by Anise Rae
“What?” Mara said. “You can’t give people away. And even if you could, I don’t want him.”
Gregor flinched, but she didn’t apologize. His throat bobbed as if he swallowed down her rejection. “If you’re sending her after the wheel, she needs a team of bodyguards to keep her safe.”
“You’re not man enough?” the High Councilor demanded. “You have a gun, don’t you? Spells galore?”
“My power is not what it once was. She deserves more than me.”
“What’s wrong with his power, girl?”
Mara tightened her brow, confused, appalled…trapped. “I have no idea.”
“Well, he’s wayward! You should know what’s wrong with him. You’re the only expert I’ve got on the waywards.” She thrust a hand at Gregor. “Open up, monkey. Now, sorceress, look at him. Tell me what you see.”
Gregor fought an instinctive flinch. The High Councilor might as well have ordered them to strip naked. Power, like a heart’s deepest hopes and wishes, was private. But he didn’t have a choice. If he refused, the old crone would open him up herself.
Mara pulled off her spectacles, her cheeks pink, her head low. She secured the earpiece of her specs in a button of her shirt. She tried to hold his gaze but looked away, her embarrassment at the enforced intimacy obvious.
This wasn’t right. He fought not to cover up, to cast a blanket spell over them both. “Lady,” he began. “Miss Rand is—”
“Shush, monk mage.” The High Councilor tilted her head as if to get a better look through her blind eyes. “Thoughts, sorceress. Spill ‘em. Now.”
Mara’s vibes fluffed around her, expanding like a towering cloud that warned of powerful storms brewing in the sky. For a moment, he was distracted.
Goddess, the noise that would make would be heavenly, but he would never have the privilege of hearing it. It stole his breath, that loss.
“I’ve never done this before.” Mara’s words jerked and stuttered. “His power looks…imposing. Huge.” Her chest lifted and fell as if she struggled to stay calm.
He wished he could tell her everything would be all right, to give her some kind of encouragement, but he was fresh out of those sentiments.
“That’s all you’ve got?” The High Councilor snorted like a dragon losing patience, ready to breathe fire. “Come on! Reach in there. Comb it out. I know how you work. He’s a bag of fleece ready to be spun.”
“No. He isn’t. He’s a person who deserves his privacy.” Despite her protest, she reached for his power with hers. Goddess, it was like she’d touched the very core of him. He had to fight to stay still and if he lost that battle he wasn’t sure if he’d yank away from her vibes or rush into their power.
“It’s strong. It flows like it’s already been combed,” she offered weakly.
Her vibes were a tangled fluff, inviting and soft. The longer he looked at her power, the more he was certain that if he stepped into them, he might never want to come out. She was cozy and he wanted to roll in it.
“Like a pig in mud?” the High Councilor asked him.
“Not quite.” His words were strained from the task of remaining still under Mara’s touch.
“Keep going, sorceress.”
Mara shook her head, frowning. “It’s steady. It has a rhythm like it’s dancing or something. Or rather, it makes you want to dance. And I can’t see the end of it.”
“Me either,” the High Councilor said, frowning harder than Mara. “But what’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing. He’s perfect.”
He might have puffed his chest with pride, but the tone of her voice held no admiration. Besides, wayward vibes weren’t perfect.
The High Councilor gave a dissatisfied shake of her head. “I don’t understand wayward power. And that’s a problem. I ought to know all. But he’s your guard now. You’re welcome, by the way. I always give the best gifts. People don’t believe me, but it’s true. Now find me that wheel.”
“No.”
“No?” The High Councilor chuckled with malicious glee. “I don’t encounter outright refusal of my commands very often. Ever, actually. I have so many punishment spells I could deploy right now.” She tapped a finger against her lip. “Hmm. Which to use?”
