30
Liss had joined us in the cottage underground the next day, but she had been spending her nights in the single bedroom upstairs with Zion. Tess and I had speculated whether she was involved with Zion or Isaac, and I think we had our answer.
Tess and I had examined the dream walking book endlessly over the next week, learning everything we could to be prepared should we face Corian again. He was sneaky, and I didn’t want to underestimate his place in this war. He was Donika’s right hand now that Zion left her, and he was connected to Donika herself, making him a dangerous enemy.
Nik had healed rapidly over the last week, no longer requiring the bandages to cover the wound on his abdomen. His strength was returning, and he had even joined us in the sparring ring outside to watch and give us pointers. It was the only time we had spoken since being interrupted in the library, and we hadn’t had any time alone.
Warrick had returned, but still hadn’t spoken with anyone but Puck, who confirmed he had lost family in the battle. He had locked himself in his room and Zion had asked us to leave him be. I couldn’t imagine what he might be going through and wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone. He had friends that he could lean on.
We had been bringing him his meals and leaving him little notes, and each day the trays were returned empty. It gave me some solace that he was eating, at least.
He hadn’t joined our sparring circles, which left Puck to lead the training on the days Nik wasn’t well enough to join us. We had come a long way, but needed to keep up our strength. I was strong enough to take Saanvi on and almost win…but she was fast.
Nine lives and all.
That night when we left the training room Liss was in the library, studying and deciphering the key spell. Tess and I quickly bathed, changed, and joined her at the table where books were stacked high enough that you couldn’t see the person sitting across from you.
“Any luck with the translation?” Tess asked as I followed her into the library, the heavy door swinging shut behind us.
I tossed my still wet auburn hair over my shoulder as I glanced at Liss’ notebook, the translation almost complete.
“I’m not sure I’d call it luck,” Liss replied with a smile, the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes crinkling as she peered up at us. “But I think I have everything we need to understand it.”
“What did you find?” I asked, taking the seat next to her.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the best news…” her voice trailed off as her gaze lingered on the page of the notebook before her.
I picked up the Kotova grimoire, flipping to the key spell and setting it down on the table before us. It felt as if the serpentine silver key was staring back at me from its place on the page.
“Have you found out how to remove the key from the book of shadows?” I asked, inclining my head.
“Yes,” she replied curtly.
When she didn’t expand, Tess cut in. “Well?” she asked, shaking her head with wide eyes.
Leave it to Tess to be impatient.
“As you already found out from Phineas Wolfe, the key to this spell, no pun intended, is binding. It requires a bloodline for the binding, two distinct generations. The blood must come from the one who will be bound, and the generation before or after her.”
“The blood?” Tess asked, her eyebrows raised.
“This is blood magic?” I asked, resting my arm across the table.
Liss nodded. “I’m afraid so. Binding in and of itself is a dark magic.”
I deflated with a sigh, resting my chin on the hand I’d propped on the table. We had figured as much but were hoping desperately for a loophole. There was no generation before or after me, and creating a generation after me certainly wasn’t an option. Which meant we wouldn’t be able to bind the spell, because both my mother and my father were dead.
What were we going to do with my storm magic being so unpredictable? With it threatening to turn on me, or take me over entirely?
“What options does that leave us?” Tess asked, her hand on the back of my chair.
“None, I’m afraid,” Liss replied, her voice tight.
“Can I hear about the rest of the spell, anyway?” I asked, my voice soft.
It could still help someone else, at least.
Liss nodded, “I think the grimoire sent you the vision as a warning of sorts…about what was to come with your magic.”
“Not much of a warning if I had no idea what it was trying to convey,” I pointed out.
Liss let out a soft laugh. “The visions they send us don’t always make sense in the moment, but they do in time. This spell is not particularly difficult to execute once you have the bloodline. The one who needs to be bound will delve into the grimoire and pick up the key. The bloodline and the one who will bind to the storm witch will pour their blood over the key as a sacrifice to the magic.”
“Wait a second…it isn’t only binding your magic, but binding it to another person?” I asked.
“Yes,” Liss nodded, pointing out this line in her notebook. “The magic becomes a shared burden when the magic is bound. It is shared between two souls, two life embers. A binding of this nature can only be done willingly on both parts. Once bound, the magic will be shared between the two, a balance of sorts.”
I pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose as I took in everything she was saying. “Can it be any witch who agrees to be bound to you?”
Liss shook her head, moving her hand down to point to a passage further down the page. “The souls to be bound must have some kind of connection to each other. Not a blood connection necessarily, the bloodline is only required to perform the spell, but it can’t be a perfect stranger either. One magic must recognize the other for the binding to take.”
“Would a friend work?” Tess offered.
Liss nodded. “Yes, a friend would work. But the key is for the magic to be equally matched. If the Stormshade is so powerful that they need their magic to be bound in the first place, they would need to find another powerful witch willing to share the burden of the magic.”
“So many conditions,” Tess complained, plopping herself down into the chair across from me and moving the stack of books so she could see us clearly.
“This isn’t easy magic, that’s for sure. This is a complex spell with a lot of requirements, and unfortunately even if we had someone to bind you to, we don’t have a bloodline.” Liss didn’t look up from her notebook, her eyes glued to the words on the page.
“Have you told Isaac and Zion yet?” I asked, suddenly exhausted.
“Not yet,” Liss replied, “I haven’t seen them yet today.”
The sun had set during our conversation, the darkness visible from the window nestled among the vaulted ceiling. Liss must have been here all day deciphering this spell…all for nothing.
Until I had a child of my own, I wouldn’t be able to perform this spell.
We needed to move against Donika soon, she was already escalating. Murdering innocents, experimenting on others, and turning them into monsters. Her control on this realm needed to cease, she had ruled with a dark and bloody hand for far too long.
“Do we have any other options?” I asked, only a small spark of hope still lit within my chest.
Liss shrugged, meeting my eyes. “I’m not sure. Where did you say you heard about this spell again?”
“Alastir, the seer. He told us the answers I was searching for would be with Phineas Wolfe. He had the spell from when he stole it from the grimoire, and the spell…well…it chose to come back with me. I found it in my jacket pocket after our meeting with Phineas.”
“Phineas…” Liss mused, searching the recesses of her mind. “The name sounds familiar to me.”
“You know him?” Tess asked.
“I’m not sure,” Liss admitted. “But I know Alastir, he is one of the last seers left in Istmere. He must have sent you down this path for a reason.”
“Maybe we can visit him again?” Tess offered hopefully.
“I’m not sure it’s wise to return to Prins until things die down. We safely moved our numbers and scattered them across the city, but when I left, Donika’s soldiers were still crawling all over the city.”
“Maybe there is something else in one of these books, we can keep digging,” I replied, my eyes traveling to the tomes stacked stories high. “Do we have any other family grimoires we could consult?”
“We don’t have mine, but I do believe Zion has his. Maybe there is something to be found there,” Liss replied.
I nodded. “We should spend the next several days studying it. I’ve pored over the Kotova grimoire for hours and hours, I don’t think there’s anything else in there to help us at this point.”
Tess and Liss nodded in agreement.
“I’ll go ask him for it,” Liss offered, pushing back her chair to stand.
“Will it let us read it?” I asked, turning towards her as she made her way towards the door. “The Kotova grimoire is a bit picky, what about Zion’s?”
“His book of shadows is not…sentient…as yours is,” Liss assured me with a smile before shouldering open the library door and disappearing down the hallway.
I slumped down into my chair, my mind utterly exhausted and defeated. It felt as if every time we took a step forwards, we took three steps back.
“What now?” Tess asked, drumming her fingers against the table.
“I guess we tell Nik and Puck the news. Do you know where they are?” I asked.
“They both retired for the night. Nik is doing much better, but the sparring session took a lot out of him,” she replied.
“I’ll loop Nik in, you’ll tell Puck?” I asked, winking at her as I pushed my chair out to stand.
“You want a moment alone with lover boy,” she teased, following me to the door.
“Or I’m simply being a good friend and giving you some time alone with your boyfriend,” I pointed out.
“You are a good friend,” she replied, forcefully planting a kiss on my cheek and shaking my shoulders in her tight grip. “I wouldn’t trade you for anyone.”
“I certainly hope not.” I laughed, passing through the library door and into the hallway.
