Chapter 12
CHAPTER
Amalie!” Vaasa kicked up gravel around her feet as she sprinted, tossing her cloak to the floor.
She ignored everything else in the room, her eyes only on her closest friend.
Amalie stepped forward just as Vaasa slid into the space in front of her, shaking, inspecting her, running her hands over Amalie’s shoulders.
She had been cleaned, given new Asteryan clothes, her brown hair brushed.
There wasn’t a trace of wounds or cuts on her olive skin.
Nothing like what had been done to Vaasa in the prison.
The only indicator that Amalie was a prisoner were the two iron shackles clamped around her wrists, bound together by a thick chain.
Undoubtedly, they were made of that same magic-stifling material as the collar Lord Vlacik had forced Vaasa to wear in the prison.
“I’m all right,” Amalie said quietly.
Vaasa looked up at Roman, who observed Amalie suspiciously. His shoulders were taut, like he was prepared to move at any second, to intervene if Amalie revealed herself to be a threat. Vaasa couldn’t place what he knew and what he didn’t, but he had brought Amalie here. He had access to her.
“As you can see, she is recovering from her curse,” Ozik said, his voice coming closer. “Your lead sentinel was kind enough to retrieve her.”
Vaasa looked over Amalie once more, frustration mingling with her relief. Ozik was still selling this curse narrative, even to Roman. Her words slipped through gritted teeth. “What do you want, Ozik?”
“Don’t give him anything,” Amalie snarled in Icrurian.
Ozik whipped his head to her, eyeing her suspiciously. Like he anticipated a fight. “To remind you that it is worth it to cooperate,” Ozik finally said. “Thank you, Katayev. You’re dismissed. Return the girl to her cell.”
Amalie froze.
“Stop,” Vaasa begged, turning to Ozik. She had no magic to strike, nothing to fight back with. The powerlessness of it seeped into her bones. Her fists balled at her side. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Just let her stay.”
“Don’t,” Amalie warned. “You should run, Vaasa. Whatever you do, flee this place.”
Ozik tsked, gesturing toward Roman that he should remove Amalie. He held Vaasa’s gaze sternly. “Cooperate. That’s what I want. Do that, and you will see her again. Unharmed.”
Vaasa looked back at Amalie, tears welling in her eyes. Roman hesitated, confusion marring his features, but finally stepped toward the witch. Amalie recoiled, snapping, “I can walk on my own.”
Roman grabbed ahold of her arm anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Vaasa choked. “I’m so sorry.”
And then Amalie met her eyes with a burning fury. Something new seemed to emanate from her, this otherworldliness that Vaasa hadn’t seen before. This rage.
“You aren’t the one who will pay for this,” Amalie said. She slid her eyes to Ozik.
And he stepped back. “Now, Roman.”
Vaasa’s breath caught as she watched Roman drag Amalie out of the greenhouse, the entire exchange marking itself upon her. She swore she’d just seen trepidation in Ozik’s tight grimace. Vaasa watched Roman’s back as he exited the room with Amalie.
Was everything Roman had said to her a lie? He had cowed to Ozik within seconds.
Vaasa turned to face Ozik, prepared to argue further or at least attempt to pry information from him, but softly, gently, there came a whisper of something in her body.
Magic sprang from wherever it was hidden inside her, curling around her muscles and bones, fortifying her like armor.
It sloshed into her gut and burned in her chest. Magic poured from her fingertips in tendrils of black mist, cloaking the ground around her feet.
Vaasa stumbled back in shock, finding Ozik standing just a few feet away.
“I can and will take your magic back, should you get any futile notions of attacking,” he drawled. “You’ve always been a good student, Vaasalisa. Do not prove me wrong.”
The advisor held the same confident air about him that he had when she was young; he appeared as though he’d come to teach her something.
Their daily lessons, sometimes multiple times a day, flashed before her eyes.
The stern pull of his mouth, the crinkle of his brow when he found himself disappointed in her—all touchstones of her childhood.
Building blocks of the woman she was now, who questioned the motivations of every person around her.
Who had never been safe enough to trust anyone.
So much so that when she’d finally been faced with authenticity, she had spent months convincing herself the people who loved her were lying.
Except Melisina had begun to banish that fear. Amalie, too. Her entire coven. They had taught her magic because they loved her, which made it far more difficult to look Ozik in the eyes now.