Mara shoved on her spectacles with a sharp, quick move and wrapped her energy down tight. Her eyes were hard, her lips flat. She dared what few would, saying no to the crone. If he could, he’d hold her back, shield her from her own bravery, but even when his power was pure and true, he couldn’t have managed that.
“I don’t want your gift,” Mara said. “And I don’t know how to find the wheel.”
“Of course you don’t! If I don’t know how to find it, how can I expect you to?” she spat. “You are bait seasoned with a tasty sprinkle of evil. I’m fishing for enemies.”
“But you said I would be alone and abandoned. How can I live up to your prophecy if you send him along?”
“I’m not abandoning her,” Gregor said.
“See!” Mara cried.
“Eh.” The High Councilor shrugged. “Fate has a way of working these things out. All I need is for you to be as sticky as a spider web and the wheel will cling to you.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to touch it!”
“I thought I didn’t have to worry about that since you claim you’re not evil. Are you telling me differently now?” the crone cried.
“I’m not evil! But if I touch it, I’ll die. Right? A deadly choice?” She argued as if she were the old woman’s equal, and if he didn’t know a thing or two about her, he would have questioned her intelligence. Her courage outmatched any soldier he’d ever met. It worried him.
The old crone shrugged. “I’m willing to risk it. But if you do die, please die after you make my jeans. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find jeans that fit perfectly. I should never have worn them today, but they’re just so comfy. And damn sexy.”
Mara bit her lip as if to keep from speaking.
The crone shook her finger at her. “I can hear that thought tumbling through your mind and you’re right. Begging for mercy would do no good. I have no mercy. The West is coming, sorceress. Either it comes on our terms, caught on my hook and squirming in terror at my power, and our way of life is preserved for generations, or it comes on their terms, and we all become violent victims to our basest instincts. What do you say about that?”
“All I want is to get my spinning wheels back.”
Guilt ate at him. That was his doing.
The High Councilor turned toward him. “Monk, it is not your destiny to become a hermit, to don robes, and grow a long beard on a mountain peak in the wilderness.”
How had she plucked that from his mind? He hadn’t even been thinking about it.
“I found the map in your underwear drawer with the big red circle in the middle of the western range of the Wilds. Boxer briefs. Best of both worlds.” She shook her finger at him. “Let me tell you, monkey. Hermit robes are a bitch to keep clean even if they’re spelled to the nines. They drag everywhere and the friction against the ground wears away at the keep clean spells. And you’re much more kissable with smooth cheeks than a scraggily assed beard.
“Oh boy!” The crone held up her hands. “Hold the landline! Here comes another!” Smoke poured from her mouth as if she’d lit a potion stick.
“The needle sings for the stitcher’s dance,
But claims the songs of warrior chants.
Guard the quest of the one who spins.
Seek the truth and healing begins.”
She smiled as the smoky clouds settled. She’d spoken this prophecy with ease. “Huh. There ya go.” Thrusting her hand out, she pointed. “West! Giddy up. Tallyho. Don’t forget your lasso.”
Healing begins.
The words echoed in his mind with a song of possibility.
Guard her quest. Seek the truth.
He could do that. He’d do anything to get his power back. Hope thundered through his ene
rgy. He wanted to grab Mara’s hand and run west.
“When the relics are safe, and I have proof that you are not the prophesied evil, then you will have your wheels back. So find the white wheel!” The High Councilor stood and made her way to the door, leaving Gregor and Mara to scramble to their feet as well. Side by side, they watched her go.
“Guards!” The crone hollered as she walked. “Take them away.”
His hope sputtered. What the hell was this now? He spun around as six men poured through the door at the back of the room. Lincoln came from behind the tapestry. Gregor’s power snapped to the ready, but he didn’t have a chance at getting them out of there.
He could not stop whatever this was.
“Oh, relax, monkey.” The High Councilor stopped just short of the exit. “You’ve survived far worse. As for you, sorceress, you will spin the thread for my jeans in my dungeon. The monkey will be your plus one.”
