The Ether Witch, Volume 3: The Divining Of A Devil

Chapter 1 A Coerced Collaboration

An Interrupted Intermission

“One would think that after battling a daughter of the Gods, a dragon, and—to a lesser extent—an emperor, the valiant heroes would get a well-deserved rest. Instead they were given half a day off.

Tam woke from a deep sleep with a jolt, though it wasn’t immediately clear why.

A mind-numbing headache made his skull feel as though it had just been cracked open with a mallet.

The night before, during his battle against a group of witches and the sea monster plaguing Zinfera that he had learned was a kraken, he had received a blow to the head that resulted in a concussion. He was not enjoying its effects.

As Tam drove his knuckles into his temples, wishing there was some sort of reprieve from the pain, his wake-up call thundered again. It was the sound of wood splintering under the assault of an abnormally strong fist.

Tam stumbled out of bed, careful not to wake Eli.

They were in the Zinferan palace that he’d almost managed to burn down the previous night with some help.

He crossed the guest room, nearly vomiting from the agony of the movement.

Wrenching open the door, he braced his forearm against the frame and glowered down at his sister as colored dots danced around the edges of his vision.

“What?” he growled.

Katarina Reyes, queen of Daxaria, stood outside his chamber with her familiar, Pina, lying on her shoulders. Luca’s and Penelope’s hands were clasped in hers.

She stared at her brother’s disgruntled state with a raised eyebrow, her golden eyes flitting to his bare torso. “Gross.”

Tam made an animalistic snarl. Then he felt a gentle tug on his pants, and his attention fell to his son, Luca, peering up at him. Luca’s face was pale, but he still spared a smile for his father before wrapping his arms around Tam’s waist.

Tam had learned that his son was, in no uncertain terms, the devil. Not that Luca remembered who he was in his child state.

“Time to grab your stuff and get out of here, sunshine,” Kat informed her brother airily. “The emperor is going to be a real pain in the backside about Eli staying in Zinfera. You lot have to leave. Now. And take Mum.”

By this time, Eli had risen from the bed and made her way over to the door, her short hair full of cowlicks.

She, too, stared blearily at the Daxarian queen.

Penelope perked up at Eli’s arrival. The young girl, whom Tam and Eli had saved from a pirate ship, was only a year older than Luca.

It had been an incredible coincidence that the Troivackian child was not only one of the few remaining seers in the world, but also Tam and Kat’s distant cousin.

Tam frowned, resting his hand gently atop Luca’s head as he spoke to his sister. “What about you and Harris?”

“We have to do damage control here. The emperor is right to be concerned about the dragon returning, and the first witch probably won’t stay in your void forever.

Plus there is the whole matter of the Coven of Giong and Coven of Wittica now rebelling…

It’s a mess. We can’t leave them high and dry.

All the kingdoms need to be united, and Kezia only just woke up.

She’s pretty disoriented, so she won’t be traveling for a while, and I’m not leaving her and Sir Cas here alone. ”

Tam nodded along as he was reminded of the Troivackian princess, who’d been gravely injured mere days earlier. The action pained him, so he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He felt Eli’s warm hand rest on his upper arm. “We’ll grab some painkiller tea as soon as possible.”

Kat scoffed. “Pfft. I can’t believe what a baby you’re still being. A little concussion has you in such a state.”

Tam shot her a narrowed-eyed look.

She stuck her tongue out at him, but then seriousness overtook her once more.

“There’s something else you should know before you go…

I finally was able to get my hands on the letters that have been sent to me from Daxaria.

” Kat paused, anguish filling her eyes, making Tam straighten.

“Shortly after you left, Antony’s magic surfaced.

I knew this before leaving, but you wouldn’t have heard the news. He’s a weather witch.”

Tam’s eyebrows shot upward. That was an incredible power.

Kat continued, her tone still grave. “But in his letters, Eric says that Antony’s not handling it well.”

Tam felt his own anxiety lurch forward at the thought of his eldest nephew.

