Resistant Magic (Relic Hunter Book 5)

by R. Leonia Shea

  Kai held up a hand to stop me. “The lamp?”

  “The Lamp of Nusku.”

  Kai grinned even wider. “Oh. That lamp.”

  I was betting that he knew all about that lamp.

  Kai lifted a shoulder in that graceful gesture that I had always admired. It wasn’t quite humble, but not entirely gloating, either. “If it’s the Mesopotamian Nusku you’re referring to, then I think he had a lamp to disrupt magic. If I remember right, he wasn’t a fan of sorcerers.”

  “How many Nusku’s do you think there are with a lamp?” I asked.

  “Probably one, two at most.” Kai leaned over me and braced his arms against the back of the couch on either side of my head. “So, tell me how magically suppressed you are.” He whispered in a seductive tone, nipping at my jaw.

  I thought about that for a minute, and a slow grin spread across my face. “Very.”

  “Then let’s go to the nice five-star hotel room and make up after our first fight. You can tell me the rest later.”

  Basir’s loud hacking noise interrupted my reply.

  Chapter 17

  After a hot shower, I took a moment to pick the plant debris out of the drain before I joined Kai in the room. The window was open, and neither Basir nor Ka’Tehm were back from wherever they went.

  “We’re alone,” I whispered, drying my hair and looking at Kai stretched out on the bed in black pajama bottoms and no shirt.

  “We are.” He smiled. “There’s something I desperately need from you, Ari.”

  I caught the challenging tone in his voice and smiled. “Desperately implies rushed, and I have a feeling we should take our time with this.”

  His voice dropped even lower, his tone somehow both seductive and saucy. “Oh, you might want to count on this lasting all night.”

  I saw the mocking look in his eyes, and I couldn’t keep it up any longer. I knelt on the bed and pushed him back, pinning his shoulders to the bed with my hands and looking down at him. Yeah, I knew exactly what he needed.

  “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I,” I trailed off in a long-suffering sigh, knowing what I wanted to say but knowing the time wasn’t right. I backtracked and settled on, “I don’t ever mean to imply that you’re not one hundred percent critical to this whole operation because you are. Always.”

  He smiled. “Yup, that’s what I needed. You were going to say something else, though, weren’t you?”

  “When?”

  He narrowed his eyes and made a rewind gesture with his index finger. “Right in the beginning. After the pause and before the frustrated sigh.” His eyes danced with challenge.

  Damn. I pasted a confused look on my face and shook my head. “Nope.”

  “You’re lying. Say it, Arienne.” He prodded, wrapping his hands around my upper arms and tugging me down closer, so our faces were inches apart. “I double-dog-dare you.” He whispered, looking dangerous and downright provocative.

  I laughed. “Seriously? That’s how you think I’m going to go down?” I lifted my eyebrows and gave him a half-smile.

  He opened his mouth, made a little gasping noise, and bit back his response. He flashed a quick smile, closed his eyes, and seemed to tremble with the effort it took to contain his comeback. His voice barely hid the laughter.

  “Such a way with words, and yet you can’t just say it.” He groaned.

  I sat back up and watched, and he pressed the heels of his palms against his forehead. “You’re killing me. Say it already!” He whispered the last part with his eyes closed.

  I collapsed forward, burying my face in the side of his neck. “I love you too much to risk losing you, Kai. That’s the only reason I push you out of things. I want you with me. All the time. But I’d like you to live long enough to enjoy this.”

  He pushed my hair back from the side of my face. His voice was husky, and his thumb trailed down the side of my cheek. “I love you too much to stop wanting to protect you. One of us is going to have to cave.”

  I sighed. “Unfortunately for you, I gave up caving when I left archaeology.”

  His laughter was pure joy, and he wrapped his arms around me. “I’m adding negotiation skills to the curriculum. You might be worse at negotiating than you are at planning.”

