CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MAGECRAFT RUNS IN MY family’s bloodline, but I never felt its call.
Out riding the waves and exploring the seas was all I needed.
Captain’s Log, Mayhem
Captain Fraser Connell
Something rippled through me when she stepped back down into the water.
Not the consuming lust of before, a quiet happiness that bordered on giddiness.
Bastion swam to us, smooth and gentle as a mare with her newborn foal.
With his hooves planted on the stairs below us, he stretched his neck to snuffle over her soaked blouse.
Tentatively, she reached toward him. Her face transformed from cautious to radiant with pure wonder when he pushed his head under her seeking fingers, and I ached to touch her again.
“Never been this close?” I asked. Her reaction made it obvious but, I had to fill the silence with something, or I might not stop myself from making another, bigger mistake.
She shook her head. “I’ve only seen them from the shore, and once I saw them with riders riding the bow-wave of a ship.”
“Ship guards.” I nodded. “Either the captain or his passengers hired them.” Bastion’s eyelids fluttered. Ozora had found the sweet spot on his crest and gave him a good scratch.
“Who’s a good boy? Who’s so handsome?” she cooed. Bastion shook his head, looking supremely pleased with himself, and nudged her hand for more scritches. With a little laugh, she obliged, and didn’t hear the snicker from up on the quay. But I did.
Some dockworkers had approached. The splashing must have alerted them, and they stayed to look over Ozora. Her blouse and ruined skirt were virtually see-through, and the men eyed her up and down with naked hunger.
“Wait here, be right back,” I murmured in her ear and climbed the stairs to retrieve the towel I’d dropped there, fixing them with an unwavering stare.
“Find somewhere else to be. Now,” I snarled when they looked like they’d linger, their eyes still locked on Ozora behind me.
The taller one’s eyes widened with recognition when I moved to block his view, and aimed for him.
He slapped his buddies, and whatever he whispered had them scurrying away, like wharf rats.
In typical Ozora fashion, she’d done the opposite of what I asked, following me partway up the stairs, so she saw me chase off the creepers.
The gratitude in her eyes undid me, and my fist clenched on the towel so I wouldn’t wrap her in my arms again.
Instead, I held it out to her. “Let’s get you back on the ship and into dry clothes that don’t show what you’ve got to the world.
” She glanced down and saw that her filmy silk blouse and ruined skirts were transparent.
That blush. She was no innocent, but she was a pure soul, and I was anything but.
The moment had definitely passed, and my reason once more warned that I shouldn’t be this close.
I shouldn’t be kissing her, touching her, wanting her.
She didn’t need the kind chaos in her life that a killer and rogue would bring.
Silently, she wrapped the towel around her torso. Her face lost the warmth and vibrance of before, and the quick walk back to Mayhem was quiet, both of us wrapped in our thoughts.
Fortunately, one of Mayhem’s female crew was Ozora’s size and offered a set of loose silk pants and tunic in vivid turquoise and cream. Once we were both clean, dry, and clothed, we set off on a search for magic in the city.
An ‘assignment from Cassyrra’ was the only explanation she’d give for our jaunt, and we kept to the sections of the city that were still occupied, where we’d have less chance of being accosted.
I didn’t want to have to deal with the sorts of vagrants that occupied the abandoned buildings in the rougher areas.
Fortunately, the concentration needed to identify the different spells erased the awkwardness of our kiss, and turned the search into a game.
It was easy now to see the different magical signatures scattered around the city; warding spells, glamours, as well as prayers and offerings to various deities, all glowed with numin.
Once I learned the trick, it became simple to shift between regular vision and magesight.
However, we’d been out for a couple hours, and the fun was starting to pale. I was about to suggest we finish, until I spotted an unusual spell.
“Hey, come look at this,” I called to her.
This sigil was different, its numinous signature unlike any other I’d spotted, and I couldn’t identify its caster.
The glowing mark wavered and flickered as if drawn with silver flames, and the energies radiating from it were both hot and icy.
It was painted on the brick wall of a tavern, right on the corner at about eye level and unlike anything I’d seen all day, so I wanted Ozora to see it.
“It’s...it’s like it’s blank.” I hesitated; that wasn’t quite it. “There’s no elemental or sylvan energies woven into it. I can’t tell who cast it.”
Ozora stood by my shoulder and peered at the wall.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She gave voice to my thoughts, and her nose wrinkled as she squinted at the dainty, filigreed symbol. “Well, my own numin is similar, but that...feels ancient.” She seldom sounded hesitant when she talked about magic.
Swirls, lines, and dots formed a circle a couple of inches across, as if it had been painted on with a brush. There was no denying it was a work of art, its lines of bright silver outlined in darker, gleaming gray.
“Huh? What do you mean?” I shot her a questioning look.
“Human numin is unaligned. Like this. Not elemental, not sylvan. Unaligned numin, like Ayduin numin, can shape any sort of magic.” She tapped the wall with her fingertip. “This is not Ayduin magic, though.”
“How can you tell?” I’d heard enough magic theory over the last two weeks to know that an elemental, like me, or sylvans, such as shifters, have numin aligned with their nature. I couldn’t cast a fire spell if I needed to, since nereids are water elementals.
Ozora nodded, but her attention was all on the sigil, and she tapped the brick again.
“It’s the wrong shade for Ayduin numin, and obviously not human, but.
..I don’t like the alternative.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake off her doubt.
“The only other thing I can think of that would look like this is Cilirian magic.”
“Where are the Cilirians to cast it?” I wanted to laugh, but her look of concern as she stared at the sigil gave me pause.