“Antony’s upset because he knows now he can’t be king, and his emotions are affecting the environment back in Daxaria.

Eric is struggling to figure out what’s going on here, and Da…

Mum saw Da in one of the magic visions after we were attacked at Soo Hebin’s palace.

He probably thinks Mum is dying. You need to go home and tell everyone what is happening.

We won’t be able to have reliable messages even if we send hawks.

Not with the witches at large. The majority of both the Giong and Wittica Covens have scattered. Nowhere is safe.”

Swallowing, Tam once more peered down at Penelope and Luca. “Alright. We’ll steal a ship and head home to Daxaria.”

Kat’s serious expression melted away as she shot her brother a wry smile. “Steal a ship? Look at you, you little vagabond.” She reached up and tried to muss his hair, but Tam dodged her hand with a grunt. Cackling, the Daxarian queen added. “Jiho is giving you a ship. No thievery required.”

“Aw. It was kind of fun setting the fire that one time!” Luca contributed while dropping his head back to stare at Kat upside down.

Kat snorted. “Gods. Four Ashowan boys… and the oldest has already set a pirate ship on fire and punched a foreign prince in the crotch. I’m going to miss when Mr. Howard hears the news.”

Ignoring his sister’s musings, Tam turned back to the spacious room and spotted his black tunic on the floor.

Barely stifling a yawn, Eli asked, “Where is Duchess Ashowan?”

“Ah, I believe the last I saw her she was—”

“BUKAA!”

The herald of a chicken echoed from the hall, making everyone turn— including Tam, who had already reappeared with his tunic on, albeit untucked, and found the duchess strutting down the marble hall, making the dome of feathers around her head bob.

Thanks to a mutated witch from the Daxarian coven named Henrietta, Duchess Annika Ashowan had been transformed into a black-and-white chicken the night before. At present, the duchess was perched on the back of none other than Kraken, her husband’s familiar, as he trotted toward the group.

Kat nodded at the animals. “Right. That works. Now, Kraken, it is up to you whether you leave with Tam or stay here with me.”

Kraken chirped.

No one knew what that meant, but his decision would become apparent when they departed.

Eli leaned farther out of the doorway and glanced down the long hallway, which was adorned with jade-encrusted pillars and gold filigree. “I’m surprised no one is coming to get us.”

Kat grinned. “Oh. That’d be because I may have taken some inspiration from my children and oiled the stairs and most of the main floor.”

Tam and Eli gaped in silence at the redhead, who stared unabashedly back.

“How… did you do that with no one noticing?” Eli said dazedly.

“You’re asking a lot of questions when you should be grabbing your things and leaving,” Kat retorted glibly.

Tam gave a disgruntled noise before turning back to the room. He hurriedly gathered the few belongings they had, including the red dress Eli had stolen from the shrine the night before.

“Alright. Our remaining things are at The Opulent Opal, and everything else should already be in Daxaria. We shipped a lot from Junya,” Tam explained.

Kat jerked her chin down in understanding before her eyes moved to the corridor. “I recommend leaving out the window. The guards may be in an oily heap on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, but they are a spiky heap, what with the swords and spears.”

Tam glanced at the window. “I guess it’s a good thing that everyone will be disorganized and exhausted from the chaos yesterday.”

“Mm-hm. Now get going. Give my love to my boys, snap Antony out of his bad mood, and tell Eric I’m fine.”

“Did you write a letter you’d like me to pass along?” Tam ventured before attempting to stifle a yawn. He still felt like he could have slept for another week.

Kat stared blankly at him. “Right. A letter… That probably would’ve been good…”

Being the responsible adult present, Eli once again weighed in a little more briskly. “Would Harris like us to say anything to his wife and sons?”

At this, the Daxarian queen perked back up. “Yes! He said to tell her in as much detail as possible about the fires, and explain that he dedicated the palace one to her.”

Eli, Tam, Luca, and Penelope took a beat to stare at the queen in silence.