The dungeon. He gritted his teeth. What the hell kind of hope would he find there?
“Maybe he’ll sing you a song.” The old crone clapped her hands as if the idea filled her with joy.
“No.” The denial busted out of his throat. That he would not do. He had no songs. The needle had claimed them. His gut turned hollow at her suggestion, a familiar feeling these last months, as if the needle had aspirated his insides. It left plenty of room for rage, and it poured in on cue, leaving him a repository for a thunderous fury that would peal out for eternity if he let it loose.
“Suit yourself.”
The guards rushed them.
8
Surrounded by the dark gray stone of the dungeon’s cell and with the slam of the door five stories above echoing through the chamber, Gregor paced their confines. Mara huddled against the wall. The room was cool, too cool for long-term comfort, but he barely noticed. A sharp burn of anger roasted him from the inside out.
Healing begins.
The crone had dangled the promise before him only to yank it away and toss him in the damn dungeon.
“I can’t sing you a song.” His voice was sharp.
Mara looked at him from the corner of her eye. “That’s all right.” She sounded as if she were speaking to a wild beast who’d promised not to eat her but was still salivating in the shadows.
“No, it’s not. That’s what’s wrong with my power. That’s what’s damaged inside me. She wanted you to see it.” He paced on.
The circular room was about ten feet in diameter. Skinny stairs wound around the wall to the entrance above. With no railing, if a prisoner fell, he’d have to cast a spell fast or he’d be dead.
The sole break in the stone was a wooden door to his left. He broke away from his path to open it—a sink and toilet. This dungeon offered sanitary conditions. He swallowed down a wild, bitter laugh.
“I don’t know what a lack of songs looks like in a mage’s power.” Mara crossed her arms over her chest like she was cold already.
“No reason why you would. Not many people have seen a man drained of his chants and songs. Not many people have had a fairy prick them with a fu—” He bit back the curse. “With a needle so old it belonged to a god.”
He wanted to strangle the High Councilor until she blurted out what the hell she was playing at. Dangerous thoughts. Goddess, his mind was falling through the cracks if he was thinking that kind of vibe shite. Who knew how close the crone had to be to read his mind? But she had sucked away his songs, his chants, his life. When she offered him the hope of healing, she promptly threw him in a dungeon.
He rubbed his hand down his face.
Why the hell had she done this? Mara could have spun the yarn in a guarded room with comfortable furniture and easy access to food and water.
“Why would someone do this to you?” she asked.
“Promise me hope and then throw me in a dungeon?”
“No. The…other.”
He clenched his jaw. It popped again. He really needed to stop doing that. “The needle’s prick was supposed to make me immune to a fairy’s hypnotic power. Instead, it made me wayward.”
She flinched.
“My power is broken—I’m broken.” All of his bitterness poured out with the words. He’d held onto it for three months, and of all the places to unload it, this was not the one he would have chosen.
She was the last person he wanted to know his insurmountable flaws, but the crone’s hint of healing had rocked him off his axis. He wondered if this might be the moment he shattered to pieces, right here in the dungeon in front of a pretty girl who walked the world with her skin on inside out, exposing her secrets instead of hiding them.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, concern rippling across her face. “Does the High Councilor know?”
“She ordered it.”
“By the lost girls,” she breathed. Her eyes were sad and he suddenly felt guilty for burdening her with this. She stepped toward him. “How could she do that to you? How can you not hate her?”
Of course, I hate her.
He bit down on his tongue as if that might stop the words from floating through his mind. He couldn’t hate her…not if he wanted to live.
“I agreed to it. I’d encountered a fairy once before. He was not a nice man.” In fact, he was evil, the most fucked-up creature he’d ever encountered. But he’d keep that part to himself at least. “I was sixteen. I swear he held my mind for three days. I’d do anything to keep that from happening again.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his lucky charm. He’d been doing that a lot in the last three months. He was trying to stop. It was a bad habit. Besides, the damn thing hadn’t exactly worked lately.
