Chapter Twenty-one
Ena
Ty left in the wee hours of the next morning.
Apparently, the meat stores were getting low, and Cole had sent him and a few other mid-level daemons out on a hunting trip to harvest some game from the surrounding area.
He’d explained that this was a fairly common task, and that because of his venator, he was often requested for these types of outings, but somehow, Ena still had a bad feeling.
The way he’d been called away had been so sudden, and she’d never admit it aloud—because she knew Turner, Steig, Lara would do their best—but she felt significantly less safe without him around.
Turner had been tasked with escorting her to and from the Archives, as he did most days, but knowing that Ty wouldn’t be there at night when she slept, even for a few days, well… it concerned her.
Maybe she was just being dramatic because she missed him.
After their trip to the hot springs yesterday, she’d been positively glowing.
Not just from the sex, which had, admittedly, been fucking fantastic, but also, there was this…
feeling. This feeling had been growing between them for a while now, but she’d felt it more acutely than ever when she’d been laying on top of him.
She had felt so calm, and content, like she was, for the very first time in her life, exactly where she was supposed to be.
And then he’d given her that ring… She reached into her pocket as she sat at her usual table in the Archives, twirling it gently between her fingers. It was absolutely the nicest thing she’d ever been given.
Witches didn’t usually give presents; the only Gifts they received were from Gaia.
She knew it was a common practice among mortals on certain occasions like one’s birthday, but witches treated their belongings more communally anyway, so there was never much reason to gift someone something when they were all encouraged to share what they had.
Not to mention jewelry was rare to come by this side of the Chasm Mountains. Most of the metal that was traded was used to make more practical objects, but Ena supposed that since the daemons had such an abundance, it made sense that they could spare some for more luxury items.
But she couldn’t deny that the most special part about it was that it had been made exclusively for her by Ty’s own hands.
She fiddled with it now, thinking of the giddy, head-in-the-clouds way he’d made her feel, and how it somehow felt like so much more than before.
She’d known for a while what that feeling was, but now it was undeniable. It was practically screaming at her.
And part of her wanted to tell him what was in her heart, but another part of her was so, so scared.
What if she was just being na?ve again? Just like she had been nine years ago.
What if she gave him everything again and it didn’t work out?
She had hope for their future, hope that she could have everything she wanted, but still…
the thought of telling him felt like jumping off a cliff.
Throwing herself into a rushing river she might drown in.
But…
That was the old Ena talking. The one who was so scared of the unknown she wouldn’t even get in the water. Now she was getting in. She had faced the unknown—time and time again—and it had led her to some wonderful things. And she didn’t want to go back.
So when Ty returned, she’d leap off that cliff with him. She’d tell him what was in her heart.
Smiling to herself, and feeling very proud of her brave decision, she began flipping through another daemonic book on runes.
She’d again been fruitlessly trying to figure out the spellwords the witches had chanted during her vision of the binding spell, but there were only a few books on Wiccan magic here.
For some reason, she’d been feeling an increasing sense of urgency about it all. The last few nights, she’d been having dreams of the ritual—memories of what she’d seen and heard had woken her up in the dead of night—the witches’ chanting echoing through her mind:
Diabolus vocare
Tellus separae
Just like the last symbol on the amulet, she wasn’t familiar with any of the spellwords they’d used. It seemed, once again, that there were parts of her own magic, her own culture, that had been hidden from her.
So, feeling frustrated yet again, she decided to take a break from that and work on the mission from Cole for a bit, just in case he came around asking questions.
She’d promised Cole they would start to experiment with different runes that might work for Imbuing her Gift into an object, so she was flipping through a book on runes to see if any stood out to her as potentially being compatible with her visanis.
It wasn’t long until she found one that she thought might work.
It was one of the same runes used to control the water in the aqueducts, and was repeatedly referred to as the imperium rune, so she went to look it up in the rune dictionary.
The dictionary contained helpful information about each recorded rune, including common uses, as well as which other runes it was incompatible with.
Casually, she flipped to the imperium rune’s entry, which read:
Imperium rune
Common uses: to control or direct certain elements (i.e. water, heat, air)
Antithetical to: diabolus rune
Ena froze. That last rune mentioned. Diabolus. Wasn’t that one of the spellwords she’d heard in her vision?
Frantically, she flipped through the rune dictionary looking for the entry on the diabolus rune. The entry read:
Diabolus rune
Common Uses: to create chaos, disruption, and disorder of elements (water, heat, air, etc.)
Antithetical to: imperium rune, tellus rune
To cause chaos, disruption, and disorder? That was unexpected. Wiccan magic was usually rooted in Gaia’s balance, drawing on the natural elements. Causing chaos, disruption, and disorder was Iblis’s will—his domain.
But that was definitely one of the words they’d used, which meant…was it possible that the binding spell drew on Iblis’s chaos magic? And if they were drawing on his magic, then…
The witches must have been channeling Iblis’s will to complete it.
