35. Dark Magic #3
I fought to read it, anyway. I stared and stared, struggling to think, wracking my brain to cobble any kind of translation together from the parts I understood.
Opposite ends of the circle, reversed rune for resonance… my mind muttered as my eyes scanned over the strange marks.
Could that be east and west? North and south?
What about that strange symbol below?
Does that mean breaking the resonance in half? Cutting part of it out?
Altering it?
Magical heart? Magical core? my mind muttered. That could symbolize magic being cut out… moved to a different location, maybe? Transmuted? Or simply neutralized?
My brow furrowed as I stared.
I strained to think through the fog around my brain.
But why cut magic out in the first place? Is that so they can resurrect me into someone else? Why not just use me as I am, and have Bones officially “marry” and reproduce with someone else? Why go to all this trouble?
I fought to make sense of Malefic’s reasoning even as my eyes moved to the next set of symbols. Does that extra line mean to isolate, not destroy? Perhaps to protect the part of me they need to keep him alive? Maybe to prevent me from dying, or…
My mind trailed. Something about that symbol made me feel sick.
My eyes moved on. I read through different segments, different symbols.
That fire sign with… is that raido? The path?
They’ve drawn raido opposite soulo, which is usually sun, light… or victory, really… victory over what? It looks like darkness is woven into that side of it… is it victory of darkness over light? Power over goodness?
I fought to make the pieces fit together, but couldn’t.
That’s magic again, but reversed. The sign below that looks like “woman”… or maybe divine feminine. Perhaps goddess? Could it be the symbol for Isis? There… they’ve painted the symbol for darkness over that one again, too. Is that Anubis? Or some kind of demon?
Why Anubis? Is that supposed to symbolize Caelum, or––
Something clicked in me as I stared.
As it did, the remaining blood drained from my face.
This wasn’t a simple transference spell. It wasn’t like the resurrection spells we’d studied either, using Bones’s memories of the ritual he’d witnessed, or any of the books we’d dug up from Alaric’s and Bones’s family archives.
Eye of Ra.
Everything fell into place so neatly bile rushed up into my throat. My guts twisted. My head hurt so badly, tears ran silently down my face. My throat constricted, choking me.
But I understood. I understood now, what Malefic wanted to do.
I even understood the witch at his feet worrying about his wellbeing.
Malefic didn’t intend to use me or Caelum to fight his war.
How had I never realized that would never be his ultimate goal? Malefic would never tolerate having one, much less two witches or wizards who had more power than he did, even if he’d convinced himself he had them both under his control.
Not in a world he planned to organize around those whose magic was strongest.
Malefic had never wanted Caelum’s magic before because he’d never expected his son to live very long.
That was the thing with caelum ignises, wasn’t it?
They died. They died young, generally well before they reached thirty.
Malefic never wanted to claim his son’s “gifts” when death at such a young age was the price for that power.
He’d thought to use Caelum for a few years, then discard him like an old cloak.
But all that changed over the past eight months.
Malefic learned his son’s death wasn’t inevitable, not if the right magic existed to balance it.
With the right magic, Caelum could control his gifts.
He could live a long life, maybe even longer than that of most Magicals.
Once Malefic realized his son’s strength and powers might actually outlive his, everything about his plans for Caelum changed.
Malefic never intended to keep me around to control Bones, not for long, anyway, and certainly not permanently.
He was going to cut my magic out of me, instead.
Then he was going to cut the caelum ignis out of his own son.
He intended to take all of it for himself.
Malefic planned to make himself the new caelum ignis, but he wouldn’t rely on a wife to keep him sane or alive.
He would take both magics, mine and Bones’s, and balance those intensities within himself.
Because he wasn’t the type of mage keen to need anyone, much less a wife, or be forced to worry about someone else’s untimely death, he would do it alone.
It was all so sickly fitting.
It fit everything I knew about Malefic Bones, and everything Caelum had ever told me and warned me about his father, yet somehow, the sheer, ruthless audacity of it still had the power to shock me.
This was the “ascension” Malefic had just spoken about.
He would remake himself as a pharaoh, as a god.
I had a feeling that mightn’t turn out the way Malefic thought it would. I strongly suspected those powers were given to two different Magicals for a reason.
Unfortunately, I’d never know if I was right about that.
Caelum and I wouldn’t be around to see it.