“Even if you did drag me into the middle of a decades old war against the dark queen who wants to see us dead,” Tess threw over her shoulder as she made her way down to Puck’s room.
“Yeah, because that’s my fault,” I called down to her, rolling my eyes.
She blew me a kiss, disappearing behind Puck’s door without knocking. They had been inseparable these past few weeks, and things were getting serious between them. I was happy Tess had found someone she liked this much, I had never seen her settle down with one guy before Puck.
I paused before Nik’s door.
As it had the other night, my panic rose within my throat, threatening to strangle me. My hand was poised to knock, but some buried piece of me couldn’t bring myself to do it.
As I was about to turn, the door flew open before my raised hand, my mouth opening in surprise.
“Diana?” Nik asked, his hair shaggy as if he had recently gotten out of the shower and towel dried it.
“Obviously,” I smirked, dropping my hand to my side.
“I was about to come to you,” he replied, gesturing towards my door across the hall.
“I just finished with Liss and wanted to update you on the key spell.”
“Sure,” he replied with a nod, standing to the side to allow me to pass. “Come on in.”
Nik’s bedroom was set up much the same as mine was, a canopy bed draped in linens with a fireplace and a washroom. His sheets were black and made of silk, the bed unmade and rumpled. I perched on the edge of it as Nik knelt before the fire, stoking its flames.
“What did you find out with Liss?” he asked over his shoulder, not turning to meet my gaze.
Things had been…awkward and tense since our talk in the library. We hadn’t spoken alone since then, and we hadn’t addressed everything that had happened during the battle in Prins. It felt as if it was hanging in the empty air between us, a tangible, heavy weight.
I swallowed, fidgeting my fingers in my lap as I spoke. “We learned that it does require a bloodline from the Stormshade to be bound, either the generation before or after.”
Nik turned his face so that I could see his profile, and his expression fell. He had been hoping there had been a loophole in that, too.
“What else?” he asked, pushing the poker back into the fire.
“She also said that the spell is blood magic, that most binding spells are. This spell doesn’t simply bind one’s magic, it binds your magic to another person. Another willing person, who also must be a powerful witch in their own right. It strikes a balance, and the two witches share the burden of the storm magic.”
Nik nodded, standing from his crouched position, his back still turned towards me.
“Anything else?” he asked, his eyes on the flickering flames.
I squinted at his back, wondering why he wouldn’t face me. Were things so irreparably broken between us? Did he feel…awkward that I had tried to save his life by offering mine? Guilty?
I shook my head, trying to focus on the conversation at hand.
“That’s all, really. She told us Zion has his own book of shadows, so we are going to study that and see if there is anything there that might help us. But we might be shit out of luck.”
My palms were beginning to sweat, and I rubbed them against my jeans to dry them.
“There’s always another way,” he replied, his mouth tight as he turned his face to the side.
“Is there?” I asked, my voice desperate. “Because I am starting to think you might have to win this war without me.”
“That isn’t an option,” he replied, finally turning to face me.
His skin was flushed from facing the fire, his cheeks pink. His hands were stuffed into his jean pockets, his shoulders tight.
“It’s not as if we have a choice, here. If we can’t bind my magic, I can’t use it. You saw what it did to me out on the battlefield, and while I was training with Isaac. It will either turn on me and hurt me, or take me over completely, turning me into someone else entirely.”
“There has to be another option,” he insisted, a muscle feathering in his jaw.
“I hate to break it to you, but we might need to come up with a plan B. Things aren’t exactly looking up for plan A, and Donika is murdering innocents and experimenting on them by the dozen. Day after day. She needs to be stopped, and we are running out of time. Either we move against her, or she moves against us. Right now…we are weak.”
“Nothing about you is weak,” he replied, taking a step towards me.
I shook my head, standing from the bed. “I am weak if I cannot control my magic. We have nothing else in our arsenal that can take on Donika, and we need to seriously think about what we plan to do next.”
“You are many things, firecracker, but never weak,” his voice was low. Dangerous.
I took an involuntary step backwards, my knees hitting the back of the bed. Nik smirked, his head cocked to the side.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.
“Talk about what?” I replied cooly.