Ena stared at the page, her eyes blank.
It made so much sense now—why the spell had felt wrong from the moment she’d seen it.
Why it had never felt like Gaia’s will at all.
And even though she knew now that channeling Iblis’s will was not always a bad thing, in this case, it had thrown the entire magical order into chaos and had had significant negative consequences for everyone.
But also…the fact that this spellword came from a daemonic rune name meant that, again, the witches had borrowed from daemonic magical traditions to create the spellwords, just as they had with the amulet’s symbols.
Was it possible the other words came from daemonic magic too?
Ena flipped frantically through the rune dictionary, looking for rune names similar to the other spellwords, and she found them each in turn:
Vocarus rune
Common Uses: to summon a mind channel with whomever touches the object, allowing the Power of the mind Imbued within to influence them.
Antithetical to: fugus rune
Separus rune
Common Uses: to sever an Imbued object’s connection to the source Power, effectively removing its Imbued abilities.
Antithetical to: restoras rune
Tellus rune
Common Uses: to create equilibrium within an object Imbued with multiple Powers, balancing them and allowing them to coexist in equal measure.
Antithetical to: diabolus rune
(Note: This rune is defunct since Gaia’s abandonment and is no longer effective)
Running over the spellwords in her mind, she tried to make sense of these meanings.
Diabolus vocare. Chaos…summon. To summon chaos?
Create a mind channel with chaos? Or maybe with…
Iblis. That had to be it. Iblis was chaos incarnate.
The witches must have summoned him, in a way, using those spellwords to directly channel his will.
A chill passed over Ena. Because that meant, in order to recreate the spell, that she would have to do that too.
Summon Iblis. Not just get closer to him, as she had when she’d done the allucinae, but be filled with his presence, just as she had with Gaia’s during her Summoning.
It made sense when she thought about it—disrupting the status quo of magic had required summoning Iblis the first time, and now changing it back would be another disruption of the status quo.
The thought of summoning him lit a tiny spark of fear inside her, but there’d be time to dread that later.
She still needed to figure out the last part. Tellus separae. Equilibrium…sever.
Well, that one was more obvious, and it absolutely made sense. Ena already knew from what Heran had told her that the binding spell had severed the daemons from Gaia, who was equilibrium incarnate, effectively ending their ability to channel her will or access her magic.
So that was it. Summon Iblis. Sever Gaia.
The witches had summoned Iblis to sever the daemon woman’s connection with Gaia, drawing on the enhancing magic of the amulet to bind the spell into place among all those who shared her daemonic blood.
Ena couldn’t help herself—she laughed. She laughed big and joyfully as tears filled her eyes.
From across the Archives, Nial stared at her inquisitively, but she couldn’t help herself. Waving him off with her hand, she tried to calm herself down, but her insides were galloping.
This was it. This was the remaining piece of the ritual they’d needed.
The entry on separus said right there that the opposite was restoras.
All they had to do was recite the spellwords, subbing out separae for restorae to match the altered style of the spellwords and that should do it.
They should be able to restore daemons’ connection to Gaia, again drawing on Iblis’s chaos magic to do so.
Ena looked around. She had no idea what time it was. How long would it be until Turner came to get her? This was huge. She didn’t want to wait until then. She needed to tell someone now. Should she go find him on her own?
Just then, Ena heard male voices. Peeking her head out of her alcove, she saw two men entering the Archives, and her stomach sank.
It was Gunnar and Chans.
What were they doing here? They didn’t seem like the type to spend time reading books.
Gunnar’s hulking form paused in the center of the chamber as he and Chans looked around for something.
Then their eyes landed on Ena.
Fuck. They were looking for her.
The two of them walked over, a sneer blanketing Chans’s features, while a satisfied smile graced Gunnar’s.
“Witch-slave,” Gunnar called, his deep voice grating over Ena’s ears. “The king wants to see you.”
Fear locked up Ena’s insides. Cole wanted to see her? But Ty wasn’t here. Was this allowed? Wasn’t she supposed to be Ty’s witch-slave and only follow his commands? Should she refuse them?
She desperately wanted to, but refusing them didn’t feel safe. Cole was the king, after all, and could do what he wanted, as long as he had cause.
Ena tried to keep her composure as she closed the book in front of her. Whatever this was about, she’d just have to bullshit her way through it, and hope for the best.
Tidying the books into a stack for Nial and thanking Gaia she hadn’t had him get out the books from Petyr today, she glanced once at the old daemon before she made her way to the door of the Archives, Gunnar and Chans shadowing her on either side.
Nial’s eyes were full of concern, and she tried to communicate to him with a look that this didn’t feel right.
Get Turner. Get Steig and Lara, she wanted to say.
But what could they do anyway? Ty was gone, and no one could stop the king.
Ena was at his mercy.