He had never taught her a single thing for her benefit. It had always been for his.
“What are you doing?” Vaasa choked out.
“You’re weak,” Ozik said, as if that was an explanation.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you know of your magic, Vaasalisa? What has your coven taught you?”
Vaasa could hardly process his questions.
She focused instead on the snake, on the shifting of magic once again within her body.
It was like something came loose within her, the power itself burrowing into her organs and tissues.
It lapped against her insides as she transformed it from snake to water to bird of prey.
Though it still felt different, this was closer to herself than anything she’d felt in weeks.
Cooperate. That’s what I want. Do that, and you will see her again.
“What do you know of my magic?” Vaasa asked, emboldened by her renewed connection to Veragi, the goddess of witchcraft herself.
“I know that in order to make the most of it, you must learn to wield it, even through pain,” Ozik said.
“Is that why you let Lord Vlacik torture me?” she dared to ask.
Ozik pursed his lips. “Your mother survived for years because of what I could show her. Did you think she got lucky? Veragi witches are the most tumultuous, the most haunted, of the bloodlines. Your magic is an art form that has been sorely lost.”
Silence coursed between them. There was nothing Vaasa could say in response to him, only listen.
Only absorb. Once again, she saw the man she’d known as a teenager.
Harsh, sharp, but incredibly intelligent.
Though she feared him, she in a strange way trusted her value to him.
There had been a time when Ozik’s tutelage was the one thing she clung to, desperately hoping the skills he taught her might lead to an ambassadorship instead of a marriage.
And now Vaasa was forced to reconcile that man with the one who stood across from her—who had murdered her mother, killed the love of her life, brought him back in a twisted bargain, and then locked her up in a prison to be tortured.
The one who still held Amalie as leverage.
“I saw the wolf,” Ozik said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’ve at least uncovered the most basic thing your magic can do: manifestations. You know mine well enough.”
Realization dawned upon her. “The Miro’dag.” A manifestation. “What does that mean? Manifestation?”
“It is an expression of our magic, of our souls. That is the way with sentimental magic.”
Sentimental magic. His words swirled in her mind, connecting with everything she’d learned thus far.
Admittedly, there were large gaps. Things Melisina and the rest of the coven hadn’t taught her, things they perhaps didn’t know themselves.
Focus on what you do know, they’d repeated over and over.
Sometimes those words had set her free, other times they had felt like a consolation prize for the fact that most information about magic had been irrevocably burned away.
Vaasa tilted her head. “Your manifestation is a demon. What exactly does that say about your soul?”
Ozik remained deadly serious as he said, “That it is dark and wicked and was lost long ago.”
Vaasa stared blankly, hoping her impassive grimace would be interpreted as a result of her deep-seated hatred for the advisor, not her own incompetence.
He sighed. “There is only one person in this world who can teach you what has been erased from history, and that is me. The question is whether you are willing to learn, or whether you are going to waste this opportunity.”
“Opportunity?” she shot back, poison on her tongue. “You are holding me hostage and torturing my best friend.”
Ozik merely chuckled. “The witch is alive and has not been harmed. Lord Vlacik hasn’t touched her. We are… trying another way.”
He had put a stop to the torture? Vaasa crossed her arms. “Fine. Let me see her.”
“Earn it.”
“Why? Why teach me anything at all?”
His severe gaze could have turned her into one of the statues that guarded the greenhouse. “Because soon you’re going to do something for me, Vaasalisa. And in order for you to accomplish it, you will need to become a more formidable ally.”
Vaasa narrowed her eyes. “I will never do anything for you. Not willingly.”
Ozik shifted his weight, frustration coating his features.
She hadn’t been this obstinate with him since she was a teenager.
Her magic tugged in her abdomen and then leaked onto her hands.
She startled, stumbling backward a step, shaking her wrists like they were covered in water. “What are you doing?”
He began to walk, circling her. “What do you know of the Witches’ War?”
Vaasa hesitated, unsure if she wanted to engage. The magic tightened, and she sputtered, “I know that before it, Icruria was ruled by magical bloodlines. The Witches’ War extinguished most of them and made way for Icrurian unification.”
He nodded, his steps slow. Her magic calmed, and she let out a small sigh, her shoulders going slack.