“About how you almost gave your life up for mine? About how you almost died saving me? About how you fought with more bravery than I have ever seen, even when you weren’t raised to fight? About how you slayed your enemies without a second thought?”
I shook my head, biting back the frustration gnawing at my insides. “I did what you trained me to do.”
“I trained you to sacrifice your life for mine?” he asked, his voice incredulous.
“I’m sorry if it makes you feel…awkward…or indebted to me in some way. I didn’t do it to make you feel uncomfortable, I just couldn’t stand to see one more person I care about die,” I seethed.
“You think I feel awkward?” he asked, taking another step towards me. “Uncomfortable?”
“I don’t know how you feel,” I replied, my voice raised. “Just a few seconds ago you couldn’t even look at me.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I couldn’t look at you because I almost lost you, too?” His voice was ragged. “That I held you in my arms as the life bled from you?”
“Why would that matter?” I asked, searching his crystal blue eyes.
He was so close to me that I could smell the cinnamon on his breath, the sweet smell of the bodywash he had used on his skin. His mouth turned up into a twisted smile, his eyes sparked with anger. I would have taken another step backwards, but my knees were pressed up to the edge of the bed as far as I could go.
“Why would that matter?” he shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “You seriously don’t understand, do you?”
“Don’t understand what?” I asked defensively.
“That I’m in love with you,” he replied tightly, his jaw clenched. “That I would have never forgiven myself if you had died by Fletcher’s blade, or given your life for mine. That I wouldn’t want to live in this life without you.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but words escaped me.
“You seriously didn’t know?” he asked, his eyes burning with regret.
I shook my head back and forth, avoiding his gaze. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as I tried to gather my thoughts, to make sense of this.
I had pushed him away so many times, I never imagined he would feel the same way about me ever again. I had rebuked him time and time again, told him I hated him and would never trust him again. I never had a hope that things could be repaired between us.
I met his gaze again, my eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “I didn’t know. That moment in the gym…at the safe house…I thought that was only a moment of lust and passion that we both gave in to.”
Nik flinched back, his mouth tense. He paused, holding my gaze before he spoke. “I understand if you don’t feel the same.”
He turned to step away, but I caught him by the front of his t-shirt in a tight grip. His eyes traveled down to my hand, then back up to mine, but I didn’t release my hold on him.
I swallowed hard, a thousand emotions battling for space within me.
Nik loved me.
We had been through hell and back, and Nik still loved me.
And I had come back to him. After everything.
And I loved him.
“It’s you who doesn’t understand,” I told him, tightening my grip on his shirt.
I held his gaze as my own swam with tears. His usual sarcasm and bravado were nowhere to be found in his expression. The only thing left was raw, stripped, and full of emotion. I held his heart in the palm of my hand, and he had trusted me with it. A tear slid free, trailing down my cheek. Despite himself he reached out, palming my cheek to wipe the tear away gently with his thumb.
“Why do you think I was willing to give my life for yours? You think I would do that for anyone? I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you. When you stopped breathing I—” my words cut off on a choked sob.
Nik’s other hand moved to my neck, holding my face up to his.
“When you stopped breathing, I lost a piece of myself. I didn’t want to be here without you, and I was desperate to give you any last ounce of magic I had left. To save you. To heal you.”
“I thought you hated me.” His voice was soft as his eyes roved over my face, a touch of disdain lacing his words.
“I did, you idiot. But not anymore.” I shook my head, more tears wetting my cheeks. “Not anymore.”
“Tell me how to fix this, Diana. Because I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to. I love you, and I need you. In this life and every after, mother save me. It’s only you.”
An ugly laugh escaped me as I choked back another sob. Nik wiped away the tears as they fell.
“There’s nothing to fix, Nik. I forgive you. I forgive you for everything, and I need you, too. I love you. In this life and every after.”
Nik let out a sigh of relief, the heavy weight between us lifting. I felt weightless for the first time in a long time, and the hungry expression in Nik’s gaze told me he felt the same.
His touch alone was setting my skin aflame, and when he cocked his head to the side, his mouth curving into a wicked smile and his eyes darkening, warmth pooled low in my core.
All thoughts escaped me as desperate, unbridled, want replaced everything else.
And then his mouth was crashing into mine.