  Kai twisted and rolled me under him in one swift movement, pinning my arms above my head. “Surrender, witch. I’m not losing this argument, but I might give in to your demands if you’d care to make a few.”

  I laughed and drew my foot up, pressing my toes against his shoulder. “I’ll tell you my list if you tell me yours.”

  Kai gave a dramatic shiver. “I was hoping you’d drag it out of me.”

  “You gave in too soon. I was planning on using my wiles to force you into surrender, but you got ahead of yourself.”

  Kai tilted his head to the side and regarded me for a moment. “Could you?” He asked, genuine curiosity in his tone, “With the state of magic here, could you use force if you needed to?”

  I shook my head and sighed. “I doubt it. I can’t access enough to spark something big.”

  “Sidaffri can set fires.”

  I rolled my eyes and debated my next sentence. “Sidaffri hijacked my protective ward.” My tone was carefully neutral, but Kai’s expression shifted to one of pure fear, followed by pure rage.

  “I’m going to need a little more detail.” He said, his voice well-controlled but tight.

  “She wove her magic into it and then used it to shield us from the men in the hall.”

  Kai gave a short nod. “How did she get control of it?”

  I grimaced. “I didn’t even know she’d done it until I saw her little purple flames crawling through my lattice.”

  He blew out a breath and sat up, running his hand through his hair. “Did you try to take it back?”

  “No. It wasn’t exactly the best time to engage in a power struggle, and besides, it wasn’t a very good ward. Those men blasted a wave of magic into the room, and it blew right through my ward and knocked me on my tail.”

  Kai nodded. “Good.”

  I blinked. “Good?” Somehow it didn’t seem good at all to me.

  “She took a weak ward, so she has no idea what you’re capable of outside Rome. We’re going to want to keep it that way.”

  “So, how do I prevent someone from hijacking my magic?”

  Kai shook his head. “That is the million-dollar question, but as far as I can tell, your magic is tied to your emotion. The more upset or fearful you are, the more you circulate the currents. I think you have some sort of fail-safe that keeps it from overwhelming your channels.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew eventually I had to tell him about the incident when I’d put out Sidaffri’s first fire. I’d do that tomorrow after I had time to process the entire thing.

  I bounced my head from side to side a little in an indecisive manner. “That stupid lamp is doing a number on magic,” I said.

  “How did you find out about the lamp?”

  “I went to the library. They have a great collection of artifacts, and I saw a depiction of the lamp carved on an old stone tablet. I probably don’t need to tell you who brought it back and why though, do I?”

  Kai nodded. “Actually, you should because I’m surprised it’s here. The last I heard, it was hidden under a temple in Anatolia.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “And I thought you knew everything.”

  “Dazzle me,” Kai said, sitting in the middle of the bed and crossing his feet under his knees. He leaned his elbows on his thighs and gave me an expectant look.

  I started by explaining that Anatolia became Constantinople after Constantine reunited the Roman Empire. I was betting that the temple where Kai thought the lamp was hidden became another important place because humans always reuse sacred ground.

  I didn’t have solid evidence, but my theory was that when Julian the apostate decided to return to Rome and let his pagan flag fly, he took that lamp with him think
ing it would add power to the magic that had always kept Rome safe. He probably assumed the eternal flame of the lamp was like the eternal flame the vestal virgins tended. It made sense that he’d believe two flames were better than one to protect Rome from all enemies, even Christianity.

  “It’s a shame Julian didn’t pay attention to the legend of the lamp,” Kai said.

  “Indeed. Poor guy thought he was saving the Empire and bringing back a magical relic for the pagans. Instead, he brought them something that suppressed their natural magic.”

  “The mother of all bad gifts.” Kai sighed.

  “That’s a matter of perspective, though. Constantinople flourished once that little artifact left town.”

  “So why didn’t someone figure that out a long time ago?” Kai asked.

  “I think someone did. A later emperor, Theodosius, put out the eternal flame that the vestal virgins tended when he outlawed paganism. I think he believed he had put out the lamp as well.”