“Is that a tuning circle?” she asked gently. She took two steps closer to see. He caught the flowery scent of her hair as she looked down.
The silver piece, the size of a large coin, was shaped in a swirl, designed to pull more energy into a mage. “You seem awfully powerful to need one,” she said.
He surprised himself and smiled. She’d complimented him. “I found it at the same time the fairy found me. I don’t think I would have survived without it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you believe me now? About the relics?” he asked.
She parted her lips but didn’t respond right away. That was answer enough. “Denial is not an effective defense, Mara.” He wanted to wrap the truth around her and seal it tight, a shield against whatever the future held.
Truth.
Seek the truth. About what? The white wheel? The needle? Mara?
He put the coin back in his pocket. “The crone is planning to wave you out there like a red flag to a bull in hopes that the white wheel will run you down.” The plan screamed danger with a banshee’s cry. He stepped closer to her, forming a silence spell around them. “You should be the one running…as far away as you can.” He’d go with her. He had nothing to hold him here. Except for his parents. But they’d understand.
She held up her hands. They might have brushed against his chest or he might have wished for her touch so much he imagined it.
“I can’t run. I have my mill, my sorceresses.”
“None of that will matter if the wheel finds you.”
“Wheels don’t find people.” She moved back and his silence spell broke. She wandered toward the spinning wheel that stood in the center of the cell.
Goddess, she was stubborn. He lifted his head and looked up at the ceiling, shadowed by darkness and hidden from view. “At least you’re not alone.” His whisper slithered around the cavernous space. A song would have soared in here.
“I work best alone. I don’t need a hero if that’s what you’re thinking, not one who pops out of the woodwork everywhere I go.” Her soft words struck him like tiny fists.
He looked away for a moment. “I suppose I was talking about myself. I’m glad I’m not alone.”
“Oh.” She opened her mouth again but didn’t say more. She reached down to the bulging bags piled by the wheel. She opened one. Cot
ton fluff spilled out. “You can’t cast a spell,” she said. “You can’t cast anything.”
A protest punched up inside him and he fought not to jut out his chin and puff his chest. His magehood was insulted. Hell, so was his manhood. “I can cast. Everything works. I just can’t hear vibes—”
“I know you can.” Impatience lined her tone. “Just don’t do it. Don’t even cast a light.” Her voice was tight. Her lips were tighter. “You’ll contaminate the spinning process. It’s a special thread. I only spin it when I’m alone.” She adjusted the stool in front of the wheel.
“You’re getting down to work right now?” He’d expected rage, crying, complaining. Hell, he was doing two out of the three. Which made him wonder…. “How many times have you been in her dungeon?”
“First time. But I’ve been in a room like this before.” She didn’t look at him as she pulled out a wad of cotton and dragged it apart until it fell in short stretches of fluff as if she was testing it. “And I ended up in that dark, cold room because of a man who reminds me a little of you.” A dark thread sang through her soft voice, carrying the promise of a tale.
He narrowed his eyes. “A man like me.”
“The story is rather cliché, I’m afraid.” She sat on the stool before the wheel, preparing to work, and with the simple move, an intimacy flickered to life around them. He would see her work. It distracted him from the sharp edge of his anger.
He crouched down beside her. “Tell me.”
She sighed, the cotton fluff in her hands blowing in her breeze. “Just as I graduated from SWWM, a man came along and charmed me off my feet.” Her voice fell into an easy rhythm. A sorceress was a natural storyteller. “He had the nicest smile, blond hair.” She studied him. “Darker than yours. More bronze and light browns. He kept it brushed across his forehead in a perfect wave, and he had this light in his eyes. Though he wasn’t wayward. It wasn’t that kind of light.” She yanked at the cotton with a hard pull. “I thought it was kindness. I was wrong. Little did I know that his light was a beacon into a world of evil.”
