Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
Seraphina
Sera and Alistair walked south. The air was warmer, and the breeze carried a hint of brine, reminding her of home.
But was it home if Honora wasn’t there? Her sweet sister. She hoped Dominick would have gotten her more information, anything to help this overwhelming pit of shame from swallowing her. Any hope left had been burned with her journal a few nights ago.
Alistair was wrong. She wasn’t losing weight thanks to sharing her food.
She was losing weight thanks to the images of Nora being tortured over and over again in her dreams. The fear of finding her sister dead.
The guilt that Dominick was waiting for a reply that would never come.
She hoped that those humans were right, that the oracle was near Port Sidnah and she and Al could go home.
Sera had insisted they stop at the spot on the map she swore was the ruins. They were close now; she could feel it. Chair Renata had said doorways, plural, but she’d decided the night she burned the tavern in Ironoak that she’d provide the Council with one. That would have to be good enough.
Snik galloped between the trees and underbrush, squealing and carrying on, driving Alistair mad. Earlier, the goblin had given her a rabbit, and ever since, he had been yipping cheerfully with the birds.
Sera was pretty sure she’d heard Al smite Snik when he tied the rabbit carcass to his pack. She never understood men’s egos. So sensitive. And the one in front of her… she didn’t know what to make of him.
Her eyes betrayed her by continually seeking him out, taking in those strong shoulders, his manly beauty.
Al carried his pack on one shoulder. He’d stripped off his tunic early in the day, leaving him in only a sweat-slicked undershirt.
His back muscles moved with as much grace as a mountain cat’s, fluid and powerful. And Shadow, his ass…
Sera wiped at her brow as they trudged through the woods. The summer solstice was drawing near, and the days were getting longer. She wrapped her hair in a high bun, pushing the loose curls behind her ears.
“Let’s take a break,” Alistair said. “I want to try something.” He ripped off his undershirt and rummaged in his pack, then stood with something in his hand.
Her breath caught in her throat. The sun actually glistened on his chest. He didn’t even smell, if that was possible. She was pretty sure she did, after the way they’d been walking and the few streams they’d passed.
“Eyes up here, Minnow.” He smirked at her and held out a leather cuff with a stone in the center. Hanging off the cuff were two chains with metal rings fastened to the end. She’d heard of enhancers before; each one was a little different, tailored to the witch or warlock meant to wield it.
“These”—he held up the enhancer—“are for recruits. Give me your right hand.”
She laid her hand on his gloved palm. “How did you know I’m right handed?”
“I pay attention,” he said, much too smoothly. His eyes smoldered, turning her core molten as he slid the two rings down her middle and ring fingers. Once he’d attached the cuff around the width of her hand, the purple amethyst was centered and strapped to her palm.
“The chains give you freedom of movement, while the magic concentrates here.” He tapped the amethyst. “Put your arm up, palm facing out.” He stepped behind her.
“Now what?”
“Where does your magic come from?”
She peered over her shoulder at him. “Me? Where else would it come from?”
“Coven founders save me,” he muttered. “Where do you feel it in your body?”
“My chest.”
“Put your left hand on your chest and keep your right extended. Take a deep breath. Instead of creating a barrier around your body, try to push the power out of the enhancer. Ready?”
This wasn’t a good idea. The darkness within her was quiet now, but would it stay that way?
Barijara. She whispered the spell in her mind. Inhaling, she pulled at her blue barrier magic, imagining it wrapping her arm and emerging from the stone in her palm.
“That’s good,” Alistair said behind her. “Keep going.”
She clenched her teeth, picturing her blue barrier as a beam of light instead of a second skin. The magic barely expanded past her hand. Her arm shook, and her body temperature rose as black flame churned behind its cage.
Alistair stepped closer. “You can do this,” he whispered, reaching around to support her extended elbow. She pushed her magic, refusing to let him distract her. Then his gloved hand was on hers, planted right above her heart. “Come on, Sera.”
His breath on her ear made her shiver. Lost was the concentration she needed to push magic through a stone in her palm. It was taking everything she had not to lean back into him.
“Focus,” he whispered again, a hint of a smile in his voice. She was about to be putty.
“You’re rather distracting,” she said, closing her eyes. Her darkness thrashed at his proximity. It was irritated, but Sera refused to let it escape. Not this time. She couldn’t let it happen again.
Thankfully, the enhancer didn’t call to her darkness, only to the small well she’d been born with. Sera locked her elbow, and her muscles screamed in protest.
“That’s it,” he said. “Keep going.” But the well only went so deep, and she was burning. She was sure that the only reason she wasn’t dust was because of her darkness. That’s how coven members’ magic worked… If the well ran dry, the witch or warlock ceased to exist.
Her breaths were uneven as she pushed that bit of blue barrier magic through her arm, calling up every ounce.
“Open your eyes.” Al’s breath tickled the skin below her ear.
A blue dome surrounded them. Sera yelped a laugh, viewing the trees, the sky, all of it through a turquoise-tinted layer. “I did it! I made something.”
The dome fell, and Sera couldn’t help herself; she leaped into Alistair’s arms. Turning in dizzying spins around and around, she couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter that broke through her. She’d done it. She wasn’t defective.
“Ahh, fuck.” He dropped her to her feet. “Shit, no more petting Snik.”
She laughed at the two handprints that marked his shoulders. He couldn’t have been too upset by it because he stepped closer and gripped her waist.
Every inch of her body went taut, his face serious as his eyes roamed hers, then dropped to her lips.
Sera tilted her chin up to him, a blatant invitation that she refused to be ashamed of making.
The planes of his face held a hint of suspicion, but she wanted this.
She wanted to know what he tasted like and how his lips would fit on hers.
Wanted him to make her forget every bad thing she’d ever done, and that the world was burning around her.