  “Theodosius was a religious zealot. All Christianity, all the time. Putting out the lamp would have let magic back into the empire.” Kai waved dismissively.

  “Yes, but the Western Empire was collapsing, so if anything could save it, it was worth the compromise. Romans were great about incorporating other religions into their pantheon, but it never occurred to them that the pagans might lie about their gods to protect their power.” I was feeling pretty smug with my research and theory, even though it was thin by academic standards. My guess was Theodosius thought it was worth a shot.

  “The pagans had the right idea, but sometimes humans forget to keep things secret. They go off half-baked and make matters worse.”

  My mind skidded to a halt at that comment. On a good day, eighty percent of what I did was half-baked. I bit my lip and nodded. “Noted.”

  “Fortunately, you know what the lamp does so that you won’t be making the same mistake.”

  I nodded again, trying to puzzle out what he meant. It clicked into place, and I smiled. “Oh, I know better than to mess with things that could lead to terrible consequences.”

  Kai gave me a wicked grin. “Funny, one of my best decisions was to ignore that piece of my own advice.”

  My eyebrows drew together. I knew he couldn’t explicitly tell me what to do about the lamp, but he’d given me two completely contradictory statements in less than a minute.

  He watched me and gave a slow shake of his head. “I was referring to my choice to pursue a certain little witch and completely disregard the consequences. Now, we’re in a country where your magic isn’t firing on all cylinders, so terrible consequences might not be a thing here?”

  “Oh.” I leaned forward and looked into his eyes. “You mean we might be in the clear because my magic is severely impaired and dampened?” My voice was husky, and I shoved the trickle of magic out of my body. I lay back, and Kai leaned forward and stretched himself out over me.

  My pulse was tripping along as I looked into those intoxicating eyes, and I pressed my toes into his ribs.

  “Want to try an experiment?” He whispered, raising his eyebrows and giving me a smoldering look.

  I moved my foot and stroked down his back with my calf. “What kind of experiment do you want to try with my seriously diminished magic?” My tone was teasing, my voice sultry, and yet his eyes narrowed, and he seemed to be making a particularly hard decision. I laughed. “Wow. The lecherous legends of Coyote are greatly exaggerated, aren’t they?”

  Kai grinned. “Someday, I will take great enjoyment in making you take those words back, but for now I think it’s important we figure out this riddle, so we live long enough for me to prove those legends are woefully understated.”

  “Right. A romantic setting, minimal clothing, and all you’re interested in is a lot of dispassionate, theoretical discussion about broken magic. Not exactly what one would expect from the formerly immortal god who supposedly invented sex.”

  Kai’s forehead pressed against my shoulder, and he barked out a laugh. “Is that what you heard? I invented it?” He ran his hand down me from my elbow to my hip, his amber eyes sparkling with that primal magic that nobody could strip from him. “I am responsible for countless ways of improving it, but I never claimed to have invented it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and ran my hands up his naked back in a slow-motion that made him shiver. “I’m starting to think one of the things we have in common,” I nipped at his shoulder and kissed my way to his ear, whispering, “is the fact that we’re both. All. Talk.”

  “Was it all talk when you told me you love me?” He whispered.

  “No.” I sighed as I brushed my fingers through his hair.

  He buried his face against my neck and whispered, “Good because it would be terrible if I gave up my magic to have you toss me aside.”

  My heart stuttered. Gave up his magic? That certainly wasn’t the way I remembered it. I opened my mouth to remind him about that, but he rolled gracefully off the bed and dropped to his knees before I could get a word out. I felt the mattress shift and Kai held the sparkling rock that somehow stored and cleansed my magic in his hand, and his eyes were filled with challenge.

  “You hid that under the mattress?” I asked, covering my face with my hands and laughing.

  “It seemed like a good idea.” He said defensively, tossing the rock next to me. “Let’s see what you can do with it.”