She was serious. “We stopped the invaders. They’re all dead.
Remember? Cassyrra and Taenya flew sweeps for days after that night.
We know they’ll try again, but none of them survived the attack two weeks ago. Right?”
Uncertainty clouded her brown eyes, dulling them, but her chin and jaw tightened, resolute. “It can’t be anything else,” she insisted. “I don’t know how, but it’s the only explanation.”
“There’s got to be another reason. Cassyrra torched all their ships.
Those elves are fish food. None landed here.
” I braced one hand to lean in close and study the circular design glowing on the wall.
The silver flames seemed to call to me, a soft song promising blissful relief, peace, but beneath that, there was something else.
Just as alluring, just as seductive, it seemed to even know my name.
I followed the numinous trail into the spell’s design, entranced by the intricacy.
SLAP!
My head rocked, smacking into a brick wall, and Ozora clung to the front of my shirt, her fists clenched tight. I now faced the street, with the wall of the tavern at my back and the sigil about four feet away. Longing and nausea both rose within me, and its faint singing echoed still in my ears.
“Don’t do that again.” Her voice shook, rising up from below my chin. “Still think it’s not Cilirian spellcraft?”
“I have no idea. What happened?” The last few moments were blank.
That Ozora could grab and haul me around without me knowing was.
.. Well, I would’ve said impossible. Except I had no idea how we’d gotten there, with her shaking form pressed against mine.
Fresh fire burned through me and, damn, now all I could think about was her.
“You started to walk toward the tavern’s door, saying something about ‘finding Vallar’ inside.
” I could barely hear her, didn’t want to try to understand.
The weight of her thighs against mine, her forearms pressed into my chest, hells, even the way her fists clutched my shirt drove any last thoughts of magery or elves away.
Her scent filled my breath, and I slid my hands up the curve of her thighs, toward her ass.
The worst part was, I wanted her but, I didn’t want her like that, it was as if something else was controlling me.
She immediately let go and stepped back, and I shook my head to clear it, and hide my embarrassment.
“What’s Vallar?” she asked, turning her head to glance at the sigil again and hide the rush of color to her cheeks.
“Don’t know.” My head felt funny, and I scrubbed at my face. When I pushed off from the wall and staggered, Ozora flung out her hand to stead me but, instead of letting go, she clenched my arm even tighter.
Oh, little mage, don’t tempt me. I paused, stopped by the look of horror scrawled across her expression.
“Don’t move,” she breathed, her eyes wide, and fixed on my shirt. Golden, numinous sparkles danced in their depths. “Look at your shoulder.” She nodded at my left arm, the one she’d grabbed.
A wispy copy of the sigil rested on the silk of my shirt, wavering and flaring, almost invisible.
I would never have noticed it, if she hadn’t pointed it out.
Faint silver flames burned, and threads of numinous smoke rose from where it rested on the black silk, as if it were searing its way through. I froze under her hand.
“Is it touching you?” Her voice was hard, brittle as she released my arm and plucked the silk sleeve up and away from my skin.
“I don’t think so. I don’t feel anything.” Her fingers relaxed, as did her expression.
“Good.” She pursed her lips and gave a heavy exhale. Was that relief I heard? “Hold absolutely still. You might feel this a little, but don’t move.”
Raising her other hand, she muttered and loosed a stream of numin from her fingertips. Bright golden light reached toward my shoulder, spanning the distance in a breath. It spun and twisted as it arched, forming a long, thin funnel that widened as it neared my shirt.
Hovering there for a moment, the numinous funnel expanded, then dove for the sigil and encompassed it entirely. I drew in a sharp breath, my skin burned as if touched by flame when the golden energy passed through my shirt with a crackling hiss, but I held my arm steady.
Ozora said something else unintelligible. The numin obeyed by jumping away from her fingers and forming a sphere that enveloped the sigil. I gritted my teeth against the burning, and clenched my fist to keep from pulling away. “Is this going to take much longer?”
She frowned, pointed at my shoulder, and said, “Kaitah ainkar!” With a snap of her fingers, the little ball of numin jumped off my arm, coming to a stop about a foot away from the sigil on the brick. “Oh no you don’t,” Ozora snarled and slapped the brick wall.
The ball vanished with a puff of golden smoke, taking the silver sigil with it.
“Whew. That thing was nasty. Never have I seen a sigil do that.” She let go of my sleeve and shook out both hands.
“What was it doing?” I glanced down at my shirt. A perfectly circular hole sat where the sigil once rested. “Wait, not sure I want to know.” Lifting the sleeve showed a burn to match the circle on my upper arm.
“Burrowing into you to start. Beyond that? I don’t know; it’s so complex.” She shuddered, then tapped the wall, careful to avoid the silvery mark by several inches. “This is one for Cassyrra. Too bad I don’t have my sketch pad with me.”
It was a long, quiet walk to the keep.
On the east side that faced into the city was a single, massive arched passage through the ten-foot-thick walls. The gates were flung open, and the portcullis was raised, while a half-dozen of Mayhem’s crew stood guard. Cleobah sat in the roundabout before the gates.
“Have any luck?” the sphinx inquired, with an arch of her dark gold brows. Her furred and feathered tail twitched, but it was her sly grin that said she already knew the answer.
“And then some,” Ozora said. “There’s a Cilirian mage somewhere in the town.”
“You don’t say?” Cleobah’s sly lift to her chin, and squint of her eyes, said she already knew. “Whatever are we going to do about that?”