself.
I can’t put my guard down just because he’s cunning enough to be kind to his captor.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.
There’s a familiar hum beneath Roiven’s skin, the powdered crystal mixed into the ink of his tattoos.
I pull at the power with my mind, and it awakes.
Roiven grunts in pain, his shoulders stiffening as all the lines of his spells brighten and begin to hum.
I can see them now, brighter than the pale ghosting of the moonlight, so that Roiven seems like nothing more than a map of blue marks hovering in the dark.
“It’s going to get worse,” I warn quietly.
“Just do it.”
“Sava won’t attack?”
“No.”
Now that I can see the magic, I move my hand to the exact part where the obedience is centered. I let go of the rest of the power and focus there, dragging my finger slowly over each of the lines.
Here. To me, I urge the marks. The crystal shards respond, reaching toward me, like ten thousand concentrated needles piercing through his skin.
I can’t leave any piece behind, not even a single fragment.
It will just grow back. I claw my fingers and exhale, steadily pulling at the power.
I’ve never tried to do this much at once.
Just little specks at a time. But the magic is eager to reach me.
It’s gotten to know me as I’ve ordered Roiven about, and now, it wants to do as I say.
“Can you go faster?” Roiven asks through gritted teeth.
The pure blue glow of the enchantment lines dim as they're covered in blood and bruising. I can’t leave the power stranded halfway between the ink and the air. I pull harder and feel it strain toward me, abandoning the place the power was set. It all rips through his flesh at once.
His skin stops glowing. The powder of the crystal, made into a slurry with his blood, gathers into my palm. I forbid it to bury itself beneath the surface of my flesh. I can feel how much more is in Roiven, but I’ve gotten everything from this one particular enchantment.
My head spins. I stare down at the mess in my hand, faintly glowing.
People died to become this power, to feed it, to create the spell crystals.
Was it worth it? I’m holding their deaths in the palm of my hand.
And every year more and more Enchanted are consecrated, wave after wave of sacrifices to fuel a war that never ends.
I’ve always believed the witches are evil, but they don’t power their magic through death itself. The Empire says death is natural; the most natural part of all of us. But that doesn't mean anybody wants to hurry toward it.
“Is it done?” Roiven asks through gritted teeth, his voice laced with pain.
I look up slowly. Everything spins, which is unsettling in the dark. My limbs quiver, like they’ve turned into boneless sea jellies.
“I got it out.” The words come out a whisper, the most I can manage right now. The usual fatigue I felt from doing this in the past is magnified into complete exhaustion.
He turns just as my legs start to collapse.
“Cai,” Roiven snaps, and grabs me by the shoulders as I slump against him. My face buries right against his bare pectoral. “What’s wrong?”
“Magic,” I slur, my lips against his warm skin. I don’t have the strength to lift myself up off him. “Not easy to…” I trail off. Talking is unappealing. I probably shouldn't have done this hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted.
Roiven sighs, and shifts to cradle me in his arms. I hold the dirty hand out to the side so it won’t touch him.
His arms are around my back, and he’s moved me off his chest, but from just an inch away I can still feel his heat.
His arms are strong. Big. Shirtless. I fight the urge to nuzzle back against him for comfort.
“Can you stand?” he asks, reminding me that Roiven doesn’t want to be touching me. I straighten out of his arms.
Roiven lets go slowly. I crouch down, or maybe it’s more like a controlled fall, to wipe my hand on the rocks.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to get it off.”
“Get…?” he starts. There’s a moment of silence and then heat rolls over me as a bright red light flares. I flinch away, but the flame from Sava’s throat isn’t pointed at me. It’s just a torch. Roiven curses, and then everything goes dark again. I blink away the spots of light from my eyes.
“Rinse your hand in the water.”
“Not touching that,” I tell him.
“Why not?”
“The ocean is disgusting.”
“Have you always been afraid of it?” he says. I don't dignify him with a response.
I feel him walk away and I keep scraping my hand against the stone, but I can’t get the feeling of death off. A moment later Roiven re-appears.
“Hold out your hand.”
“Why?” I ask suspiciously.
“Just do it.”
I reach my hand out and seawater splashes over it. I shudder, revulsion pulsing through me at the feel of it on my skin. He brings another handful.
“Enough.”
“If you’re sure. We’ll go to the nearest hideout,” Roiven says. “If you tell anybody…”
I tilt my head to look up at him. Even though I’m crouched low to the ground, the movement is still too much for me. I waver, then fall back on my ass. Everything keeps spinning.
I hear Roiven’s heavy sigh.
“I think you’ll have to,” he says to Sava, even though he doesn’t have to speak out loud any more.
I close my eyes and lie back against the stone. Even sitting up is too much right now. It would be so easy for them to leave me here.
But a moment later Sava’s claws close against me and pry me up from the rock like she’s digging an oyster from its shell.
Not this, again. It was so uncomfortable the first time. I feel myself rise up into the air and wonder if I’m going to be sick. A moment later I squint my eyes open as a blast of bright heat rips through the night.
The puddle of crystal, blood, and seawater. Sava burned it to ash.
She launches up into the air and I am sick, embarrassingly. Bile splatters onto the Bluff’s rocks. I shudder and let my body go limp in Sava’s paw.
We fly through the night. I don’t struggle, but I can’t sleep either, no matter how sick and exhausted I feel.
This has to be the worst way to travel. Even worse than being crammed up against Roiven, but there’s no way I could have climbed up Sava’s side.
And probably he’s realized he doesn’t have to touch me if Sava just carries me instead.
A lifetime passes as I rock up and down over the ocean, contorted in the grip of her claws. The sky brightens. Dawn. I don’t think I’ve slept more than a few seconds at a time.
We approach a black stone mountain jutting up from the ocean.
Sava’s wings flare out to break her speed, and her back feet slam down against the side of the slope.
Pebbles clatter. A boulder shatters down the mountain.
A moment later her paw uncurls and I slip from her grasp… into another pair of arms.
Roiven.
“Let go,” I mumble against his chest. I can't move. I'm too tired to even open my eyes. His shirt is back on.
“Easy, knight.”
“Can walk,” I mumble.
“No, I don’t think so,” he answers sternly. I should fight, but I'm just not going to.
I surrender, and let him carry me off.