Sera could see the hesitation in his eyes before the soft leather of his glove cupped her cheek. “Sera,” he whispered.
“Al.”
“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Snik barreled into the clearing, screeching. The goblin stopped and snarled. Not at Alistair. Snik was growling at something deeper in the forest.
A wave of magic crackled over Sera’s skin. The forest was silent, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of something watching her.
“Get my dagger from my pack… slowly,” Alistair said in an almost whisper.
There was nothing she could see in the underbrush, but Snik was there, snarling and spitting. She’d never seen the creature act so rabid, but he stayed with her, guarding her.
The cool metal of the dagger’s grip was firm in her hand, but Al… She squinted. Somewhere in the space of a few seconds, he had changed.
Standing before her wasn’t the warlock she’d spent her youth pining over, or the Legion captain who’d saved her more than once on this journey.
No. Before her, holding a sword in one hand and a white-hot ball of power in the other, dressed head to toe in black, was the warlock whose image was plastered over every wall in the Legion barracks. The same one that had been stained with red lip prints in the witches’ bathing room.
“You’re the fucking Mesar, Al?!”
A group of terrifying beasts emerged from the trees.
The sound of their throats clicking made her shiver.
Their limbs were long, the ends of them tipped with sharp black talons.
Tattered cloaks covered the beasts’ bodies, and beneath their hoods the dried skulls of deer and elken covered their faces.
Beady red eyes peered through the empty eye sockets.
These were something other. Sera had never seen a species of demon like this.
They clicked to each other, their bodies twitching. Two reared back on their haunches and lunged.
Alistair threw out a beam of blinding light at the beasts, then swung his sword. He was a work of art. The black Mesar uniform had extra padding around his middle, shoulders, and upper arms. His hood and mask were in place. It made sense, knowing how sensitive he was.
Snik crouched before her. She had her enhancer on one hand and the blade in the other. The two beasts who weren’t attacking perked their heads, and their masks’ mighty antlers scraped the hanging branches of the trees. Their clicking turned to snarling.
Al blasted out another streak of power, searing the beasts, whose screeches echoed through the trees.
“RUN!” Al screamed.
Snik snarled in approval and grabbed her hand. Her heart pounded, her magic thrashed in defiance, but she focused on following Snik.
In the web of bushes and branches, her feet slipped on high piles of leaves.
Snik whined. “I’m coming,” she hissed as a thorny vine ripped the sleeve of her tunic.
She crawled into a dense thicket and waited.
Barely audible over the beating of her heart was the sound of a sword slicing through the air and howling cries.
She’d known he was lethal, but Al was the Mesar.
The ruthless demon butcher. She’d kill him for keeping that from her if the beasts didn’t do it for her.
“Shit,” she whispered. “Shit shit shit.”
There were four of those things. Sera unclipped the snaps holding her enhancer to her palm and placed it on her other hand. If she was going to have any success brandishing a weapon, she needed her dominant hand free.
Al yelled, and she froze.
“He needs help.”
Snik pulled at her uniform and whined.
“Stay here. I’m going to check on him.”
Was she out of her mind? Quite possibly, but she’d be damned if she let him die alone.
Crawling on her hands and knees, she crept out of the thicket and back toward Al.
Each step had her heart pounding, her magic rising to meet her palms through her veins, but Sera poked the tip of the dagger just deep enough to draw blood from the pad of her thumb and sighed at the relief of her darkness retracting.
I will not be smothered forever, the magic whispered. “Oh, shut up.”
On silent feet she stalked. The sound of Al’s heavy breathing grew louder. Two of the beasts were dead on the ground. Al was dodging the other two as they circled him. Sera crouched behind a tree and watched.
Twist, block, slash. Over and over, he deflected their talons. Black blood circled him in great sweeping arcs across tree trunks and the forest floor. He was destruction in warlock form. Sera had never witnessed him train. She never realized how much it looked like a deadly dance.
The beasts’ clicking grew louder. Alistair raised his sword, but the creature behind him swiped.
“DUCK,” she screamed.
Al’s eyes went wide, but he listened, saving his head from being torn from his shoulders. But there was panic there, and he missed one of the beasts’ lunges. A claw ripped through the reinforced padding of his uniform, and Al swore.
Gripping the dagger, Sera snuck behind the monster he was engaging.
She was going to help; he needed help. Sera jumped, flung her arm around the beast’s throat, and stabbed.
Over and over, into anywhere soft. The dagger shifted and slid in her hands as the beast fell to its knees.
Hot black blood smeared her hands. Her face was dotted with it as she tugged the dagger out, readjusted, and sliced the beast’s neck.
Deep, through tendon and cartilage, then skirting bone.
Her darkness was thrashing, burning… Sera nicked herself again. Her red blood mixed on the blade with the beast’s black.
Al swung his sword, alight with shimmering flame, and slammed it into the last monster’s gut. Sera’s whole body was shaking, her breaths coming too fast. She had killed again.
Al pinned the beast to the ground and ran to her.
“Are you hurt?” he panted, looking her over and noticing the tiny trail of blood down her arm.
“It’s nothing, but you…” Blood leaked from the wound at his side. Through the reinforced stitching, a steady red stream was flowing.
Al ripped off his mask.
“I’m fine. We need to keep moving. Grab your pack. More could be out there.”
She could barely grip the straps in her shaking hands.
The sound of brush moving made her snap her head to the woods, but it was only Snik racing to her side. He grabbed her thigh and cried. “Hold on, Snik.” As she swung her pack onto her back, she heard a wet squishing sound behind her.
A gurgle. Then there was something that sounded like bone rubbing against bone. The dead beast on the ground twitched.
Al blasted a healing flare into his side and yelled, “Run!”