  I held the stone in my hand and turned it around, so the interior of the crystal caught the light from the lamp. It was a beautiful object with every natural substance I could think of fused into a perfect oval that I could hold in the palm of my hand. I could see threads of silver, copper, and gold running through marble, crystals, and coral from the sea, each bit seamlessly blending with the others to give the object an ethereal beauty.

  I felt the energy of the rock caress my skin and call to my magic as if inviting it to bathe in the warm currents of nature that were contained within the satiny orb. Kai had called it a polestar when I’d asked him what it was. He’d explained it was an object that stored power, created from all the elements.

  “Push your energy into it like you usually do.” He said, watching the stone as I felt my magic rise like the faintest summer breeze to permeate the smooth surface.

  The polestar began to shimmer and glow, but to a lesser extent than usual.

  “You’re much weaker here,” Kai remarked, sounding concerned.

  “Isn’t that the point of this thing? To reduce the magic that circulates in me?” We’d been using it to try and find a way of helping me to keep my magic from pushing outward, to keep me from accidentally infusing Kai with power that he wasn’t supposed to have and to help me prevent other people from hijacking my magic and then using it against me. Apparently, I needed a lot more practice.

  “That’s one use.” He lifted his shoulder in a graceful gesture. “It can also amplify magic.”

  My eyes widened. “That might have been an important detail for me to know before now.”

  He smiled. “Probably, but you were so focused on putting magic into it that it never occurred to you to try and take it back out.”

  He had a point. “Is that what you want me to do now? Take it out?”

  He shook his head. “Try accessing the current here and push it through you and then into the polestar. Let’s see if it comes out less fractured.”

  I was about to haul on the brittle Italian threads when there was a faint tapping on the window. Kai stood and opened it, stepping aside as Basir swooped in with Ka’Tehm riding on his back. The beaver floated off the owl and hovered in front of me, peering into the center of the stone. He lifted his silvery-blue eyes and gave me a small wave as if asking me to continue. Basir perched on the headboard and watched intently as I struggled to draw the current out of the wall.

  “Let it all flow through you; try not to filter out anything this time,” Kai instructed before dropping his voice and starting a conversation with Basir that I was too
preoccupied to pay attention to. I could feel their eyes on me as I braced myself, letting a current of thin, sickly magic enter my channels.

  The sensation was like having earthworms slithering through my veins. It was oily and viscous, and I gagged, dropping the current and pushing it back out with a surge of my own power. The polestar dimmed. “Oh, gross,” I said, shivering and wiping my hand on my robe. “That’s terrible.”

  Kai crossed his arms over his chest. “Describe it.”

  I did. He looked at Basir and Ka’Tehm. They all seemed locked in silent contemplation while I tried to purge the image of worms under my skin from my brain. I also silently prayed my companions would suggest another tactic instead of making me do it again. I tried hard not to look at them, but Kai's gaze was boring holes into the side of my face.

  “Haven’t you accessed the currents here before?”

  I thought back to the flames in the church and my encounter with Sidaffri. “Yes, but this was different. The earth magic wasn’t so slimy.” I fell silent while I puzzled out the exact feeling the earthborn current gave me. It was thin and brittle, but it didn’t slither. Some other form of magic produced that sensation.

  “Arienne? They’re not real worms, and we don’t have all night.” His tone was low and patient, but the words made me swing my gaze to his.

  “But it’s icky, like maggots or something.” I groaned, trying to get the image of eels writhing in my veins out of my head.

  “Icky is rarely fatal. If your hand shriveled up and fell off, we’d stop. Since you’re still very much intact, it’s probably just a spell to discourage witches from tapping the energy.”

  Probably didn’t sound reassuring, especially since he just admitted there was a chance that I could have lost my hand. I didn’t mention that it would have been the second time that day, but the look on my face must have told him enough.

  Kai smiled. “There was also a chance you could explode, but that didn’t happen, either. It’s probably a simple repelling spell that a brave witch could soldier through. Be a big girl and let the maggots in so we know what you’re dealing with.”