Chapter 9 Whispers of Magic
Whispers of Magic
Raisa
We’re somewhere north of nowhere, following a crooked game trail so old only the crows remember its name. We’re so deep in the forest, there is no sunlight here. There’s not even the whisper of fresh air.
The brothers fan out in an uneven wedge, Shade at the tip, Onyx flanking me with quiet gravity, Bran and Rune walking rear guard, with Sable and Talon somewhere in the trees. Grim stalks the perimeter, always moving but never really quite one of the group.
My own feet are raw, but the pace feels almost bearable today.
The meat from yesterday’s hunt sits heavy in my bag, like a trophy.
My thighs still ache from the way Shade fucked me last night, but I like the way it stings when I move, like a reminder that I’m not a thing to be locked in a tower ever again.
Nobody talks much. They’re letting me lead for once. I think it’s Shade’s way of apologizing for how hard he took me last night, as if he were jealous of what Talon and I did without them—not that I complained. I never do when their hands are on me.
I try not to think about how much I want them there again right now, but the silence makes it impossible.
It’s late morning when Sable whistles, a sharp, two-note warning that slices through the hush of the forest. The brothers freeze instantly.
Bran’s hand goes to my back, pressing me down into the ferns.
Shade’s voice is a breath at my ear. “Don’t move.”
I hold still, my eyes wide and my heart pounding so hard I feel it in my jaw.
They’re here before I see them. Eleven—no, thirteen men, fanning out across the path in sickeningly familiar uniforms. Only two carry swords. The rest have axes, clubs…the sort of weapons that look better with blood on them.
They’re hunting.
For a sick second, I wonder if I’m the deer.
One of them confirms my suspicion with a shout. “She’s there! In the brush!”
The world erupts in chaos.
Talon barrels through the undergrowth first, like a bear in human skin. He hits the nearest man like a battering ram, the crack of bone louder than the screams that follow.
Sable is right behind him, but he doesn’t attack. He dances, using blades and fists, grinning the whole time. Death is a game to him.
Grim is all violence, slicing a man across the face, then shoving him to the ground and finishing him with a brutal stomp.
Onyx never breaks stride. He just grabs a soldier by the throat and lifts him off his feet, squeezing until he stops moving.
Rune hangs back, muttering to himself, his eyes silver-bright. I see his lips moving, but I can’t hear the words over the roar of the fight.
Shade and Bran don’t move. They keep me pinned to the ground, their bodies tight and tense, scanning for the real threat.
It doesn’t take long for the fight to turn.
The brothers are more than men, even when they try to act it. The soldiers bleed, break, and crumple. But still they keep coming, fueled by fear or fury or maybe just the promise of my father’s gold.
One of them—a big man with a pike—breaks through and lurches straight for me. Shade shoves Bran aside and leaps to intercept, but not fast enough. The soldier’s blade catches my shoulder, biting into my flesh.
I scream. It’s a stupid, useless sound, but I can’t help it.
Shade tackles the man, rolling him into the dirt. He jams a fist into the man’s mouth, then rips his jaw down, the sound making me gag. But there’s another soldier right behind, his sword raised, aiming for Shade’s exposed neck.
Bran grabs the man by the hair, yanking him back. But this soldier is desperate, flailing. He brings the sword around in a blind arc. The edge catches Bran across the chest, opening a red line from his collarbone to his ribcage.
Bran goes down.
Something inside me shatters.
I don’t think. I just move. My hands claw the dirt, the roots, anything to drag myself forward.
“Stop!” I scream, but it comes out wrong, too loud, too bright, like the inside of my head just cracked open.
The world goes silent.
And then I see a blue-black shimmer like a crow’s feather, exploding from my fingertips. It doesn’t look like light, exactly. It looks like venom and moonlight braided together, alive and hungry.
The tendrils snake out, latching onto the nearest soldier. He convulses, his jaw locked and his eyes wide with terror. The braid crawls over his skin, turning it hard and gray, tracing lines across his face like frost in a windowpane.
He’s screaming, but the sound is trapped behind stone.
The next soldier is still running, his blade raised. I fling my arm toward him, and the braid grabs his legs, crawling up him in a spiral. He stumbles, dropping the sword, his hands already gray and curling as the stone eats him alive.
A third man tries to run. I don’t even mean to hit him, but the braid latches on anyway, rooting his feet to the ground and turning his body to brittle marble. He falls, shattering on the rocks.