“How will we find the ship we need to take?” Tam asked—without commenting on the odd, but fitting, message from the duke—while gesturing Penelope over.

“Bong is waiting for you all at the docks. And to get to the docks, there is a hackney one street north of the palace,” Kat explained while following her brother and his group toward the window in his chamber.

Tam took a moment to stoop down and pluck up his mother, the chicken. Kraken then revealed his decision about whether he planned on going or staying by leaping up onto the windowsill and peering down from the second story to the street below.

“Penelope, Luca, hold my hands. Eli, if you could take my mother and my arm, we can go into the void and I’ll get us over to that dark alley without people seeing us. Kraken, did you want to come with us into the void to get down, or—”

The fluffy feline leapt nimbly onto one of the carved stone dragons that lined the walls, then proceeded onto one of the elaborate balcony ledges below before he found his way into an ornamental tree, then the palace wall. He disappeared behind that.

“You’d never guess he was almost thirty years old,” Kat stated, openly impressed.

Tam gave a half smile in agreement, then locked eyes once more with his sister. “Don’t get yourself killed. Your husband’s grumpy enough.”

Kat sighed. “Yeah… Yeah, I know. Now get on with it. I want to see this magic of yours that everyone has been dying to know about for decades!”

Rolling his eyes, Tam passed his mother to Eli, then seized both of the children’s hands while Eli laced her free arm through his. “Penelope, the void is a little bit scary, so feel free to close your eyes.”

The little girl’s mouth wrinkled stubbornly, but Tam noticed she gripped his hand a little tighter nonetheless.

“See you soon.” Tam tilted his head with one last smile to his sister, then allowed his black-and-silvery aura to sweep himself and everyone that touched him into the dark embrace of his void.

★ ★ ★

Kat stared dumbly at the space where her brother, Eli, and the children had just been standing, then stepped forward and peered down toward the alleyway that Tam had just mentioned.

It took another moment or two, but eventually, she watched them file out of the alleyway and head north as per her directions.

Letting out a low whistle, she shook her head in disbelief. “How the hell was he so bad at hide-and-seek all those years?” Sighing, Kat made her way out of the room, but not before pausing thoughtfully beside the tousled bed Tam and Eli had shared.

“Pfft. She’ll probably be pregnant next time I see her, knowing our family’s talent for procreation.

” Kat laughed to herself. “I’ll take bets with Harris over when it’ll happen.

Though I wonder if they actually are married like Harris was saying.

I really couldn’t tell before. I’ll feel bad for Da if they are.

” Clasping her hands behind her back, Kat planted a kiss on Pina’s fuzzy cheek.

“Come along. I think I’m going to have to ask you to work your charms on the emperor and see about making him less of a royal arsehole. ”

The familiar purred, her lips curling upward in a smile.

“If you end up being the one to rule over Zinfera, don’t gloat to Kraken too much, hm?”

While Pina was far quieter in every sense than Kraken, she was known for being magnificently daring in her own way. And despite the fact that Pina and Kraken had learned to respect each other, there was still a bit of a rivalry between them, according to Kat’s da, who could speak with Kraken.

The Daxarian queen and her familiar proceeded out of the room and down the abnormally quiet palace hall.

Kat knew she might wind up spending a bit of time in a Zinferan cell for impeding the emperor’s orders, but she planned on pointing out that she wasn’t much use fighting dragons when hungry and tired from poor accommodations.

“Hopefully this stupid war can wrap up soon,” she murmured to both herself and Pina. She slipped a leg over the long wooden banister, which she intended to ride down to avoid oiling the bottom of her boots.

Pina mewed in agreement and sank her claws a little more deeply into the dark-blue jacket that Kat had donned that day in preparation for sliding down the stairs via banister.

And then the witch and her familiar whizzed down in a most improper fashion to check on the state of the emperor’s armed guards, feeling a mixture of weariness and sadness at having to say goodbye to her family yet again.