The last two get caught at the same time, turning to stone in midstep.
The forest goes deadly quiet in the aftermath.
I stare at my hands, still raised, still crackling with whatever just happened. My whole body is shaking. My mouth tastes like blood and copper.
Shade kneels in front of me, his hands up like I’m a wild animal he’s afraid to spook. “Raisa,” he says, and I can barely hear him over the static in my ears. “It’s over. They’re gone.”
Bran is behind him, sitting up, his hand clapped over the wound on his chest.
He’s alive.
The relief almost knocks me out, siphoning power away from whatever I just did. My hands are just hands again, pale and shaking.
The brothers are all staring at me. Not the way men stare at women. Not even the way animals stare at meat. They’re staring like I’m a bomb, and they’re waiting to see if I’ll go off again.
I try to stand, but my knees buckle.
Onyx catches me, his arms careful, not crushing. He’s gentle for a man who could snap me in half.
“What did I do?” I ask, my voice a ghost.
Shade glances at the petrified men, then back at me. “You stopped them,” he says. “That’s all that matters.”
But I can see the truth in his eyes, and it chills me to the bone.
I push away from Onyx, stumbling toward one of the stone men. He’s frozen mid-scream, one hand clawing at his face, the other stretched out as if begging for help. His eyes are glassy with terror.
He could be alive, if not for the web of cracks spreading across his neck.
I reach out and touch his cheek.
It’s cold. Colder than anything should be.
He crumbles under my hand.
I flinch away, the need to vomit rising swiftly, but nothing comes up.
The brothers gather around, silent, waiting for me to do something—cry, scream, or run. I do none of it. I just stare at the men I killed and try to understand what I am.
Shade steps closer, his hand hovering at my shoulder. “There’s magic in your blood, Princess,” he says, as if that explains anything. “It came from your father.”
My laugh is a brittle crack in the quiet. “He never told me.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Bran says, wiping blood from his mouth. “Why tell you when he could cage you with it instead?”
My stomach churns again, so many things I never understood now flickering into focus. The picture they paint hurt in a way nothing ever has. I always knew I lived in a kingdom of secrets and lies, but learning your entire existence is one of them is a different kind of pain.
Onyx kneels by the nearest statue. “They won’t be missed for a while, but we should go before the next patrol comes.”
Shade agrees, his voice back to steel. “We move, now.”
Rune helps Bran to his feet, and the others fan out again, but this time they keep their distance from me. Even Sable, who’s never been scared of anything, won’t meet my eyes.
We leave the bodies where they fell. The stone men watch us go, their faces forever twisted in shock.
My hands are still trembling, but I don’t say a word. I walk at the front of the line, not looking back, not looking at the brothers, not looking at myself.
I don’t know what I am.
But I know what I’m not: safe.
And neither is anyone else.
The silence that follows in our wake isn’t peaceful. It isn’t comfortable, either.
Sable hums once or twice, but the sound dies on his lips. Bran walks just behind me, his wound still oozing despite Onyx’s best efforts to stitch it. I glance back, but he waves me off, his usual sarcasm drowned by something rawer.
We stop when night falls, sheltering under a slab of stone that stinks of mold and old fires. The moss is thick here, muffling the world into a green-brown fever dream. Rune and Sable vanish into the dark—probably to scout, maybe just to escape me.
I should eat, but I can’t. I keep seeing the statues in my mind, faces frozen, skin webbed with cracks.
Shade tries to light a fire, but his hands keep slipping. He growls, a low animal sound of fury, and slams the flint against a rock until sparks finally catch. The anger in him is new. Before, he wore his violence like a suit. Now, it leaks around the edges.
I sit, legs pulled up to my chin, arms wrapped tight around my knees. I want to ask what happened to me, but I’m afraid if I speak, the magic will come out again.
Onyx and Bran sit across from me, their heads close together. Bran is pale, sweating, but his eyes are locked on me the whole time. Like he’s waiting for me to do something—explode, run, cry.
After a while, Grim sits next to me. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that I smell the blood on his hands.
He speaks first. “You should rest.”
“I’m not tired.”
He watches me, and for a second, I almost believe he cares. Then I remember the way he looked at me after I turned those men to stone—like I was some new kind of monster.
“Tell me what’s happening to me,” I whisper, the words splintering.
He shrugs. “You’re a princess in a magical realm.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He smiles, thin and ugly. “You think you’re the first girl to discover power hurts more than it heals, Raisa?”